Not a particularly strong week for new DVD releases. This is to be expected as DVD’s that are released this time of year are usually movies that come out in September and October. So here’s what’s new on the DVD racks:
“W.” is probably the biggest title of the week, but I’m still not that excited to see it. Haven’t been too impressed with Oliver Stone’s output lately. “Alexander” was a debacle. Way too long, incoherent, and not interesting. Stone followed that up with “World Trade Center”. It was an average movie at best, and paled in comparison to Paul Greengrass’s “United 93”. When it was announced that Stone would be doing a movie on “Dubya”, many thought it would be a return to form, and give us something on par with “JFK”. They would have been happy with something close to “Nixon”. When it came out, reviews were mixed. People liked Josh Brolin’s performance, but not much else. Critics even thought the film comes off too easy on “Dubya” [odd considering this is an Oliver Stone film]. You can be the judge of that. Personally, I’ll wait to see the HBO airing of Will Ferrell’s broadway show “You’re Welcome America”. If you can’t wait to see that, here’s David Letterman’s Top 10 List of his favourite “W” moments. – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rToKEnySb7s
I don’t know very much about this film, except that it has 2 Academy Award nominations: Melissa Leo for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. I don’t think it will win anything [the phrase “I’m happy to just be nominated” comes to mind], but I always like to see any nominated film.
Spike Lee followed up the most successful film [at least commercially – “Do The Right Thing” is still the best film he has ever made] of his career “Inside Man” with “Miracle at St. Anna”. I thought the trailer for the film looked good, but the reviews were not. Still, might be worth checking out to see a Spike Lee war film. [Absolutely unrelated – the trailer of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Bastards” is supposed to be appear soon, and like Spike Lee, even if “Inglourious Bastards” turns out to be a bad film, I still want to see a Tarantino war movie.]
“Soul Men” had a lot going against it when it came out. Films with deceased actors in it tend not to do well [unless you’re named Heath Ledger]. Remember John Candy’s “Wagon’s East”? I didn’t think so. Still, it might be worth checking out to see the final performances of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes.
“Blindness” opened the Cannes Film Festival, and its hopes to be an Oscar nominated film died 2 hours later when the credits appeared. The buzz was not very good for this one, which is a shame, because the director, Fernando Meirelles, has directed some very good films [Check out “City of God” and “The Constant Gardener”. Both are excellent.] It has an interesting concept, about a city suffering from an epidemic of blindness, and Canadian Don McKellar wrote the screenplay, but I’ll be passing on this offering.
SLEEPER PICK OF THE WEEK
I always find Bruce Campbell entertaining on screen. From the “Evil Dead Trilogy” to his appearances in the “Spider-Man” trilogy, you can’t help but smile when he’s on the screen. He is the ultimate B-Movie Star, and it looks like “My Name Is Bruce” could be the ultimate B-Movie. Ok, maybe not, but it looks like it could be a lot of fun, and sometimes those are the best movies.
Until Next Week!
