Buongiorno mi amici! Hola, my good friends. I have just spent two glorious weeks in Italia, and I feel refreshed, transformed and excited for the fall!
We missed two blogs, and as this train only moves forward, we shall delve into this week’s releases, and not dwell to sorrowfully on the past. However, I shall list with little info the movies we released that went blogless:
Sept 8th (a wonderful day I spent in Siena in the Tuscan hills outside of Roma – yeow!)
Crank 2 – Action – Jason Statham. ****Also on Blu-Ray****
Dance Flick – Comedy.
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire – Can’t have enough copies of these, I guess.
Homicide – D. – David Mamet – Criterion release.
The Human Condition – D. – Masaki Kobayashi – Criterion release.
Kabei Our Mother – Japanese – D. – Yoji Yamada.
The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency – HBO (I thought this was gonna be super popular…no?)
Magnolia – Re-release. D. – P.T. Anderson.
The Office: Complete Season 5 – Television.
Parks & Recreation – Season One – Television - Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones.
Valentino – The Last Emperor – Documentary.
The Visioneers – Comedy – Zach Galifianakis.
Kids stuff:
Little Einstein’s – Firetruck Rockets Blastoff!
Enchanted Tale’s – Follow Your Dreams.
Power Rangers RPM – Race for Corinth.
Wow Wow Wubbzy Goes Boo!
September 15th (an insane day of traveling home for hours and hours – oof!)
Animal Armageddon – Nature Documentary.
Camille – Comedy – James Franco/Sienna Miller.
Crash – Complete First Season – Drama/Television.
Easy Virtue – Comedy/Drama– Jessical Biel/Kristen Scott Thomas. ****Also in Blu-Ray****
Four Dragons – Action/Martial Arts.
Gervaise – Essential Art House (Criterion) – D. Rene Clement.
Grace – Horror – D. – Paul Solet.
Grey’s Anatomy – Season Five – Television – Katherine Heigl.
In the Company of Whales – Nature Documentary.
The IT Crowd – Season Three – Comedy/Television.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Season Four – Comedy/Television.
Le Jour Se Leve – Essential Art House (Criterion) – D. Marcel Carne.
Mayerling – Essential Art House (Criterion) – D. – Anatole Litvak.
Next Day Air – Comedy – Mos Def/Mike Epps.
Rescue Me – Season Five – Television.
Rumba – France – D. – Dominique Abel (L’Iceberg) - ****Four Star Favorite****
Trumbo – Documentary – D. – Peter Askin.
White Night Wedding – Iceland – D. –Baltasar Kormakur (101 Reykjavik) – won a lot of awards at the Icelandic Academy’s.
X-Men Origins – Wolverine – Comic Book – Hugh Jackman. ****Also on Blu-Ray****
Kids stuff:
Bionicle – The Legend Reborn.
Go Diego Go – Diego’s Arctic Rescue.
Go Diego Go – Mega Missions!
Star Wars The Clone Wars – Clone Commandos
This week we have a lot of releases, including a few foreign films that have won many awards on the festival circuit (TULPAN, O’HORTEN, SUGISBALL). We also have the usual Hollywood fare (OBSERVE AND REPORT, GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST), animation (THE BATTLE FOR TERRA, THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO, WALLACE AND GROMIT THE COMPLETE COLLECTION) and some interesting looking indie’s (LYMELIFE, ADAM RESURRECTED). Throw in a bunch of new television and a batch of documentaries, and you got mid-September at Four Star Video.
Alrighty, that’s all folks, hope to see you at the store.
Love and Kisses,
Ken
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............//NEW RELEASES//............
ADAM RESURRECTED.
Drama/War.
Jeff Goldblum/Willem Dafoe.
Directed by Paul Shrader.
* Adam Stein (Goldblum) was a circus entertainer before WWII. In the concentration camp he was interned at, he became the entertainer for the commander of the camp, and loses his sanity as well. Years later, he is living at an insane asylum in Israel where he makes a bond with a young child who has been treated terribly.
BATTLE FOR TERRA.****ALSO ON BLU-RAY****
Animation/Drama.
Directed by Aristomenis Tsirbas.
* As a renegade group of straggling aliens face death, they set their sights on a beautiful and peaceful planet to take over where they can live and breed and continue their species. However, the peaceful planet of Terra has no desire to be destroyed and will battle to retain their autonomy over the vicious aliens. The catch? The aliens are the remains of the human race.
BOOK OF BLOOD.****ALSO ON BLU-RAY****
Drama/Mystery/Horror/Fantasy.
Jonas Armstrong/Sophie Ward.
Directed by John Harrison.
* Based on a Clive Barker tale, this story is about a house that is a sort of stopping point on the highway delivering souls to and from the afterlife.
GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST.****ALSO ON BLU-RAY****
Comedy/Fantasy/Romance.
Matthew McConaughey/Jennifer Garner/Michael Douglas/Emma Stone.
Directed by Mark Waters.
* A player is haunted by ghosts of his exes while at his brother’s wedding.
THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO.
Action/Animation/Comedy/Horror.
Paul Giamatti/Rosario Dawson.
Directed by Rob Zombie.
* Freaky, weirdo, psycho animation by the living Zombie himself.
LYMELIFE.
Comedy/Drama.
Alec Baldwin/Kieran Culkin/Emma Roberts/Rory Culkin/Timothy Hutton.
Directed by Derick Martini.
* Is it the lyme’s disease that is taking its toll on the Bartlett family? Or is it the failing marriage of Brenda (Jill Hennessy) and Mickey (Baldwin)? Told through the eyes of 15-year-old Scott (Rory Culkin) and set in the late 70’s, this bittersweet tale should be relatable to many.
O’HORTEN.
Comedy/Drama/Foreign (Norweigan).
Baard Owe.
Directed by Bent Hamer.
* The winner of numerous European film awards, this film is about the moment of retirement for a 67-year-old train engineer, Odd Horten (Owe).
OBSERVE AND REPORT.****ALSO ON BLU-RAY****
Comedy.
Seth Rogen/Ray Liotta/Anna Faris.
Directed by Jody Hill.
* Ronnie Barnhardt (Rogen) is a mallcop! No, he’s not Paul Blart, he’s his more psycho, and perhaps less funny cousin. Playing it straight for much of the film, in that funny peculiar manner that is guaranteed to draw many people in, and repulse perhaps even more, Rogen is begging Hollywood for a more serious role. We can only hope Hollywood listens.
SCOOBY-DOO! THE MYSTERY BEGINS.
Comedy.
Nick Palatas/Robbie Amell.
Directed by Brian Levant.
* The story of the origins of the relationship between Daphne, Velma, Fred and Shaggy.
SUGISBALL.
Drama/Foreign (Estonian).
Rain Tolk.
Directed by Veiko Ounpuu.
* From the IMDB: It's Autumn. We see a huge sprawling conurbation of tower blocks built in the Soviet era - the neighborhood called Lasnamäe. Unkempt youngsters are tossing a football around muddy squares in between buildings while yelling obscenities. Men with striped sailors shirts and blank faces are smoking on the balconies built close to accommodate their ever extending families. Women are fussing in their kitchens or hanging their washed linen out to dry. Infants in the yard hang from the iron monstrosities, once built as merry go rounds for a standardized childhood, now heaps of scrap metal waiting to bleed a nose or tear a sleeve. In between the few slim bushes lay the drunkards, twitching to the sounds of a distant siren. People wearing colorless overcoats and solemn gray faces are moving in herds to bus stations to discount supermarkets and then back again. In the evening, when the sky darkens, the windows are lit by the blue glow of television screens. Mati, a young writer, lives alone in a two bedroom apartment after his wife left him for his friend. Mati drinks, as every sane man would do in his situation, and spies jealously on his wife. Barber August Kask is an elderly bachelor with a monotone life. He cuts hair, sweeps the floors after, eats porridge and returns the bottles to the shop. He is getting attached to a little girl at the playground, but when approaching the girl is instantly accused of pedophilia intentions. The little girls mother, Laura, watches a lot of TV and turns down the men who show interest in her. Her daughters father, a devoted drunkard, makes harassing phone calls to Laura and stalks her at the gates of her workplace, a shoe factory. Architect Maurer is content with his life in Lasnamäe, he perceives the lifestyle as an inevitability that accompanies progress. He is a modernist and keen on the subject of the well being of humanity. His wife on the other hand has become alienated from him and finds solace in her secret relationship with Theo the bouncer. Theo's relations to other people are slowly deteriorating. Being an autodidact with no social status and possessing at the same time an uncompromising and strong personality, make it very hard for him to adjust. Women like him but are unable or unwilling to understand him. The Autumn Ball is a film about different forms of solitude. Sometimes unbearable but mostly endurable the feelings of loneliness are strongest in such intimate proximity to other people. The film is also an attempt to poetically extrapolate or generalize on the conditions of our existence; to find from the sum of all different angles something larger than the sum itself.
TULPAN.
Comedy/Drama/Foreign (Kazakh/Russian).
Directed by Sergie Dvortsevoy.
* Beautifully filmed Kazakh tale of a young man who years for a wife on the desolate steppe’s of Kazakhstan. This one also won a ton of European film awards.
VIRUS.
Comedy/Drama/Suspense/Foreign (Polish).
Directed by Jan Kidawa-Blonski.
* A story of a computer virus eating its way through Warsaw.
WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION.
Comedy/Animation.
............//DOCUMENTARY/............
NERCORE RISING.
Documentary/Music/Comedy.
Directed by Negin Farsad and Kim Gatewood.
* This doc focuses on “nerdy” hip-hop rappers ostensibly rapping about what? Harry Potter? Star Wars? Pokemon? I think stuff like that. I hear this film is hilarious.
PRIVATE CENTURY.
Documentary/Foreign (Czech).
Directed by Jan Sikl.
* From IMDB: Jan Sikl expertly edits together actual home-movie footage from the 1920s to the 1960s in order to chronicle the history of Czechoslovakia in the 20th century. In eight episodes of 52 minutes, the major events of Czech history, including the Depression, the occupation by the Nazis, World War II, and the rise of communism are depicted through the experiences of real-life Czech citizens. The series reveals that history is the story of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances - not the dry, dull set of names and dates taught in schools.
RUNNING WITH ARNOLD.
Documentary.
Directed by Dan Cox.
* This doc focuses on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial campaign in California.
SHOOTER SERIES: VOLUME ONE BRETT RATTNER.
Documentary/Music.
............//TELEVISION/............
BROTHERHOOD: THIRD SEASON.
Television/Drama.
* The continuing saga of two brothers on different sides of the law in New England.
30 ROCK: SEASON THREE.
Television/Comedy.
Alec Baldwin/Tina Fey.
* Season three in the hysterical series about a fictional late night comedy show and the crazy hijinks that go on backstage.
UGLY BETTY: THIRD SEASON.
Television/Comedy.
America Ferrera
* Actually, Betty’s pretty damn hot.
............//KIDS/............
DORA THE EXPLORER: DORA SAVES THE CRYSTAL KINGDOM.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.
MR> TICKLE.
............//NEW BLU-RAY ADDITIONS/............
PIERROT LE FOU
* Le Fou on blu!
****
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