Mountain-climbing is, presumably, a balls-out thrill, but for the most part movies about mountain-climbing are dreary. The upward pace is glacial, the perils are predictable, the stakes are, shall we say, not so high. (Nobody starts humping K2 because they have to.) Truly, it's the avocation of freaks, at least in the U.S. In the Alpine countries, it's more of a hairy-chested lifestyle, and so Philipp Stölzl's North Face(2008) has a intimacy with the ordeal that doesn't come off merely as extreme-sport megalomania.
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Inspirational, feel-good, pro-active, holistic goodness simply fires out of The Horse Boy (Zeitgeist Films) like jets of super-soaker tear-water, as it is a documentary made by an autistic boy's parents about their strenuous, globetrotting attempt at find a mystical "cure." Who could be cynical? The patience and fortitude at work in the lives of Brit journalist Rupert Isaacson and psych prof Kristin Neff as they handle their gorgeous but seriously impaired son Rowan is redoubtable, and once Rowan communes with a horse and Isaacson indulges in fond memories of shamanistic cures he witnessed in Africa, one can hardly blame the family for packing the kid up and taking him to the one spot on the globe where horses and shamanism traditionally entwine: Mongolia.
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The Fugitive Kind (1960)
The Criterion Collection
Ah, the jawline among jawlines, the mandible of the gods! Take a good look at Marlon Brando in this star-packed, Tennessee Williams banquet of psychodrama, in 1960, at the height of his hunkiness, and tell me that the shape of his head, particularly his jaw line, wasn't substantially responsible for his magnetic allure. Sure, Brando was a genius, if there are too few movies in his filmography to really bear that judgment out, but he was also a nova of iconic sex appeal, and I'm guessing, not being a woman, that his uniquely robust, rock-solid-yet-gently-curved jawbone was the main attraction, more than the mumbling or shrouded eyes or even the muscly shoulders. Certainly more than the acting. Brando's jaw is one of those things you respond to without necessarily seeing it, like Charlize Theron's collarbone -- look next time.
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When the backlog of DVD's congesting your office is so troublesome that A&E sends a Hoarders camera crew to film an episode, then you know you've got a problem. That's why we went to a professional for some discriminating intervention. So! Please welcome the esteemed Michael Atkinson, who, starting today, joins Movieline as our resident DVD columnist and all-around video guru.
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As James Cameron himself will have you know even if he has to stomp it into your cerebral cortex, Avatar arrives today on DVD and Blu-ray. This calls for a celebration!
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If it's Tuesday, it's DVD/Blu-ray release day! Which new releases should you spend your hard earned disposable income on? Find out after the jump in DVDerby, Movieline's compact guide to the hyper-competitive home-video field.
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If it's Tuesday, it's DVD/Blu-ray release day! Which new releases should you spend your hard earned disposable income on? Find out after the jump in DVDerby, Movieline's compact guide to the hyper-competitive home-video field.
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If it's Tuesday, it's DVD/Blu-ray release day! Which new releases should you spend your hard earned disposable income on? Find out after the jump in DVDerby, Movieline's compact guide to the hyper-competitive home-video field.
more »
If it's Tuesday, it's DVD/Blu-ray release day! Which new releases should you spend your hard earned disposable income on? Find out after the jump in DVDerby, Movieline's new, compact guide to the hyper-competitive home-video field.
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Maybe it's just the pessimist in me: When I see a tall building in a film, I expect someone to jump. And Paris is a film with so much angst, the aerial shots of its title metropolis, shot from high atop the Eiffel and Montparnasse Towers, lend the film not just a sense of breathtaking beauty, but a tinge of ominousness as well. The film begins with the story of Pierre, a dancer who learns he has a bad heart and is slowly dying. Eventually, death is everywhere, whether it's the burial of an elderly parent, a fatal accident, or the Woody Allen-type neurotic perv just fretting about his own moribundity. The multiple intersecting stories in the film vary in size -- some are just blips with vague, unseen conclusions -- but the real anchor to the film is Juliette Binoche, very much alive but lacking in the joie de as she deals with the deathly proceedings around her.
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Film nerds whose agita has been exacerbated by the absence of The African Queen on DVD and Blu-ray can relax and ditch their worn VHS copies this week. The film is finally available on March 23 after a restoration process that was carefully overseen by the film's cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, and took six years of meticulous cleaning, scanning and digitizing of the original prints to complete.
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Pictured on the left, we have the confirmed official cover art for the Avatar home video, available 4/22/10. Next to it is a considerably less official version, currently available on Tijuana kiosk shelves. As you can see, the Mexican street version of the Sam Warthington [sic] blockbuster has several appealing bonus features not available on Fox's release, including versions in both "español y English," plus a live commentary track by the guy who recorded it with a handheld video camera in a crowded theater, where you'll glean fascinating insights like, "the reason is so blurry is you need the especial glasses," and "Michelle Rodriguez is still hot, even if she only likes the chicas."
There must be a pact between Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker that as long as she's pulling in the big bucks making films like Did You Hear About The Morgans? and Sex and the City 2, he's allowed to make small films that are meant to pull at the heartstrings and teach life lessons. Wonderful World is the smallest of small films -- so small, in fact, that it only made $8,600 during its brief stint in theaters in January (not much, but enough to buy Sarah Jessica a couple pair of Louboutins).
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"The freak show has come to our town and it's full of nothing but sinners and evil!" the generic small-town pastor who hates fun proclaimed. "Hallelujah!" responded the one African American woman in the movie. "I'm going to investigate this peculiar carnival!" said sheriff Lou Diamond Phillips. "I knew you'd say that," said the good-hearted psychic. "Rooooaar!" said the mythical Jersey Devil that escaped from its cage and wreaks havoc. There, I just spared you the trouble of having to watch Carny, the SyFy original movie that's part of the Maneater Series of made-for-tv horror films.
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Fox announced early this morning that it planned to release Avatar on DVD in conjunction with Earth Day -- April 22 -- thus adding a little something special to the 40th commemoration of the event. Making the date even more unusual: It's a Thursday as opposed to the industry standard Tuesday. And why not? Honestly, if I were the studio and/or James Cameron, I wouldn't necessarily want my stoner-friendly, Earth Day-compatible sci-fi blockbuster hitting the street on 4/20 either. Much more significantly, of course, they need some hook on which to hang their their long term plans. But what exactly are they?
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