This weekend's teen-assassin thriller Hanna will no doubt do for talented young Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan what the overhyped The Lovely Bones was supposed to do -- firmly establish her as one of the most intense and fascinating actresses under 20 on the scene today. But she's shown promise ever since her little-seen (in the US, anyway) 2007 feature debut, the comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman (available on DVD from Weinstein Company) written and directed by Amy Heckerling (Clueless).
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Generations have learned how to flirt, how to seduce, and how to fall in love based on what we see on the big screen. And while gay people had to take coded cues from the heterosexual cinematic adventures of Cary Grant and Rock Hudson, there's no reason that straight folks can't learn a thing or two from movie gays. So with this week's DVD release of the hilarious I Love You, Phillip Morris (Lionsgate), here's some love advice that audiences of all stripes can take away from queer couples played by hetero movie stars:
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Much of the early buzz around Tron: Legacy (out today on Blu-ray from Walt Disney Home Entertainment) centered around Clu, a motion-captured character featuring the face of a much-younger Jeff Bridges. But Bridges' co-star from the original Tron (also making its DVD debut today as part of the multi-disc Legacy set), Bruce Boxleitner, also had himself younged up so that his titular character of Tron could reappear in the sequel as well. And while Tron: Legacy may not have raked in the megabucks Disney had hoped, it's a smart and exciting sequel/reboot that's far more entertaining than you'd expect a sequel/reboot to be.
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The timing certainly couldn't be better for the new Upstairs Downstairs: Complete Series box (now available from Acorn Media). The landmark British series about an aristocratic family and the servants who feed and clean them celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, there's a new reboot of the show premiering this Sunday on PBS, and the success of last year's Downton Abbey, of which Upstairs is a direct predecessor, whetted viewers' appetite to revisit the show. Whether or not Upstairs Downstairs actually lives up to its reputation, however, is another matter entirely.
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With all the coverage of the upcoming return of the other Ghostface Killah in Scream 4, lots of pundits have decided to retroactively poop on the series' most recent entry, 2000's Scream 3, as though it were somehow a franchise-destroyer. So with Lionsgate reissuing the first three Scream movies this week for the first time in Blu-ray, let's revisit this maligned chapter. After all, Toy Story 3 notwithstanding, it's hard to get respect when you've got a numeral above "2" in your title.
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There's a whole lot of Cole Porter coming down the pike this week: Peter Bogdanovich's legendary (and infamous) musical At Long Last Love, featuring 16 Porter compositions, pops up on the Netflix Instant roster on April 1 and will screen several times in April and May on the Fox Movie Channel. Meanwhile, De-Lovely, the Porter biopic starring Kevin Kline, makes its Blu-Ray debut on April 5 from MGM Home Entertainment. Funny thing, though -- De-Lovely wound up being such a stinker that At Long Last Love suddenly started smelling sweeter.
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What happens when riot grrrls become women of a certain age? That's the provocative question posed by The Owls (out this week on DVD from First Run Features), from its opening-credits montage of ACT UP demonstrations giving way to Prop 8 marches to the casting of '90s lesbian indie-film icons Cheryl Dunye (who also co-wrote and directed) and Guinevere Turner in this tale of a washed-up all-girl punk band who discover that they are now "older, wiser lesbians" (the expression that gives the film its title).
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In honor of Frank Langella's terrific supporting role in All Good Things (out today on DVD and Blu-ray) -- as the patrician real-estate mogul perpetually disapproving of the bohemian leanings of his son David (Ryan Gosling) -- here's a look at some of the best work from this often-unappreciated character actor who's unsurpassed in his ability to inject quiet menace into even the most innocuous-seeming scene. (This is a guy whose breakthrough stage and screen role was Count Dracula, let's not forget.)
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With awards season now safely behind them, Twentieth Century Fox apparently feels relieved the burden of having to treat Black Swan (out this week on DVD and Blu-ray) solely as a work of cinematic genius. Granted, the new DVD release continues to take the film seriously, but an "interactive" midnight screening in four cities this weekend -- approved, but not organized, by the studio -- suggests that the film may get a second theatrical life as the new Showgirls. Hint: It involves drag queens.
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It's so rare that American movies give us hot and sexy Asians who sleep with other hot and sexy Asians that The People I've Slept With (out on DVD this week from Maya Entertainment) often feels like something of a revelation. Add to that two lead characters -- a woman and a gay man -- who are promiscuous without feeling guilty about it, and the film feels refreshingly distinct from most of the rom-coms being churned out these days.
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After being exposed to the gateway drug known as That's Entertainment! as a young child, I spent much of my early film-geek years seeking out the great MGM musicals. But one I never managed to track down was Gene Kelly's Invitation to the Dance (now available from Warner Archive). Most film books I read dismissed it in passing as a pretentious experiment, so I was excited to finally see the film for myself on DVD. Alas, the critics were right all along.
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Hilary Swank's almost-lost film The Resident is disturbing for a number of reasons -- not the least of which is being a misbegotten, low-budget genre stinker that sends the dual-Oscar winner straight to video for the fourth time in seven years. (On the bright side, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is effectively creepy as her stalk-y, murder-y landlord.) And now, perhaps fittingly, the DVD/Blu-ray cover art has established itself as some of the weirdest of her career. Let's try to figure out what's happening here.
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Critics generally ganged up James L. Brooks' How Do You Know (out this week on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) when it opened over the holidays -- but whether it's the sort of movie that plays better on the small screen or if I'm just a sucker for Brooks' brand of neurotic romance, I found myself quite charmed by this box-office dud. You might consider giving it a whirl on your home system.
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Shout! Factory finished off its series of DVD debuts for original Japanese Gamera movies this week with the release of Gamera vs. Zigra and Gamera: The Super Monster, and it's a long-overdue recognition of these entertaining Japanese giant monster (or kaiju) flicks. You've gotta feel for the fire-breathing, flying giant turtle -- no matter what he accomplished on the big screen, he spent his entire career in the shadow of the more popular Godzilla. Ahead, four other Hollywood also-rans who quietly toil in the shadows.
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Given that it opens with a tsunami so realistic that it got an Oscar nomination for its special effects, Hereafter (out this week from Warner Home Video) got yanked from theaters in Japan even as it hits video store shelves in the United States. But that sort of ouchy coincidence happens all the time in every corner of pop culture. For instance:
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