DVD RELEASES FOR THE WEEK OF 4/17/07

[criterionmaster]

Holy fuck, I am soo sorry about forgetting the releases last week.

DVD'S I'LL BUY

La Haine (Criterion) - I have heard beyond rave reviews for this, and I have wanted to see it for a long time now, I cannot wait for this. It looks so fucking amazing, as do the features on this release. "When he was just twenty-nine years old, Mathieu Kassovitz took the international film world by storm with La haine (Hate), a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically in the low-income banlieue districts on Paris’s outskirts. Aimlessly whiling away their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd—a Jew, an African, and an Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentments at their social marginalization slowly simmering until they reach a climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty, La haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis."

Overlord (Criterion) - I said I was going to try and see this, no matter how, after I saw some clips in the doc Z Channel. This was before this film was announced, I was super excited to hear the news. This will be a blind buy though, so I hope it turns out good. It sounds really awesome: "Seamlessly interweaving archival war footage and a fictional narrative, Stuart Cooper’s immersive account of one 20-year-old’s journey from basic training to the battle front lines at D-day brings all the terrors and isolation of war to its viewers with jolting authenticity. Overlord, impressionistically shot by Stanley Kubrick’s longtime cinematographer John Alcott, is both a document of WWII and a dreamlike meditation on man’s smallness in a large, incomprehensible machine."

Thieves Like Us - I am trying to check out all Altman films, I am almost at the point in my book where Altman makes this film, so I look forward to it. PLOT: "Two convicts break out of Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1936 to join a third on a long spree of bank robbing, their special talent and claim to fame. The youngest of the three falls in love along the way with a girl met at their hideout, the older man is a happy professional criminal with a romance of his own, the third is a fast lover and hard drinker fond of his work. The young lovers begin to move out of the sphere in which they have met, a last robbery in Yazoo City goes badly and puts paid to the gang once and for all as a profitable venture, but isn't the end of the story quite yet, as all three are wanted and notorious men with altogether different points of view on the situation they are faced with."

DVD'S I'LL RENT

Brute Force (Criterion) - A Jules Dassin (Rififi) film starring Burt Lancaster. It got a really good review from DVDBeaver, and I have been meaning to check out some Dassin films, so this looks like a good bet, not to mention the plot sounds like a pretty entertaining one: "At a tough penitentiary, prisoner Joe Collins plans to rebel against Captain Munsey, the power-mad chief guard."

The Last King of Scotland - I know my dad will probably rent this, but I am not super interested. It seems like one of those films built on just a great performance, and not being a really great film. I would much rather see the Criterion doc about this guy.

DVD'S I'LL IGNORE

The Chocolate War - The movie has good reviews on Amazon, and has an interesting idea ("A surreal portrait of a Catholic Private School and it's hierarchy. A new student must submit to the bizarre rituals of his peers and the expectations of the school's administration by selling chocolates.") for a film, but I don't know. It is from the 80's, never heard anyone mention it. I would be happy to check it out if it is suppose to be good or something, someone tell me.

Freedom Writers - Aaaahhhh!! I posted awhile back that this looked like THE WORST movie EVER. I don't back off that, it looks like complete shit. The story looks so cliched, but not as much as the characters do. Oooohhh, a bunch of black kids are poor, some wight girl comes along to help. fucking DO NOT see this. (one of the worst covers ever too)

The History Boys - "From award-winning playwright Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George) comes this delightfully witty comedy of eight boisterous-yet-talented schoolboys hoping to gain admittance to England's most prestigious universities. They're aided on their quest by two teachers, a shrewd young upstart and an inspiring old eccentric, whose opposing philosophies challenge the boys to confront the true meaning of education and the relative values of happiness and success.

Adapted from the original Tony Award winning play and starring the original Tony Award winning cast, The History Boys is an engaging, thought-provoking, and wickedly funny look at history, the pursuit of knowledge, and the utter randomness of life." The title doesn't sound good, and the plot doesn't sound too unique or anything. If there is any reason I should see this film, please tell me.

The Marsh - Sounds like a terrible [new] horror movie that just happened to get Whitaker before the Oscars. Being released the same day as The Last King? Hmm, just trying to get money I see.

Notes on a Scandal - "A pottery teacher (Blanchett) enters into an affair with one of her students, causing upheaval in her personal and professional lives." Sounds like a very unoriginal story. Is this suppose to be good, it has good actresses in it?

National Lampoon's Pucked - Seeing "National Lampoon" now, basically means "shit." Yet another terrible new comedy, straight to DVD. HAHAHAHA!!! Bon Jovi.

Pulp - This actually could be good, a 70's film with Caine in it. PLOT: "While 'ghostwriting' an autobiography for Hollywood star Preston Gilbert, Mickey King ends up investigating a murder..." Anyone know about this film?

Rancid - I have to try and forget that these movies keep being made, while true artists don't even get a chance half the time. I am fucking sicken by these though.

The Rival - Same as above x 2.

Smokin' Aces - This looks like a film that is super action packed, and that is not my cup of tea really. I know a lot of people were looking forward to this, but i definitely am not.

Spider-Man 2.1 - Unrated, Extended Cut (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) - Yet another dip, I am going to have to skip this, as I already have it, but I would watch it if someone else bought it.

True Confessions - What the fuck? De Niro, Robert Duvall? Is this movie suppose to be good? I would definitely check it out with those two masters in it. PLOT: "De Niro (a Catholic Priest) and Duvall (a Homicide Detective) play brothers drawn together after many years apart, in the aftermath of the brutal murder of a young prostitute."

The Forty-First - This is Kino, but it doesn't look that great. You tell me, if you know. Directed by Grigori Chukhrai.

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe - PLOT: "In 18th-century England, a misanthropic weaver named Silas Marner hoardes his gold. But his life changes when his gold is stolen, and then a baby girl wanders into his life. He raises little Eppie, but her real father is not far away. " Looks like it has a good cast.

TV RELEASES



• The Ghost Busters: Series
• Happy Days: Season 2
• Highlander: Best of the Best
• Larry King: Great Interviews
• Laverne & Shirley: Season 2
• Masters of Horror: Family
• Mork & Mindy: Season 2
• Murder She Wrote: Season 6
• MXC: Season 2
• Not The Best of Larry Sanders
• Venture Bros: Season 2



SOME GOOD REGION TWO RELEASES

ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000N0WYHE.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V23708167_AA240_.jpg All Night Long - PLOT: "Based on Shakespeare's OTHELLO, ALL NIGHT LONG updates the story to London of the early sixties and features Jazz legends Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck." Andruini will probably want to see this.

Coffret Chantal Akerman - possibly no Eng. subs (les années 70 : Hôtel Monterey / Je, tu, il, elle / Jeanne Dielman, / News from home / Les Rendez-vous d'Anna) - Don't know much about this release, the page was in a different language. If anyone knows who this is, please share.

Harold Lloyd - The Short Films 2-disc (Two Gun Gussie, The Non-Stop Kid, Captain Kidd's Kids, Get Out And Get Under, Now Or Never, The City Slicker, Ring Up The Curtain, From Hand To Mouth, High And Dizzy And Among Those Present) - I love Harold Lloyd so everyone should check this out, he is very underrated nowadays.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles - possibly no Eng. subs - Don't know anything about this, if you do, please share.

[captainofbeef]

I am going to buy La Haine so fast its not even funny. (My new job makes it easier for me to buy all these Criterions). I'll also rent Overlord, Last King of Scotland and Notes on a Scandal.

Dan, I hated the Chocolate War. The book is so much better, Robert Cormier is a master.

[criterionmaster]

captainofbeef said:

I am going to buy La Haine so fast its not even funny. (My new job makes it easier for me to buy all these Criterions). I'll also rent Overlord, Last King of Scotland and Notes on a Scandal.

Dan, I hated the Chocolate War. The book is so much better, Robert Cormier is a master.

Lucky, if I had a job I would probably use most of the money on films, in one way or another.

Okay, I won't check that film out then, but if the book is actually good, then maybe I will check that out someday. Do you have a copy of the book?

[Clark Nova]

Smokin Aces was simply awful. I'm very interested in seeing Notes on a Scandal, though.

[captainofbeef]

No, I bet our library does though. It truly is an awesome book, along with After the First Death by the same author.

[ie]

I would buy La Haine, but I'm low on funds and can't splurge that much right now. I'll eventually buy it, but I don't need to buy it right now.

The Last King of Scotland was your standard B- movie with A acting, namely by Whitaker. It seems mostly accurate to the general Idi Amin Dada you may know, and I liked the documentarian style the movie had, but the ending was really piss poor. Overall, averaged to an 8/10.

I would write about the others, but I wanted to focus on Spider-Man 2.1. Yeah, double dipping, but I was reading an article on IGN, where they were like "this helps make the best comic book movie ever even more better" even though just a few sentences earlier the reviewer implied that it was a boring movie that he didn't really care for, so I closed that review. Dumbasses at IGN never change...

[criterionmaster]

ie said:

I would buy La Haine, but I'm low on funds and can't splurge that much right now. I'll eventually buy it, but I don't need to buy it right now.

The Last King of Scotland was your standard B- movie with A acting, namely by Whitaker. It seems mostly accurate to the general Idi Amin Dada you may know, and I liked the documentarian style the movie had, but the ending was really piss poor. Overall, averaged to an 8/10.

I would write about the others, but I wanted to focus on Spider-Man 2.1. Yeah, double dipping, but I was reading an article on IGN, where they were like "this helps make the best comic book movie ever even more better" even though just a few sentences earlier the reviewer implied that it was a boring movie that he didn't really care for, so I closed that review. Dumbasses at IGN never change...

Yeah, that is what I figured about Last King, but my dumb aunt recommended it to my dad saying “it has to be seen,” but she doesn't know much about great film, although she likes foreign films. So now my dad has to see it now. Ugh. It is exactly what I guessed about the film, then?

I will check that cut of the film out sometime, as someone on here will probably buy it, like ptahole or blackmoses, and then I can see if it does make the film better, or if it was just a big stupid waste of time. I disagree about it being the best comic book movie too, if they would have said “super hero movie” then I would have agreed, but I feel Sin City and Ghost World are much better than it.

[criterionmaster]

captainofbeef said:

No, I bet our library does though. It truly is an awesome book, along with After the First Death by the same author.

Okay, I got a couple of books lined up right now, but when I am done I will check into those probably.

[PTAhole]

Actually, I think Sin City far inferior to Spider-Man 2. I like Sin City, but I never feel like watching it, whereas I could always be in the mood for Spidey. Not to mention that Raimi actually made a film, instead of the slavish "comic book on film" that Rodriguez made. It may also come down to the fact that I like Spider-Man better than Sin City in general. Ghost World is a completely different kind of movie, so I don't think it's fair to compare them (same with Sin City). I think Spider-Man 2 is a perfect movie (I'm not exaggerating).

[captainofbeef]

I personally prefer Sin City to it as well. It was more original and I like the source material much more. But its all a matter of opinion and if you like Spidey 2 better, thats fine with me.

[ie]

Well, Last King of Scotland was alright. It wasn't entirely dumb. I don't think it deserves the "it has to be seen," even for cultural significance like, you know, watching the Warrrriors... come out to plaaaay, kind of business. It does show you how General Amin was like in these fictional situations, and he was an important political figure so the movie has that going for it, but just don't go in expecting a whole lot.

The ending was really stupid though. You may want to see for yourself what I mean, but like with Ringu, just ignore the ending and your opinion of the movie will be higher than if you factor the ending in and really think about it. Like I'm about to do, I guess:

SPOILER: Click to show

Talk about exploitation movies, how about this one? Not technically blaxploitation, more like Africaploitation.

All of the black characters in this movie are either killed, chopped up and killed, shot in the face in a crowded airport or will be taken down pretty soon. Sure, the white kid didn't know better, I can accept that, but they were leading up to him being killed, even showing him on the ground, probably dead. Then the doctor revives him and I was just like "okay, that's stupid."

I knew that the ending was trying to be suspenseful, but then I just remembered back to "the white guy will make it" and sure enough, the white guy did make it; he came, he saw, he fucked, he left, just like Amin thought. A friend of mine did find the ending to be decent because he thought it was suspenseful, but I told him my views and he could see what I meant.

I could see that there's a difference between "comic book" movie and "super hero" movie, but honestly, I don't care. The guy kind of went between "best movay evar" and "full of flawws!" in a bullshit manner.

My re-watch of Spider-Man 1 didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, and I still haven't seen the second, but I'll probably see it eventually. That said, I have been thinking of rewatching Sin City. That is to say, I like Sin City more than Spider-Man 1.


Good discussion this week, though.

[criterionmaster]

ptahole said:

Actually, I think Sin City far inferior to Spider-Man 2. I like Sin City, but I never feel like watching it, whereas I could always be in the mood for Spidey. Not to mention that Raimi actually made a film, instead of the slavish "comic book on film" that Rodriguez made. It may also come down to the fact that I like Spider-Man better than Sin City in general. Ghost World is a completely different kind of movie, so I don't think it's fair to compare them (same with Sin City). I think Spider-Man 2 is a perfect movie (I'm not exaggerating).

"Far inferior" may be pushing it, seeing as how, if I remember you correctly saying before, that Sin City captures the source material perfectly, so really it is just preference of the source material, and not the FILM being inferior. But I think I see where we are going with this, the reason I think I prefer Sin City to Spider-man, and you the other way, is because I prefer character, usually cool characters or “different” ones, mixed with film-noir elements, and original film techniques, and you definitely lean more towards action scenes, special effects, and the very comic book elements of the Spider-Man films. I would SOO much rather watch Sin City than Spider-Man just because Spider-Man does the best, with [one of] my least favorite thing in film, action sequences. It does them awesomely, with a superhero I actually like. But even that, is still something I don't really like that much to begin with, I mush prefer conversations and such. If that makes any sense? And also, you aren't really giving Rodriguez enough credit, these are original things. I mean, you try and look at the Sin City books, and then try and go and put what is in that, on the screen. Something like that hasn't been done before, unlike Spider-Man, where it has been done. Also, if I remember correctly, they also took the comics and put them on the screen for many things, if I remember, they used some shots found in the comics or something exactly. So, Sin City creating something completely new to the film universe should at least count for something. And you can't deny you love Sin City, and you know it. I don't mind that you like Spider-man more; in fact, I probably would have guessed you'd like it more, but to say Sin City is “far inferior,” when it is actually more original, captures the novels perfect, with great performances, etc. And, Spider-man 2 is just advancing on what Spider-man had already done in the first film.

I think the reason I compared them was because in the "why do most comic book movies suck?" thread you mentioned them all saying they were good comic adaptations, I would have probably forget that they both were comic book films, especially Ghost World, if you hadn't of mentioned them there.

[criterionmaster]

ie said:

Well, Last King of Scotland was alright. It wasn't entirely dumb. I don't think it deserves the "it has to be seen," even for cultural significance like, you know, watching the Warrrriors... come out to plaaaay, kind of business. It does show you how General Amin was like in these fictional situations, and he was an important political figure so the movie has that going for it, but just don't go in expecting a whole lot.

The ending was really stupid though. You may want to see for yourself what I mean, but like with Ringu, just ignore the ending and your opinion of the movie will be higher than if you factor the ending in and really think about it. Like I'm about to do, I guess:

SPOILER: Click to show

Talk about exploitation movies, how about this one? Not technically blaxploitation, more like Africaploitation.

All of the black characters in this movie are either killed, chopped up and killed, shot in the face in a crowded airport or will be taken down pretty soon. Sure, the white kid didn't know better, I can accept that, but they were leading up to him being killed, even showing him on the ground, probably dead. Then the doctor revives him and I was just like "okay, that's stupid."

I knew that the ending was trying to be suspenseful, but then I just remembered back to "the white guy will make it" and sure enough, the white guy did make it; he came, he saw, he fucked, he left, just like Amin thought. A friend of mine did find the ending to be decent because he thought it was suspenseful, but I told him my views and he could see what I meant.

I could see that there's a difference between "comic book" movie and "super hero" movie, but honestly, I don't care. The guy kind of went between "best movay evar" and "full of flawws!" in a bullshit manner.

My re-watch of Spider-Man 1 didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, and I still haven't seen the second, but I'll probably see it eventually. That said, I have been thinking of rewatching Sin City. That is to say, I like Sin City more than Spider-Man 1.


Good discussion this week, though.

I need to see The Warriors still, actually. It is one of those "cult" films I have been meaning to check out for some time now. I will just say though, get on seeing Spider-Man 2; it is light-years above the first one, in my opinion. It seems like it would have been hard to avoid it for all this time, it is ALWAYS on TV and stuff.