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DVD Review: An Education
Sony Pictures | 2009 | 100 mins. | Rated PG-13
One of 2009’s critical darlings, An Education is a story reminiscent of an earlier time; one that’s purely character driven utilizes no special effects and emphasizes style over substance. Nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress for Carey Mulligan (Public Enemies), who gives a quietly moving performance, the quiet character study evolves into much more than it initially appears to be. Directed by Lone Scherfig and based on a screenplay penned by Nick Hornby for which the film received its third Academy Award nomination, An Education comes in at a rather lean 100 minutes, but still manages to be one of the most affecting coming-of-age stories to hit the big screen in a long time.
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DVD Review: Brothers
Lionsgate Films | 2009 | 104 mins. | Rated R
Director Jim Sheridan’s (My Left Foot, The Boxer) films usually offer viewers a powerful story with some surprising elements and great casting. Brothers, starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman is no exception; a remake of the 2004 Danish drama Brødre, the film uses a similar storyline but manages to pack an entirely different emotional wallop.
The film tells the story of two brothers. One always seems to make the right choices, the other, not so much. Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal), returning home after a stint in jail, is the black sheep in a small town military family. Sam (Tobey Maguire) is his brother’s polar opposite; clean cut and respectful, he’s a captain in the Marine Corps. A onetime football hero, who married his high school sweetheart, aptly named Grace (Natalie Portman) and has two young daughters, he’s about to ship out on another tour of Afghanistan.
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DVD Review: Alice in Wonderland (BBC Broadcast, 1966)
BBC | 1966 | 72 mins. | Not Rated
With the Johnny Depp/Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland now in theaters, several earlier adaptations of the Lewis Carroll classic have been re-released on video. Among them is the haunting, nightmarish 1966 BBC Television version written and directed by Jonathan Miller, and starring Peter Sellers, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Michael Redgrave, Wilfrid Brambell, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, John Bird, Leo McKern, and Anne-Marie Mallik as Alice. Best known for his work in Beyond the Fringe (which featured Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett) and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Miller’s Alice in Wonderland is notably dark and scary; clearly not aimed at younger fans.
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DVD Review: Up in the Air
Paramount Pictures | 2009 | 109 mins. | Rated R
There was a time, not that long ago when flying was an extravagance; only the wealthy could afford to do it regularly, and only corporate CEO’s regularly took business trips across the country and beyond. Now, casual flyers might board a plane once or twice a year for vacation, and many others criss-cross the world on plan after plane for business reasons. Most probably consider anyone who takes five or six flights a year a frequent flyer, but Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air takes the idea of the frequent flyer to a new level, not just as a mode of transport, but as a lifestyle.
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DVD Review: The Brothers Warner
Warner Bros. | 2008 | 94 Mins. | Unrated
These days with the major motion picture studios parts of much bigger business conglomerates, it’s easy to forget that it was individual men who initially built the film business into what it is today. Filmmaker Cass Warner Sperling is the granddaughter of Harry Warner, one of the four founding brothers of the Warner Brothers movie studio.
Harry and his brothers, Albert, Sam and Jack, began in the exhibition business, having acquired a movie projector with the sale of the family patriarch’s gold watch. They opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1903. By the end of World War I, the brothers began producing films, and in 1918 the brothers opened the Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. “The brother’s credo upon founding the studio was ‘to educate, to entertain and enlighten,” Cass says.
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DVD Review: Clint Eastwood – 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Brothers
Warner Bros | 1968-2008 | 19 Discs | Rated R
These days, Clint Eastwood is considered an American institution. With his 80th birthday nearly upon us, it’s amazing to realize he’s been an actor since the mid 1950’s, with a list of credits that spans for pages. By the 1970’s Eastwood had added director and producer to his name, and his legend only grew. While many slow down in their seventies, Eastwood has continued to work, producing some of the best material of his career. In 2003, he directed, co-produced and scored Mystic River, which earned Academy awards for Sean Penn and Tim Robbins and a Best Director nomination for Clint. In 2004, Eastwood directed Hilary Swank to a Best Actress Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, and notched another Best Director nomination.
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DVD Review: FlashFoward – Season One, Part One
Disney/Buena Vista | 2009 | 430 mins. | Not Rated
Created by Brannon Braga (24) and David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight), adapted from Robert J. Sawyer’s novel, FlashFoward appears to be a series that hopes to win over Lost fans by the time that series leaves the air by the end of this season. Whether the show will be the next Lost is debatable—generally a show is asking for trouble when it tries to be the next anything. Remember all those bad Friends knockoffs that popped up everywhere in the mid nineties after that show became a juggernaut? Anyway, there’s been a lot of buzz about FlashForward becoming the next Lost, as the two shows may or may not share some similar themes.
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DVD Review: Night Court – The Complete Third Season
Warner Bros. | 1985-86 | 526 mins. | Unrated
I was eleven-years-old when Night Court began airing in January of 1984, and a sophomore in college when the series took its final curtain call in 1992. Through all of those years, I was a pretty faithful watcher. The series, which centered on the night shift of a Manhattan Court, presided over by the young, unorthodox Judge Harold T. “Harry” Stone (Harry Anderson), was funny and inoffensive; the kind of show you could watch for a few lighthearted laughs after a tough day at school or work. Heavy topics were rarely addressed; this wasn’t L.A. Law, this was the law strictly for laughs.
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DVD Review: Elvis (1979)
Shout Factory | 1979 | 170 mins. | Not Rated
Airing on ABC just two years after his untimely death, Elvis was the first film to examine the life of the legendary entertainer. Directed by John Carpenter (Halloween, Big Trouble in Little China), the three-hour biopic ends in 1969, thus avoiding the last several years of Presley’s life where he seemed destined to become a Las Vegas has been; overweight, and decked out in oversized jumpsuits adorned with sequins. Instead, the screenplay, written by Anthony Lawrence, concentrates on the boy from Tupelo, Mississippi who managed to become one of the biggest entertainers in the world, and become the toast of Sin City despite a chorus of doubters.
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DVD Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox
20th Century Fox | 2009 | 87 mins. | Rated PG
Adapted from Roald Dahl’s book of the same name, Fantastic Mr. Fox is director Wes Anderson’s (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) first foray into full length stop-motion animation. Adapted for the screen by Anderson and Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), the first thing that struck me about this film was the look. One of the oldest animation styles available, stop-motion animation tends to make buildings and landscapes look rather picture booky; In the case of Fantastic Mr. Fox, the faces of the animals look almost lifelike. Most amazingly, their fur seems so real. Its details like this that serve to draw you into the story right from the first frame.
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