Did you all have a good April Fool's Day? Either way, chances are it wasn't nearly as satisfying as that of the Criterion Collection, which turned its customary April 1 brio on the perfect target: Kindergarten Cop.
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What’s the Film: Citizen Ruth (1996), available on DVD and Hulu
Why it's an Inessential Essential: The premise — one woman’s attempt to have an abortion turns into a national debate and bidding war — was a bold choice out of the gate for writer-director Alexander Payne. Citizen Ruth is his first feature film, and like his subsequent work, it has a biting wit, absurdities from every corner, and deeply flawed characters.
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Can you guess the most-rented DVD of 2011? Hint: It wasn't the most-bought DVD of 2011, but you probably already knew that. Another hint: Despite all odds, it doesn't star Danny Trejo. Give up? Don't we all!
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With both an Oscars appearance and a No. 1 movie within the last month, Jonah Hill's 2012 is on pace to exceed even his stellar 2011. And the folks behind The Sitter know it, dropping the David Gordon Green-directed comedy on DVD and Blu-ray this week for prime placement amid Jonahmania. But they also know, as Green mentioned in interviews last year, that the 81-minute movie yielded a trove of deleted scenes — one of which Movieline is debuting right here and now.
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Movieline is pleased to introduce Inessential Essentials, a regular feature about some of the most intriguing — if not necessarily most obvious — new home-viewing options on the market. We begin today with a film practically doomed by controversy a quarter-century ago, resurrected for DVD and finally given the treatment it truly deserves this week on Blu-ray. — Ed.
What's the Film: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), new on Blu-ray via Criterion Collection
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Of course, everyone remembers the 2009 blockbuster Terror at Blood Fart Lake, which cost roughly $20 to make and drew such accolades as "You can watch the 'trailer' [...] but I sincerely recommend that you don’t" and "It looks like a few goth boys and girls made it while they were drunk and high." Pretty spellbinding, to be sure — thus the sequel Return to Blood Fart Lake, new today on DVD. Who's pumped?
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Quick quiz: If you were made to wait two months in order to rent say, Final Destination 5, are you going to be more likely to purchase the DVD, or is it more likely you will forget it was on the saturated home-video market? An easy enough answer, maybe, but not for some of Hollywood's major studios. They continue banking on the former scenario, despite your continued insistence on renting movies at affordable rates. As it turns out, a number of Hollywood’s companies are trying to revitalize their revenues and expand their scope -- but those plans are getting screwed up by your viewing and spending habits.
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Because he deseeeeerrrrrvvvves it: "Now, it might be easy to conjecture that Gibson’s recent personal issues were a reason to bypass theaters, especially after The Beaver grossed less than $1 million domestic. I think this is different — a ballsy move by a maverick entrepreneur whose willingness to break rules led him to self-finance the $30 million R-rated The Passion Of The Christ and watch it gross $371 million domestic and $612 million worldwide (still the biggest indie film of all time), and spend $40 million to fund Apocalypto, a film that grossed $51 million domestic and $121 million worldwide." [Deadline]
Some adaptations of great literature become so beloved and important in their own right that it can be hard to separate where the book ends and the movie begins. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those cases. Released in 1962, two years after Harper Lee’s novel was published, the movie propelled the nationwide discussion on racial inequality and introduced characters that went against the norm yet were easy to relate and aspire to. Scout and Atticus Finch are finding their footing in a challenging environment, not an alien concept for generations of junior high and high school kids who are assigned to read the book.
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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings probably wasn't prepared for the earful (or Internetz-full) he received last month when he announced plans to spin-off Netflix's DVD rentals into a new company called Qwikster. "It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult," he wrote in a blog post today. "So we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs." Read on for more flip-flopping, and rejoice?
Movieline can't help but root for 50 Cent and his acting career, football cancer movies and all. In an exclusive behind the scenes clip from his upcoming DVD release Set Up -- a diamond heist thriller co-starring Bruce Willis and Ryan Phillippe -- the rapper-thespian opens up and gets personal talking about the impact he hope his latest acting endeavor makes on his career and dating life.
Late Sunday night, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took to the company's official blog to explain further the recent news of Netflix's streaming-DVD service split and pricing changes with yet another announcement: Within a few weeks, Netflix will split into two companies, keeping its name for streaming-only services and separating DVD rentals into a new separate company called Qwikster.
The MMA sequel Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown has a new trailer, and it's got everything: Topless young men getting sweaty in the gym, winsome love interests who may or may not be strippers, at least one slo-mo jump-punch, and plenty of Michael Jai White, who co-stars as an aging MMA veteran-slash-mentor and makes his directorial debut. "Why exactly are you in this thing?" asks a comely young lady. "I need this," answers Beefy Never Back Down 2 Ingénue #4. Don't we know it.
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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