Yep, yep, yep I've been waiting for this one...
Must Buy DVD of the Week!
DRIVE: What more can I say about Nicholas Winding Refn's brutally simple crime tale? Since last year's A Fistful of Fall Anticipation post we've been ranting incessantly about this flick. True, it's not for everybody--in fact I know several folks who downright hated the film. But if you're a fan of that Michael Mann/Elmore Leonard/Winding Refn thing than you'll do your nut over Ryan Gosling's collision with Albert Brooks' psychotic mini-mafioso. Yes, that is a Fake Criterion cover above but one can dream, right?
Buy!
COLD MOUNTAIN (BLU): Here's a film that seems to have been willfully forgotten. Personally, I think this is a fine bit of Civil War melodrama worthy of old school epics like Gone With The Wind and How The West Was Won. But Anthony Minghella's brand of high drama seems not to be so popular of late and both Cold Mountain & The English Patient catch a lot of flack these days with cries of Oscar Bait and the like. Pish posh, I say. Sure, Renee Zellweger's Ruby takes some getting used to but it's much easier to get absorbed by the collection of British actors in disguise: Jude Law, Brendan Gleeson, Ray Winstone, Cillian Murphy. Plus, it's an absolutely gorgeous flick. If you've dismissed it in the past I think it's time to give it another visit.
Rent!
DREAM HOUSE: The trailers for this spooky haunting hopefully don't do the film justice, and they definitely kept me away from the theaters last year. Still, it appears to have a sure-fire cast with Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts. But man, am I sick of the same haunted house stories being told over and over again with the same tired twist endings.
THE MILL & THE CROSS: This Polish-Sweedish co-production got a lot of raves last year, but you had me at Rutger Hauer. The film depicts the characters of Pieter Bruegel's 1564 painting "The Way to Calvary" and also stars Charlotte Rampling and Michael York. That's worth a rent if not a blind buy right there.
TEXAS KILLING FIELDS: Is this another by-the-numbers serial killer flick or something special? The presence of Sam Worthington is troubling, but you've also got Watchmen's (and more importantly Supernatural's) Jeffery Dean Morgan. And Michael Mann has slapped his name on the cover so that means...absolutely nothing probably.
TWO-HEADED SHARK ATTACK: Not to be confused with the recent string of Corman produced Mega Sharks and Dino Crocs, Two-Headed Shark Attack is an Asylum production starring no one's favorite playmate, Carmen Electra and the Hulk Hogan spawn Brooke Hogan. It looks like utter garbage but I've rented worse (see Thankskilling).
Avoid!
THE THING (REMAKE): What a tremendous piece of shit. Sorry to be crass, but that's the only way to sum up this dreck. There could have been an interesting sequel, prequel, or remake to John Carpenter's The Thing but this most certainly was not it. Wasted opportunity.
IN TIME: Here's another wasted opportunity. Shades of Logan's Run and another dozen or so sci-fi tales, In Time manages to squander its roots with the blandest of Bonnie & Clyde tales. Timberlake and Seyfried are decent together, and Cillian Murphy is an interesting lawman...but not interesting enough.
THE BIG YEAR: No one cares.
--Brad
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