DVD Recent Picks

August 2010

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Bright star.
"Add Jane Campion's rich, sensuous, quietly thrilling Bright Star to the very short list of admirable films about writers. In this case the writer is John Keats (Ben Whishaw), the Romantic poet who died at age 25 believing himself a failure. The movie, set during his last several years, focuses on his playful friendship with and evolving love for Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), the independent-minded young woman who lived next door in Hampstead Village and was, in her own fashion, an artistic spirit. Completing an ineffably fraught constellation--not exactly a romantic triangle--is Keats's host Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider), who loves, esteems, and regards Keats with both pride and envy, and engages in an unstated rivalry for Fanny." (Amazon.co.uk)

The men who stare at goats.
"Hard to define but easy to enjoy, The Men Who Stare at Goats is the preposterous yet more-true-than-not story of a small-town journalist named Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) who, trying to prove himself in Iraq, stumbles upon a man named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) who claims to be a psychic spy for the U.S. Army. With dazzling cinematic efficiency, the movie bounces back and forth between the origins of the New Earth Army--a squad of American Jedi warriors--and Bob and Lyn wandering through war-torn Iraq, pursuing a mission that turns out to have been assigned by a vision. The movie shifts from giddy comedy to melancholy as a portrait of human pettiness, manifested in military paranoia and corporate greed, unfolds." (Amazon.com)

Nurse Jackie. Season one..
"This dark comedy series starring Emmy Award winning actress Edie Falco takes place in the surreal world of a New York City hospital, where Falco plays Jackie, a nurse battling the insanity of everyday life in the American health care system. Jackie is a genius at what she does, but she's also a deeply troubled woman, with looming shadows of prescription drug addiction and her lapsed Catholic faith always appearing in the background. Produced by the Showtime network, ‘Nurse Jackie’ never shrinks from tackling controversial content or hot button issues." (Amazon.com)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
"Terry Gilliam has long admired Marcel Carné's beautiful and tragic Children of Paradise (he even contributes an introduction to the Criterion Collection edition). In The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, among his more phantasmagorical features, Gilliam conjures up his own unique theatrical troupe. Led by the immortal Parnassus (Christopher Plummer, whose daughter, Amanda, appeared in The Fisher King), Anton (Boy A's Andrew Garfield), Percy (Verne Troyer), and the doctor's doll-faced daughter, Valentina (model Lily Cole), travel through 21st-century London in their stagecoach set. Times are tight and the quartet is starting to unravel when they rescue Tony, a philanthropist (Heath Ledger, reuniting with Gilliam for the last time), from the Russian mob." (Amazon.com)

Beautiful Kate.
"A writer, Ned Kendall, is asked to return to the family home by his sister Sally, to say goodbye to his father who is dying. The family home is in a very remote and isolated area. While back home, Ned starts having memories of his beautiful twin sister and himself when they were children. These memories awaken long-buried secrets from the family's past. Award winning actress Rachel Ward s stunning and handsome directorial debut, Beautiful Kate is the story of a family whose all too human mistakes lead to tragedy, recrimination, guilt and finally salvation. Told in parallel strands of past and present, the film recounts the sexual awakening of three siblings growing up in isolation, interwoven with the emotional journey of reconciliation between an estranged father and son." (Amazon.com)

Mad men. The complete third season.
"Everything about Mad Men is stylish, even when it's all falling apart. And in season 3 of this Emmy-winning drama, many things fall apart--marriages, childhood, even the ad agency itself--but the unspoolings play out delicately and tragically, making for utterly compelling television. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) appears to dedicate himself to being a devoted family man, with the impending birth of his third child with Betty (January Jones), but the premiere episode, "Out of Town," has him right back to his philandering ways. While the Drapers do enjoy a romantic interlude during a business trip to Italy that makes you wish those darn kids could just work it out, the writing's on the wall that this marriage is sputtering out." (Amazon.co.uk)

Precious.
"Not every movie can survive the kind of hype--multiple awards at Sundance and other festivals, rapturous reviews, the promise of Oscars to come--that greeted the release of Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, but this extraordinary piece of work is more than up to the task. What's particularly notable about the film's success and acclaim is that in the beginning, at least, it presents one of the grimmest scenarios imaginable. The scene is Harlem, New York, in 1987. Teenager Clarisse Precious Jones (played by newcomer Gabourey Sibide in an absolutely fearless performance) is dirt poor, morbidly obese, semiliterate, and pregnant for the second time--both courtesy of her own father (the first baby was born with Down syndrome)." (Amazon.com)

Spooks. 7
"The world of Spooks gets no easier for its occupants as the show arrives at its seventh season, as the team of counter-terrorist spies face a continued selection of substantive challenges. All of them, of course, they have to tackle without compromising their anonymity, and once more, it proves to be a tense, edge-of-your-seat drama. The big new addition for Spooks series 7 is Richard Armitage--fresh from Robin Hood--who plays Lucas North, a spy who returns to the team following years locked away in Russia. North, inevitably, attracts suspicion from those around him, with many wondering if he’s all he appears to be, and the script plays on this tremendously well." (Amazon.co.uk)

Rawhide. The complete first season
"Rawhide keeps "rollin', rollin', rollin'" and fans of one of TV's greatest Western series will not be disapprovin' of these episodes. A pre-spaghetti Western Clint Eastwood at his longest and leanest, and that classic theme song that Jake and Elwood popularized for a new generation who may have never seen an episode, may rope in buyers for this four-disc set. But nearly 50 years later, Rawhide is as timeless as those majestic landscapes (grandly filmed on location) trail boss Gil Favor (Eric Fleming) and his drovers rode across each week. What makes Rawhide so compelling are its human dramas. As a philosophical Favor notes in one episode, "The expected never seems to happen. The surprises are always poppin' up." (Amazon.co.uk)

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