DVD Recent Picks

April 2009

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Young @ Heart.
"The questions start as soon as you know that Young@Heart is about a group of singing senior citizens as they prepare for and then perform a concert with a repertoire consisting of songs by the likes of Coldplay, Sonic Youth, and James Brown. Can this premise, basically a novelty, sustain itself for nearly two hours? Will the director give in to the temptation to make it schmaltzy and sentimental? Will we be laughing at these oldsters, or with them? The answers: yes, no, and a little of both. Directed by British filmmaker Stephen Walker, the 2007 film takes place primarily in Northampton, MA, home to the Young@Heart chorus, whose average age is 80. Most readily admit to preferring classical and musicals to the pop and rock given to them by music director Bob Cilman, and some of the tunes--Sonic Youth’s "Schizophrenia," Allen Toussaint’s "Yes We Can Can" (once a hit for the Pointer Sisters), and Brown’s "I Got You (I Feel Good)"--prove especially vexing. But the singers’ good natures and determination to master the material over some six weeks of rehearsals carry the day. Most of all, while they thoroughly enjoy themselves, it’s no joke to them, and thus not to us, either." (Amazon.com)

RocknRolla.
"The film career of Guy Ritchie has endured a few bumps in recent years, with a collection of generally forgettable films from a man clearly capable of so much more. Thank goodness then for RocknRolla, which marks a smashing return to form, as he heads once more to the criminal underworld of London. This time, Ritchie is playing far closer to the likes of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and while RocknRolla may see the director playing on safer ground than of late, it doesn’t take long for the decision to be vindicated. The plot surrounds a real-estate job with millions at stake, and it gives ample excuse to unleash a collection of raw gangsters and tough guys into the mix, who each fancy a bit of the action. Thus, RocknRolla brings together Gerard Butler’s Scottish gangster, Tom Wilkinson’s London crime lord, Toby Kebbell’s drug-addicted musician and the likes of Thandie Newton, Mark Strong and Jeremy Piven too. And Ritchie’s cast serve him really well, making ample mileage out of the lines they’re given. Granted, all of this is hardly fresh territory for the director, but RocknRolla is nonetheless funny, action-packed and a good British mob film to while away an evening with." (Amazon.com)

Then she found me.
"Like all the most intriguing titles, Then She Found Me lends itself to multiple interpretations. Does "she" refer to New York talk-show host Bernice (Bette Midler, in a welcome return to the screen), the self-proclaimed birth parent who enters the life of schoolteacher April (Oscar winner Helen Hunt) upon the death of her adoptive mother? Or does the pronoun refer to April, who meets divorced dad Frank (Colin Firth) the day her marriage to co-worker Ben (Matthew Broderick) comes to an abrupt halt? The surprising conclusion to Hunt's directorial debut suggests a third interpretation. In adapting Elinor Lipman's novel, Hunt treads well-worn ground, but does so with grace and sensitivity. When Ben walks out on his 39-year-old wife, she fears he's left with her chances of having a baby. As much as she enjoyed her childhood, April would prefer not to adopt, and with the support of her non-adopted brother, Freddy (Ben Shenkman), she struggles to reconcile her warm feelings towards the awkward Frank with her chilly reaction to the slippery Bernice. When April finds out she's pregnant, further complications ensue. Though Then She Found Me circles Lifetime movie-of-the-week territory, Hunt resists the urge to smooth away her characters’ rough edges, investing her film with the crackle of real life." (Amazon.com)

Burn after reading.
"After the dark brilliance of No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading may seem like a trifle, but few filmmakers elevate the trivial to art quite like Joel and Ethan Coen. Inspired by Stansfield Turner's Burn Before Reading, the comically convoluted plot clicks into gear when the CIA gives analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) the boot. Little does Cox know his wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton, riffing on her Michael Clayton character), is seeing married federal marshal Harry (George Clooney, Swinton's Clayton co-star, playing off his Syriana role). To get back at the Agency, Cox works on his memoirs. Through a twist of fate, fitness club workers Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt in a pompadour that recalls Johnny Suede) find the disc and try to wrangle a "Samaratin tax" out of the surly alcoholic. An avid Internet dater, Linda plans to use the money for plastic surgery. Though it sounds like a Beltway remake of The Big Lebowski, this time the brothers concentrate their energies on the myriad insecurities endemic to the mid-life crisis--with the exception of Chad, who's too dense to share such concerns, leading to the funniest performance of Pitt's career." (Amazon.com)

Chalk.
"Using his high school teaching experience as impetus, director Mike Akel made Chalk to encourage school reform through enlightening viewers to the challenges teachers face. This comedic mockumentary capitalizes on four teachers' frustrations during the course of their school semester, by interviewing them individually as well as placing them together in scenes depicting faculty meetings, school spelling bees, and happy hours at a local bar. Allegedly real, though clearly ironic in the style of Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman or Spinal Tap, Chalk's characters expose themselves as actors through subtle hints, such as when P.E. Coach Webb (Janelle Schremmer) states her heterosexuality outright in her introduction to the camera. Two history teachers, Mr. Lowrey (Troy Schremmer), the bumbling beginner, and Mr. Stroope (Chris Mass), who aggressively pursues the Teacher of the Year award, act as polar opposites to illustrate how neither whimpy coddling nor harsh militarism will work in the classroom. As Lowrey complains in the teacher's lounge that someone has stolen his yogurt from the fridge, Stroope's in the field shooting cans to blow off stress. Ultimately, the comedy makes way for touching scenes showing Mr. Lowrey's major improvement, and the realization that America loses many of its best teachers to messy academic infrastructure, lack of teacher support and financial hardship, making Chalk entertaining but also politically astute." (Amazon.co.uk)

How to lose friends & alienate people.
"How to Lose Friends and Alienate People may just be the first true British film--and a splendid one at that--to be set on American soil. The fearless actor Simon Pegg plays Sidney Young, a Fleet Street hatchet writer tapped to come to the States to join the literati, and glitterati, at a big, fat, glossy magazine--every resemblance of which to Vanity Fair is strictly intentional. Sidney is possibly the most annoying man in the Western world, tilting at nonexistent windmills. His character calls to mind many of the hapless charmers played by Hugh Grant--but Pegg, without Grant's raffish good looks, comes across as simply hapless. Which is perfect casting, since Sidney is supposed to be enormously aggravating, especially when he first lands in New York. In his first few days in the city, Sidney puts off the first magazine colleague he met (Kirsten Dunst, in a top-flight comic turn), wears a wildly inappropriate T-shirt on his first day of work, spritzes fast food onto the designer white suit of a relative of the publisher, and picks up a tranny hooker. And things go downhill from there. Dunst is delicate but steely, and her comedic timing, under the deft direction of Robert B. Weide (Curb Your Enthusiasm), is spot on. Great supporting work, too, by editor Jeff Bridges, whose enthrallment to the power elite, and silver mane, channel Graydon Carter; by Gillian Anderson, as a take-no-prisoners publicist; and by Megan Fox, a starlet cast as a bosom-heaving Mother Teresa. Sidney, and the film, will win you over, with a lot of laughter along the way." (Amazon.com)

I could never be your woman.
"I Could Never Be Your Woman is an Amy Heckerling film in the very best sense: very funny, culturally relevant, a little bitter and a little sweet. Heckerling's body of work is often labeled inconsistent: On the plus side, you have teen classics Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, both of which captured the '80s and '90s zeitgeists perfectly and were huge commercial and critical successes. On the other, more disappointing side, we find the Look Who's Talking trilogy and A Night at the Roxbury. After her last foray behind the camera, the mildly funny but pretty uninteresting film The Loser, Heckerling has come back with an extremely entertaining and likeable movie that has unfortunately been overshadowed by a lot of controversy regarding the film's release and studio politics. I Could Never Be Your Woman is a movie about Rosie, a divorced woman in her 40s (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the younger man she falls in love with (the perennially likeable Paul Rudd). It is also a movie about youth-obsessed Hollywood, celebrity culture, and the inevitability of aging. Rosie is the mother of a teenage daughter (Atonement's Saoirse Ronan) and struggles to raise her daughter apart from the warped narcissistic values of Hollywood, while being in a position of perpetuating those same values (Pfeiffer plays the creator and producer of a teen TV show). While the movie is otherwise a jumbled mess of themes and plot points, Heckerling succeeds in keeping it cohesive. With this A-list cast, Heckerling's strong pedigree, and a genuinely enjoyable script, this is a film that didn't deserve a straight-to-video-release." (Amazon)

Quantum of Solace.
"Daniel Craig hasn't lost a step since Casino Royale--this James Bond remains dangerous, a man who could earn that license to kill in brutal hand-to-hand combat… but still look sharp in a tailored suit. And Quantum of Solance itself carries on from the previous film like no other 007 movie, with Bond nursing his anger from the Casino Royale storyline and vowing blood revenge on those responsible. For the new plot, we have villain Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), intent on controlling the water rights in impoverished Third World nations and happy to overthrow a dictator or two to get his way. Olga Kurylenko is very much in the "Bond girl" tradition, but in the Ursula Andress way, not the Denise Richards way. And Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, and Giancarlo Giannini are welcome holdovers. If director Marc Forster and the longtime Bond production team seem a little too eager to embrace the continuity-shredding style of the Bourne pictures (especially in a nearly incomprehensible opening car chase), they nevertheless quiet down and get into a dark, concentrated groove soon enough. Of course it all comes down to Craig. And he kills." (Amazon.com)

Pineapple Express.
"The latest bro-mance from team Apatow (the guys who brought us Superbad, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Pineapple Express is the story of Dale Denton (Seth Rogan) and Saul Silver (James Franco), a pothead and his dealer who accidently get caught up in a drug war between two gangs with some corrupt cops, high-school girls and small-time henchmen thrown in for good measure. At its core, Pineapple Express is a stoner comedy--a tale of two semi-slow giggling and loveable idiots in way over their heads--this formula has made for some entertaining comedy over the years, Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke and Dave Chappell's Half Baked being two of the best examples. What sets Pineapple Express apart from these silly classics however, is the consistency of the humor, the perfect chemistry between Rogan and Franco and the giddily ridiculous action sequences (and the fact that even mild intoxication is not required to enjoy the humor). The movie retains the sweetness that is present in most of Apatow's films, making the characters’ poor choices and ultra-violent actions somehow justifiable, or at least relatable." (Amazon.com)

The Counterfeiters
"A deft blend of suspense and docudrama, Stefan Ruzowitzky's sixth feature focuses on history's largest counterfeiting operation. Before World War II breaks out, Salomon Sorowitsch (the compact yet steely Karl Markovics), a Russian-born Jew, lives the good life in Berlin. He forges documents, like passports and banknotes, and sketches beautiful women to the romantic strains of tango records. Sorowitsch's dolce vita comes to an end when he's sent to Mauthausen concentration camp. Once Reich officials decide to deploy imprisoned printers, craftsmen, and bank officials to counterfeit foreign currency, they draft Sorowitsch for "Operation Bernhard" and ship him to Sachsenhausen. Though he and his colleagues receive preferential treatment, the threat of execution hangs over their heads at all times. First, they master the pound; then they tackle the American dollar. At this point, communist co-worker Adolf Burger (The Ninth Day's excellent August Diehl) suggests sabotage. Based on Burger's book The Devil's Workshop, Austria's Ruzowitzky (Anatomy) sheds a compassionate light on the guilt and complicity of survivors." (Amazon.com)

4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days.
"There was a loud outcry when Romania's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days failed to garner a 2008 Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, and it could certainly be argued that this extraordinary movie was unfairly overlooked. At the very least, had it been nominated, it would have offered a stark contrast to Best Picture contender Juno. Whereas the latter is a funny, touching tale of a teenage girl who decides to find more suitable parents for her soon-to-be-born child, 4 Months is a decidedly bleak look at a time and place when one of the two alternatives to adoption (i.e., keeping the child) is beyond consideration and the other is an illegal, highly dangerous last resort. It takes a while for the viewer to realize that abortion is the subject of director Cristian Mungiu's film; for the first 40 minutes or so, all we know is that Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), college roommates in a country still controlled by the Ceausescu dictatorship, are up to something they'd prefer to keep secret. Gabita, it develops, is pregnant. She is also an innocent, scared screw-up who's unable to handle any of the necessary details involved in solving her problem, which obliges the far more capable Otilia to take care of everything from booking the hotel and meeting the abortionist to buying black market cigarettes for the pair. What follows is anything but cute, clever, or romantic. Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the abortionist, is a straightforward but frightening character who demands more than money for his services. And if Oscar voters missed the boat, many other didn't: among numerous other plaudits for the film was the '07 Palme d'Or at Cannes." (Amazon.com)

Stop-loss.
"Kimberly Peirce's long-hatching follow-up to Boys Don't Cry is another issue-driven look at its era: Stop-Loss hinges on U.S. military policy allowing Iraq War soldiers to be returned to combat even after their official hitches are up. In this case, a band of brothers return to home turf in Brazos, Texas, only to discover that team leader Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) has gotten a Stop-Loss order to head back to the Middle East. After some flavorful sketches of small-town Texas life and the awkwardness of re-adjustment, the movie somewhat clumsily hits the road, where there's more wheel-spinning than deep insight. Peirce and co. seem to want to hit all the Iraq War bases, which may be one reason the film lacks a strong focus. Supporting soldiers Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are rather more interesting than Phillippe's brooding hero, and Abbie Cornish is stuck in a thankless town-between-two-lovers storyline. It's sincere as all get-out, but Stop-Loss feels like a project that began with an issue and a cause, rather than compelling characters." (Amazon.com)

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