"Being John Malkovich" (Criterion), a devastatingly funny portrait of unhappiness, desperation, desire, and the vicious things we do for love, catapulted Spike Jonze from music video wunderkind to visionary director and Charlie Kaufman from sitcom scribe to brilliant screenwriter. In 1999 it was fresh and daring and inventive, and more than ten years later, in the age of reality TV and celebrity obsession gone viral, it is as timely and topical as ever, and just as inventive, surprising, devastating, and compassionate.

 

John Cusack stars as a shaggy, self-important only marionette artist who takes a  break from the angst-ridden wish fulfillment fantasies of his puppet theater to get a paying job and becomes obsessed with an acerbic woman (Catherin Keener) in the office next door. The fact that he's married (to an improbably dowdy Cameron Diaz in a dowdy frizz) doesn't phase his flailing attempts at seduction.

 

The mundane and the miraculous exist side by side in "Being John Malkovich." The half-scale size of the 7 ½ floor is groaner of a pun ("low overhead," get it?) turned deadpan surreal sight gag, and when Cusack stumbles into the weirdly organic portal that sends him into the mind of John Malkovich (played with exceedingly good humor by John Malkovich), the metaphysical implication pale beside the business opportunities.

 

It has been called quirky, clever, funny, and satirical, and it is all that, but behind all of the madcap invention and creative playfulness is a terrible sadness, a portrait of people so miserable in their own skins that they will do almost anything to become someone else. Jonze really gets Kaufman's multi-layered vision of anxiety and unhappiness and desperation for love and affirmation and success, bringing a compassion to the players and as he celebrates the dark humor, the painful comedy, the neediness, and the cruelty of it all with creative invention and cinematic delights. What better way to explore the vicious things we do for love than through laughter?

 

Criterion remasters the film for Blu-ray and DVD and fills it with excellent supplements. In addition to the extras carried over from the earlier DVD  release, it features the original 33-minute "All Noncombants Please Clear the Set," shot by Lance Bangs on the set of the film during the production and turned into a documentary for this disc, and a new interview with John Malkovich conducted by comedian John Hodgman (who takes the assignment seriously), plus a photo gallery with commentary by Jonze and about an hour of select scene commentary by friend and fellow director Michel Gondry.

See Criterion's "Three Reasons: Being John Malkovich" video below.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for May 15

 

"Chronicle" (Fox) brings the "found footage" aesthetic to the superhero / coming of age drama to observe that with great power sometimes comes great. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"The Grey" (Universal), Joe Carnahan's muscular survival thriller, drops Liam Neeson and a roughneck crew of oil drillers in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness and pits them against a pack of ravenous wolves.

 

""The Grey" represents a welcome change for director and co-writer Joe Carnahan, a filmmaker whose theatrical feature output has toggled all over the place, quality-wise, while staying firmly in the masculine realm, genre-wise," asserts MSN film critic Glenn Kenny. It "certainly doesn't lack for testosterone bluster -- the movie's got a practically all-male cast, after all. But the picture makes to examine that quality more than celebrate it, and also tries to come to terms with what one really needs, steely attitude aside, to survive in an environment in which literally everything is against you."

 

On Blu-ray and DVD, with commentary with co-writer/director Joe Carnahan and editors Roger Barton and Jason Hellmann and deleted scenes. The Blu-ray also features picture-in-picture comparisons of pre-visualization and storyboard images to select scenes and an Ultraviolet digital copy, for download and instant streaming. Also available On Demand

 

"Rampart" (Millennium) reunites director / writer Oren Moverman with his "The Messenger" star Woody Harrelson for a story of corruption in the post-Rampart scandal-rocked LAPD of 1999. Harrelson is a dinosaur, a relic of the bad old days still lumbering around on a force that keeps its distance from him (the stink of his legacy is just too dangerous in the culture of clean-up) and living as a kind of glorified guest with his two ex-wives (who are, in fact, sister) and two daughters. The script, originally written by James Ellroy and adapted by Moverman, gives Harrelson a rich role, a strangely entitled cop who believes the uniform gives him license to take out his vengeance on anyone who crosses him, and Harrelson he earned a Best Actor nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards for his captivating spiral into isolation and obsolescence. Robin Wright, Steve Buscemi, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Foster, Anne Heche, Ice Cube, Ned Beatty, Cynthia Nixon, and Brie Larson co-star. More reviews here.

 

Blu-ray and DVD, with director commentary, cast and crew interviews, and a featurette. Also available via digital download and On Demand, and at Redbox.

 

"Albert Nobbs" (Lionsgate) earned Oscar nominations for Glenn Close and Janet McTeer as women living their lives under the guise of as men to get better jobs in Victorian-era Ireland. Where Close's tightly-wound butler hides behind the costume, McTeer's handyman lets the public persona celebrate her personality. "Albert Nobbs is a quiet, minor-key work," writes Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Steven Rea. "The period finery is Masterpiece Classics-y, the parade of upper-crust and lower-tier eccentrics predictable. But Close's performance as this poor, wounded fellow resonates with depth and poignancy." Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers co-star and Rodrigo Garcia directs.

 

Blu-ray and DVD, with commentary by director Garcia and actress / producer Glenn Close and deleted scenes. Also available via digital download, and On Demand, and at Redbox.

 

"One For the Money" (Lionsgate), adapted from the Janet Evanovich novel, casts rom-com stalwart Katherine Heigl as a rookie bounty hunter, disastrously so, according to the critical consensus. New York Times film critic A. O. Scott complains that the film "is so weary and uninspired that it feels more like an exhausted end than an energetic beginning." Jason O'Mara, Daniel Sunjata, Sherri Shepherd, and Debbie Reynolds co-star. On Blu-ray and DVD, with two featurettes, a deleted scene, and a gag reel. The Blu-ray edition also includes a digital copy for download via iTunes. Also available via digital download and On Demand, and at Redbox.

 

"The Devil Inside" (Paramount) is the other genre picture produced on the cheap in the "found footage" style of handheld video and you-are-there woozy camerawork, this one built around demonic possession and exorcism. Los Angeles Times film critic Mark Olsen pretty much captures the consensus when he describes it as "a horror film conceived on graph paper." On DVD, digital download, and On Demand, available at Redbox. A Blu-ray edition is available exclusively at Best Buy for a limited time.

 

"Golf in the Kingdom" (Flatiron) is based on Michael Murphy 1972 novel on the mystic glories of golf. "Everyone spouts nicely turned baloney elevating golf to the level of a religious experience, which grows tedious fairly quickly," warns New York Times film critic Neil Genzlinger. DVD, with cast interviews and a featurette, and digital download.

 

Foreign Affairs:

"Norwegian Wood" (New Video) is quite the international affair: directed and adapted by French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh-hung from the novel by Murakami Haruki (itself named after a Beatles song), with a Japanese cast, cinematography by Hou Hsiao-hsien favorite Mark Lee Ping-bin from Taiwan, songs by Can and a hushed score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood.

 

Set in late sixties Tokyo, where student protests erupt on college campuses and sexual liberation is in the air, this is a story of disconnection in a time of engagement, with a student (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) escaping into books after his best friend's suicide and the withdrawn and fragile girlfriend (Rinko Kikuchi) scarred by the suicide retreating into a secluded sanitarium. Matsuyama plays the part as if a spectator rather than a participant in his life, too afraid to engage after the pain of his friend's suicide. Except when he's around Naoko, whose vulnerability draws him out of his cocoon.

 

"Norwegian Wood" is suffused in melancholia, with imagery as delicate as the lives it presents and atmospheres so fragile they look like they'd shatter under too much emotional pressure. Tran's portrayal of the fragility of emotionally devastated teens and young adults afraid to open themselves up again makes for lonely portrait, more touching than engaging but masterfully painted throughout. More reviews here.

 

Japanese with English subtitles. The DVD features a detailed making of documentary that runs nearly an hour and a shorter piece on the premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Also available via digital download.

 

"Michael" (Strand) is a meek insurance agent who happens to be a pedophile with a ten-year-old boy locked up in his basement in this queasy drama from Austrian director Markus Schleinzer. Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert warns that "Michael doesn't set up big drama or punch up big moments. It ambles." There is no explicit violence or sexuality in the film, but it is still for mature audiences. German with English subtitles. DVD only.

 

"Street Days" (Global Film Initiative), a crime thriller set in the economic instability of post-Soviet Georgia, and "The Tenants" (Global Film Initiative), about the street violence in a working class neighborhood in Brazil's Sao Paulo, are the newest additions to the Global Lens Collection. The former in Georgian with English subtitles, the latter in Portuguese with English subtitles. Both DVD only.

 

True Stories:

"My Perestroika" (Docurama) offers a first-person history of the tectonic changes in Russian society from five people who were schoolmates when Perestroika changed everything. ""My Perestroika" gives you a privileged sense of learning the history of a place not from a book but from the people who lived it," praises New York Times film critic Stephen Holden. "Watching it is a little like attending a party in an unfamiliar city and discovering the place's secrets from the guests." The DVD features an hour of deleted scenes and interviews. Also available via digital download.

 

"We Were Here" (Docurama) offers a personal history lesson closer to home: the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco. "An extraordinarily moving examination of how the AIDS epidemic both devastated and transformed San Francisco's gay community, this clear-eyed and soulful documentary brings us inside the contagion in a way that is so intimate, so personal, you feel like you're hearing about these catastrophic events for the first time," writes Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan. The DVD features an interview with filmmaker David Weissman and HIV public service announcements from the 1990s. Also available via digital download.

 

"Windfall" (First Run) looks at some of the unexpected controversies to arise from the installation of wind farms. Salon.com film critic Andrew O'Hehir writes that Laura Israel's documentary is "a tantalizing case study that suggests ordinary people still have the power to steer a course between faceless bureaucracies and greedy capitalists, but only just - and only if they can find a way to overcome their differences and work together." DVD only, with bonus footage and interviews and a resource guide.

 

"The Pruitt-Igoe Myth" (First Run) looks at the heralded 1956 public housing project that became a symbol of urban disaster in St. Louis. Reviews here. DVD only, with commentary, additional interviews, and the archival documentary short "More Than One Thing" from 1969.

 

"Man on a Mission" (First Run) is Richard Garriott, the gaming millionaire who bought a seat on a Russian Soyuz rocket. Reviews here. DVD only, with the short film "Apogee of Fear" (which was filmed in space) and bonus featurettes.

 

"Something Ventured" (Zeitgeist) explores the history and business of venture capitalism. Reviews here. DVD and digital download.

 

"Dragonslayer" (First Run), about skateboarder Josh "Skreech" Sandoval, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at SXSW 2011. Reviews here. DVD only.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for May 15

 

"Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season" (eOne) turns the building of the transcontinental railway into the forge that created the new America in the aftermath of the Civil War. This is not a romantic vision of brotherhood, however, but a dark drama of the savage past made for cable TV. That means mud, blood, graft, vengeance, and a hotbed of racial conflict surrounding the construction of the railroad.

 

The title, which doesn't mince words in selling the show's sensibility, is also the name of the tent village that follows the railroad construction, a migrating town that serves as base camp, bunker, and the industry of followers, from bars to brothels to a tent church determined to save souls from the hell around them.

 

Anson Mount stars as Confederate veteran Cullen Bohannan, who follows the trail of the Union renegades who murdered his wife and family to the railroad camp and ends up as the crew foreman, a job he takes only as cover for his mission. Common is Elam, a former slave who hasn't found much opportunity in the wake of emancipation and the hangover of post-slavery racism. A murder wraps their destinies together, first as wary conspirators, then as allies. We're not talking blood brothers here, but in a mercenary world where life is cheap and justice owned by the railroad boss (Colm Meaney), they find they can trust one another, and that saves both of their lives more than once.

 

Dominique McElligott co-stars as a widowed surveyor who choose stay on with the rough but exciting project rather than return to the constraints of society, and a whole world of characters revolved around the story: the preacher with a past (Tom Noonan, who is brilliant), the Christian Indian (Eddie Spears), the brutal Norwegian camp enforcer (Christopher Heyerdahl), a pair of young Irish entrepreneurs, and a tough hooker who carries the brand of her past as a captive of the Indians for all to see.

 

American Movie Classics commissioned the show to build on their growing slate of acclaimed originals ("Mad Men," "Breaking Bad," "The Walking Dead") and it's an impressive physical production, hewn out of the Alberta wilderness locations and shot in shades of earth and steel and gunpowder. It hasn't yet found a way to turn the interesting mix of personal conflict, racial tension, survivalist mentality, and the volatility of a tent city populated by violent, brutal, angry men, into a story as compelling as their best shows, but it's promising enough to bring me back for the second season.

 

10 episodes on three discs on both Blu-ray and DVD. Both include the original featurette "Recreating the Past: The Making of Hell on Wheels" and the short video piece "Crashing a Train: From Concept to Camera," but these cobbled-together pieces are less polished than the 30-minutes of promotional featurettes made for AMC.

 

Also includes short video character profiles, five-minute "Inside the Episode" featurettes for each episode of the show, and 24 minutes of additional behind-the-scenes footage.

See the season trailer below, after the jump.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for May 15

 

"Chronicle" (Fox) brings the "found footage" aesthetic to the superhero / coming of age drama to observe that with great power sometimes comes great irresponsibility. In this low-budget twist on the genre, three high school buddies -- a cross-section of familiar types -- are the recipients of enormous telekinetic powers bestowed by close encounter with an extraterrestrial crystal, and then proceed to record their experiments for posterity.

 

"[T]he movie, directed by Josh Trank from a script by Trank and Max Landis (son of director and genre sponge John Landis, and it shows), finds a multiplicity of perspectives from which to cheat," confesses MSN film critic Glenn Kenny, in its approach to the spectacle of their antics.

 

Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell, and Dane DeHaan play the three students -- the popular kid, the smart kid, and the angry outcast kid, respectively -- and their response to sudden power follows accordingly.

 

"The "your near-supernatural powers are lots of fun, until they're not!" theme heralds back to the B classic "X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes," in which the hero enjoys seeing through women's blouses and beating the house in Vegas until he begins to see too much; at which point the movie begins to take on more of a resemblance to the grade-Z obscurity "Horror High," in which the unpleasant high school nerd becomes more unpleasant via chemicals and offs his classmates."

Kenny confirms that "Chronicle" is "quite a bit more inventive in its mayhem depictions than that picture was," Kenny continues, affirming that it is "a reasonably engrossing and occasionally inventive piece of sci-fi schlock."

 

The DVD features a few pre-visualization animatics and camera tests. The Blu-ray+DVD Combo Packs adds only a deleted, but features both the PG-13 theatrical version and a longer, unrated Director's Cut.

 

Also available via digital download, and On Demand.

Trailer below, at the "More" jump.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for May 15

 

New Releases:

"The Grey" (Universal) drops Liam Neeson in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness and pits him against a pack of ravenous wolves in Joe Carnahan's muscular survival thriller. MSN film critic Glenn Kenny appreciates that Carnahan "tries to come to terms with what one really needs, steely attitude aside, to survive in an environment in which literally everything is against you." Blu-ray, DVD, digital download, and On Demand

 

"Chronicle" (Fox) brings the "found footage" aesthetic to the superhero / coming of age drama to observe that with great power sometimes comes great irresponsibility, and comes up with what MSN film critic Glenn Kenny describes as "a reasonably engrossing and occasionally inventive piece of sci-fi schlock." Blu-ray, DVD, digital download, and On Demand

 

"Rampart" (Millennium), co-written by James Ellroy and featuring Woody Harrelson as a renegade L.A. cop in the wake of the Rampart scandals, earned Harrelson an acting nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards. Blu-ray, DVD, digital download, and On Demand

 

"Albert Nobbs" (Lionsgate) earned Oscar nominations for Glenn Close and Janet McTeer for playing women living their lives as men to get better jobs in Victorian-era  Ireland. Blu-ray, DVD, digital download, and On Demand

 

Also new this week: Katherine Heigl as a bounty hunter in "One For the Money" (Lionsgate) and the "found footage" horror "The Devil Inside" (Paramount), both on Blu-ray, DVD, digital download, and On Demand. Foreign films include "Norwegian Wood" (New Video) from Japan and "Michael" (Strand) from Austria, both DVD only.

 

TV on Disc:

"Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season" (eOne) turns the building of the transcontinental railway into forge that created the new America in the aftermath of the Civil War, cable style. That means mud, blood, graft, vengeance, and a hotbed of racial conflict surrounding the construction of the railroad. Anson Mount and Common star. 10 episodes on three discs on both Blu-ray and DVD.

 

"The Runaway" (BFS), a British TV mini-series from 2010, stars Jack O'Connell and Joanna Vanderham as star-crossed lover in the turbulent culture of the London underworld between 1966 and 1976. Alan Cumming and Ken Stott co-star in the four-hour-plus drama based on the Martina Cole novel. DVD only.

 

"Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel" (PBS) profiles the author of "Gone With the Wind" for the PBS showcase "American Masters." DVD only.

 

Cool, Classic and Cult:

"Being John Malkovich" (Criterion), a devastatingly funny portrait of unhappiness, desperation, desire, and the vicious things we do for love, catapulted Spike Jonze from music video wunderkind to visionary director and Charlie Kaufman from sitcom scribe to brilliant screenwriter. It 1999 it was fresh and daring and inventive, and more than ten years later it is as timely and topical as ever, and just as inventive, surprising, devastating, and compassionate. Criterion remasters the film for Blu-ray and DVD and fills it with excellent supplements.

 

"1900" (Olive), Bernardo Bertolucci’s sprawling 1976 epic of Italy's volatile history in the years between the World Wars, stars Gerard Depardieu and Robert De Niro as childhood friends turned bitter enemies on opposite sides of the political battle lines. The complete 315-minute director's cut is presented on three discs on Blu-ray and DVD.

 

"No Room for Rock Stars " (Shout! Factory) is a documentary on the long-running Vans Warped Tour, and "Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods" (Halo Eight) profiles one of the most influential writers in comics.

 

Blu-ray Debuts:

"Walking Tall: The Trilogy" (Shout! Factory) remasters the original 1973 southern fried vigilante thriller, starring Joe Don Baker as Tennessee Sheriff Bufford Pusser, along with the two sequels (with Bo Svenson walking into the role). The original isn't particularly good but it was a hit and a cultural touchstone, and it's far superior to the sequels. All three films have been remastered in widescreen editions for the Blu-ray debut. Also on DVD.

 

"The War" (Paramount), Ken Burns' 2007 documentary mini-series, takes on the good war and the greatest generation with his trademark approach, spending 15 hours getting to know the people and culture behind the history. Six discs.

 

"Terminal Velocity" (Mill Creek), starring Charlie Sheen as a hot-dogging skydiving instructor turned action hero, is preposterously entertaining, in part because Sheen knows not to take it all too seriously.

 

Also new: "Bringing Down the House: 10th Anniversary Edition" (Touchstone) and the double feature "Father of the Bride / Father of the Bride Part II" (Touchstone) with Steven Martin, and the conspiracy thriller "The Odessa File" (Image) with Jon Voight.

 

New on Netflix Instant:

"Killer Elite" (2011) is not a remake of the Sam Peckinpah thriller but it does pit elite killers (Jason Statham, Robert DeNiro and Clive Owen) in a fight to the death.

 

"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" (2011), from producer/screenwrite​r Guillermo del Toro, is a remake of the 1973 haunted house TV movie, with Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce.

 

"Adaptation" (2002), the second headgame collaboration between Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, makes a nice follow-up to the new Criterion release of "Being John Malkovich."

 

Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima" (2007) is a thoughtful portrait of the battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the defending Japanese army.

 

Plus, for all you cult  movie fans, a veritable film festival of Roger Corman movies has been made available this month, from "The House of Usher" (1960) and "Premature Burial" (1962) to "The Trip" (1967) and "Gas-s-s-s" (1970).

 

Available from Redbox this week:

Day and date with video stores: the Oscar-nominated "Albert Nobbs" (Lionsgate) on DVD, and "One For the Money" (Lionsgate), "Rampart" (Millennium), and "The Devil Inside" (Paramount), all on DVD and Blu-ray. See new releases above.

 

Also arriving in Redbox kiosks this week is "Let the Bullets Fly" (Well Go), a crazy action comedy from China starring Chow Yun-fat, and the flashback release of the week is the original "Men in Black" (Sony), in anticipation of the new sequel coming to theaters.

 

For a calendar of upcoming releases, click here

 

For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon III, which runs from Sunday, May 13 through Friday, May 18, 2012, is dedicated to helping the National Film Preservation Foundation raise money to score and stream the recently unearthed reels of The White Shadow, a silent film from director Graham Cutts that young Alfred Hitchcock worked on as screenwriter, production designer, editor, and assistant director, for all to enjoy. The blogathon is hosted by Ferdy on Films, Self-Styled Siren, and This Island Rod, and you can make your donations to that effort at the NFPF website here.

 

While most participants so far have chosen to focus on Hitchcock, I have chosen to wrote about topics close to my heart: silent film and the preservation and restoration of films of the silent era.

 

Director Tod Browning and actor Lon Chaney made ten features together between 1919 and 1929. Of those films, "London After Midnight" (1927) is lost (a "photo reconstruction" was created by Rick Schmidlin in 2002) and remains one of the holy grails of film hunters, but seven of the other nine are currently available in good to superb home video editions. Given the state of silent film preservation (experts figure that 90% of all silent movies are lost), that's an impressive number, probably due more to the star power of Chaney than anything else.

 

Given the state of home video sales, however, it is astounding that so many are available on DVD, and that is in large part thanks to the Warner Archive Collection, the pioneering manufacture-on-deman​d line from Warner Home Video. "The Unholy Three" (1925) was released in 2010 and three more collaborations have just been made available: "The Black Bird" (1926), "West of Zanzibar" (1928), and "Where East is East" (1929), their final collaboration before Chaney's death in 1930, at the age of 44, before he was able to take the lead in Browning's upcoming production of "Dracula."

 

Lon Chaney was known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces" for his dedication to elaborate make-up effects, but what made his creations so compelling was his complete physical transformation (the Hunchback and the Phantom of the Opera required very painful prosthetics), finding ways to externalize the inner torments and conflicted drives of his heroes, villains, and victims.

 

The prolific Chaney consistently brought a weird edge to most all of his roles, but only Tod Browning, a director with a taste for obsessive and tormented characters, encouraged him to reach for truly wild and twisted incarnations. They were one of the defining director / actor teams of twenties, united in their love of tragic, exotic, often grotesque characters, and the way they reveled in the extremes and the contradictions of the exaggerated figures.

 

In "The Black Bird," Chaney splits that conflicted characterization into two separate personae: the Limehouse crook Dan Tate and the crippled preacher Bishop, the "secret identity" that Dan wears in the daytime that blossoms into a split personality. Is Bishop's benevolence just a pose, or a repressed part of his personality that only comes out when he takes on the elaborate physical handicap? It's not just a matter of Chaney going all out for the physical performance, mind you, it's the way the character of Dan Tate himself is so committed to his alter ego that it becomes as real as he is.

 

Vengeance, another consistent emotional engine for both Browning and Chaney, drives "West of Zanzibar" (1928), which is as wickedly twisted as anything Browning has made. Chaney is Phroso, a vaudeville magician cuckolded by his beautiful wife and stage assistant, and crippled when her lover Crane (Lionel Barrymore) pushes him over a balcony. Chaney transforms Phroso into a wretched figure, so consumed with hate and revenge that he spends 18 years preparing his plan in the jungles of the Congo, living as a self-made god among the cannibals while having Crane's illegitimate daughter raised in a Zanzibar brothel. Just which of these two men, Crane (now an ivory trader in the Congo) or Phroso (king of his corner of hell), is the worst villain is a fair question at this stage of the film.

 

 

New Releases:

"Underworld: Awakening" (Sony), the fourth film in the cyberpunk horror film / action movie hybrid of vampires, werewolves, and the humans caught in crossfire of their underworld war, brings back Kate Beckinsale as the vampire assassin in black leather fetish gear. Blu-ray, DVD, OnDemand and at Redbox kiosks. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"The Vow" (Sony) is a Nicholas Sparks-esque romantic drama starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum in a tale of amnesia and willpower. Blu-ray, DVD, OnDemand and at Redbox kiosks.

 

"Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie" (Magnolia) is the feature film version of the uber-cheap skit series created by and starring Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, and "Mother's Day" (Anchor Bay) is the remake of 1980 horror film, directed by "Saw" series veteran Darren Lynn Bousman and starring Rebecca De Mornay as mother. Both on Blu-ray and DVD.

 

Also new this week: the surf drama "Beautiful Wave" (Anchor Bay), the Spanish drama "Amador" (Film Movement) and "The Kreutzer Sonata" (Kimstim / Zeitgeist) with Danny Huston.

 

Browse the complete New Release Rack here

  

TV on Disc:

"Chuck: The Complete Fifth and Final Season" (Warner) brings the nerd spy fantasy to a close with 13 strong episodes and a farewell made to satisfy the passionate fan base that kept the show alive despite struggling ratings. I wasn't one of its devotees, but I always enjoyed the show and the final run is clever, fun, and so generous with its characters that it made me a convert. Blu-ray and DVD, both featuring Ultraviolet digital copies. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"The Big C: The Complete Second Season" (Sony) brings another season of Laura Linney facing cancer by living her life to its fullest. 13 episodes on three discs, DVD only. Reviewed on Videodrone here.

 

"Cold War: The Complete Series" (Warner) presents the complete 24-part award-winning 1998 series, and "Dark Shadows: The Complete Original Series" (MPI) collects all 1225 episodes of the gothic soap opera on 131 discs in a custom coffin shaped box.

 

Flip through the TV on Disc Channel Guide here

 

Cool, Classic and Cult:

"Ganja & Hess" (Kino) is one of the most unusual vampire films ever made, an art film under the guise of a blaxploitation shocker, with "Night of the Living Dead" star Duane Jones as an anthropologist under the influence of an ancient African strain of vampirism. Blu-ray and DVD. Reviewed on Videodrone here.

 

"A Hollis Frampton Odyssey" (Criterion) collects twenty-four films made by the avant-garde filmmaker between 1966 to 1979, plus select commentary by filmmaker. Blu-ray and DVD.

 

"Shock Labyrinth 3D" (Well Go) is Japanese horror from Takashi Shimizu (of "Ju-On" and "The Grudge" fame) and "The One That Got Away" (VCI) is a World War II POW escape thriller starring Hardy Kruger.

And on the MOD Movies front is Warren William in "The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady" (Sony Pictures Choice Collection) and a batch of outdoor adventures from Warner Archive, including "Northwest Passage" and "Westward the Women." Reviews at the MOD Movies round-up here.

 

All of the Cool, Classic and Cult here

  

Blu-ray Debuts:

"The Big Heat" (Twilight Time), Fritz Lang's 1953 film noir masterpiece, transforms Glenn Ford from family man to avenging vigilante with the mob murders his wife. It's one of my all-time favorite films and I never expected to see it on Blu-ray. Thank you, Twilight Time. Reviewed on Videodrone here.

 

"Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (Warner) is the rare sequel that is funnier than its original and one of the funniest films of the nineties. Or ever. Joe Dante creates one of the great live-action cartoons of all time. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"Dirty Dancing Collection" (Warner) doubles up the nostalgic 1987 hit starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey with the 2004 pseudo sequel with Diego Luna and Romola Garai in 1958 Cuba. “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!” Not even the Cuban Revolution.

 

Also new: "La haine" (Criterion), Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 portrait of life in the ghettoes of the Paris suburbs, and "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (Twilight Time), the colorful 1959 version of the Jules Verne science fantasy starring James Mason, Arlene Dahl, and Pat Boone.

 

Peruse all the new Blu-rays here

 

New on Netflix Instant:

Two seventies classics from Sidney Lumet arrive this week: "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975) with Al Pacino and "Network" (1976) with Faye Dunaway and William Holden.

 

"Groundhog Day" (1993) with Bill Murray is just as serious, but it's so funny you may not notice, and "Big Night" (1996), a modest character piece with Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, is just as much fun.

 

Also new: the Israeli drama "Ajami" (2009), Gus Van Sant’s "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989), and the wily cult horror comedy "Bubba Ho-Tep" (2003) with Bruce Campbell.

 

Browse more Instant offerings here

  

Available from Redbox this week:

Day and date with video stores: "The Vow" (Sony) with Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum, and "Underworld: Awakening" (Sony) with Kate Beckinsale armed with fangs and guns, both on DVD and Blu-ray. Also new is the surf drama "Beautiful Wave" (Anchor Bay) and the horror movie remake "Mother's Day" (Anchor Bay).

 

Coming next week:

"The Grey" (Universal)

"Chronicle" (Fox)

"One For the Money" (Lionsgate)

"Albert Nobbs" (Lionsgate)

"The Devil Inside" (Paramount)

"Rampart" (Millennium)

"Norwegian Wood" (New Video)

"1900" (Olive)

"Being John Malkovich" (Criterion)

"Walking Tall: The Trilogy" (Shout! Factory)

"Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season" (eOne)

"The War" (Paramount)

"The Odessa File" Blu-ray (Image)

"Terminal Velocity" Blu-ray (Mill Creek)

For more upcoming releases, click here

 

 

"Dog Day Afternoon" (1975) reunites "Serpico" star Al Pacino and director Sidney Lumet for a gritty, funny, electric drama about a failed New York bank robbery turned gripping hostage situation turned energetic media circus. Based on a real incident, it's shot by Lumet on the streets with a documentary-like immediacy and a dramatic intensity that builds on complications both surprising and startlingly real. John Cazale is his accomplice here, Charles Durning is the police detective trying to keep the situation under control as crowds start cheering for the robbers ("Attica! Attica!"), and Chris Sarandon earned an Academy Award nomination in a small but memorable role as Pacino's lover.

 

"Network" (1976), written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, is a brilliantly scathing satire of the business of television news and the sacrifice of responsibility for ratings that predicted the era of tabloid TV and reality TV. It's also a fascinating and entertaining piece of satirical drama, thanks to the self-conscious theatrics of Chayefsky ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"), the terrific performances (especially William Holden as the only human left at the end of this profit-ringing process) and Lumet's steady eye keeping the real world into perspective as the news becomes a veritable circus sideshow.

 

On first glance, "Groundhog Day" (1993) might appear to be just another high concept Bill Murray comedy, but it turns into one of the most affirming -- and funny -- films every made about personal awakening. Director/co-writer Harold Ramis takes a clever idea (smug, self-centered Murray is doomed to relive the same day over and over and over again), pushes it to the ultimate reaches of madness (Murray's character quite literally goes through the seven stages of dying as he tries to cope) and emerges on the other side with a rare comedy which is both hilarious and heartfelt, an almost spiritual story of rebirth refreshingly free of preachy moralizing and mawkish sentimentality.

 

Actors turned directors Stanley Tucci & Campbell Scott collaborated on "Big Night" (1996), a modest character driven piece anchored by excellent performances by Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as Italian brothers struggling to make a go of their failing restaurant in New York. The plot revolves around the efforts to put on a special dinner for a visiting celebrity to capture some publicity, but the story is in the characters and their relationships, especially between Tucci and Shalhoub.

 

"Drugstore Cowboy" (1989), Gus Van Sant’s down beat tale of gypsy drug addicts, mixes low key style and hallucinatory imagery with the grungy details of the sleepy day-to-day life of dead end druggies. Matt Dillon turns around his teen rebel image as the heist mastermind and group leader and William S. Burroughs makes a memorable appearance as the aging junkie Tom the Priest. It's still one of Van Sant's best movies.

 

If you're adventurous and looking to discover something special that you may have never heard about, try "Ajami" (2009), a foreign drama set in the volatile Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, where Israelis, Arabs and Palestinians live in a wary détente surrounded by crime, mistrust and retribution. What begins as a conventional drama of intolerance and cultural disconnection becomes a nuanced portrait of life in a civilian warzone.

 

On the cult front is "Bubba Ho-Tep" (2003), starring Bruce Campbell as a gloomy senior citizen who claims to be Elvis (and just might be) and Ossie Davis, spouting conspiracy theories that would make Oliver Stone giggle from a whirring electric wheelchair, as a restless codger who insists that he is John F. Kennedy. Don Coscarelli’s weirdly inspired, unclassifiable horror comedy, adapted from a Joe Lansdale story, wraps JFK conspiracies and Elvis sightings around a mummy movie set in a drab Texas retirement home, awry, underplayed little piece torn between the absurdities of its inspired premise and the melancholy ruminations of a dethroned King who drove away everyone he loved and now rots away in near solitude.

 

"Tale from the Crypt: Demon Knight" (1994), directed by Ernest Dickerson, is a stylish take on a formulaic story, done up with dark humor and filled with a cast of lively, outsized characters under fire from the devil, who has them trapped in a veritable haunted mansion. William Sadler takes a rare heroic role and give the role genuine poignancy, while Billy Zane brings a sneering theatrical flair to his role as a seductive demon.

 

And from the small screen comes "Primeval: Season 5" (2001), the British series about a covert team that tracks temporal anomolies -- time cracks between the present and the prehistoric era -- and the creatures (mostly dinosaurs) that wander through them. The budget-minded CGI creatures are good enough for the pulp premise of the show and if the plotting gets a little contrived (how many times can you bend a character's personality to make a plot twist work?), it still hold its own with the average SyFy Channel original. Which is just where this show finds its fan base.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for May 8