new on DVD: ‘Death Proof,’ ‘Lucky You,’ ‘Severance,’ ‘Zoo,’ ‘We Are Marshall,’ more
See it:
• Death Proof: Extended and Unrated [buy it]. From my review:
[T]he last 40 minutes or so of Death feature some amazing stuntwork and stunt driving, seat-of-the-pants filmmaking that is as fresh and organic as anything Roger Corman would have done, and like we hardly ever see at the movies these days. This pure-adrenaline cinema more than makes up for the long tedious stretches that come before.
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See it:
• Lucky You [buy it]. An intriguing portrait of one man perfectly happy with his magnificently flawed self; see it for Eric Bana’s terrific performance.
• Severance [buy it]. Brutally funny horror comedy about a corporate retreat gone very wrong.
• Zoo [buy it]. Documentary about people who love animals a little -- okay, a lot -- too much. If you’re looking for exploitation, though, look elsewhere: this is an oddly beautiful movie about seeking to understand the deeply weird among us.
• Stargate Atlantis: The Complete Third Season [buy it]. Includes the episode “Sunday,” by far the series best yet, about disaster on the team’s day off.
Skip it:
• We Are Marshall [buy it]. From my review:
I don’t mean to diminish the genuine hell that the real people of Huntington, West Virginia, surely went through in the aftermath of the November 1970 plane crash outside town that killed almost the entire football team of local Marshall University, as well as most of their coaches and dozens of fans and boosters. My god, this was like their own personal 9/11, an indescribably devastating blow to a small town. But calling anything “indescribable” is like throwing down a gauntlet that Hollywood can’t help but pick up: of course real people’s real pain can be turned, yet again, into trite, glossy cinematic junk food. How could we possibly doubt this?
I ain’t seen it, but...:
• Boston Legal: Season Three [buy it]. James Spader just won another Emmy for this, so it must be good, right?
• Commando: Director’s Cut [buy it]. I just find it hilarious that someone felt there was a cry for a director’s cut of this one.
comments
posted by Kevin (Thu Sep 20 07, 1:50PM)
Just so you know, I bought and watched COMMANDO: DIRECTOR'S CUT the day it came out!
posted by JT (Thu Sep 20 07, 3:21PM)
No, it actually sucks. I don't know who James Spader paid to beat out both James Gandolfini and Hugh Laurie, but he certainly did not win because of his acting ability. The show is a joke.
posted by Jurgan (Thu Sep 20 07, 5:01PM)
I saw Grindhouse fans complaining about the DVD release, actually. For one, a lot of people wished both movies had been on the same DVD set. Worse, though, is that they apparently take out the fake previews for other grindhouse movies, which were many people's favorite part. Now I wish I'd seen it in theaters- it sounds like it was vastly helped by the theater experience.
posted by Rob Vaux (Fri Sep 21 07, 1:29PM)
It's certainly helped by seeing it in the theater, and the Weinsteins should be taken to task for hacking it up like they have.
Thankfully, we have YouTube to save the trailers for us:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbhuPYdgQjc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Oq3gQ4nRo
The quality is not ideal (it looks like they were shot with a digital camera in a theater), but I suppose that's in keeping with the spirit of the piece. And God knows when Dimension will ever deign to release the film as it originally ran.