New on DVD
Whip It
Rated PG-13 for sexual content including crude dialogue, language and drug material
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut in this feel good sports comedy about a young girl, played expertly by Juno’s Ellen Page, who decides to end her mother’s dream of becoming a beauty queen in small town Texas, in order to make it big in Austin’s roller derby scene. While completely predictable, the film is very charming, funny and extremely well-acted by the very talented cast including Barrymore, Marcia Gay Harden, Daniel Stern, and SNL’s Kristen Wiig. And capturing some of the quirkiness of both small town Texas as well as Austin, the film will be pleasantly familiar to most folks reading this column. A-
The House of the Devil
Rated R for some bloody violence
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Set in the early 80’s in both time and style, this indie horror pic follows a young college girl who thinks she is being hired to be a babysitter, only to find out that a Satanic cult has other plans for her. There’s not a lot of jump out and scare you moments, but the suspense here is very frightening throughout as you just wait for something very bad to happen at any second. Writer/director Ti West had a little too much fun making the movie look like it was filmed 30 years ago, but had I not known in advance that the film was made this last year, I might have thought it was an authentic 80’s cult pic. B
New York, I Love You
Rated R for sexual content
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
One of the current trends in independent cinema right now is to take a breathtaking city and have some of the world’s greatest directors and actors tells their short stories within it in order to give a sense of the city from many directions and viewpoints. In 2006 we saw Paris, je taime, and now a few years later, New York, I Love You (Jerusalem and Rio are said to be next and who knows, maybe Houston will get one someday). This film follows many different love stories from directors such as Mira Nair (Amelia), Brett Ratner (Rush Hour), and even Natalie Portman tries her hand behind the camera. Actors include Bradley Cooper, Shia LaBeouf, Orlando Bloom, and a full assortment of other A-list actors wanting to get in on the game. It’s very artsy, but the different slices of New York life come together in a fascinating way that make the film fairly entertaining. Some of the stories were a bit too weird to fit into this film, but I loved the overall feel and energy. B-