courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment It’s the year 2044 and America is in shambles. Economic collapse has led to social breakdown. Cities teem with desperate refugees, gangs of vicious vagrants roam the countryside, and organized crime has asserted itself as the law of the land. Street transactions require precious metals and Chinese currency. The […]
Glenn McDonald
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Epic Westerns, box office bombs and Heaven’s Gate
courtesy of the Criterion Collection Heaven’s Gate is one of the most famous pictures in the history of Hollywood, for all the wrong reasons. Released to theaters in 1980 (kind of; see below), the epic Western stars Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert and Christoper Walken in the true story of Wyoming’s Johnson County War. Alas, director […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Elizabeth Olsen, college nostalgia and Liberal Arts
courtesy of IFC Films One of the great things about college town life, in my experience, is being plugged into a constant source of youthful energy and enthusiasm. In the spring especially, I like to walk around Chapel Hill and the UNC campus just to recharge my psychic batteries. It reminds me of my own […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Aging grossly in This Is 40
This Is 40 opens Friday (see times below) Our rating: In the comedies of Hollywood writer-producer-director Judd Apatow, two rules apply: People grow up painfully and reluctantly, and filthier always equals funnier. Apatow’s new comedy, This Is 40, is no exception. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann reprise their roles from Knocked Up as Pete and […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Francis Ford Coppola, the Rolling Stones and holiday box sets
courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment December always brings a flotilla of DVD and Blu-ray box sets aimed at holiday gift shoppers. Some are reissues of films and TV shows already available on disc or online, but most holiday bundles feature exclusive extras or new material. Below are some recommendations from this year’s batch of box […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Activist artists, Chinese dissidents and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
courtesy of IFC Films One of the year’s very best documentaries, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry chronicles recent events in the life and work of China’s most famous artist, and one of its most tenacious political activists. The film made a splash at this year’s Full Frame festival in Durham and just this week was shortlisted […]
Posted inArt
A featherweight tone in Burning Coal’s As You Like It
As You Like It Burning Coal at Murphey School Auditorium Through Dec. 16 You can make the case that Shakespeare pioneered both the romantic comedy and the musical comedy with As You Like It, the light-hearted pastoral romp that’s been in production for, oh, about 400 years now. With its sprightly mix of song, witty […]
Posted inFilm & Television
On not leaving Las Vegas in Lay the Favorite
Lay the Favorite opens Friday (see times below) Our rating: Sometimes you can see exactly where a movie is aiming, and it’s a deflating experience to feel the trajectory dip as it falls ever shorter, minute by minute. Such is the case with Lay the Favorite, an increasingly desperate comedy that follows the kinda-true story […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: City gangsters, country bootleggers and Lawless
courtesy of the Weinstein Company Ask anyone around these parts and they’ll tell you — them Bondurant boys mean business. The Prohibition-era crime drama Lawless, new to DVD and Blu-ray this week, departs from the usual gangster film mold by moving the action out of the city and into the drowsy summers of the rural […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Silver Linings Playbook is more than a rom-com
Silver Linings Playbook opens Wednesday (see times below) Our rating: In Silver Linings Playbook, director David O. Russell’s unhinged and fearless romantic comedy, Bradley Cooper plays Pat Solitano, a Philadelphia school teacher recently released from an eight-month stint in the psych ward. Pat’s bipolar condition has cost him his job, his house and his wife. […]