new on DVD: ‘The Matador,’ ‘The Libertine,’ more

Slow DVD week, what with the holiday and all. But don’t miss last winter’s underrated and overlooked dramedy The Matador (not reviewed/buy at Amazon). Pierce Brosnan is a washed-up assassin, Greg Kinnear is the nice guy who falls in with him, and their tale takes some sweet and surprising twists. The Libertine (read my review/buy at Amazon) is worth a look, too, especially for Johnny Depp fans. It’s not a pleasant film, this sorta bio of a notorious real-life rake, but it is fascinating, if flawed.

Since I missed last week’s DVD update, here’s a quick rundown of other new stuff:
• Annapolis (read my review/buy at Amazon) is charmingly old-fashioned much in the way that its star, James Franco, is: solidly entertaining if not exactly challenging.

• Failure to Launch (read my review/buy at Amazon) is neither even remotely challenging nor even remotely entertaining.

• Ultraviolet (read my review/buy at Amazon) is yet another example of Johanson’s New Revised First Law of Film: Any sufficiently inept SF action movie is further ineptisized by the addition of Matrix-style FX.

• Imagine Me & You (read my review/buy at Amazon) rather annoyingly acts like it invented the idea of lesbianism: isn’t it cute that girls can fall in love with each other, too? *gag*

• Find Me Guilty (read my review/buy at Amazon) is Vin Diesel’s attempt to reclaim some of the serious-actor cred he threw away when he let himself go XXX. It doesn’t work. But this is almost — almost — worth seeing for the astonishing Peter Dinklage, in a small role.

• Never Been Thawed (not reviewed/buy at Amazon) is a small indepedent mockumentary about geeks who collect frozen TV dinners. It’s hilarious.

(Technorati tags: Matador, Libertine, Annapolis, Failure to Launch, Ultraviolet, Imagine Me and You, Find Me Guilty, Never Been Thawed, DVD)