courtesy of the Criterion Collection Director Elia Kazan’s classic 1954 drama On The Waterfront tells the story of dockworker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), a once-promising boxer whose life is derailed when he gets mixed up with mobbed-up labor union honchos on the NYC waterfront. As you may have heard, Terry coulda been a contender. On […]
Glenn McDonald
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DVD+Digital: Game of Thrones, 30 Rock and TV binge watching
courtesy of HBO Home Entertainment In the days before DVD/VHS, Netflix and endless online options — back when we had a little sanity left — TV binge watching was confined to weekend basic cable marathons. If you wanted to see all the episodes of a particular show in sequence, this was your sole option. Only […]
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DVD+Digital: Denzel Washington, DVD extras and Flight
courtesy of Paramount Pictures After nearly a decade of experimentation with motion-capture animation, director Robert Zemeckis returned to live action filmmaking last fall with Flight, starring Denzel Washington. The film tells the story of commercial airline pilot Whip Whitaker, who must confront his demons after crash landing a airliner while drunk on vodka and high […]
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DVD+Digital: Colors, shadows and Tales of the Night
courtesy of Cinedigm In recent years, I’ve become fascinated with animated foreign films for kids. There’s so much good stuff out there — some recent examples include The Secret of Kells (Ireland), Chico & Rita (Spain), A Cat in Paris (France) and Ponyo (Japan). These are movies you’re unlikely to see in theaters, so you […]
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Warm Bodies is a charming young zombie romance
Warm Bodies opens Friday (see times below) Our rating: As a movie idea, Warm Bodies absolutely should not work. The premise sounds like the worst kind of trash culture recycling: the zombie apocalypse movie crossed with the romantic comedy. Surprisingly, Warm Bodies not only works, it occasionally soars. Thanks to the clever script by writer/ […]
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DVD+Digital: South Central, found footage and End of Watch
courtesy of Universal Pictures End of Watch — the intense police drama new to DVD, Blu-ray and digital this week — truly is a different kind of cop movie. I know, I know. They all say that. But director David Ayer (writer of Training Day) executes an interesting game plan here and gets big results […]
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Mom fight! Jessica Chastain battles a maternal ghost in the very scary Mama
courtesy of Universal Pictures Mama*** starsOpens Friday For several years now, I’ve held the considered opinion that Jessica Chastain is the single most beautiful creature on the planet. Now I know the truth: Jessica Chastain dressed as a goth rocker is the most beautiful creature on the planet. Chastain’s lovely performance regularly elevates Mama, the […]
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DVD+Digital: Distance, despair and Detropia
courtesy of Docudrama Films Family lore holds that my mom and dad met as teenagers during Detroit’s heyday in the 1950s, when the Motor City was an enviable American metropolis. Mom worked at a diner downtown. Dad raced hot rods up Telegraph Road. She calmed his ass down and we settled in the suburbs, six […]
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Goodnight, Galaxy
It’s 10 a.m. on a foggy January morning, and a crowd of about 100 is gathered in the lobby of the Galaxy Cinema in Cary. The locals aren’t here to see an early matinee, though. They’re here to pick over the bones of the beloved cinema space, which closed its doors for good in November. […]
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DVD+Digital: Sand mandalas, sex dolls and Samsara
courtesy of MPI Home Video “Samsara” is a Sanskrit term that suggests the endless flow of life and death in the material world. It’s a core concept in Indian spiritual traditions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism. Samsara is the trap of the waking world, from which we can only awaken through enlightenment. The film Samsara, new […]