New Release Tuesday!!! (3/6/12)

"Bambi Hunter" by Dave McDowell

Okay.  With Comic Con shockingly and quickly approaching it's time for me to start stashing away cash and not spending the green on every little dvd that comes my way.  I'm determined to only pick up the essentials, no more Two-Headed Shark Attacks or blind buy TV box sets.  So it's with some reservation that I don't offer up any Must Buy!s this week and contemplate only one real...

Buy!

THE DEER HUNTER (BLU):  Wow, it's been way tooooooo long since I've watched The Deer Hunter.  But it's always been one of my favorites, and probably my favorite Vietnam War film...if you don't consider the surreal nightmare that is Apocalypse Now and I really don't see that as a 'Nam flick.  The Deer Hunter is a sad, introspective movie.  And one of the few films to totally deserve it's Best Picture win in 1978-to think that films like Crash, Titanic, and even The Artist (which I love) share that honor just shows the absurdity of the gold statue.  But we've been ranting about that too much lately.  Anyway, Robert DeNiro is great in this film, but not as great as the insane Christopher Walken and this was before he went made with caricature.  His final moments on screen will destroy you.  So yeah, if you haven't seen this one already than you're definitely going to want to snatch up the new Universal 100th Anniversary blu ray.

Rent!

GAME OF THRONES SEASON ONE:  I read the book a long, long time ago.  I remember liking it but I also remember not liking it enough to continue on with the other books.  But people seemed to have lost their minds for this show last year and it's exciting to me to think of a High Fantasy HBO series.  So, I'm looking forward to joining the bandwagon.

IMMORTALS:  Not a great movie or anything but I enjoyed the God Fighting.  Tarsem just needs to get hold of a great script, until then we just have to enjoy the pleasant visuals that accompany his simple scripts.  And I'm enjoying this Blockbuster era of mythology.  If I was 12 years old a film like this or the Clash of the Titans remake would have ruled my tiny brain.

FOOTLOOSE:  It's a little silly, even stupid.  But so was the original.  And this fills the same Dance Can Save The World (of high school) vibe that was so dang important in the 1980s.  Sure, I kinda expected more from Craig Brewer after Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan (two films that are not great but genuinely interesting) but I'll take a little cheesecake escape.

THE SKIN I LIVE IN:  I really wanted to check this flick out before 2011 came to a close but I just couldn't make it happen.  I've never really fallen in love with Pedro Almodovar's films but I oh so desperately want to for some reason.  And this has Antonio Banderas doing some crazy science or something.  Okay, I'm down.

Avoid!

REINDEER GAMES (BLU):  I still remember seeing this in the theater.  And I remember thinking to myself, "This Ben Affleck guy is supposed to be the next big thing?"  Cuz Reindeer Games is utter garbage.  It's not Phantoms awful but it's pretty darn close.  The only thing saving it is Charlize Theron's over-the-top-crazy lady acting.  And Gary Sinise's gross little goatee.

JACK AND JILL:  I make a promise to never see this film.  In fact, Adam Sandler will have to pull a pretty damn big rabbit out of a hat for me to care about anything he does ever again.  This looks just offensively bad.  And the fact that Al Pacino has sunken so low to be a part of dreck like this?  Shameful.

--Brad