courtesy of Millennium Entertainment What Maisie KnewOpens Friday (see times below) Carefully written and beautifully photographed, the child custody drama What Maisie Knew is an undeniably moving film with strong performances from everyone involved. It’s also extremely hard to watch, and I don’t know that I would recommend it. To parents, anyway. Maisie takes the […]
Glenn McDonald
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Spalding Gray, the theater of war and Swimming to Cambodia
courtesy of Shout! Factory I first saw Swimming to Cambodia — the film version of Spalding Gray’s groundbreaking monologue — on VHS my senior year of high school, by way of my first serious girlfriend Courtney. A fellow theater nerd, Courtney was also a dedicated goth girl and introduced me to many new and exotic […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Ex-cons, Viagra jokes and Stand Up Guys
courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment Slight, shaggy and sentimental, the crime comedy Stand Up Guys has exactly three virtues to recommend it. Those would be the film’s trio of lead actors: Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin. Nobody’s gunning for glory with the performances here, but nobody phones it in, either. Anyway, these three […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Them Iowa boys mean business in At Any Price
At Any Price opens Friday at the Chelsea (see times below) Our rating: Read our interview with director Ramin Bahrani Set deep in the American heartland of Iowa corn country, director Ramin Bahrani’s stark farmland drama At Any Price chronicles one family’s moral decay among the amber waves of grain. The film also has a […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Rooney Mara, antidepressants and Side Effects
courtesy of Open Road Films The latest and maybe final film from director Steven Soderbergh, Side Effects isn’t the movie that it first appears to be. About halfway through, the story pivots and another film emerges. Then a most curious thing happens: It isn’t that movie, either. Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Shane Carruth, psychic orchids and Upstream Color
courtesy of Cinedigm Filmmaker Shane Carruth made his bones in the indie film world with the 2004 science fiction puzzle Primer. The ultra-low budget film, concerning a group of engineers who accidentally invent time travel, collected the Grand Jury Prize at that year’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s become something of a legend in filmmaking circles: […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Cyborgs, Shakespeare and Star Trek: The Next Generation
courtesy of Paramount Home Media If you only pay attention to what cycles around to Redbox, Netflix or your old-school video rental place, you might get the sense that only a handful of new home video titles get released each week. Not so. While the high-profile Hollywood titles get the most attention, new DVDs, Blu-rays […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Guns, Molls and Gangster Squad
courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures The period L.A. crime drama Gangster Squad — starring Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn and Emma Stone — is best known for its poor timing. Following the movie theater mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012, the release date for Gangster Squad was bumped. The film’s centerpiece action […]
Posted inCulture
Earth, interrupted: Oblivion delivers high-grade science fiction spectacle
courtesy of Universal Studios OblivionOpens Friday (see times below) It’s the year 2077. Pilot and technician Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of the last remaining humans on Earth, which has been decimated by nuclear war with the alien invaders known as the Scavs. Harper and his communications officer Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) live a on […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Cold feet, Lizzy Caplan and Save the Date
courtesy of IFC Films The indie romantic dramedy Save the Date — new to DVD, Blu-ray and digital this week — starts in awfully familiar territory. Twenty-something Sarah (Lizzy Caplan) is a bookstore clerk and aspiring artist who’s about to have her sketches premiere in a small gallery. Her boyfriend Kevin (Geoffrey Arend, Body of […]
