****new release list no.297

This Thursday night, Four Star Video and Succulence will be participating in the first Bernal Holiday Shopping night. Over 30 businesses throughout Bernal Heights (click the poster here to see a map with a list of the businesses) will be open a bit later than usual, offering discounts, holiday cheer and in some cases, snacks and drinks. There will also be some roving musical acts singing and playing around the neighborhood.

It should be a rocking fun night, rain or shine. At Four Star Video, we have 500+ titles of refurbished previously viewed DVD’s for sale. Usually they are $8/each plus tax, but for the Bernal Shopping night, we will have a 2 for the price of 1 sale on all titles. Come early, and grab all our extra UP IN THE AIR’s, they will make great stocking stuffers!

At Succulence (our life and garden sister store) we will have 10% off the entire inventory all day on Thursday! If you have been eyeing one of those amazing PlantsOnWalls Plant Habits, or a giant terrarium jar, or some of that gorgeous 3-D metallic art from Roma, this will be the perfect time to purchase.

As a retail store owner, I am grateful for your support. Come flex some of your consumer muscle on Thursday, I think it will be fun.

A couple big winter titles hit the store this week starting with INCEPTION starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard and many more. DiCaprio is the leader of a team of “extractors” who get hired to steal information from sleeping people. His latest job is a bit of a departure, though, as he is hired to implant an idea in someone’s head. His crack team of architects, anesthesiologists, and impersonators dive into their work, which is done while sleeping (its good work if you can get it!). The dream inside a dream inside a dream scene is simply terrific. It’s a Hollywood blockbuster, make no mistake, but it is everything you could wish for in this type of movie. Definitely the “Release of the Week”!

Also out this week is SHREK FOREVER. The fourth in the series, and supposedly the last, this one sees the big green fella banished to an alternative reality where the love of his life is nowhere to be found, and he is the object of hunters and other dangerous creatures.

RESTREPO was this year’s Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance. It is a very powerful documentary about a platoon in Afghanistan, fighting on a daily basis for survival in a very unfriendly landscape.

Hey guess what? Beth Custer’s project was fully funded, and her band headed off to the far-off country of Georgia (not the American version) to perform this week! Way cool. Gail Mallimson is still fund-raising for her film, THE EDGE OF THE WILD about urban sprawl and its damage to endangered species. Check out her kickstarter page here!

Do you have a project you are fund-raising for? I can help spread the work if you’d like – drop me a line.

Alrighty, that’s all folks, hope to see you at the stores.

Love and Kisses,
Ken

p.s. Oh snap! I forgot to mention, we accept Bernal Gift Certificates! Read about them here. They are basically $20 bills, and when they are cashed in, 10% goes to benefit local schools, the neighborhood center and the library! How cool is that? You can get them at the neighborhood center, or from the PTA's at Fairmount Elementary School and Paul Revere School.

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

A DOG YEAR.
Comedy/Drama.
Jeff Bridges/Lauren Ambrose.
Directed by George LaVoo.
* A man (Bridges) and a dog, both who’ve seen better days, try to find a common ground. With Lauren Ambrose of SIX FEET UNDER fame.

BARRY MUNDAY.
Comedy.
Patrick Wilson/Mae Whitman/Colin Hanks.
Directed by Chris D’Arienzo.
* First dude (Wilson) gets attacked, badly beaten so much so that when he awakens in the hospital, it appears he has lost his balls, literally. To make matters worse, he is hit with a paternity suit by someone he has no recollection ever sleeping with. Barry....you dirty dog.

BOYS LIFE 7.
Short films/LGBT.
* The seventh in this series of short film releases about young gay men striving for love and affection.

INCEPTION.****BD****
Action/Sci-Fi.
Leonardo DiCaprio/Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Ellen Page/Tom Hardy/Cillian Murphy/Marion Cotillard/Michael Caine.
Directed by Christopher Nolan.
* Cobb (Leo) is a thief at the core; but his specialty is quite unusual…he steals information from people’s minds by invading their dreams. He considers himself an extractor, and the best one on the planet. However, after a botched attempt at extraction, the subject of the attempt makes Cobb an offer he can’t refuse. Cobb and his now-deceased wife made many studies of the dream world, and one of their studies eventually resulted in her death and made him a fugitive not only from the law, but from his young children, who is in unable to ever visit. The new job offer is a major challenge, it is not an extraction but an “inception”, that is, the secret planting of an idea into someone’s mind, and the job’s main benefit is that his new employer promises him that he can fix his situation at home, and make it possible for Cobb to no longer be a fugitive from the law. Never mind the details, in a way those are unimportant. What is important is that the main action of the film takes place in a dream, and not just in a dream, but in a dream inside a dream inside yet another dream (and again, inside one more dream layer). The action is going on somewhat simultaneously, but time is moving slower in each deeper level of dream action. Meanwhile, though Cobb has told his “dream team” (the dream architect, the anesthesiologist, other skilled labor) most of the issues that they will face inside the dream, what he has not told them is that his wife, or at least his subconscious projection of his wife (based on his own unresolved feelings surrounding their research and her death) is haunting his dreams and before he is able to complete any job, he must face his own inner demons, as animated by her image. Yikes! Jeff (here at Four Star) said it best when he told me he thought this movie was exactly what all blockbusters should be. It is certainly a joy ride, full of action, both cerebral and locked&loaded.

PATRIK: AGE 1.5.
Comedy/Drama/Foreign (Swedish).
Gustaf Skarsgard/Torkel Petersson.
Directed by Ella Lemhagen.
* Thought provoking comedy about a gay couple, Goran and Sven, who think they are becoming the proud adoptive parents of a 15 month old baby boy, Patrik. Only, sorry guys, Patrik is not only 15 years old, but he is also a homophobic delinquent who want nothing to do with his new parents. Swedish movies have hit it big lately (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO), and although this one doesn’t feature the same kind of dramatic intensity of some of those other films, it is handled with delicate aplomb and a classiness that is not often found in Hollywood.

SHREK 4: FOREVER AFTER: THE FINAL CHAPTER.****BD****
Action/Fantasy.
Mike Myers/Cameron Diaz/Eddie Murphy/Antonio Banderas/Julie Andrews/Paul McCartney/Eric Idle/Justin Timberlake/Megan Fox/Jon Hamm/Maya Rudolph/Amy Sedaris.
Directed by Mike Mitchell.
* Poor Shrek, he just can’t find a happy medium…He just doesn’t feel like a true ogre, and that is why he decides to make a deal with Rumpelstiltskin, who promises that he can help. Yeah, help is right, but unfortunately for the big green guy, Rumpel is just wanting to help himself. So he banishes the jolly green giant to an alternative universe, where life is miserable for a large green fellow with a tender heart. Now, Shrek must use all his wits to make his way back to the life he used to live, back to Far Far Away, where his green bride awaits, where his gentle lifestyle sits and waits, silently for him.

THE SICILIAN GIRL.
Drama/Crime/Fictobiopic/Foreign (Italian).
Veronica D’Agostino.
Directed by Marco Amenta.
* This Italian film (based on true events) is about a 17-year-old girl, born into a mafia family, who betrays her family to give states evidence against organized crime after watching her father and brother get gunned down.

THE YEAR OF GETTING TO KNOW US.
Comedy/Drama.
Jimmy Fallon/Lucy Liu/Sharon Stone/Tom Arnold.
Directed by Patrick Sisam.
* Christopher Rocket is kind of a mess, afraid of commitment, estranged from his folks, and mostly muddling along. Then his dad has a stroke, and he heads home, to help out and to try to come to terms with his childhood.

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

RESTREPO. ****BD****
Documentary/War.
Directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger.
* This film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year. It is a doc about a year the director’s spent living with a platoon of American soldiers in a terribly deadly valley in Afghanistan. It is an emotional, claustrophobic and illuminating journey, that is less about judgment and more about transparency. And the heartbreaking sorrow of a country torn apart by war.

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

DETECTIVE MONTALBANO: SEASON 1-3.
Television/Mystery/Foreign (Italian).
* Our first Italian-language series is an adaptation of the phenomenal novels written by Andrea Camilleri. Dry and humorous, Commissario Salvo Montalbano is a very successful detective. The mysteries are sometimes quite grim, and generally topical, and at times, Montalbano is pensive and affected deeply by the situations. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’ve read the books, which were awesome. Judging from the comments I have heard around the store in the week since we got this in, the show has maintained the high level of standards that the books achieved.

............//KIDS/............

CURIOUS GEORGE: SWEET DREAMS.

THE DOLPHIN: THE STORY OF A DREAMER.

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: SEASON SIX VOL.2.

THOMAS & FRIENDS: THE LION OF SODOR.

YOGI BEAR’S ALL STAR COMEDY CHRISTMAS CAPER.

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

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE.
*. This indie film is about a man who goes home to revisit the terrible events of his early adulthood, 17 years ago, that left his great friend dead, and his father implicated. One of the producers on this film is Four Star customer, Sara Gorr!

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