Out with the Old, In with the New

March 31, 2011 Jandy 2 Comments

End of March update:

New restaurants: Freebirds at USC. Cheating a bit because I’ve been to Freebirds, but the one in Austin, like four years ago. Like Chipotle on steroids. Brat’s Brothers in Studio City. A twist on the hot dog joints we tend to frequent, with lots of kinds of brats, from standard ones to crazy exotic ones like ostrich, duck, and alligator. The real star is the multitude of condiments, though – wasabi mustard was a big hit. Not particularly atmospheric, though. Barney’s Beanery in Santa Monica. Fairly standard sports bar, but I *love* sports bars. Some unique burgers, which were really good, and some of the best seasoned fries I’ve ever had. A touch pricey, perhaps, but it is Santa Monica. Kyoto Sushi 3 in Valencia, on well-guided advice from a friend. Relatively inexpensive, and very tasty.

New things cooked: Grilled lamb chops, except I don’t have a grill so I broiled it instead. Still very tasty. The marinade was really good. I might cook the lamb a bit longer next time. Paired it with frozen mixed veggies – which let me just say, why does everyone seem to think carrots are the most awesomest mixed veggies? There were way more carrots in there than peas, corn, or green beans, all of which I like WAY more than carrots. But I digress. All the other things I’ve either cooked before, even though it’s been a while (fried chicken tenders, fried pickles) or came from a pre-made meal (stir fry a couple of times, hashbrowns, sausage links).

Household: Did a major cleaning early in the month, which made me a lot happier with my space. Now to just keep it that way.

Reading: Yeah, not going so good. I’m kind of stalled out on the book I NEED to be reading (Down and Dirty Pictures, about the 1990s independent film movement), though when I jump into Game of Thrones I’m pretty captivated. I just have been devoting more time to writing and going out than to reading.

Credit Card: Well, I had one paid off in the sense that I moved the balance to a non-interest one. But then I had to get my car fixed and now it’s not paid off anymore. Baby steps.

Blogging: The Cinema 101 series is underway! Only a few posts in, but I have plenty of ideas for more – just got to get time to research and write them. Suggestions for topics you’re interested in are still welcome. The Godard series on Row Three is still on hold, because I need to finish Down and Dirty Pictures before starting on Brody’s Godard book. Other things on R3 are ramping up, though – we’re all kind of redoubling our efforts to keep content flowing there (which is where a lot of my writing and planning energy have been going), so be sure to check out what we’ve got going on. Screenshot quizzes are back, Netflix Instant Recommendations are ramping up, Movies We Watched is back and hopefully weekly now, and we have a new 3×5 review series that’s pretty awesome.

Mid-February update:

Eating out less often and more adventurously is going well. I went to Ratata in Westwood, Fair Oaks Burger in Altadena, Lotus Vegan and Pitfire Pizza in North Hollywood, and Pink’s, Groundwork Coffee and Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in Hollywood. And cooked at home a whole lot more. Didn’t get too adventurous yet on cooking new things, but I did do some cinnamon French toast, which I don’t think I’ve ever cooked on my own before. So I’m counting that. Hope to ramp that up in the next few months and try some new dinner things.

I’ve been focusing on dishes in the “being domestic” thing, and getting better. It’s just a question of getting in the habit of doing them immediately, especially since I’m often not home for several evenings in a row. I also did some major cleaning in the bathroom, so that’s good. The rest of the apartment…uh…work in progress. Reading more is happening, but not in substantial amounts. I am getting some reading in before bed and on most lunch breaks, though.

The rest of the stuff is in various stages, but I am working on most of it actively. So, yay!

Original Post

All in all, 2010 turned out to be a pretty good year for me. It started off really crappy, with the startup I worked for hitting financial trouble and having to lay everyone off. Lots of meals of rice and ramen for a few months, but I can’t really complain because I ended up getting a job offer from the University of Southern California within three months, working in my field as a writer/video editor. I started that job in June and it’s been a great experience, and being back in an academic environment (even though I’m in administrative operations, which is faculty/staff support rather than working with students) is perfect for me.

In September, I started dating Jonathan, so at long last both my professional and personal lives are far more on track than they’ve ever been before. Earlier this year, I started volunteering at Cinefamily, a repertory cinema in LA that I’ve been patronizing regularly since I moved out here, and that’s been extremely fulfilling. Getting this blog redesigned and posting a bit more regularly to it has also been fun, and only taking away a little bit, I promise, from my posting at Row Three, where I still do the majority of my film posting. Thanks to Row Three, I’ve been able to get press passes to a few film festivals and build relationships with some publicity reps out here, which have opened up lots more opportunities for film watching and reviewing than I’ve had in past years.

But I do still have a few goals for 2011, now that a bunch of the big things are taken care of – I’d like to focus on some smaller, more fun, and more domestic things.

Eat out less often, but more adventurously (fewer chains, more locally-owned places).
Cook something new at least once a month.
Get my apartment clean and keep it that way (specific goals of this – do dishes immediately and sort/fold clothes promptly).
Spend most of my lunch breaks reading instead of playing on the internet.
When faced with the choice to futz around online or read before going to bed, choose to read.
Go to at least one music festival.
Go to a film festival not based in Los Angeles.
Move out of the Valley (okay, this is a big one).
Start buying, conservatively, furniture and decor that actually match instead of the hodgepodge I have.
Pay off a credit card (this conflicts with several of the other things, I know…*sigh*).
Start a Cinema 101 series on my blog.
Do a Jean-Luc Godard series on Row Three, which includes reading Richard Brody’s Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard.
Explore LA off the beaten path, starting with the walks in this book.

Featured, Film

Multiple Possibilities at One Time

March 30, 2011 Jandy 1 Comment

A few weeks ago I was talking about Christopher Nolan’s Inception with a friend who had just seen it (this is a common occurrence – kudos again to Mr. Nolan for making a blockbuster film that is so imminently discussable and compels people to want to think about it and talk about it after seeing it). I haven’t seen it since opening weekend in theatres, so in some ways I’m not as well-equipped to discuss the question of the ending and what it means for the reality or non-reality of the rest of the film as those who have seen it more recently or more often, but even from the first time I saw it I found the question of “which parts were a dream” and “whose dream was it” and “is he still in a dream” interesting not because I enjoyed trying to figure out the answer, like a puzzle, but because I think the film invites multiple interpretations that are all supportable. Close reading the film, studying each frame, etc. to try to figure out what really happened is far less intriguing to me than the multiple possibilities the film seems to allow.

I was trying to explain this to my friend, that I thought it was less interesting and perhaps not worth it to try to answer those questions, but in the discussion I almost inadvertently allowed that yeah, there probably was one real answer, though we couldn’t really know what it was, because the film is so well constructed for ambiguity that at least three or four interpretations are supportable. I want to take that back, maybe not for Inception, because Inception is also constructed as a puzzle film and Nolan is enough of a left-brain filmmaker that a determinable answer isn’t out of the question, but for film in general.

I ran across the two-paragraph quote below on Jim Emerson’s excellent scanners::blog, always a great source for in-depth film criticism, talking about the recent Abbas Kiarostami film Certified Copy. For context (and this description has spoilers, but the film doesn’t depend on its secret), the film is about an author, James, who wrote an art criticism book. While on a promotional tour in Italy, he meets Elle, a woman who has read the book and wants to discuss it, but doesn’t totally agree with him. They meet to talk, start getting to know each other, and then suddenly in the middle of the film start acting like they’ve been married for several years. The film never reveals whether they’re really strangers or really married, and Emerson suggests that trying to figure out whether they are or not is not useful. The comments to his post have people both adamantly sure they are strangers and adamantly sure they are married. I prefer Emerson’s stance – focusing on the facts of their particular relationship distracts from focusing on the truths of relationships and art that the film is really about (my full review is here). Here’s the relevant quote:

So, I’ll just chime in here to say that I think these are both good answers to the wrong question. Or, one that isn’t worth answering definitively, because it offers only binary options, and the movie requires that you hold multiple possibilities in your head at the same time. What you see is what happens in the movie. There is no “reality” apart from what is there. (Mr. Scorsese, please: “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.”) You don’t look at Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and say: “Well, that dinner party is real, but when they’re walking down the road it’s a fantasy.” You don’t look at That Obscure Object of Desire and say, “The scenes with Carole Bouquet are the real ones, and the scenes with Ángela Molina are imaginary.” Where would that get you? You would be denying the essential movieness of the experience.

Sicinsky has his reasons, well-argued, for his point of view, but I think he’s closer to the mark when he cites Bordwell and says that the events depicted in the movie just don’t rigorously correspond to what we experience as viewers watching the movie. Look at James’s entrance: Late for his own lecture, he enters from the rear of the room and is immediately stopped by a woman and a boy, for whom he stops to sign a copy of his book — until the host asks people to hold off until afterwards. That woman is Elle and the boy is her son. How do we square that with the moment in the trattoria when James grills Elle (both of them adopting new, amped-up, soap-operatic acting styles) about the road accident she almost had when she dozed off at the wheel while their son was in the back seat? Well, we don’t. How can we? Why should we? They are married and not married, strangers and intimates. What’s unknown — that is, what is deliberately left out of the movie — is as important as what’s known. Perhaps, like Billy Pilgrim, these characters have come unstuck in time, or have slipped into multiple alternate universes (Glenn Kenny said the movie “can be seen as the first great science-fiction film of the year”).

The point is that cinema is what is on the screen. If it’s not on the screen, if it’s not ensconced in that frame, it doesn’t exist. You can conjecture, you can guess, you can infer, but in a very real way, especially in films that so carefully construct what they do and don’t reveal, you’re conjecturing about something that doesn’t exist in the film – not simply something that isn’t definitely knowable, but something that is not there. Film is not life; it creates its own frame of reference. It’s still fun to talk about what might be outside the frame, and some films are more amenable to such conjecture than others (for instance, many people conjecture that Sammy Jankis in Nolan’s Memento is, in fact, Leonard, and that conjecture, while probably not provable, is certainly believable and adds a layer of meaning to the film). Maybe Inception is one of these. But I find it more interesting to “hold multiple possibilities in your head at the same time,” even about Inception. The film may mean different things depending on which interpretation you choose – why can’t it mean ALL those things? That seems much deeper and richer to me than having to choose one and disregard the others when Nolan has done such a careful job of making multiple interpretations plausible. Is he just throwing red herrings at us, when he has one single interpretation and meaning in mind? Maybe. But I feel no call to match my mind to his. I think it’s great that his film has made me and so many other people think. But I have no desire to reduce those thoughts to a single “answer,” nor debate which answer is the best.

DVD Triage, Featured, Film

DVD Triage: Week of March 29

March 29, 2011 Jandy Leave a comment

Well, I must be in a good mood this week – I put several up under “Buy” and didn’t find any to put under “Skip.” Or else everything really did look at least a little bit interesting to me. We’re also to the first of the month, so there are a bunch of new releases coming to Instant Watch as of the 1st (Friday). We’re also losing a bunch off Instant – since I go two weeks out on expirations, you’ll see a lot of the same ones from last week listed again, but there are also a few tacked onto the end that are expiring next week. Do check out the Woody Allen films and Criterions that are expiring Friday and Sunday respectively; there’s some really good cinema in there.

Buy

Black Swan
One of my favorite movies from last year, and probably the one that overwhelmed me the most upon seeing it – it’s theatrical, showy, and melodramatic in all the best ways, with more than a touch of full-on horror mixing with its psychological drama.
2010 USA. Director: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Mad Men Season 4
Easily one of the best shows on TV, AMC’s Mad Men shows no signs of slowing down. The new ad agency formed at the end of S3 struggles to find its feet, several characters move new directions with their lives, but the quality of writing and acting is staying put, right where I like it.
2010 USA. Creator: Matthew Weiner. Starring: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheser.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends: Season 5
Among the more surprisingly clever and subversive animated shows ever, and Season 5 is finally out on DVD on its own after outraged fans complained that it was only available in the full series box set.
1964 USA, stars Bill Scott, June Foray.
Amazon DVD | Netflix

The Ten Commandments (2-disc Special Edition)
Fair chance you already own this classic Biblical epic if you have any desire to do so – there was an excellent special edition out a few years ago. But if you don’t, I believe this its Blu-ray debut, complete with DVD rerelease and limited edition gift set edition.
1956 USA. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Starring: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Limited Edition Gift Set (w/DVD and BD) | Netflix

Rent

Topsy-Turvy Criterion
Gilbert and Sullivan wrote some of the most enduring comic operettas ever, with their works like The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance still performed today – this imaginative biopic captures their world perfectly, and is far better as a film than most biopics can claim. A joy to watch from start to finish.
1999 UK. Director: Mike Leigh. Starring: Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Treme: Season 1
I didn’t get to catch this HBO show when it was on (due to not having HBO), but a drama about post-Katrina New Orleans from the creator of The Wire is certainly an intriguing notion, and the feedback I heard from people who were watching it was good.
2010 USA. Creator: Eric Overmyer, David Simon. Starring: Khandi Alexander, Rob Brown, Kim Dickens.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Mesrine: Public Enemy #1
The second half of the Mesrine set, about one of France’s most notorious gangsters. I do love me some gangster films AND some French films, so I’m ready to check this double feature out. Also on Instant Watch.
2008 France. Director: Jean-Francois Richet. Starring Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Made in Dagenham
Norma Rae for the new millennium? But in England? Maybe…Sally Hawkins leads a group of female textile workers in a labor fight for better treatment. Hawkins is always worth watching, and the trailers look like this might be better than your average issue piece.
2010 UK. Director: Nigel Cole. Starring: Sally Hawkins, Miranda Richardson.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Tangled
Even though it’s been ages since I wasn’t disappointed by a Disney-branded animated film, I keep hoping – I’ve had graphic design and animator friends tell me the art on this one is good, but the trailers still look like they’re trying a bit too hard to be hip to me. Willing to give it a shot, though.
2010 USA. Director: Nathan Greno, Byron Howard. Starring: Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray (includes DVD) | Netflix

The Mikado Criterion
Coinciding with Criterion’s release of Gilbert and Sullivan biopic Tospy Turvy is this release of the 1939 version of the G&S classic The Mikado. Now, I haven’t seen this one, and 1930s adaptations of stage musicals tend to change them pretty drastically (I heard a bunch of the songs were cut out of this one), but it’s at least an interesting curio.
1939 USA. Director: Victor Schertzinger. Starring: Kenny Baker, Martyn Green.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix (streaming now, not Criterion)

Fair Game
had to look this one up to remember what it was, but it’s the political thriller based on the Natalie Plame scandal. Oh, right. This one must’ve snuck in and out of theatres with spy-like stealth, but I somehow tend to like political thrillers even though I don’t like politics. And as far as big action thrillers go, Doug Liman’s a pretty good director.
2010 USA. Director: Doug Liman. Starring: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

All Good Things
I remember this film’s release being all but overshadowed by talk of Gosling’s amazing performance in Blue Valentine, but he’s usually worth watching, even if this does look a bit on the cliched/melodramatic side.
2010 USA. Director: Andrew Jarecki. Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Watch Instantly

Before Sunrise [4/1]
Solitary travelers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet while passing through Vienna, and end up wandering the city talking all night. Basically a long conversation, but this film is so imminently watchable I fell in love with it immediately.
1995 USA. Director: Richard Linklater. Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy.

Before Sunset [4/1]
The 9-years-delayed sequel to Before Sunrise, as the two people who spent such a memorable night wandering Vienna together meet again a decade later; similarly conversation-driven, but with a bittersweet tone this time that makes many people prefer it over Before Sunrise. (I don’t.)
2004 USA. Director: Richard Linklater. Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy.

Gone With the Wind [4/1]
One of the most epic of epic films needs no introduction from me. It’s actually been quite a while since I saw it; I was thinking recently I need to get around to rewatching it, and now it’ll be easier!
1939 USA. Director: Victor Fleming. Starring: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable.

Micmacs
The latest from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with a quirk-laden story about a man who falls in with a group of innovative junkyard dwellers and swears revenge on the armament companies who ruined his life (his father was killed by a mine, and he’s got a bullet lodged in his head). This could be deadly if you’re allergic to quirk, but if you like Jeunet’s style, you’ll enjoy this – it’s like Amelie crossed with The City of Lost Children and turned up to eleven.
2009 France. Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Starring: Danny Boon, André Dussollier, Yolande Moreau.

Whale Rider [also Canada]
One of New Zealand’s most popular cinematic exports, following the story of a young aboriginal girl whose destiny seems tied to the legend of the whale rider, though no one pays her any attention because she’s a girl. Sweet and funny and fierce, in perfect proportions.
2003 New Zealand. Director: Niki Caro. Starring: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton.

Gangs of New York
I’m not a particularly big fan of this film, which hit me as a bit overblown and uneven, but I’m definitely due a rewatch on it, and in any case, I’m never one to turn up my nose at Scorsese.
2002 USA. Director: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz.

Far From Heaven [4/1]
Todd Haynes’ carefully rendered homage to 1950s melodrama, particularly the films of Douglas Sirk (and particularly Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows), doesn’t quite have the punch for me that those originals do, but it’s certainly an excellent film taken on its own.
2002 USA. Director: Todd Haynes. Starring: Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert.

21 Grams [4/1]
Iñrrítu’s first English-language film is rather in the same vein as his Mexican breakout Amores Perros, a tortured ensemble piece bringing together disparate characters around a central event – in this case, a hit and run – with a thematic focus on death. Not particularly cheery-sounding, but it is quite compelling – for my money, only surpassed by Amores Perros among his filmography.
2003 USA. Director: Alejandro Gonazalez Iñarrítu. Starring: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro.

The Joneses [4/1]
A seemingly perfect family moves into a suburban community, quickly become favorites thanks to their command of material wealth and status – but all may not be as it seems with the Joneses. Haven’t seen myself, but Andrew was a fan, and I’m definitely curious to check it out.
2009 USA. Director: Derrick Borte. Starring: Demi Moore, David Duchovny, Amber Heard.

Hot Tub Time Machine [4/1]
A group of friends get ported back to the 1980s thanks to a time-traveling hot tub – from what I’ve heard, it’s not quite as funny as it needs to be to put this concept over, but there’s still some amusement to be had.
2010 USA. Director: Steve Pink. Starring: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson.

Conspiracy Theory [4/1]
Though I’m far from a conspiracy theorist myself, I am kind of a sucker for movies about conspiracy theories. That said, this one about a guy who may have found an actual conspiracy mixed in among all his theories isn’t really that great a movie. But for a couple of hours to kill, it’s decent.
1997 USA. Director: Richard Donner. Starring: Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts.

Invaders from Mars
I am almost always in the mood for a good sci-fi B movie, and this looks to fit the bill nicely (in fact, has been on my “sci-fi B movies to see” list for some time), as a young boy sees a spaceship crash and then notices that people who go near it are changed, taken over by alien consciousness. Menzies is best known as an art director, so I’m betting this looks stunning, too.
1953 USA. Director: William Cameron Menzies. Starring: Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter.

The Name of the Rose
i remember being less than thrilled with this adaptation of Umberto Eco’s novel, but that could just be because I’m in love with Eco’s deeply academic and referential writing style, which doesn’t translate well to screen. The story itself is a great medieval-set murder mystery, and I could probably do with a rewatch.
1986 UK. Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud. Starring: Sean Connery, Christian Slater, Helmut Qualtinger.

Cheyenne Autumn
John Ford’s last western, and in a career of simply amazing westerns, that’s reason enough for me to add it to my queue.
1964 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden.

How to Marry a Millionaire [4/1]
So apparently Fox thought it would be fair to take Gentlemen Prefer Blondes off Instant and give us this plus Don’t Bother to Knock instead. Well…okay. GPB is twice the film this is, but How to Marry a Millionaire is still a really good time, with an excellent cast.
1953 USA. Director: Jean Negulesco. Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable.

Hello, Dolly! [4/1]
One of the few films Gene Kelly directed with starring in, instead starring Barbra Streisand (probably a bit young for the role, but oh well) straight off her Oscar win for Funny Lady.
1969 USA. Director: Gene Kelly. Starring: Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau.

I Want to Live! [3/31]
Susan Hayward won her Oscar for her role as real-life death row inmate Barbara Graham, who claimed to be framed for the murder for which she is convicted, in this socially conscious and heavy hitting drama.
1958 USA. Director: Robert Wise. Starring: Susan Hayward, Wesley Lau, Simon Oakland.

Louis C.K.: Chewed Up [also Canada]
Louis C.K. is one of the funniest and most incisive stand up comics in the business today, so seeing more of his stuff hit Instant Watch can only be a good thing.
2008 USA. Starring: Louis C.K.

Expiring Soon from Instant Watch

I’m reposting the April 1st and April 3rd expirations from last week, and adding a few more to the end of the first set of random movies. Starting with Black Beauty, the expiration date is April 6th. The TV shows and Woody Allen films expire on the 1st, and the Criterions expire on the 3rd.

Other Releases

MOVIES AND MORE
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance (2009 Japan, dir Hideaki Anno, stars Megumi Hayashibara, Maaya Sakamoto; Blu-ray, Netflix)
In Plain Sight: S3 (2010 USA, creator David Maples, stars Mary McCormack, Frederick Weller, Paul Ben-Victor; Netflix)
The Resident (2011 USA, dir Antti Jokinen, stars Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan; Blu-ray, Netflix)
The Times of Harvey Milk Criterion (1984 USA, dir Robert Epstein, stars Harvey Milk, Harvey Fierstein; Blu-ray, Netflix)
Upstairs, Downstairs: The Complete Series – 40th Anniversary (1971-1975 UK, stars Gordon Jackson, David Langton, Jean Marsh; Netflix)

NEW ON BLU-RAY
Against All Odds (1984 USA, dir Taylor Hackford, stars Jeff Bridges, Rachel Ward)
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989 USA, dir Don Bluth, stars Dom DeLuise, Burt Reynolds, Judith Barsi)
Awakenings (1990 USA, dir Penny Marshall, stars Robert De Niro, Robin Williams)
Dementia 13 (1963 USA, dir Francis Ford Coppola, stars William Campbell, Luana Anders)
Dogtooth (2010 Greece, dir Yorgos Lanthimos, stars Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley)
Inferno (1980 Italy, dir Dario Argento, stars Leigh McCloskey, Irene Miracle)
Scream (1996 USA, dir Wes Craven, stars Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard)
Scream 2 (1997 USA, dir Wes Craven, stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette)
Scream 3 (2000 USA, dir Wes Craven, stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox)
The Secret of NIMH (1982, dir Don Bluth, stars Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, Dom DeLuise)
Soylent Green (1973 USA, dir Richard Fleischer, stars Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson)
Teen Wolf (1985 USA, dir Rod Daniel, stars Michael J. Fox, James Hampton, Susan Ursitti)

INSTANT WATCH
Absolute Power (1997 USA, dir Clint Eastwood, stars Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman) [4/1]
Alien vs. Ninja (2010 Japan, dir Seiji Chiba, stars Masanori Mimoto, Mika Jijii)
At Long Last Love (1975 USA, dir Peter Bogdavnoich, stars Burt Reynolds, Madeline Kahn) [4/1]
Blood Work (2002 USA, dir Clint Eastwood, stars Clint Eastwood, Wanda De Jesus) [4/1]
Chalk (2006 USA, dir Mike Akel, stars Chris Mass, Troy Schremmer, Shannon Haragan)
City Hall (1996 USA, dir Harold Becker, stars Al Pacino, John Cusack) [4/1]
Dallas (1950 USA, dir Stuart Heisler, stars Gary Cooper, Ruth Roman)
Deal of the Century (1983 USA, dir William Friedkin, stars Chevy Chase, Sigourney Weaver)
Demolition Man (1993 USA, dir Marco Brambilla, stars Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes) [4/1]
Derailed (2002 USA, dir Bob Misiorowski, stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, Laura Elena Harring) [4/1]
Don’t Bother to Knock (1952 USA, dir Roy Ward Baker, stars Marilyn Monroe, Richard Widmark) [4/1]
First Knight (1995 USA, dir Jerry Zucker, stars Sean Connery, Richard Gere, Julia Ormond)
God Grew Tired of Us (2006 USA, dir Christopher Dillon Quinn) [also Canada]
A Home at the End of the World (2004 USA, dir Michael Mayer, stars Colin Farrell, Dallas Roberts) [4/1]
House of Bamboo (1955 USA, dir Samuel Fuller, stars Robert Stack, Robert Ryan) [4/1]
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989 USA, dir Bruce Robinson, stars Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward)
Kathleen Madigan: Gone Madigan (2010 USA, stars Kathleen Madigan)
Made for Each Other (1939 USA, dir John Cromwell, stars James Stewart, Carole Lombard) [4/1]
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983 UK/Japan, dir Nagisa Ôshima, stars David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto)
Rising Sun (1993 USA, dir Philip Kaufman, stars Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes) [4/1]
Pinky (1949 USA, dir Elia Kazan, stars Jeanne Crain, Ethel Waters, Ethel Barrymore) [4/1]
The Prisoner (1990 Hong Kong, dir Yen-ping Chu, stars Jackie Chan, Tony Leung) [also Canada]
The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969 USA, dir Stanley Kramer, stars Anthony Quinn, Anna Magnani) [3/31]
Springfield Rifle (1952 USA, dir André De Toth, stars Gary Cooper, Phyllis Thaxter)
Sondheim: The Birthday Concert (2010 USA, dir Lonny Price, stars Bernadette Beters, Patti LuPone)

EXPIRING SOON FROM INSTANT WATCH
Inglorious Bastards (1978 Italy, dir Enzo G. Castellari, stars Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson) [3/30]
The Dark Corner (1946 USA, dir Henry Hathaway, stars Lucille Ball, Mark Stevens) [3/31]
8 1/2 Women (1999 Australia, dir Peter Greenaway, stars John Standing, Toni Collette) [4/1]
Battle of the Bulge (1965 USA, dir Ken Annakin, stars Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson) [4/1]
Better Off Ted (2009 USA, creator Victor Fresco, starring Jay Harrington, Portia DiRossi)
Child’s Play (1988 USA, dir Tom Holland, stars Brad Dourif, Alex Vincent, Catherine Hicks) [4/1]
Creepshow (1982 USA, dir George A. Romero, stars Leslie Nielsen, Hal Holbrook) [4/1]
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988 USA, dir Frank Oz, stars Steve Martin, Michael Caine) [4/1]
The Madness of King George (1994 USA, dir Nicholas Hytner, stars Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren) [4/1]
Proof of Life (2000 USA, dir Taylor Hackford, stars Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe) [4/1]
Space Cowboys (2000 USA, dir Clint Eastwood, stars Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones) [4/1]
Tank Girl (1995 USA, dir Rachel Talalay, stars Malcolm McDowell, Lori Petty, Naomi Watts) [4/1]
Tin Cup (1996 USA, dir Ron Shelton, stars Kevin Costner, Rene Russo, Don Johnson) [4/1]
Eraser (1996 USA, dir Charles Russell, stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vanessa L. Williams) [4/2]
Executive Decision (1996 USA, dir Stuart Baird, stars Steven Seagal, Kurt Russell) [4/2]
Michael Collins (1996 UK, dir Neil Jordan, stars Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman) [4/6]
The Proposal (2009 USA, dir Anne Fletcher, stars Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds) [4/6]
Tears of the Sun (2003 USA, dir Antoine Fuqua, stars Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci) [4/9]
Single White Female (1992 US, dir Barbet Schroeder, stars Bridget Fonda, Steven Weber) [4/11]

Disclaimers

Amazon links use my affiliate account, and will kick a small percentage of your purchase back to me. You pay the same price you would anyway.

Not all new releases are available on Netflix immediately. Some studio films have a 30-day release window before Netflix can rent them, and some smaller releases are not picked up by Netflix immediately. Add them to your “saved” queue if you’re interested; that tells Netflix there is demand for the disc.

Not all new Blu-ray releases are available on Netflix – Netflix usually buys both DVD and Blu-ray editions of new releases, but if a DVD has already been released, they don’t always get the Blu-ray when it comes out later.

Instant Watch releases are not always 100% accurate – often the data from the API is not fully accurate until the actual day of release. I always check on release day to make sure things actually do hit Instant Watch, but for things that come out later than Tuesday when I publish this post, I won’t be able to tell.

Instant Watch expirations are not always 100% accurate – sometimes they don’t expire after all, sometimes things expire with little advance warning. I always check to make sure the data is accurate to the best of my knowledge when I publish the post, but things could still change, especially since I’m giving expiration warnings up to two weeks in advance.

I rely on Box Office Mojo and InstantWatcher for the majority of the data for these posts, so thank you to them for the work they do.

DVD Triage, Featured, Film

DVD Triage: Week of March 22

March 22, 2011 Jandy Leave a comment

This is a pretty dismal week for DVD releases, and there’s not even that much new coming on to Instant Watch this week, but you’ll note a whole bunch of stuff is due to expire off Instant Watch on April 1st. The balance between new ones and expiring ones looks scarier than it is, though, because I only go out one week on new releases, but two weeks on expirations – the influx of new titles for April 1st will be in next week’s column. Of particular note on the expiration side are just about all of the Fox TV series, and a lot of MGM titles, including all of Woody Allen’s films. Expiration data is gathered from InstantWatcher, and often changes quickly (some titles that expired on the 16th are already back as of the 20th), so take that info with a grain of salt, but if there’s anything you particularly want to watch, it’s not a bad idea to check it out soon just in case.

Buy

The Riddick Collection Blu-ray
Kind of a blah week in general, but if you have money burning a hole in your pocket and you’re still looking to upgrade that DVD collection, you could do worse than both of the Riddick films on Blu-ray. For B-level sci-fi/action moviemaking, I had a lot of fun with both of these films.
Pitch Black – 2000 USA. Director: David Twohy. Starring: Vin Diesel, Claudia Black.
The Chronicles of Riddick – 2004 USA. Director: David Twohy. Starring: Vin Diesel, Thandie Newton.
Amazon Blu-ray

Rent

Our Hospitality
I know I’ve seen this Buster Keaton film (barely a feature at 75min), but I can’t actually remember much about – but that doesn’t stop me from recommending it unequivocally, because I’ve never seen anything of Keaton’s that wasn’t awesome. This new edition marks its first blu-ray release, and also includes a rare alternate edit, a documentary, the two-reeler The Iron Mule, and a new score by Carl Davis.
1923 USA. Director: Buston Keaton, Jack Blystone. Starring: Buster Keaton, Natalie Talmadge.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix (different edition)

The Tourist
I always hope for good things from foreign directors heading to Hollywood, and I’m usually disappointed – this time it’s The Lives of Others director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, and based on the reviews, I’m pretty sure I’m in for disappointment. But I’m still curious, against my better judgement.
2010 USA. Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Starring: Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Skyline
The low-budget, early release competitor to Battle: LA ended up getting pretty poor reviews, so this is pretty low down on my rental list, but I won’t take it off completely – I’m still a sci-fi junkie at heart, and I usually find some enjoyment even out of bad ones.
2011 USA. Director: Greg and Colin Strause. Starring: Eric Balfour, Donald Faison.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Skip

How Do You Know
Actually, I didn’t even know this was a thing until the week it hit theatres, and even after I found out about it, I wasn’t that excited. Looks like a fairly run-of-the-mill romcom, probably decent if you like that sort of thing (Brooks has done some great stuff in the past), but not remotely interesting to me.
2010 USA. Director: James L. Brooks. Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix

Yogi Bear
And this is a little thing I like to call ripping up my childhood, stomping up and down on it, and then trying to put it back together when superglue and computers. I couldn’t even make it through the trailer for this. The only thing even remotely interesting was that one poster. You know the one.
2010 USA. Director: Eric Brevig. Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Justin Timberlake.
Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix