A casserole of post-apocalyptic siege/road movie clichés and tropes, The Day tells the story of a band of armed, sick and downtrodden survivors looking for refuge and trying to stay alive. Take Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and cross-pollinate it with a couple dozen other more aggressively low-grade genre entries and the result is this very self-serious yet unoriginal offering, which doesn’t have anywhere near the imagination to match the mode of its telling.

Unfolding over the course of about 24 hours, The Day centers on a makeshift family of grungy, weary drifters (Dominic Monaghan, Shawn Ashmore, Shannyn Sossamon and Cory Hardrict) living off what they can in an irradiated wasteland. The newest member of their group is the sullen, uncommunicative Mary (Ashley Bell). With ammunition and other resources dwindling, the group takes shelter in a seemingly abandoned farmhouse, where they discover food. Unfortunately, they also set off a tripwire that summons a group of ruthless predators laying in wait. Some secrets come out, and after the requisite intense bickering, instead of fleeing, the group decides to make a stand.

Working with director of photography Boris Mojsovski, director Douglas Aarniokoski marshals an impressive display of low-budget visual palette wizardry; the color-drained, hand-held, almost entirely black-and-white cinematography (flashbacks occur in color) give the movie an undeniable sense of differentiation from many of its genre brethren. But The Day is also constructed in such a way that strives to lionize and fête its grittiness. A lot of shot selection is of the look-at-me! variety.

Bursts of violence, meant to be shocking, stud Luke Passmore’s script, which is more wan and indeterminate than mysterious and ambiguous. Since the characterizations are so thin and dialogue so lame, these bursts of action come across as desperate and grabby pleas for attention rather than unnerving markers of a civilization gone mad. And as The Day unfolds, nothing much of deeper interest or shading about its world comes into focus, making its 85-minute running time feel much longer than it is.

Then there are the performances. Given so little to work with, much of the cast falls back on bad habits and overacting (Monaghan is the notable exception). Bell (The Last Exorcism) is especially awful — all bug-eyed, “Blue Steel” intensity and pantomimed rage. Spending a Day with her is enough to make one want to end things, and sooner rather than later.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, The Day comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Apart from the movie’s trailer, the only other bonus feature is a feature-length audio commentary track with Aarniokoski, Passmore and producer Guy Danella in which the back-slapping trio discuss stretching meager production means. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C (Disc)

Years ago, our minds warped by the spectacle of Dennis Rodman, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke appearing alongside tigers and exploding soda machines in Tsui Hark’s certifiably insane Double Team, a friend and I jointly speculated that Hollywood was on a path to ditching any semblance of narrative genre filmmaking and just releasing a movie called Tricks and Stunts. A feature-length indulgence of the same-named stunt spectacular, which used its MTV show in 2009 to spark a string of bestselling DVDs and, eventually, a live show in Las Vegas, Nitro Circus: The Movie is pretty much a realization of that theory.

Using the latest in compact camera rigs, co-directors Gregg Godfrey and Jeremy Rawle provide viewers with bucket-seat and bird’s eye perspectives of much spectacle and mayhem as Travis Pastrana, the decorated freestyle motocross champion who co-founded Nitro Circus and still serves as one of its merry ringleaders, and his cohorts engage in all sorts of bike-, auto- and skate-inspired shenanigans. The roster of stunts here includes purposefully flipping cars, ramped jumps into various bodies of water, back-flipping bikes over a chasm between two 60-story buildings, and trying to land an elusive double back-flip on modified tricycles amongst the mulch mountains outside of Pastrana’s Maryland home.

So is there a quote-unquote story here, at all? Ummm… not really. Amongst much back-slapping talk about balls, and platitudes about brushing the dust off oneself, there are some brief, chummy interview clips with Jackass director Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville and Rob Dyrdek, among others. Even Channing Tatum weighs in, opining that Nitro Circus is something “everyone understands, because of their relation to fear.” And nominally, mostly using countdown title cards, the movie builds toward Nitro Circus’ first live show, at the MGM Grand. The payoff, though? Only five minutes worth of highlights, which comes across as decidedly anti-climactic given much else of what we’ve seen.

Is Nitro Circus: The Movie terrible, then? No, it’s just almost entirely inessential. From a technical standpoint, the movie is fairly superbly captured. There are moments when one can just sit back and bask in the roar of motorcycles and trucks thrashing about in crisscrossing jump patterns. But there are no edifying theatrical stagings or emotional undercurrents to Nitro Circus. And if one believes, as I do, that those sorts of things imbue the Jackass movies with a certain level of socially significant if undeniably warped fraternal commentary, they’re wildly wanting in this brawny offering. Fifteen minutes of this sort of thing is basically enough, and one then wants to power down or change the channel.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, Nitro Circus: The Movie comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks. Supplemental features consist of a short bonus interview with Jackass‘ clown prince, Steve-O, and a clutch of behind-the-scenes featurettes that provide background on some of the stunt stagings. For those wanting to get a sense of the 3-D experience (which was the mode of the movie’s limited theatrical run), there is also a multi-disc Blu-ray version of Nitro Circus: The Movie. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, however, click here. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)

In 1995, reporter Robert Cringely conducted a hour-long interview with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for a TV special on nerds making good, essentially. Most of the chat wasn’t aired, of course, and for many years it was presumed lost, until a producer discovered a VHS copy in his garage.

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, then, is exactly what its forthright title suggests — the presentation of this sit-down interview in full, with the shaded knowledge of all of Apple’s innovation and market domination yet to come. At the time of the Q&A, Jobs, having been exiled from the company he founded, was running niche computer company NeXT. So there’s some talk about that, but, thankfully, lots of meaty, candid reflection on his various successes and failures.

The chat starts out with some grade-A anecdotes from Jobs about calling up Hewlett Packard co-founder Jim Hewlett on the phone (in the days before unlisted numbers) when he was 12 years old, to lob questions at him about computer parts and the like. (It led to a summer internship.) He also recounts hacking AT&T’s long distance program and building a so-called “blue box” to mimic its tones, at which point he and friend Steve Wozniak even phoned the Pope! (After progressing through several levels of papal bureaucracy, they cracked up laughing and hung up before Pope John Paul II got on the line.) The lesson, says Jobs, was that it was possible — just through intelligence and hard work — to harness a huge company’s infrastructure and make it work for you.

Jobs also talks about viewing computer science as a liberal art, and when it comes to discussing and dissecting Apple’s failures, he pulls no punches, noting that when there is a market success, big companies wrongheadedly try to institutionalize process. “Apple did not have the caliber of people that was necessary to seize this idea in many ways,” he says. “There was a core team that did, but a larger team that had come mostly from Hewlett Packard didn’t have a clue.”

Jobs also gets in what many might perceive as digs or jabs at Bill Gates and Microsoft (“They have absolutely no taste. I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way — they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their product”), but he does so in such a casual manner, vacuumed free of animosity, that even his biggest punches (“I’m not saddened by their success… I’m just saddened that they just make really third-rate products”) come off more as sincere sociocultural critiques than embittered rantings.

What’s most notable about Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, which is engaging throughout, is its subject’s commingled intelligence and passion. When he talks about humankind “building tools that can amplify our skills,” it makes one smile in realization at just how long the seeming impossibilities that some of Apple’s products would go on to achieve had likely danced around inside Jobs’ head.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview comes to DVD presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio, with an English language Dolby digital 2.0 stereo audio track, and optional Spanish subtitles. Obviously, given the nature of the source material from which this DVD is mastered, the picture clarity isn’t in line with the sort of pristine standards to which hardcore digital aficionados are accustomed, but that’s not the chief selling point of this title, given that it’s a static, straight-on interview.

The DVD’s bonus features, however, provide a nice bit of added value. First up, there’s an audio commentary track with producer-director Paul Sen and writer-presenter Robert Cringely, in which the pair discuss the program for which the Jobs interview was originally recorded, along with much more. There’s also a separate audio interview with Cringely, conducted by producer John Cau, and, best of all, a 60-minute interview with Andy Hertzfeld, the original Macintosh programmer at Apple. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; to purchase it via Half, click here. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

The Best Screenplay award winner at the Sundance Film Festival, Safety Not Guaranteed is an entertaining and endearing little seriocomic bauble that, while having a smidge of fun tweaking genre conventions and expectations, also richly mines for laughs the pained regret and fumbling desires of its characters in much the same manner as Alexander Payne. A movie of exquisite silver linings — which locates the humor in the swallowed ache of emotionally stunted men without ever selling out the legitimacy of their feelings — director Colin Trevorrow‘s debut offering heralds a solid new talent on the indie film scene.



Needing a story, Seattle magazine writer Jeff (Jake Johnson, of New Girl) pitches his boss (Mary Lynn Rajskub) on tracking down the person responsible for a strange classified ad seeking someone to go back in time with the author, reading in part, “Must bring your own weapons, safety not guaranteed — I have only done this once before.” Given the go-ahead, Jeff snatches up two interns — Darius (Aubrey Plaza), a disillusioned live-at-home college grad, and the timid Arnau (Karan Soni, above center), a studious biology major trying to diversify his resume — and sets out for the tiny seaside community of Ocean View, where the ad has a listed post office box number.

There, they discover Kenneth Calloway (Mark Duplass), an eccentric and paranoid grocery store clerk who’s convinced he’s solved the riddle of time travel. The real impetus behind Jeff’s desire to hit the road turns out not to be the story on Kenneth, but instead an old… well, adolescent sexual conquest, Liz (Jenica Bergere). With Jeff spending his time pursuing her, the specifics of getting the actual journalistic scoop fall mostly to Darius, who slowly gains Kenneth’s trust. In the process, she finds herself becoming decidedly intrigued with his nerdy survivalist ways, and the fact that, Kenneth’s weirdness notwithstanding, people really do seem to be following him.

As penned by Derek Connolly and directed by fellow New York University graduate Trevorrow, Safety Not Guaranteed is a beguiling combination of melancholic character notes and pin-prick comedy (Darius is told she’s “not a quality hire” by a restaurant manager after a painfully blunt interview). There’s a breezy, lightweight quality to a lot of the movie’s banter, but it never seems false or out-of-step with the characterizations, which are actually quite nicely sketched, and deepen emotionally with time. As Darius and Kenneth kind of trip and fumble toward something approaching romantic bloom, and the movie flits about the edges of the grander sci-fi fantasy its conceit suggests, Jeff’s blossoming disillusionment and unhappiness is rendered in contrast to Darius’ emotional thawing.

Duplass, kind of jittery and guarded, nicely captures both the hurt and hope in Kenneth (who will only say that his mission involves “mistakes, regret and love”), and Johnson delivers a winning turn as a man-child who finally if improbably seems to discover the tools that might enable him to grow up. If not for all its other considerable pleasures, Safety Not Guaranteed is also, at the very least, a winning feature showcase for Plaza, an ensemble player on Parks and Recreation whose sardonic wit is here, for perhaps the first time, leavened with grace notes of vulnerability and longing. It’s the look of someone who wants more, and is realizing that she’s capable of it, and it’s a look that suits both the character of Darius and Plaza herself.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Safety Not Guaranteed comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital audio track. Kickstarting its bonus features is a quite nice 15-minute making-of featurette in which Trevorrow talks about how he wanted to make a movie that wasn’t about time travel per se but rather “the emotional needs that time travel satisfies,” as well as how screenwriter Connolly is in many ways an amalgamation of the four lead characters of Darius, Kenneth, Arnau and Jeff. Other fun bits include reminiscences about blind trust in the Seattle crew base and their design for the Kenneth’s time travel device, as well as how folks pitched in to finish shooting a slow-speed car chase when one of their vehicles broke down on the allotted day. All in all, it’s a great overview of not only the film itself, but also the all-for-one-and-one-for-all spirit of independent filmmaking.

Other supplemental extras include a two-and-a-half-minute tidbit with the author, John Silveira, of the original ad upon which the movie is based. Needless to say, it’s better to leave this unviewed until one has seen the feature, but even then it’s a fluffy and inessential extra that doesn’t shed much satisfying light on the story’s roots. There’s also a 90-second Easter egg, located on the bonus slate menu, in which cast members ruminate on what they might do if given the chance to travel through time. Rounding things out is a slate of previews, inclusive of looks at Looper, Robot & Frank, Playing for Keeps and more. Something on the movie’s Sundance premiere might have been nice, but this is a solid home video treatment of one of 2012’s most whimsical and pleasurable debuts. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) B (Disc)

A gripping, low-fi, arthouse mystery/thriller that steadily swells the pulse of viewers, like an incrementally inclined treadmill, Sound of My Voice is a joint exercise in disquiet and intellectual provocation, and far and away one of the best cinematic offerings of the year so far. Slim at only 84 minutes but still never less than spellbinding, the low-budget feature serves as a lesson in the power of storycraft, and further confirms the talents of burgeoning multi-hyphenate Brit Marling.

Skipping past any of their recruitment or plotting, the Los Angeles-set Sound of My Voice delves into the story of a pair of would-be indie documentarians — Peter (Christopher Denham), a substitute teacher, and his girlfriend Lorna (Nicole Vicius, giving off a little bit of a classic-era Joey Lauren Adams vibe), a reformed party girl — and their infiltration of a cult. Their plan is to expose as a sham and con artist its leader, Maggie (Marling), a frail and softly spoken twentysomething woman who sports a tattoo on her ankle that she says marks her from the future, and the year 2054. Supposedly allergic to the toxicity of the modern outdoors, Maggie lives in guarded seclusion in a basement in the San Fernando Valley, where she relies on organic, homegrown vegetables and occasional blood transfusions from her adherents for survival.

Peter and Lorna come and go several times, showering and donning white robes with each visit. Maggie doesn’t so much preach doom-and-gloom as just subject her impressionable charges to a number of group mental exercises. After witnessing Maggie seemingly break Peter down, though, Lorna begins to question the sincerity of his adamancy that he still believes Maggie to be a fraud; the energy behind their documentary project seems to wane. Things finally come to a head, and turn possibly dangerous, when Maggie asks Peter to bring a specific young girl, Abigail (Avery Pohl), from his class to her house.

Like Marling’s other big break-out movie from last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Another Earth, Sound of My Voice is born of a unique screenwriting collaboration between Marling and its director, in this case Zal Batmanglij. The project originally had its roots as a planned web series — hence the 10 untitled chapters in which the movie unfolds, most of which are capped with nice little revelations or moments of emotional suspense. Far from giving Sound of My Voice a choppy, episodic feel, however, this tack helps feed a well-groomed atmospheric tension, and immediately deflate any misguided notion that the film is going to go off the rails into muscle-bound or derivative thriller territory.

Yes, like last year’s stirring Martha Marcy May Marlene, Sound of My Voice also focuses on a cult. But there are other (positive) similarities to that film too, like an emphasis on psychologically telling long-form scenes, and in the manner in which they each indulge in slow revelation. Hearteningly, it’s not all moody and ominous, either; unexpected levity arrives in the unusual use of a Cranberries song. Batmanglij and Marling seem to have a keen sense of how to balance tone to keep things at once off-kilter and realistic. Many intriguing questions remain unanswered (distinct from all the germ concerns, why are secretive security measures necessary in visiting Maggie?), but Sound of My Voice builds to conclusion that feels at once satisfying and conversation-provoking, given its multiple possible interpretations.

Marling’s performance is a beguiling mix of Earth Mother playfulness and emotional remove that never tips over into the reservoir of menace one might expect. Instead, via a sly and masterful juxtaposition of Maggie’s physically stricken vulnerability, quiet manipulation and pinprick hectoring, Marling and Batmanglij craft a character who, perhaps somewhat improbably, is even more interesting, reveling as she is in playing a role. Denham, too, gives a masterful turn, and stands on the cusp of breakthrough recognition; after having toplined the underappreciated Cinequest offering Forgetting the Girl, he’s already completed production on Ben Affleck’s latest directorial effort, Argo.

Years from now, Sound of My Voice will still effect the same emotional hold and connection, but have some additional value as one of the little, curious filmography entries in a couple notable careers. In the present day, however, it’s no less special — a delicate, mesmeric thing that dances darkly along the edges of psychology, religion and science-fiction, raising questions about faith, identity, self-betterment and romantic connection.

Marling and Batmanglij’s film comes to Blu-ray presented in a regular case, and in a superb 1080p transfer that preserves the alternately sepia-toned and orange-saturated hues of the movie. Its five-channel master audio track, with optional English and Spanish subtitles, balances music, dialogue and background ambiance in decent fashion, though the basic design of latter is so removed at times that it courts frustration. Bonus features consist of a pair of five-minute Fox Movie Channel specials — one focusing on the writing process and filtered through Marling’s perspective, and the other on the directing, and focused through Batmanglij’s point-of-view — as well as two other making-of/character featurettes that each clock in at around four minutes. These are fine, but the movie is of such depth that it virtually cries out for more material, including some sort of complementary critical/academic dissection. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

The saga of Wisteria Lane comes to a conclusion with the DVD release of the eighth and final season of Desperate Housewives. An unabashedly tawdry domestic drama that breathed new life into the nighttime soap genre, creator Marc Cherry’s series used its central murder-mystery conceit as a pivot-point to explore all sorts of other suburban shenanigans over the years.

For friends Susan (Teri Hatcher), Lynette (Felicity Huffman), Bree (Marcia Cross) and Gaby (Eva Longoria), in the fictional town of Fairview, life is… well, complicated. United by their involvement in the death of Gaby’s loathsome stepfather (Alejandro Perez) from the previous season’s finale, the women find the airtight nature of their secret questionable and under siege when Bree receives an anonymous message intoning, “I know what you did.” Recriminations, panic and confessions ensue, naturally. As Renee (Vanessa Williams) tries to spark up some romance with hot new Aussie neighbor Ben (Charles Mesure) and Lynette and husband Tom (Doug Savant) try to navigate the rough waters of their separation, meanwhile, Susan jumps headfirst into a “relationship” with a volatile art professor (Miguel Ferrer) determined to coax out her wild side.

The show’s eighth season frequently reveals its age, honestly. The introduction of and focus on supporting characters other the main remaining quartet of friends often feels more geared toward guest star ratings-goosing than smoothly integrated storylines. The pair of episodes that brought the series to a close, “Give Me the Blame” and “Finishing the Hat,” wrap things up in a decent enough manner (there’s a nice wink to secrecy‘s pervasiveness in the last scene) considering some of the more far-flung and problematic plot arcs of the season. Sure, it leans on stereotypical dramatic devices (a birth! a wedding!), but the show has always at its core been a subversion of domestic expectation, and a peek over picket fences. Perhaps most unsatisfyingly, though, the episodes undercut the audience’s collective imagination by sketching out the futures of its characters a bit too specifically.

Spread out over five digitally mastered discs, and housed in a case with snap-in trays, Desperate Housewives: The Complete Eighth and Final Season comes to DVD in a nice set in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover. The series’ trademark investment in primary colors — sometimes subliminal, sometimes not — comes through clear in a solid transfer, and the Dolby digital audio track is straightforward and robust, for a series that doesn’t have a lot of complicated aural design.

In terms of bonus features, the big inclusion here is a hearty behind-the-scenes featurette that casts a look back at series. Buoyed by sit-down chats with all the principals, this is a solid and well-produced piece of nostalgic reminiscence for fans. Aforementioned creator Cherry sits for an audio commentary track on the series’ finale, and talks about juggling disparate impulses in bringing his baby into the harbor. Along with a collection of previews, there is also a collection of deleted scenes and bloopers — the latter of which serves to remind viewers that the polished, finger-snapping tone of the show and some of its dialogue does not always come easy, or on first takes. Only demerits? What could have been, in the form of more audio commentaries or a look at fan goodbye parties and the like. To purchase the set via Amazon, click here. And if brick-and-mortar stores are still your thing, then by all means rock on with your bad self. C+ (Show) B (Disc)

Undone by one twist too many, Jennifer Lynch’s Chained nonetheless covers some transgressive and interesting terrain, telling the story of a boy imprisoned for a decade by a madman, and made to participate in his crimes (think Dexter by of Nell… sort of). In its chilliest, most unnerving moments, the film asks viewers to consider the nature/nurture breakdown of sociopathy, and how monsters are remade generation after generation.

The story centers on a nine-year-old, Tim (Evan Bird), who, while coming home from the movies with his mother (Julia Ormand), is kidnapped by a psychopathic cab driver and serial killer, Bob (a beefy Vincent D’Onofrio). After murdering his mother, Bob begins to shape Tim into his unwilling pupil, rechristening him Rabbit following a couple abortive escape attempts. He chains him to a bed in his secluded home, and breaks him down mentally. Years later, with Bob having groomed him for homicidal culling, the understandably wrought Tim/Rabbit (Eamon Farren) stands poised on the precipice of his own plunge into further darkness.

With Surveillance, Lynch crafted a work of spare desperation, where unchained menace seemed to blow in the wind. In Chained, she roots herself much more to character, and digs down deeper into warped psychological motivational systems, to satisfying effect. While no stranger to unsettling imagery and tonal manipulation (she’s the daughter of director David Lynch), Lynch here somewhat surprisingly takes a fairly straightforward tack with the story; this is delivered as a sordid father-son tale, which makes the grim violence mean something. The performances are great, too. D’Onofrio is dialed in and scary as Bob, but also realistically trigged; Farren, meanwhile, captures the shattered innocence and flickering malevolent potential of Rabbit.

The film’s great disappointment, then, is when — after some moments of truth that find Rabbit getting his first taste of blood, and then experiencing a night of freedom hunting for more victims with Bob — Chained pivots and attempts to grab surprise via a somewhat bizarre yet almost conventional “twist.” Lynch takes sole screenplay credit, though her script is actually based on another, previous script (more on that below). It’s not entirely clear where this idea came from from, but it doesn’t work — either on an emotional/cathartic level or as a very convincing ancillary argument about the disease and rot of generational violence.

Housed in a Blu-ray case, the movie’s Blu-ray/DVD combo pack release includes a 1080p 2.40:1 widescreen transfer, with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track on the former format, which also houses the bonus features. Under a motion menu screen with a dozen chapter-stop options, Chained features the movie’s trailer, a one-and-a-half-minute alternate murder sequence which allegedly garnered the film a NC-17 in its initial editorial pass with the MPAA, and the big other extra, an audio commentary track with Lynch and D’Onofrio.

While there are an awful lot of gaps in this conversation, D’Onofrio helps steer Lynch toward engagement, talking about the 15-day shoot, (for D’Onofrio, concurrent with his work on Fire with Fire, a straight-to-video flick with Bruce Willis and Rosario Dawson), his method acting and interest in playing a killer that didn’t function merely as a plot device in part of a bigger story. He also flashes some deadpan humor, joking when he appears on screen in boxers and a grungy T-shirt that, “One of the reasons I did this movie was so I could keep the wardrobe.” Apart from talking some about child abuse, Lynch chats less about the thematic broad strokes of the material than one might expect; she does, however, mention the only other person she says she thought of for the role of Bob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and sketches out the more “torture-porn-oriented” script, by Damian O’Donnell, that producers Lee Nelson and David Buelow, originally brought to her, seeking her opinion and input. All in all, it’s a slightly above average commentary track, though when Lynch talks about wanting a director’s cut you wish she went into a bit more detail about exactly what sort of additions/changes she’d most want to make. To purchase the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Screenwriter William Goldman and director Rob Reiner’s beloved fairy tale adventure is one of those rare movies of whimsy that appeals across gender lines, and in near-equal fashion. Full of well-choreographed swashbuckling, lively character interplay and pithy, irreverent dialogue, it’s an adventurous treat, plain and simple. Satire can so frequently seem malicious and kind of jaded because there’s no appreciation of the genre(s) being aped, but 1987’s The Princess Bride, is lovingly framed as a rousing bedtime story, and wears its affection — and thus its emotional honesty — refreshingly on its sleeve.

The film’s story centers around the titular betrothed maiden, Buttercup (Robin Wright), who is kidnapped and held against her will to wed Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). Her childhood beau, Westley (Cary Elwes), sets out to rescue her, journeying through and over shrieking eel-infested lagoons and, yes, the Cliffs of Insanity. Along the way he, variously, hooks up and crosses paths with Inigo Montoya (a winning Mandy Patinkin), Fezzik (Andre the Giant) and Count Tyrone Rugen (Christopher Guest).

Oscar winner Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men) brings his shrewd eye for detail and ear for whipsmart dialogue to bear on this eminently quotable (to this day, “Have fun storming the castle” ranks as my all-time favorite flippantly pleasant tiding of futility) adaptation of his own cult tome, but the movie is just as notable for its discernment in casting. Billy Crystal and Carol Kane are perfect as Miracle Max and Valerie, and Peter Falk anchors the movie’s wraparound segments as the kindly grandfather relating the story to his grandson (a wee Fred Savage).

Released in a new 25th anniversary edition Blu-ray, The Princess Bride is presented here in a gorgeous 1080p transfer in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, along with a DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track that is super-crisp and clear. As far as the hue balance, though, for those already owning the movie’s previous special edition release, the difference is negligible, with perhaps slightly more attention paid to color consistency in cinematographer Adrian Biddle’s backgrounds.

This Blu-ray imports all the previous, vintage featurettes and mini-documentaries from the movie’s prior home video releases (inclusive of DVD and Blu-ray), including fun, separate audio-commentary tracks from Goldman and Reiner. Also ported over to this release from its two-disc DVD special edition are a 10-minute mockumentary on the “real” Dread Pirate Roberts, with historian’s recollections and other edifying information; a make-up featurette that nicely showcases Crystal’s transformation via new footage and interview information; and a trivia game. New to this version are two retrospectives running about a combined half-hour. Interviews with Reiner, Elwes, Wright and more include plenty of anecdotes from the production, but it’s also nice to hear everyone speak to the film’s unique staying power, and their surprise and delight at how subsequent generations have come to discover the movie. Patinkin even goes so far as to speculate that The Princess Bride will make the first line of the obituary of every major player. And he may not be wrong. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. A (Movie) A (Disc)

Lebanon’s official Best Foreign Language Film selection for the 84th Academy Awards, Where Do We Go Now? juggles comic fantasy and politicized drama in telling a story of religious strife held at bay by the better angels of women’s nature. Its commingled tonalities don’t always quite mesh, but if one sticks with it there is some off-kilter delight herein that cuts against erroneous notions of foreign films tackling such big social issues as necessarily staid and stuffy affairs.



Directed by Caramel multi-hyphenate Nadine Labaki (above) and set in an indeterminate time, Where Do We Go Now? unfolds in a remote Lebanese village, virtually sealed off from its surroundings and accessible only via a thin bridge in severe disrepair. There, church and mosque stand side by side, and the women, whose friendships more naturally transcend the religious fault lines of their community, act as a collective leavening influence, managing and rerouting the testosterone-fueled energy and impulses of the men in their village.

Widowed Christian café owner Amal (Labaki) and Muslim handyman Rabih (Julian Farhat) nurse a bit of a mutual crush, but news of religious violence from the outside world darkens the town’s mood. A series of accidents and misunderstandings ensue, and when a terrible accident befalls one of the children who serve as an errand boy, the village is pushed closer to getting caught up in a sectarian bloodbath. The mayor’s headstrong wife, Yvonne (Yvonne Maalouf), feigns a miracle connection and chat with God, and the women turn to increasingly fanciful ploys, eventually landing upon distracting belly dancing and pot-infused pastries, the former by way of a busload of mock-stranded Ukrainian strippers the women pay to vacation in their town.

While it doesn’t deal in abstractions, Where Do We Go Now? works best if one accepts it as the working draft of a kind of cinematic treatise, or a flavored, chewable children’s vitamin. A sort of cheeky moralizing is its aim, so it takes a while to get into, and additionally lags some in the middle, suffering from ill-conceived scenes that pull viewers away from the crux of the story.

While it cycles through plenty of entertaining schemes of distraction hatched by the women, Labaki and her screenwriting collaborators aren’t interested in digging much down into the lasting consequences of these acts. And the film mixes in non-professionals alongside working actors, with mixed results; when they do work, though, these performances help give Where Do We Go Now? a charged sense of spontaneity and energy. So the film takes on the feeling of a cutesy serial, punctuated by some serious rage. The ideas and effort often trump Ladaki’s big picture execution, in other words. Likewise, the movie’s gender politics is necessarily broad, in order to support the conceit, which puts a twist on the classic comedy Lysistrata.

Presented on Blu-ray in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby TrueHD surround sound audio track, Where Do We Go Now? comes with a pair of solid bonus features. First up is a feature-length audio commentary track with Labaki and composer Khaled Mouzanar, who is her offscreen partner as well. There’s also a post-screening Q&A conversation with Labaki, Mouzanar and producer Anne-Dominique Toussaint. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

In Salvation Boulevard, repentant Grateful Dead follower Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear) has given up his wild ways, settling down with wife Gwen (Jennifer Connelly, stuck in the throes of some feverish acting exercise) and her teenage daughter Angie (Isabelle Fuhrman, of Orphan), where he’s a lapdog member of the local evangelical super-church run by the charismatic if somewhat oily Pastor Dan Day (Pierce Brosnan). Following a public debate on God and religion between Dan and noted atheist author Dr. Paul Blaylock (Ed Harris), there’s a terrible accident, after which Dan tries to pin the blame on Carl, leading to all sorts of other shenanigans.



Kinnear and Brosnan made for an intriguing pair before, in the 2005 down-tempo black comedy The Matador, but here they connect with less success. Salvation Boulevard has a certain pedigree, being based on a book by Wag the Dog author Larry Beinhart, but so much of this material doesn’t rise to the level of its putative conceit. Two characters seem to initially figure more prominently into the proceedings, but fall out in the middle, only to lamely pop up again later. And when the film loops in a business contractor (Yul Vazquez) with designs on blackmailing Dan, it sags under the weight of a misguided focus.

In both his documentary Hell House and 2007’s Joshua, director George Ratliff has handled religious themes before (though not always well), so it’s somewhat strange that this film feels so toothless and schizophrenic — broad at times, and either unwilling or unable to commit to a darker path. More pointed religious satire would have been good, or even just crisper characterizations across the board. The screenplay, though, by Ratliff and Doug Max Stone, never locates a convincing tone or motivation. In a small part as a hippie security guard who crosses paths with Carl, meanwhile, Marisa Tomei gives the movie some lift. It’s a source of considerable frustration that viewers can’t pivot, follow her character off on another path, and look for their own salvation.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Salvation Boulevard comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a crisp Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Apart from a small clutch of preview trailers, there are no supplemental features here, further consigning this title to mostly rental status from only diehard completist fans of some of the cast. Nevertheless, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) D+ (Disc)

At first blush, Katy Perry: Part of Me is just another part of the recent wave of 3-D-enabled concert documentary hagiographies, designed to extract money from moviegoers’ wallets and purses by preaching to the choir. And on a certain level it is that, to be sure. But in interweaving a snapshot overview of Perry’s life alongside her sprawling, international “California Dreams” tour, with its seven tour buses and 16 trucks — and in having the sad, dumb luck of also catching refracted glimpses of the rise and fall of her marriage to comedian Russell Brand — the movie achieves something few docs of its ilk have been able to do: it presents its subject as a fairly regular, hard-working girl, just trying to figure it out.



In addition to Perry herself, interviewees include co-managers Bradford Cobb Steve Jensen, assistant Tamra Natasin (who even has her own group of chirping sub-fans), and other assorted stylists and designers to whom Perry has shown steady loyalty, it is asserted. Early on, Perry’s shared insights and motivations aren’t exactly the stuff of amazing depth (“My goal playing shows,” she says, “is super-simple — to make people smile and have, like, a heart full of hope and happiness”). But as it progresses, a more full-bodied portrait emerges of Perry’s traveling-preacher parents and the strict Christian upbringing they imposed upon their kids. Says Perry’s younger brother, “We weren’t allowed to eat Lucky Charms because luck is of Lucifer.”

Apparently video cameras were totally fine, however, since there’s an enormous amount of footage of Perry as a kid (she got into singing and songwriting at age 13, and released a gospel album at age 15) and, most importantly, as an 18-year-old, where she chats openly about feeling as if the choice of thinking for herself and forming her own opinions was often taken away from her in adolescence. Yes, poppy and peppy musical numbers are scattered throughout Part of Me, including the titular anthem of self-empowerment, but it’s these informative glimpses behind the family curtain that form the true spine of co-directors Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz’s work, and give it a relatability.

Well, that and the other human moments, including fun with a fart soundboard, wherein Perry labels passing gas a “heinie hiccup.” The movie touches on her unraveling marriage and divorce tenderly and obliquely, and there’s something undeniably odd and sadomasochistic about signing off on filming private breakdowns — as is the case when Perry is in a state of depression and tears moments before an overseas concert, and then pivots by squaring her jaw and dramatically telling her make-up artist, “Start, Todd” — but it’s still a bit affecting, no matter how posed. Moving too, is a tender performance of “The One That Got Away,” a song clearly informed by her relationship woes and subsequent reflection. In the end, Part of Me is just that — part of Perry. It doesn’t dig down into her creative process very substantively, or successfully. But it does provide a multi-dimensional look at her as a real person, and that’s no small achievement.

Katy Perry: Part of Me comes to home video in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, inclusive of a digital copy of the film, with a cover that touts the movie’s CinemaScore and certified-fresh status on Rotten Tomatoes. The crisp, 1080p high definition Blu-ray transfer of the film is definitely the best way to experience it, along with the DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track. It’s split into 18 chapters, and pressing either the home or top disc menu during playback will pull up a horizontal options bar on the bottom rather than kicking a viewer back to the main menu.

Bonus features consist of full concert performances of the tunes “Waking Up in Vegas” and “Last Friday Night,” plus a clutch of little featurettes. One, at six minutes, focuses on Perry’s relationship with her 90-year-old grandmother, and includes extra footage of her stopping by to visit the day of her Las Vegas show. Sharing more family anecdotes, Perry’s grandmother also suggests a different-shaped bottle for Perry’s perfume, since as is “it turns over too easy.” Another tidbit, clocking in at five minutes, showcases Perry’s big rehearsal preparations for her Grammy performance this year, with more allusions to her split from Brand (“I want to show that I’m a victor, not a victim”); lacking rights to the actual clip, however, makes this laudatory build-up to such an “amazing” moment a bit strange. A half dozen other behind-the-scenes featurettes, each running around three to seven minutes, include Perry bumping into and being praised by various other celebrities (David Hasselhoff, Elle Fanning, Justin Bieber); working with dancers while invoking Steve Urkel in an assessment of her own abilities; and getting “California Dreams” ankle tattoos with her assistant and some other tour friends. These are fun little bits — and heck, her 58-year-old co-manager, Jensen, even submits to one, so caught up in the dream is he. To purchase the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B- (Disc)

Extra helpings of off-kilter and off-key melodrama sink Michael Biehn’s bewildering directorial debut The Victim, a nasty little down-and-dirty thriller about a murder, a panicked stripper on the lam and a trio of guys trying to sort out the truth and protect their own skins. Beset with many of the problems of low-budget indie flicks but none of the narrative cleverness, stylistic fleetness of foot or other mechanisms of coping with them, this grindhouse-type offering may find a certain cult-ish reception amongst longtime fans of the veteran genre actor, but otherwise disappear fairly deservingly without a trace.

Against the backdrop of several reports of missing women, rugged loner Kyle Limato (Biehn) retreats to a cabin in the woods, only to have his solitude interrupted by the hysterical Annie (Jennifer Blanc, Biehn’s real-life wife), a stripper who claims to have seen her friend Mary (Danielle Harris) murdered. She and Mary were in the woods partying with cops James Harrison (Ryan Honey) and Jonathan Cooger (Denny Kirkwood) when rough but consensual sex between James and Mary went wrong. Kyle takes Annie in, and rebuffs queries from the suspicious police officers when they come knocking at his door. When James comes back, however, kidnapping and various stand-offs ensue, as Kyle and Annie try to discover what’s happened to Mary’s body.

Shot chiefly in and around one location, and frequently in day-for-night swap fashion, The Victim gives off a grungy, DIY vibe. Its production was reportedly a difficult one, and obviously resources weren’t abundant, but the film’s lack of stylistic flourish and connection isn’t its main problem — that lies in the execution of the story itself. Biehn picks an awkward point of entry for his tale, and then constructs things in a way that remove secrets from the narrative. Its leading dialogue (repeated variations of “Do you believe me now?”) basically telegraphs that there will be a “twist,” but the movie doesn’t have any deep-seated intrigue, really; it’s just a matter of which one of two characters is lying, and to what degree.

Its characterizations are a bit deranged — Harrison is a puffed-chest guy who, when the tables are turned back in his favor, barks “I’ve been a winner my whole life!” — but The Victim doesn’t really play those elements up for blackly comedic effect, as Quentin Tarantino or Eli Roth might. Leaps in logic and motivation are terrible throughout — in Biehn’s world, apparently a crime has only been committed if a body can be found, and that in and of itself then establishes the veracity of someone’s story, regardless of other facts or conflicting eyewitness accounts. The movie’s acting is additionally problematic; histrionic seems to be a baseline setting. On the plus side, the movie’s special effects work, while not extensive, is quite solid, and composer Jeehun Hwang’s contributions are superb — slightly offbeat little numbers that pull viewers forward in their seats a little bit. Unfortunately, The Victim otherwise just doesn’t have much going for it.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, The Victim comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional Spanish subtitles. Its bonus features consist of a hearty, 25-minute making-of featurette which spotlights the many friends, family and pulled favors that went into production (sit-down interview chats are balanced with on-set footage), as well as a feature-length audio commentary track with Biehn and Blanc, in which the latter more than hints several times her skill with fellatio and the fact that she and Biehn have something of a turbulent, “fight-and-fuck” relationship. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; if brick-and-mortar Best Buy is your thing, though, then by all means have at it. D+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

No hardboiled revenge thriller, this. Instead, the acclaimed director of Manufactured Landscapes, Jennifer Baichwal, brings Margaret Atwood’s bestselling novel about debtor/creditor relationships to the screen with Payback, an absorbing cinematic essay that takes a look at debt and the shadow side of wealth.

If it sounds hopelessly dry, it’s most assuredly not. Large philosophical and social questions are interwoven engagingly with historical issues, and in a much more manageable and handy way than the filmic adaptation of Naomi Klein’s tangentially related but similarly ambitious The Shock Doctrine. Baichwal grafts exquisite, gorgeous visuals onto her telling, too, resulting in a lively work that transcends the material’s potentially staid subject matter.

While debt and financial matters are much in the news presently, and pretty much have been since the financial crisis of 2008, Payback is not explicitly a movie of hedge fund management and other financial shell games. Its historical longview is significant and thought-provoking, and invested in a much broader definition of obligation and responsiblity, both individual and societal. From the enslavement of migrant workers to criminal prison sentences and the aftermath of the BP oil spill, Baichwal examines indebtedness in a sort of free-association style that assumes a base-level of intellectual curiosity and engagement on the part of her audience. Assuming that’s present in a viewer, Payback delivers much for thought and conversation.

Housed in a regular, clear plastic Amaray case with an evocative, simple-text-on-red cover (“Some debts can’t be paid with money”), Payback comes to DVD presented in a gorgeous 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer free of any grain or edge enhancement issues, with both 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio tracks as well as optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. In addition to its theatrical trailer and an insert booklet with notes from Baichwal, bonus features consist of three excised scenes with Atwood and Jane Goodall, and a Q&A session with Baichwal and Atwood after the movie’s North American premiere at New York’s Film Forum. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Diners are a not unfamiliar setting for sitcoms, and the highest-rated new comedy of the 2011-2012 season, the CBS hit 2 Broke Girls, uses one as its chief setting, and the occupational string that tethers a new, odd-couple pair of roommates.



Created by Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings, the series centers around Max Black (Kat Dennings), a sardonic, young blue-collar waitress in Brooklyn who finds herself an unlikely new pal in the form of Caroline Channing (Beth Behrs, above left), a disgraced socialite who finds her trust fund frozen when her father is arrested on massive fraud charges. After Caroline lies to get a job, Max takes her under her wing and, after dumping her cheating boyfriend, lets Caroline (and her horse… yes, seriously) move in with her. Together they cope with horny short order cook Oleg (Jonathan Kite), manager Han (Matthew Moy) and perpetually exasperated cashier Earl (Garrett Morris), while hatching a plot to save up $250,000 and start a boutique cupcake business.

The show’s pilot episode — co-written by King and Cummings, and directed by James Burrows — honestly doesn’t put its best foot forward, and is one of the season’s weaker episodes. 2 Broke Girls isn’t a single-camera series, but its rapid-fire repartee (which ramps up as the season wears on) seems like it might actually benefit from a visual re-imagining. As is, the show is fairly flatly shot and paced, and often riddled with slight mis-framings or other editorial hiccups. And the diner itself — in which Max frequently takes aim at hipsters, and Han tries to install karaoke to lure in more business — seems a strange and unconvincing hodge-podge of set design.

Thankfully, the series gets out of the diner a bit more as things wear on, and while each episode ends with a tag charting the girls’ progress toward their financial goal (i.e., the show’s big syndication pay-off), additional complications (including a visit to an underground dentist’s office in the fourth episode, “And the Rich People Problems”), bonding and opportunities (a new upstairs neighbor, Sophie, played by Jennifer Coolidge) flesh out the show in winning ways.

What 2 Broke Girls most has going for it, though, is its cast. There’s more than a pinch of Diablo Cody in the snarky dialogue, but Denning locates a rhythm and smart break points that make some of her patter come across as less contrived. Behrs is also lovely, and she and Denning develop a real rapport.

2 Broke Girls: The Complete First Season comes to DVD spread out over three dual-layer discs, and housed in a plastic Amaray case with a dual-sided tray, in turn stored in a sturdy, complementary cardboard slipcover. Under a static menu screen, the two dozen episodes are presented in matted widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. The transfers are okay, though there is a bit of artifacting present in early episodes; problems seem to abate later on, on the set’s second and third discs. There’s also a tri-fold, full-color insert with cast photos and episode summaries. Bonus features consist of a half-dozen minutes of unaired and alternate scenes, as well as a 14-minute behind-the-scenes featurette that includes intercut interview chats with the show’s cast and creators. Commentaries or a few other bells and whistles would have been nice; it seems like CBS or home video distributor Warner Bros. was perhaps hedging their bet on this release. Now that 2 Broke Girls is a hit, and set to return, one would imagine that its second season release will come with a more robust slate of extras. To purchase the set via Amazon, click here. B (Show) C+ (Disc)

In the loose tradition of tales of sports uplift like Field of Dreams and Angels in the Outfield, Touchback tells the story of an ex-high school football star who gets another crack at glory. But it’s really only interesting in that it stars Brian Presley, who became something of an Internet sensation earlier this year when he was outed by a model, Melissa Stetten, for allegedly drinking and trying to hit on her during a cross-country flight. No biggie, right? No harm, no foul. Well… Presley is a married man, Evangelical Christian, and a guy who’s made a public deal out of his sobriety. Whoops. So there’s that.

Oh, but… the movie itself, right? Twenty years removed from ripping up his knee in a state championship game, small town farmer and family man Scott Murphy (Presley) is struggling to support his wife Macy (Melanie Lynskey) and their two young daughters. Presented with a unique opportunity to revisit his glory days but also tempted by his old high school flame (Sarah Wright), Scott turns to his old mentor, Coach Hand (Kurt Russell), for advice and guidance.

Location filming (in Ohio and Michigan) gives the movie a bit of nice production value, but Friday Night Lights (both the movie and the TV show) mined similar terrain much more effectively. The lines of narrative conflict in writer-director Don Handfield’s movie are obvious and smooth; full of homilies, this is cinema as a little comfort-laden snack cake. The public-private contrast of Presley-as-Scott and then the story (whatever really happened) of his run-in with the tart, witty Stetten is the only thing that gives Touchback any pop or value, just because of its amusing, extra-textual contrast.

Housed in a typical case, Touchback comes to home video in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack, stored in the typical slimline Blu-ray case. The video presentation is a 1080p, 1.78:1 non-anamorphic transfer, free of grain or edge enhancement issues. Audio comes by way of a TrueHD 5.1 surround sound track, with optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles as well. Bonus features consist of a feature-length audio commentary track with Presley and Handfield, as well as a threadbare, six-minute making-of featurette. It’s a shrug and a wash, really, these back-slapping inclusions. I’m sure Stetten’s audio commentary track to this would be the bomb, though; she should record one and offer it up for complementary sale via her own website. After all, she already crushes impressions. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Sports as a tool for upward social mobility is of course nothing new — in generations past, boxing was a big way out of miserable poverty, and followed in short order by baseball, football and basketball. As the world has grown smaller, however, enterprising clubs in various sports, seeking to better compete, have turned their attention abroad, with an eye on harvesting young talent at less than premium prices. Nowhere is this truer than in baseball, as illustrated by the engaging new documentary Pelotero: Ballplayer. Continue reading Pelotero: Ballplayer →

Hey, ever wonder about rural Pennsylvania auctioneering? Well then the new-to-DVD documentary The Callers is the film for you!

In telling the story of a handful of small-business owner auctioneers — mostly specializing in farm, furniture, antique and estate sales — director Susan Sfarra gives her subjects wide berth, and there’s certainly an amiable charm to her movie. For anyone ever momentarily bewitched by the sing-song bid calls of a barker at a state fair or something of that nature, The Callers is kind of interesting… for about 15 or 20 minutes. Unfortunately, this is a feature-length nonfiction film, and Sfarra doesn’t quite have a firm enough handle on various throughlines to fully earn and pay off in earnest her 89-minute running time.

The film’s home video back cover copy purports to dig down into “our complex relationship with stuff — with consuming, collecting and hoarding,” but other than a few brief interstitial interview inclusions with regular attendees, The Callers is mostly just a genial snapshot of sellers. There are some amusing and engaging tidbits sprinkled throughout (one guy talks about being hooked by the occupation young, and tape-recording auctioneers like music fans used to do from FM radio stations; a couple talk about buyer tells), and a three-generation-deep collection of auctioneers puts an articulate face on the curious little business. But there’s only so much footage of sales that one can get into. While seeing the price for a giant throw-rug driven up to $5,600 is kind of intriguing on a surface level, absent a deeper examination of how rural auctioneering both fulfills a sincere need and probably drives some addictions, Sfarra’s movie is an incomplete nonfiction document.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a nice, deep-set spindle, The Callers comes to DVD divided into 10 chapters, under a static main menu screen. Bonus features consist of five bonus clips, a single-screen text bio of director Sfarra, a DVD-ROM element with two practice drills to hone your own auctioneer’s patter, and some additional information about distributor First Run Features. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)

A bizarre little road movie time capsule from the swinging 1960s, The Girl on a Motorcycle is a film that connects via the breezy cool of leads Alain Delon and Marianne Faithfull — two actors near the height of their stature at the time of its making. While Jack Cardiff achieved most of his recognition as a director of photography — he was the first ever cinematographer presented with an honorary Oscar — the pulsating, simulated-acid-trip visual vibe he imprints on this sexy, psychedelic romance is but part of its success, going hand in glove with its beguiling performances.

The story finds newly married Rebecca (Faithfull) leaving her husband Raymond (Roger Mutton) behind in the French countryside and making her way to visit her lover Daniel (Delon) in Germany (on, yes, a motorcycle), wearing nothing but a form-fitting black leather suit. (The film saw its initial Stateside release under the title Naked Under Leather.) Along the way, non-linear flashback reveries chart the trajectory of their relationship, from its inception and hot and bothered sexual couplings to what tore them apart. Mood dominates this offering, though it’s frequently punctuated by silly, self-defeating voiceover narration, campy dialogue exchanges and a strange and puzzling ending. Nevermind, though — the bits that work here cast a lovely spell, making for a worthy trip back to a seemingly more carefree time.

The Girl on a Motorcycle comes to Blu-ray presented in a solid 1080p/AVC-encoded 1.66:1 transfer that nicely captures the super-saturated two-tone color of the movie but manifests a bit of artifacting in some of the outdoor sequences. Audio arrives by way of a DTS-HD 2.0 master audio soundtrack, which is clean throughout. In addition to the original theatrical trailer and a gallery of promotional stills, the release comes with a nice if spotty feature-length commentary track from Cardiff, wherein he shares various anecdotes from the production. Those hoping for the exhaustive contextual analysis of a film historian are likely to be a bit disappointed, but those with an interest in how Cardiff achieved the evocative look of the film will be mesmerized. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here; if Half is your thing, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

A pulpy, low-budget slice of film noir cross-pollinated with a martial arts flick, The Girl From the Naked Eye will certainly win no awards for great originality, but nonetheless serves as a stylish and engaging little vehicle for the surly charms of star Jason Yee, as well as its filmmaking team. The sophomore effort of director David Ren (Shanghai Kiss), the movie is a case of style over substance, to be sure, but boy is that style impressive on what must have been a true shoestring budget.

When a young Los Angeles escort, Sandy (Samantha Streets), is murdered, her protective and grief-stricken driver, Jake (Yee), confronts strip club owner Simon (Ron Yuan) about who might have been the culprit, as flashbacks fill in the story of their unusual friendship. Sensing that Simon isn’t telling him everything, Jake then starts dropping beatdowns left and right, cutting a swathe of retribution across the night. This leads him to Simon’s gun-dealing gangland benefactor, Frank (Gary Street), who also has the benefit of a police shield. Dominique Swain pops up in a small, flirty role, as does adult film star Sasha Grey; that they’re well integrated amongst all the fisticuffs is a further credit to Ren and his collaborators.

If the hardboiled plot description above inspires little more than a yawn, unabashed B-movie The Girl From the Naked Eye actually has a lot going for it. Shooting digitally (and almost entirely at night), Ren and cinematographer Max Da-Yung Wang concoct a rich, foreboding visual palette that doesn’t get lost in the murky darkness of the film’s noir-ish roots. And Ren — working with Yee on the choreography of the fight sequences — doesn’t overdo it on the spastic edits, gifting his movie the benefit of a real personality.

Still, the story here is thin, and propped up less by real characters and more by a referential love for its genre forerunners. Both in the name of its crusading protagonist and various tossed-off bits of dialogue (“You don’t know when to quit, do you Jake?”), The Girl From the Naked Eye echoes Chinatown and a dozen another miniaturized knock-offs. Story-wise, there aren’t reasonably enough obstacles to stretch this out to feature-length, even at a paltry 84 minutes that includes an extended closing credits crawl.

All that said, those demerits almost all relate to sins of omission, and/or the movie’s basic DNA make-up. If it doesn’t live up to the wildness of Park Chan-Wook’s Old Boy, another obvious antecedent and inspiration, The Girl From the Naked Eye at least makes good on its modest aims, allowing Yee to slap silly a bunch of would-be human roadblocks. There are some moments of sly charm and connection here, making this polished movie a treat for fans of indie genre fare.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, The Girl From the Naked Eye comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles under a motion menu. There are unfortunately no supplemental bonus features, though, which marks this disc as a rental all the way through. If one disagrees, however, they can purchase the DVD via Amazon by clicking here. C+ (Movie) D (Disc)

For my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, over at ShockYa, I get freaky with Upright Citizen Brigade’s Freak Dance, take a look at Joseph Cedar‘s Footnote, sigh inwardly while contemplating Mel Gibson‘s Get the Gringo, enjoy what’s probably presently the best show on television, and more. Again, it’s all over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

Religious faith is often difficult to discuss openly, let alone capture and sensitively address in something like film, owing not only to the diversity of religious affiliations and denominations, but to the problems many people have with what they view as either hypocrisy or cloying piety when it comes to how people of faith interact with those of opposite beliefs, or no particular religious convictions at all. Raw Faith, a stirring new documentary from director Peter Wiedensmith, is as holistic a portrait of religious devotion and engagement as exists in recent memory, and an achingly, profoundly moving snapshot of how the human experience is meant to be shared.



The center at the figure of Raw Faith is Marilyn Sewell, the socially progressive senior minister of the First Unitarian Church of Portland, Oregon, one of the largest and most esteemed Unitarian groups in the nation. As one of the few women to lead a large congregation of any faith in the United States, Sewell — a divorced, single mother of two adult sons — also brings a unique perspective to various local and national issues, making her an irreplaceable figure in liberal Christian debate. After 17 years of service, though, she’s wearing down a bit, and (even though she once said, “I want to be all used up” in her seminary interview) beginning to wonder, at least, if she might be able to retire and have any sort of separate and fulfilling life apart from her community service.

Sweet, well-mannered and reflective, Sewell is an enormously engaging subject. She is smart, savvy about the nature of her own feelings, and also exceedingly articulate, both in snippets from her sermons (“All fundamentalism puts God in a box — some are in, and others are by definition out”) and direct-address confessional segments. Most of what makes her such a compelling character, however, is her complete openness and candor. She speaks frankly in the film about sexual desire (and a bit less directly in the pulpit, shading it more in terms of romantic companionship), as well as depression and her own past hurts. (The only topics off-limits, really, are matters presently bothering her, because she says she feels some in her congregation would then feel the need to try to help her solve those problems, and that’s not the dynamic of their relationship.) Sewell rejects the agony of bearing an untold story within, and the result of this shared soul-baring is a movie so suffused with honesty as to almost take one’s breath away.

Like Cindy Meehl‘s excellent documentary Buck, Raw Faith captures, sketches and imparts macro life lessons from sharing some of the obstacles overcome by their respective protagonists. And like that film, it makes the case that grief and despair are often times our best teachers. The movie delves back into a less than ideal childhood, and connects the dots — as part of Sewell’s inexorable journey toward self-betterment — between those early traumas and her desire to find herself, so that she doesn’t act out of unconscious motives. All that said, as heartrending as it is at times, Raw Faith is a film of utterly sincere, not phony uplift. Where love has once been, love will remain, it argues, making one believe — and deeply feel — the need to put a little more love out into the world.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Raw Faith comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo audio track that more than adequately handles the movie’s fairly meager and straightforward aural demands. Bonus features are anchored by additional interviews with Sewell in which she speaks more about both her work and family. There’s also the movie’s theatrical trailer, and a clutch of deleted scenes which spotlight a trip to Washington, D.C. and Sewell’s successful efforts to craft a “hate-free zone” in her church. The only thing missing? A music video for the original song Sheryl Crow contributed to Raw Faith, and/or some other words of endorsement from her. Well… that, and some words from director Wiedensmith. To purchase the DVD via Kino Lorber’s website, click here. A (Movie) B (Disc)

Somewhere, no doubt, adult film actor and shameless publicity whore Ron Jeremy is kicking himself over finding out that there exists a movie entitled The Hedgehog in which he is not the star, or the beneficiary of a large life-rights check. No, director Mona Achache’s movie is no hairy skin-flick biopic, but instead a darkly comedic broadside aimed at stuffy French elitism, a movie very loosely of a sort with Gosford Park and writer-director Philippe Le Guay’s The Women on the 6th Floor.

Based on Muriel Barbery’s 2006 French-language novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Achache’s film played Stateside at the City of Lights City of Angels (COLCOA) Festival in 2010, and did fairly well during a subsequent commercial run in its homeland. The story centers around precocious, bespectacled 12-year-old Paloma Josse (Garance Le Guillermic, quite good), who so loathes her affluent but boring life that she hatches a plan to off herself in six months’ time. As she documents the woeful burdens of adolescence with her video camera, Paloma suddenly starts paying a bit more attention to Renee Michel (Josiane Balasko), a mid-50s widow and the reclusive superintendent of the group of eight apartments in Paris’ upper-middle class Left Bank district in which Paloma’s family lives.

Presumed a bourgeois simpleton by Paloma’s parents (whom she in turn considers insufferable snobs), Renee, though kind of dour and dumpy, is actually a refined lover of brooding Russian literature, and she and Paloma eventually strike up an unlikely friendship. Their boundaries of sociability are further extended when Renee crosses paths with a like-minded new tenant, Japanese businessman Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa). Could romantic companionship actually be on the horizon for Renee, and what would this in turn mean for the suicide plans of unwitting matchmaker Paloma?

The Hedgehog is somewhat unique in that everything which delights those who enjoy the movie will also be the same things which irritate those who find its class-based observations wan and its eccentricities too cutesy and pat by half. Full of allusions to other literary works, as well as art and cinema, the film sort of vaguely summons up notions of a Gaellic Rushmore by way of Harold & Maude. There’s a tart quality to the proceedings not typically found in American offerings. Barbery is also a philosophy teacher, and the fact that she co-adapts her own work for the screen helps lend the movie’s ruminations on death and interpersonal connection (e.g., there’s a family with which you’re born, and a broader family that you can choose) more weight and resonance than they might otherwise have.

Even for those for whom the tone is a bit jarring or off-putting, The Hedgehog benefits from strong performances. Balasko brings layers of hidden meaning to her gruff exterior, built up over the course of many unhappy and dismissed years. Le Guillermic, meanwhile, strikes the right balance between bright and misunderstood. Sometimes, after all, the most edifying and nourishing relationships of adolescence lay outside the confines of house and home.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Hedgehog comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio mix, solid translations, and, of course, English and Spanish subtitles. A small complement of deleted scenes topline the supplemental material, which otherwise includes only the movie’s trailer and photo gallery montage set to musical accompaniment. Interview material if not with the cast then at least Achache would greatly benefit this release, given the tapestral nature of its construction. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)

For my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, over at ShockYa, I explain what’s lacking in Morgan Spurlock‘s Comic-Con documentary, plus take a gander the Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time, David Arquette’s Black Limousine, an intriguing pair of foreign film releases, and more. Again, it’s all over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

A kind of mash-up, slightly more poker-faced version of some of the same snowy ethical dilemmas faced in A Simple Plan, Fargo and The Ice Harvest, crime dramedy Thin Ice delivers a winning, if rather drolly underplayed, black comedy that tosses its protagonist into a pit of moral quicksand, and then chronicles his flailing attempts to extricate himself.



Mickey Prohaska (Greg Kinnear) is a small-time Wisconsin insurance salesman whose ability to coast on his looks and smooth-talking charisma seems to have finally hit an end. With his business struggling and attempts at reconnecting with his estranged wife Jo Ann (Lea Thompson) floundering, Mickey is stuck in a rut. At a regional insurance conference, Mickey runs into Bob Egan (David Harbour), a wet-behind-the-ears would-be agent looking to make a start in the industry for his new family. Sensing a source of valuable income, Mickey takes Bob as a mentee, and starts showing him the ropes. When nice-guy Bob declines to put the hard sell on eccentric retired farmer Gorvy Hauer (Alan Arkin, in a great supporting performance), peddling him coverage he doesn’t need, Mickey later returns to seal the deal (and the commission) himself.

It’s here that Mickey’s appetites begin to come into play, and place him in increasingly compromised situations. When he finds out that Gorvy is in possession of a violin appraised at many thousands of dollars, Mickey befriends him and offers him a for-trade swap. After that plan unravels, Mickey even works up a duplicate to switch out and fool Gorvy. But the locksmith, Randy (Billy Crudup), that Mickey cons into letting him back into Gorvy’s place turns violent, and dramatically ups the stakes.

A selection at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it originally played as The Convincer, Thin Ice could have benefited a bit from some tightened screws and an increased sense of ratcheted up tension. Director Jill Sprecher (Clockwatchers, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing), who co-wrote the script with her sister Karen, delivers plotlines that satisfyingly thicken — like a porridge left out to cool — and wrings a delicious, squirming sense of uneasy fun out of Mickey’s worsening predicament. But in focusing on working in ADR inclusions to highlight and underscore various power-play dynamics between the players, Sprecher misses a chance to just let Kinnear cut loose and go insane — to turn Mickey’s sputtering disbelief to a full boil of righteous rage, and scald the audience.

Kinnear has always, for better or worse, been a bit trapped by those throwback matinee idol looks of his (one reason he was so good as Bob Crane), which are a good fit for a guy like Mickey, who is smart enough to have gotten to the the level of achievement he’s reached, but also myopic enough to think no one could ever really be much slicker than he. Coming off as Kevin Spacey by way of John Boehner, Kinnear does a bang-up job of playing the bewildered Everyman, while Crudup — an underappreciated actor with the ability to impress his will upon scenes in sly, savvy ways — gets to play a bit wild and crazy. It’s a fun tango to watch, this cracked pair dancing on equally cracked Thin Ice.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Thin Ice comes to DVD presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, divided into two dozen chapters under a motion menu screen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Its supplemental features consist of ten minutes’ worth of deleted scenes, a four-minute featurette on the movie’s Sundance bow (which misspells the word “premiere”), and a far meatier, 25-minute behind-the-scenes featurette which includes a nice array of on-set interviews, filming and thoughtful self-analysis. One piddling complaint, though? The release’s blue-on-blue selected menu text makes it sometimes a bit difficult to see exactly which menu item one is selecting. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Starting in the 1970s, Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest movie studio, launched a series of erotic sexploitation flicks, most of which are inspired by and loosely comparable to Italian giallo exercises. Zoom In: Sex Apartments, a grisly, 1980 offering from director Naosuke Kurosawa, is one such effort, a jumbled oddity of psychosexual kink.

After Saeko (Erina Miyai) is raped by a mysterious stranger wearing a dark mask and gloves, several residents of the nearby Kibougahara housing complex are beaten, killed and have their genitals set on fire. Powered by arousal as much as dread, Saeko has suspicions about the pyromaniac’s identity, but a thick haze of craziness seems to hang in the air.

Kurosawa, working with cinematographer Masaru Mori, crafts the movie as an obvious valentine to Dario Argento, but it’s awfully thin in plot and sensible motivation, even by giallo standards. One supposes there’s a certain genre cultural cache here, but Zoom In: Sex Apartments, though redolent with sadomasochistic air-quote artfulness, mostly just seems an elaborately orchestrated and unrepentantly nasty excuse for fetishized violence and degradation.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Impulse Pictures’ North American release of Zoom In: Sex Apartments comes to DVD alongside companion offering True Story of a Woman in Jail: Continues (yes, complete with its hilarious colon), in a solid, grain-free 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, with a Japanese 2.0 mono audio track that features newly translated, removable English subtitles. A minute-long, forced-start-up Nikkatsu introduction gives way to a static main menu screen, and a dozen chapter stops. Apart from the movie’s 80-second trailer, there are no supplemental featurettes, though film historian Jasper Sharp’s liner notes — as part of a little insert booklet featuring the movie’s Japanese language poster on its cover — are sharp and insightful, if a bit dismissive of what he terms the movie’s “misogynistic verve.” To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; if Half is your thing, meanwhile, click here. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)