Author: crunchonthis

New on DVD

Nine
Rated PG-13 for sexual content and smoking
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Based on the Broadway musical, which was based on the Federico Fellini film 8 1/2, Nine tells the tale of a famous film director (Daniel Day-Lewis) that is dissatisfied with all aspects of his life, most notably his guilt of having to love only one woman when there are so many in the world worthy of his bed.  While maybe not the greatest choice for the latest big-budget Hollywood musical, Director Rob Marshall and his ultra celebrity cast of performers, including Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Fergie, and Judi Dench, does a stellar job of entertaining and the film is as sexy as a musical can possibly be.  The problem lies in that aside from a couple of tunes, the songs just aren’t that great.  Guido’s Song and Be Italian get you going just fine, but most of the numbers just leave you thinking that the movie would be nothing without the amazing art direction.  B-

Leap Year
Rated PG for sensuality and language
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Amy Adams sets up an elaborate plan to propose to her boyfriend who just happens to be in Dublin on February 29, the day she is convinced is an Irish tradition to get engaged.  When the weather doesn’t cooperate with her plans and she ends up way off course, an innkeeper (Matthew Goode) offers to drive her the rest of the way to Dublin.  Of course they get in their own little adventure and she must decide if she really wants the new guy or the old.  Two words: Predictable and boring.  If you just watch the trailer for the movie it is exactly what you expect, except you hadn’t wasted 100 minutes of your evening on it yet.  There are a couple of cute jokes, but overall it’s a sad little waste of time.  D

Dr. Zhivago: 45th Anniversary Edition
Rated PG-13 for mature themes
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
David Lean’s classic tale of romance and struggle set during the Bolshevik revolution is getting the hi-def treatment with this new release including a restoration taken from original film elements.  While I’d rather they have done this to Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia first, it’s still good to have such a quality version of this beautiful film for the library.  I do think they went a little overkill with that song over 3 and a half hours, but it’s still a remarkable motion picture.  A-

Saving Private Ryan: Sapphire Series
Rated R for intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence, and for language
Available on Blu-ray
Getting the Sapphire treatment from Paramount this time around is the modern classic war film Saving Private Ryan.  Containing two discs, the movie is just part of the package here, as included in the set are hours of extras such as the making of the picture and a documentary hosted by Tom Hanks about the courageous men who filmed battles.  Even with tremendous undertakings like HBO’s Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Saving Private Ryan still holds up as probably the most realistic and certainly one of the most compelling WWII films ever made.  How it got beat out at the Oscars by Shakespeare in Love is still a mystery to me.  A+

Tokyo Sonata
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and brief strong language
Available on DVD
Japanese with English Subtitles
When a Japanese businessman loses his job, his seemingly normal family slowly deconstructs to the point of pure chaos.  Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, this is a highly unusual film where we see the similarities of our culture and then the vast dissimilarities.  The father doesn’t wish to let his family know of his job loss, even though they already know.  The oldest son wants to join the American military against his parents’ wishes.  The youngest son wants to study piano, and might just be a child prodigy, but the father gives strict instructions to not do so.  And the mother is losing her mind.  The whole thing spins so far out of control towards the end of the second act that you wonder how the atonal mess can ever bring itself back together.  But I would challenge anyone to fight back the tears in the very emotionally impactful third act.  B+

New on DVD

Avatar
Rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language, and some smoking
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Set far into the future, Avatar tells the story of a paraplegic marine whose mind is put into the body of an alien so that he can infiltrate their tribe and hopefully negotiate the terms of their relocation so that the resources they are living on top of can be mined out.  But when his loyalties begin to turn, he gets involved in the middle of a war that could jeopardize either his own kind or the very existence of his new friends.  While the story has been slammed by way too many people as being unoriginal, I still feel that writer/director James Cameron was brilliant in making the material just familiar enough to be recognizable, yet different enough to be completely enthralling and captivating.  While it’s great to finally be able to see this one at home, I must warn everyone that this is just the first of many editions of the film that will hit DVD and blu-ray.  This is a bare-bones edition with no special features whatsoever.  Rumor has it that later this year Cameron will re-release the film into theaters as a director’s cut, and then you will most likely want to re-purchase.  And then there will be the version with how they did all of the special effects and all of the other special features.  By the time this one’s done there may be several reincarnations, so if you don’t think you’ll watch it more than once or twice, it may be a rental for you.  Then again, the blu-ray is so spectacular to look at on a nice TV that you may not want to wait that long.  A+

Crazy Heart
Rated R for language and brief sexuality
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges is a washed-out country singer trying to get back on his feet in this little indie that came on strong towards awards time.  While I felt it was a little over-hyped and that Bridges was much like Sandra Bullock in that he won the Oscar merely because it was his turn and not because he outperformed the other actors this year, the film still was a pretty good little flick with some great tunes and a very good performance.  My biggest gripe is where did they get the name ‘Crazy Heart’ from?  That has got to be one of the worst-fitting titles in years.  B-

It’s Complicated
Rated R for some drug content and sexuality
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are two exes that get back together for an affair, trying desperately to hide it from his wife and her new boyfriend (Steve Martin).  While it’s definitely a comedy for the older crowd, it’s still a very funny pic with some great set pieces including a gut-busting scene that shows way too much of Baldwin.  It’s not a coincidence that they are releasing this just before Mother’s Day as this is probably a nice gift for many of the Meryl age and older mothers out there.  B

Out of Africa (25th Anniversary Edition)
Rated PG
Available on Blu-ray
It’s been 25 years since Out of Africa led a shut-out of The Color Purple at the Academy Awards by taking home seven statues including best picture and best director.  Based on the true story of a woman (Meryl Streep) who travels to Kenya to be with her cheating husband and falls in love with a mysterious adventurer (Robert Redford), Out of Africa is a gorgeous film to look at and listen to, especially on blu-ray, but a tad on the dry and boring side.  That being said, for the fans out there, it will be a welcome addition to many libraries.  B

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Rated PG-13 for violent images, some sensuality, language and smoking
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Terry Gilliam directed Heath Ledger in his last film before his death in this extremely weird, but typical Gilliam pic.  Christopher Plummer is Dr. Parnassus, the leader of a traveling stage show who is about to lose his daughter to the devil until a young man (Ledger) comes to the rescue to help out.  Because Ledger never finished the filming, his part was re-imagined and recast for additional scenes by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, which sort of made sense in the story but made the film all that more weird.  Still, you have to love Gilliam’s imagination, or imaginarium if you will, as he is truly one of the most creative spirits in Hollywood and always brings a product that keeps it’s audience on its toes.  B+

Five Minutes of Heaven
Not Rated
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
in 1975, a 17-year-old Irish-Protestant assassinated a 19-year-old Catholic in his home in front of his 11-year-old brother.  Thirty years later, the Protestant (Liam Neeson) has been rehabilitated and released from prison and a television talk show wants to bring he and the younger brother (Nesbitt) together for a reconciliation, the brother must decide whether to seek his revenge he has been waiting his entire life for, or find another way to get over his pain.  While the film isn’t the kind that normally makes a killing at the box office (no pun intended), I’m surprised it really never found a home, especially with this cast and the fact that it won both the Directing Award and Screenwriting Award of World Cinema at the Sundance film festival.  The movie is very well-paced and the writing and directing are excellent.  Nesbitt is a bit over the top and has a few Gollum moments, but Neeson is his typical brilliant self and it is an overall very watchable film with some really great moments.  A-

New on DVD

The Lovely Bones
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
For Peter Jackson’s much-anticipated follow-up to his Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he chose Alice Sebold’s novel about a young girl that is murdered by a neighbor, and then proceeds to connect with her parents and friends while she is living in the “In-Between,” a surreal world that lies between Heaven and Earth.  As far as special effects go, Jackson creates an amazing vision that sticks with you long after you leave the theater.  When it comes to movies of this sort, I still prefer that of Vincent Ward’s What Dreams May Come, but both films provide a beautiful yet haunting look at the afterlife.  While the film leaves you visually satisfied, there is just something not right about it.  The acting by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz is off with neither one of them turning in very solid performances (conversely, Stanly Tucci and Saoirse Ronan are incredible).  But acting aside, it starts with Jackson toning down the violence from the book, and with good reason because this very well might have been known as merely a rape movie, rather than what it became.  But it feels like Jackson is keeping too many things from us and that the story seems somehow incomplete.  C

44 Inch Chest
Rated R for pervasive strong language including sexual references, and some violence
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
From the writer of Sexy Beast comes this hard to swallow drama with a stellar cast including Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast), Ian McShane (Deadwood), John Hurt (V for Vendetta), and Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton).  When Winstone’s wife admits that she’s been seeing someone else, his friends go and pick up loverboy, take him to their hideaway, and over the course of the film decide what to do with him.  The acting is phenomenal, but the subject matter is deeply depressing.  Winstone’s pain is so real that it leaps off the screen and you both fear for the stranger’s life and understand the anger at the same time.  The movie feels like it belongs on a stage rather than the screen, and if it ever got a cast like this on Broadway or the West End, it would be a smash, unlike it’s small box office draw it received in it’s theatrical run.  B

The Basketball Diaries
Rated R for graphic depiction of drug addiction with related strong violence, sexuality and language
Available on Blu-ray
Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg were barely getting started when they made this drama about a couple of kids in high school that wasted their lives away once they discovered heroine.  For both of them it was one of their best performances, which makes it hard to believe that the film only made 2.4 million at the box office.  Then again, this ain’t exactly an after school special.  It’s a tough film to watch, filled with many scenes where you just want to turn your head and look away.  I remember when Leo became a heartthrob after Titanic and people made fun of the good- looking kid that can’t act.  I would quickly remind them of Diaries and Gilbert Grape, which showed a gutsy good-looking kid that wasn’t scared to show off his ugly side.  Of course now he is widely considered one of the best actors in Hollywood, but checking this one out you can see he’s had talent from the start.  A-

Mammoth
Not Rated
Available on DVD
Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams are a happily married couple with busy lives that are put to the test when Bernal must travel to Thailand for an extended business trip.  The film desperately wants to be Babel, and even brings in Bernal for the right flair, but the movie is such a bore that by the time something actually happens, it is completely predictable and I can’t help but think that most of the viewers will be completely apathetic.  C-

New on DVD

Apollo 13: 15th Anniversary Edition
Rated PG-13
Available on Blu-ray
In order to capitalize on the 15th anniversary of the theatrical release of the Ron Howard/Tom Hanks Astronaut classic, Universal is releasing Apollo 13 for the first time on Blu-ray.  For most folks in Houston, the events of the film are a close to home history when Jim Lovell and crew attempted to land on the moon and almost didn’t make it back to Earth.  While Howard admits that he never intended it to be so, the film has become one of the most important historical looks at the NASA program ever put on film, telling more than just a story, but also fully explaining our unique fascination with space exploration as well.  Universal brought back all of the old special features from earlier editions, but there is very little new on the disk and that is a shame.  The U-control features, especially the one dealing with Tech-Splanations is a nice addition, but they really should have updated the documentary Conquering Space: The Moon and Beyond as it is incredibly dated.  While the commentaries were taped 15 years ago, I highly recommend the one with Jim and Marilyn Lovell as they relive their experiences while watching the film.  It’s a very unique way to take in the movie.  B+

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Rated PG for some mild rude humor
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
This second installment puts Alvin and his brothers in school, while three new female chipmunks come on the scene to give them a run for their money.  I have to admit that when I was a kid I used to like Alvin.  I sped up records and sucked in Helium to imitate the sound.  So I can understand how kids can like it, but the difference is now I wish they wouldn’t like it.  It’s not that this is a bad film.  I can’t think of any way to make it better.  It’s just annoying.  Really, really annoying.  By ninety minutes in I wanted to strangle the rodents though the screen.  I really do believe that Alvin the Chipmunks was invented as a weapon to seek revenge against parents for having children.  People without children and critics unlike me who had something else to review this week are laughing themselves silly at the poor saps who have to put up with this.  If you are one of said parents – I feel bad for you because your kids are gonna tear that disc up, just like they did the first one.  My advice: invest in some nice noise-canceling headphones, plug them into your iPod, and say over and over again “serenity now.”  For kids: A  For adults: F  

New on DVD

Lord of the Rings
Available on Blu-ray
April 6 marks the day that hardcore fans of Lord of the Rings will be very excited, but not for the reason you may think.  Both the Peter Jackson trilogy and the animated Ralph Bakshi editions will both be released, but for many of Tolkien’s loyalists, they will be skipping the trilogy for now.  Sure the 1978 Bakshi version is crudely animated and the rotoscope technology utilized combined with the hand-drawn characters looks like there was no clear vision, but there are some that really love this movie and think the story is more true to the books, even though the film was only half completed since no one would fund him to do the second half.  But the real reason the hardcore fans will be skipping out on Jackson’s Oscar-winning trilogy this time out is because this set only includes the standard editions and not the far superior extended editions.  Sure the lure of digital copy is tempting.  Who wouldn’t want a copy on their iPhone or new iPad.  But it’s hard to stomach shelling out that much money for the set now, knowing that the studio will try to get you again later when the extended editions are finally released on Blu-ray.  The Trilogy: A (but I would wait for the next blu-ray release whenever that might be).  Animated: C+

Dolan’s Cadillac
Rated R for violence and language
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Based on the Stephen King short story, when a school teacher’s (Wes Bentley) wife is murdered in cold blood for witnessing the crimes of a mob boss (Christian Slater), the teacher vows revenge.  The first half of the movie is not that great, filled with way too much bad acting, including that of the lead actors, but once things get going in the end of the second and into the third acts, the film turns into a pretty decent revenge flick.  While Stephen King’s story is much darker, and the revenge is served much more cold, for the sake of a movie like this, they did a decent enough job for a straight-to-dvd thriller.  B-

Clash of the Gods
Unrated
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
For those with a mind to discover what really went down with Perseus and Zeus, the History Channel has just released this 10 part series that explores many of the myths that entertainment today.  While the reenactments are pretty lame and the special effects could use a boost, the series is extremely interesting and full of enlightening moments.  I would rather watch the segment on Medusa here than the new Clash of the Titans any day of the week.  B-

Taxidermia
Unrated but every scene is full of foul and offensive material
Available on DVD
Hungarian with English Subtitles
I remember walking through the Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, which is one of the worlds most celebrated modern art institutes, and I was truly shocked as to what I saw there.  And needless to say it takes a lot to shock me.  I only mention that now, because this film reminds me much of that experience.  Taxidermia follows the lives of three generations of Hungarian men each living obscure and absurd, miserable lives.  It’s a movie that normally I would have turned off after the first fifteen minutes, but yet just like that museum, I couldn’t’t stop watching.  I couldn’t’t look away.  As grotesque and horrid as it was, I kept thinking to myself that this movie is too well made to be simply ignored as a trivial piece of Euro garbage.  There are way too many movies that I watch like that and this doesn’t even come close to fitting that category.  I felt like I was truly watching someone’s art come to life.  And while it’s not a film I could enjoy, there are folks out there that might connect and discover that deeper appreciation.  C+

Sherlock Holmes
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some startling images and scene of suggestive material
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Golden Globe winner Robert Downey Jr. and director Guy Ritchie (Snatch) give a crazy interpretation of the classic detective tale where the eclectic sleuth and his sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) attempt to figure out how to stop a man that has come back from the grave from wreaking havoc over London.  While many Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts were turned off by the overly adventurous script, many new fans were brought into the fold as the movie brought in over a half a billion worldwide, and all this while competing against the behemoth Avatar.  For sure the movie is worth watching, but the Blu-ray itself is just as innovative as the film.  Warner Brothers is consistently churning out the highest quality Blu-ray product, especially when they bring in their Maximum Movie Mode.  Here, Guy Ritchie does a fascinating lecture-style picture-in-picture look at the movie while you are watching it, complete with storyboard comparisons, focus points, production information, and basically a compact little film school on disc.  A-

The Baader Meinhof Complex
Rated R for strong bloody violence, disturbing images, sexual content, graphic nudity, and language
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
German with English Subtitles
This extensively researched true story takes place in Germany over the 60’s and 70’s when young people obsessed with revolution started a violent crusade that sprang up throughout the world.  While many who lived through the 60’s might have a deeper knowledge of these events, my historical knowledge of the Vietnam era sprang directly from American tales from my parents and movies, so I found this story of the European reaction to be at first interesting, but then shocking and finally downright frightening.  To say this movie is engaging is an understatement.  Nominated for both the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, The Baader Meinhof Complex is a disturbing look at what can happen when an emotional society gets out of control.   Brilliantly written and directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn), and terrifically acted by an exceptional cast, this picture is exemplary historical filmmaking.  But one fair warning for parents, pay attention to the rating as it was lucky to have only gotten an R and not an NC-17.  A

Alice in Wonderland: Classic Film Collection
Available on DVD
If you are Alice-crazy after the latest Tim Burton hit, Infinity has released this collection of rare Alice in Wonderland films including the two shorts directed by Walt Disney in 1925 starring four-year-old Virginia Davis, years before there was ever a Walt Disney Studios.  Also included here is the first ever Alice in Wonderland from 1915 starring Viola Savoy, which was thought to be lost, the French animated Alice of Wonderland in Paris from 1966 with the voice of Carl Reiner and the 1972 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland musical theatrical film starring Michael Crawford, Peter Sellers, and Dudley Moore.  It’s a lot of Alice, and while it’s not all great filmmaking, there is a historical value to this set that can be appreciated by any fan of the Lewis Carrol.  B