Great television and great documentaries highlight this week’s releases. Let’s begin with THE GARDEN, an Oscar nominated doc about a community garden in Los Angeles battling the city and a land developer for the right to keep gardening in their space. This super-charged doc highlights some of society’s biggest issues. Next up we have the much-anticipated TYSON, the story of Mike Tyson, boxer, cannibal (just kidding Mikey), pariah, and fascinating subject. I haven’t seen this yet, but I am told it is simply superb.In television-land, the biggest title is DEXTER: SEASON THREE. Dexter, for those of you who do not know the show, is a forensics expert in Miami who also moonlights as a serial killer of bad guys who have escaped justice. Scary! Other television releases of note – SONS OF ANARCHY: SEASON ONE, GOSSIP GIRL: SEASON TWO, IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA: SEASON THREE, SKINS: VOLUME TWO, and a little animation show you may have heard of called THE SIMPSONS: THE TWELFTH.
In the new acquisitions television department, we just got the entire series of MOONLIGHTING. Featuring a young Bruce Willis paired with Cybill Shepherd, this was one of the funniest shows on the air back in 1985, and seems to have held up through the test of time.
There is a little more of this and that down there, scroll down to read about the movies.
Alrighty, that’s all folks, hope to see you at the store.
Love and Kisses,
Ken
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Links we are super hip on this week:
Relatively insanely cool Beck site where he and collaborators have recreated all the songs off the first Velvet Underground album, complete with videos. Wow!
The Rock Make Festival. The excellent musical and crafts outdoor festival presented by The Bay Bridged, Tartufi, Whiz Bang Fabrics and Noise Pop that my band The Dont’s are honored to be playing this Sunday, Aug 23rd.
KIDS DIGITAL DESIGN CONTEST. Local architect (dad/husband/racecar driver) Mason Kirby is sponsoring this cool contest.
Beyond Asiaphilia is local filmmaker Valerie Soe's excellent blog focusing on Asian/American arts, culture and other related topics.
Do you have a link Four Star Customers should check out??? Email it to me.
............//NEW RELEASES//............
BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE.
Sci-Fi.
* Part of the ICONS OF SCI-FI TOHO COLLECTION.
BRAVE ARCHER AND HIS MATE.
Martial-Arts/Foreign (Mandarin).
Directed by Cheh Chang.
* The Shaw Brothers strike again in this fourth film in the Brave Archer series.
THE GOLDEN BOYS.
Drama/Foreign (French).
David Carradine/Rip Torn/Bruce Dern/Marielle Hemingway.
Directed by Daniel Adams.
* Although Carradine died this last June, he was either finished or just about finished with nearly a dozen films that will be coming out over the next year or so. In this romantic comedy set in the early part of last century (1905, for those of you keeping score), he plays one of a trio of retired sea captains, trying to find a young wife (Hemingway) who will cook and clean for all of them on their sea going journeys.
THE GOOD TIMES KID.
Indie.
Azazel Jacobs.
Directed by Azazel Jacobs.
* From the director of MOMMA’S MAN, comes another indie about love, identity and life’s rich pageantry.
HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE.
THE H-MAN.
Sci-Fi.
Directed by Ishiro Honda .
* Part of the ICONS OF SCI-FI TOHO COLLECTION. ALL H- BREAKS LOOSE!
HUSBANDS.
Drama/Comedy.
Ben Gazzara/Peter Falk/John Cassavetes.
Directed by John Cassavetes .
* 1970 period piece about three men who, in the wake of their peer’s death, decide to run away from their wives and families to go gamble and party together to try to reclaim their lost lives. Ha ha ha ha ha!
JULIA.
Drama.
Tilda Swinton.
Directed by Erick Zonca.
* Harrowing indie film starring Swinton as a drunk who gets involved in a kidnap scheme that just gets worse and worse. She helps a mother kidnap her son to try to get a huge ransom from the rich grandfather, but she double-crosses the mother and then makes one bad decision after the next and eventually finds herself in Tijuana with the boy and very little .
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.
Horror.
Monica Potter/Tony Goldwyn.
Directed by Dennis Iliadis.
* Bad people get bad treatment from people they have wronged. Very very bad people…very very bad treatment.
THE LAST STARFIGHTER: 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION.****ALSO IN BLU-RAY****
Sci-Fi.
Lance Guest/Robert Preston.
Directed by Nick Castle.
* Alex Rogan (Guest) lives in a trailer park and can score six bazillion playing Last Starfighter, a popular video game. Unfortunately, he can’t get a loan to go to college, and his life is seeming kinda dead end. That is, until Centauri (Preston – he’s a what, he’s a what? He’s a MUSIC MAN) comes and “invites” him to play the game on another level. Little does he know he is being invited to play the game for real, and that all the other Starfighters are dead, and that he is the loan obstacle between the galaxy being taken over and destroyed by aliens. I can’t believe this movie is 25 years old!
MOTHRA.
Sci-Fi.
* Part of the ICONS OF SCI-FI TOHO COLLECTION.
17 AGAIN.
Comedy/Drama/Romance.
Zac Efron/Leslie Mann/Thomas Lennon/Matthew Perry.
Directed by Burr Steers .
* Actually got this last week, but I forgot to mention it in the blog. This is the age old story about a guy who gets to try to do it all over again, and maybe do things better the second time. Mike (Perry, old; Efron, young) is a loser who sacrificed all of his goals to marry his preggers high school sweetheart and never got over it and now is separated, unemployed and pretty damn pathetic. Then – in a supernatural twist – he finds himself 17 again (!) and is determined to make the most of it.
SURVEILLANCE.
Drama/Crime.
Julia Ormond/Bill Pullman/.
Directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch.
* Plot twisty film about some FBI agents trying to get to the bottom of a bloody killing spree in a desert town. Three witnesses are being interrogated, and one knows more than she is letting on. Will the FBI catch the murderers before they kill again?
............//DOCUMENTARY/............
THE GARDEN.
Documentary.
Directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy.
* Nominated for the Best Documentary Academy Award, this film is about the bitter struggle between the City of L.A. and a community who has been cultivating the nation’s biggest community garden space (14 acres). Unfortunately for the urban farmers who grow their food here, developers want to bulldoze it down and put up warehouses. This David vs. Goliath tale underscores a major prioritization problem we have in our cities, and in our farm lands.
TYSON.****ALSO ON BLU-RAY****
Documentary/Sports.
Mike Tyson.
Directed by James Toback.
* Ah, the train wreck that is Mike Tyson. Love him or hate him, he has been front and center in our society since he came on like a tornado absolutely obliterating his boxing opponents in the ring in the mid-1980’s. From Nov 22, 1986, when he first became the Heavyweight Champion of the World, until his shocking loss to James Douglas on Feb 11, 1990, he was followed and vilified (and coronated) for his ferocious style, both in and out of the ring. This documentary uses archival footage, interviews and photographs to try to shed life on the Mike Tyson experience. As Mike himself describes his life, “It's like a Greek Tragedy. The only problem is, I'm the subject”.
............//TELEVISION/............
DEXTER: THE THIRD SEASON.
Television/Crime/Thriller/Drama.
Michael C. Hall/Julie Benz.
* Dexter is a forensics expert who hates injustice. Hates it! Damn it, it burns him up so much when people get away with murder, and as a very calm presence around death, he has the skills to do something about it. What should he do? Quite simply, hunt down and kill those who “deserve it”. Michael C. Hall has forged a brilliant television career dealing with death and bodies. SIX FEET UNDER lasted five excellent seasons, and DEXTER is on to season number four. What will be next for him? A necromancing voodoo healer? Grave-robbing cemetery worker? At this point, we don’t know.
GOSSIP GIRL: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON.
Television/Drama.
Blake Lively/Leighton Meester/Chace Crawford/Taylor Momsen.
* These chicks have got it all, and will talk about it viciously. Won 7 Teen Choice Awards in 2008.
IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA: SEASON THREE.
Television/Comedy.
Charlie Day/Kaitlin Olson/Glenn Howerton/Rob McElhenney/Danny DeVito.
Created by Rob McElhenney.
* More hair-raising, trouble-filled business and relationship woe for the four friends running an Irish bar in Philadelphia. The tagline for this show is: It’s “Seinfeld” on crack! Looking for a good comedy? Look no further.
THE SIMPSONS: THE TWELFTH SEASON.
Television/Comedy.
* I’m not sure what this show is about.
SKINS: VOLUME TWO.
Television/Drama.
* Are British shows more mature than their American counterparts? Seems kinda like it, at least when it comes to the teenagers…This show is about kids dealing with bad parenting, sexual desires, school and peer stress and the usual nights of longing.
SONS OF ANARCHY: SEASONE ONE.
Television/Drama.
Theo Rossi/Ron Perlman/Kim Coates.
Created by Kurt Sutter.
* Raw and frank, this show is about a guy in a motorcycle gang and the difficulty he has assimilating parenthood with his outlaw lifestyle.
............//KIDS/............
ELOISE: RAWTHER UNUSUAL HALLOWEEN.
............//NEW BLU-RAY ADDITIONS/............
ABOUT LAST NIGHT.
* Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, James Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins starred in this 80’s adaptation of a David Mamet play called SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO.
KAGEMUSHA.
Criterion/Drama/History/War/Foreign (Japanese).
Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
* First time on Blu-Ray for this Criterion release Oscar-nominated 1980 release by the Japanese filmmaking master.
............//NEW ADDITIONS/............
THE MIGHTY QUINN.
* Denzel and Robert Townsend star in this action-drama about a cop tracking down his best childhood friend to either arrest him, or clear his name.
MOONLIGHTING: THE COMPLETE SERIES.
* Do you remember this amazing Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd show? Featuring Shepherd as a top model who inadvertently becomes the owner of a detective agency run by wise-guy David Addison (Willis) and packed with rapid-fire dialogue and mounting sexual tension, this was one of the funniest shows of the 1980’s. I still remember the episode when they finally kiss…
............//REPLACEMENT DISCS/............
UNDER THE SAME MOON.
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