****new release list no.194

Ah, yes, it is Thanksgiving week – a complicated holiday in some ways, and yet so easy to simplify. I am thankful for my place in the world, and I am psyched to eat some yummy food with my peeps.

And what is HANCOCK thankful for? Another shot of whiskey, perhaps? As Will Smith plays him, he is a drunken, clumsy mess who also happens to be a superhero. Hated by the public and super rude to everyone who criticizes him; he is a total disaster. Can a PR firm save his image and will that be enough to keep him on the wagon?

Will it be a COLBERT CHRISTMAS in your household? Stephen tackles the holidays as only he can.

Harmony Korine (GUMMO, KIDS) has made a new film called MISTER LONELY about the strange and beautiful world of celebrity impersonators. Michael Jackson meets Marilyn Monroe in Paris and travels with her to Scotland to a commune full of other impersonators. If you have ever seen Korine’s films, you know they are strange journeys in the seedy undergrowth of the human psyche where truth lies in hibernation. As he himself once put it, he loves to tell jokes, but doesn’t give a damn about the punch line.

Eddie Murphy’s new one MEET DAVE is here, as is the feature length 24 film called 24: REDEMPTION.

There is also a big batch of foreign films (BIRTHDAY, JUST SEX AND NOTHING ELSE, THE UNDERNEATH, LIFE THE WAY IT IS, A PERFECT DAY) and some great other stuff.

I will be selling DVD’s in front of the store on Wednesday and probably Friday for $6 each or 2 for $10. I have about 400 to sell, so if you are looking for a big bunch of stocking stuffers, come on down. I will have another DVD sale the week before Christmas.

Hey, we got blogged about in a new Bernal-focused blog - check it out here: Bernal Beat.

Love and Kisses,
Ken

............//NEW RELEASES//............

BEAUTIFUL OHIO.
Comedy/Drama.
William Hurt/Rita Wilson/Julianne Marguilies.
Directed by Chad Lowe.
* Tale of a family in 1970’s era Ohio struggling to accept themselves and each other.

BIRTHDAY.
Drama/Foreign (Polish).
Piotr Lysak/Andrzej Lapicki/Jolanta Grusznic.
Directed by Ewa Petelska.
* The life of a young Pole during war and political unrest as seen through his birthdays in 1938, 1939, 1943 and 1944.

BOTTLE ROCKET.
Comedy/Quirky/Criterion.
Muriel Box/Luke Wilson/Owen Wilson/Other Wilsons.
Directed by Wes Anderson.
* The brilliant debut of the Wes Anderson team finally comes to Criterion. The film focuses on a group of friends trying to pull off a simple robbery, and the problems that arise.

CHUNGKING EXPRESS.
Comedy/Criterion/Foreign ().
Brigitte Lin/Takeshi Kaneshiro/Tony Leung.
Directed by Wong Kar-Wai.
* A beautiful and lush portrait of Hong Kong in the 1990’s, the film follows a couple of cops dealing with the loss of their girlfriends.

FRED CLAUSE.
Comedy.
Vince Vaughn/Paul Giamatti/Miranda Richardson/Kevin Spacey/Rachel Weisz/Elizabeth Banks.
Directed by David Dobkin.
* Nick (Giamatti)’s older bitter brother Fred (Vaughn) is a broke loser looking for a handout. Santa offers him that handout on the condition he come to the North Pole and work off the debt.

HANCOCK. ****ALSO IN BLU-RAY****
Comedy/Action.
Will Smith/Jason Bateman/Charlize Theron.
Directed by Peter Berg.
* A washed-up drunk superhero (Smith) who everyone hates because of the damage he causes every time he tries to save something gets a make-over from a PR firm whose president (Bateman) he has saved. Coincidentally, the PR guys wife (Theron) appears to possibly have a history with Hancock. The tone of this film is like a cross between TROPIC THUNDER and I AM LEGEND. It’s funny, and it’s not, and by the end, things get pretty serious.

JUST SEX & NOTHING ELSE.
Comedy/Foreign (Hungarian).
Kata Dobo/Judit Schell.
Directed by Krisztina Goda.
* Romantic comedy about love and getting older and settling down.

LIFE THE WAY IT IS.
Drama/Foreign (French).
Maria Luiza Garcia.
Directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau.
* Very intense tale of women working in a chemical factory in Florence dealing with sexual harassment, a dangerous work environment and violence lurking shallowly below the surface.

MEET DAVE.
Comedy/Sci-Fi.
Eddie Murphy/Eddie Murphy/Eddie Murphy.
Directed by Brian Robbins.
* He’s an alien, no he’s an alien spaceship, but we all know that Eddie Murphy’s different. Either way, the ship stalls when it becomes hot for an earth woman.

MISTER LONELY.
Indie/Foreign (English/French).
Diego Luna/Samantha Morton/Werner Herzog.
Directed by Harmony Korine.
* From the writer of KIDS and the writer/director of GUMMO comes this new fairytale about a young man working as a Michael Jackson lookalike, who meets a Marilyn Monroe lookalike and goes with her to a lookalike commune where he meets Charlie Chaplin and Shirley Temple, among others.

MISTY.
Family.
David Ladd/Arthur O’Connell/Pam Smith.
Directed by James Clark.
* Have you been to Assateague? It is this little island where wild horses still rule the habitat. I went there as a small child and my favorite stuffy, Cubbie, fell onto the muddy ground and became ruined. I was inconsolable. My parents bought me a “new” Cubbie, but I wasn’t fooled. Cubbie was gone, and that was my first experience with death. I think this movie has something to do with Assateague.

PERFECT DAY.
Drama/Foreign (Arabic).
Ziad Saad/Julia Kassar.
Directed by Joanna Hajithomas and Khalil Joreige.
* Malek (Saad) is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend and dealing with a sleep disorder and a mother who is still dealing with the disappearance of her husband 15 years earlier. This 2005 film takes us on a journey through Beirut and the struggles of modern-life there.

SPACE CHIMPS.
Family/Animation.
Andy Samberg/Cheryl Hines.
Directed by Kirk Micco.
* It ain’t Pixar, but it’s entertainment…My kids loved it.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD.
Suspense/Criterion.
Richard Burton/Claire Bloom/Oskar Werner.
Directed by Martin Ritt.
* Wonderfully acted spy film adapted from the John le Carre novel. Richard Burton earned a nomination for the Best Actor Academy award for his performance as Alec Leamas, an increasingly disillusioned British spy working in and around East Berlin.

THE TOWN THAT BANNED CHRISTMAS.
Family/Comedy.
Matt McCoy/Jane Sibbett.
Directed by John Dowling Jr, and Karl Fink.

24: REDEMPTION.
Television Film.
Kiefer Sutherland/Eric Lively/John Voight.
Directed by John Cassar.
* Jack (Sutherland) deals with feature length period of what has amounted to be a very bad day.

UNDERNEATH: SENSUAL OBSESSION.
Thriller/Foreign (Dutch).
Magdelena Boczarska/Jaroslaw Boberek.
Directed by Marek Gajczak.
* A writer and his girlfriend go to the home of a potential employer who once vied for the same girlfriend. Tensions mount, as the writer finds himself lusting after the employers new girlfriend.

............//TELEVISION//............

A COLBERT CHRISTMAS: THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL.
Television/Satire.
Stephen Colbert/Elvis Costello.
* Colbert gives us Christmas, as only he can.

............//DOCUMENTARY//............

HEROD’S LOST TOMB: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
Documentary.
Directed by Eleanor Grant.
* It’s lost; please help us find it.

............//BLU-RAY NEW ADDITIONS//............

MIRRORMASK.
* Much loved fantasy film about a battle between opposing kingdoms.

............// NEW ADDITIONS//............

ZARDOZ.
Fantasy/Sci-Fi.
Sean Connery/Charlotte Rampling.
Directed by John Boorman.
* Freaky sci-fi 70’s film that a customer has been adamant that I must see. I haven’t seen it, but I bought it on DVD!

............// REPLACEMENT DISCS//............

IDIOCRACY.

LILO & STITCH.

POCAHONTAS: 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION.

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