New Releases for Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011

Posted Nov 16, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Nov 16, 2011 at 09:06 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Bellflower
Genre: Drama
Directed by: Evan Glodell
Run time: 106 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: It’s rare that a film not only meets, but exceeds, expectations. Even more rare for a film that you go into knowing little to nothing about.

But that’s the best way to approach “Bellflower,” possibly the most remarkable debut by a young director since David Fincher unleashed “Se7en” back in 1995. Fincher was at least known by a growing circle of people who marveled at his music videos, and his distinct style didn’t seem foreign when expanded to feature length.

Evan Glodell, the writer/director/star of “Bellflower,” who also helped create many of the film’s best props, as well as the camera used to capture the thrilling, disorienting, dreamlike fabrics that ultimately fuse together to create a blistering, unabashed masterpiece of cinematic angst and personal transcension, is not a household name. It’s fair to say you haven’t ever heard of anything he’s done. But that’s about to change, big time. This is a director you need to watch.

“Bellflower” is nearly impossible to categorize. It’s a coming of age flick, a romantic comedy, a harrowing portrait of pain and a vision of the apocalypse unlike any put to film before, and it draws inspiration from many films, most notably “The Road Warrior,” Australian director George Miller’s 1981 sequel to “Mad Max.” But nothing here seems cribbed or copied from a familiar source.

Yet there is so much to dissect here, to debate.

One of the central questions in my mind is how much of the film can be taken literally. There’s a moment, a very clear moment, that all the action seems to hinge on, a crossroad from which decisions cannot be retracted, consequences cannot be halted. But that moment is shown to us at least two times, and each time it ends with a wholly different outcome.

Other snippets are shown multiple times, with different outcomes, as if the narrator (if there is one) is trying to reconcile the story even as it’s being told.

There appear to be different POV perspectives on display as well. Some scenes seem to be filtered through the eyes of an unseen character, the edges of his or her vision hazy and dark. Other moments in the movie feel like you’ve been dropped into a dream, and you’re stealing a glimpse at what might transpire, should a character elect to turn their dream into a bloody, nightmarish reality.

What rises up out of this exhilarating soup is the sense that nothing is planned, everything can change and often does, that life allows for mulligans and do-overs even as it extracts a painful toll. Love, above all else, is painful and messy and fearless and fearful and, often, fraught with peril. Simple statements like “I don’t want to hurt you,” taken literally, can prove to be ominous and foreboding, a portent of devastation to come.

In “Bellflower,” people don’t break up. They destroy one another, which if you’re honest, is how it really feels. There is no novocaine to help soothe a heart from the damage inflicted by a breakup. Nor should there be.

Those painful moments help us grow and learn, to mature, to make better choices sometimes and, unfortunately, to lose much of that youthful recklessness that would commend the decision to drive from California to Texas on a first date just because.

I love this movie. It joins a handful of films that I watched multiple times in the days following the first viewing. My obsession has nothing to do with trying to crack the code. I honestly don’t want answers. I’m happy with the various hypotheses and fragments of theorem that my own brain has concocted about what I’ve seen and how I chose to interpret it.

How many movies can you really say that about?

“Bellflower” is special like that. It doesn’t subscribe to any of the normal conventions that we’ve come to expect. It operates in a place above the ether where dreams and reality intermingle, a vast expanse of swirling emotion and clearheaded reason, impacted intermittingly by shards of truth and chunks of wishful thinking that free fall from the clouds.

“Bellflower” feels real. It stings. It sears. It is one of the truest portraits of young love ever captured and one of the bleakest, most harrowing breakups ever chronicled.

Did I mention I love this movie? Here’s hoping you do too.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Some, yes.
Drug use – Yes
Bad Guys/Killers – Love, reckless crazy spontaneous love.
Buy/Rent – Buy it now.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – “Behind the Scenes of Bellflower” featurette; “Medusa Rundown”; outtakes; theatrical trailer; Credits (Easter Egg)
On the Web – http://www.bellflower-themovie.com/

Evil Dead 2: 25th Anniversary Edition (Lionsgate, 84 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): There’s not much left to be said about Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell’s return to the woods in 1987’s exceptional sequel, “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn.” But while few film franchises have endured as many reissues and special editions and collector’s releases, fans still clamor for more “Evil Dead” and this 25th anniversary edition, distributed by Lionsgate, doesn’t disappoint, offering several new Special Features previously unavailable on the 2007 Blu-Ray release. In particular, there are three featurettes, totaling more than two hours, that offer a deeper dive behind the scenes of the making of the film. The featurettes are “Swallowed Souls: The Making of Evil Dead 2,” a 90-minute collection of interviews, footage, etc.; “Cabin Fever: A ‘Fly on the Wall’ Look Behind the Scenes of Evil Dead II,” which offers more home movies from special effects master Greg Nicotero; and “Road to Wadesboro: Revisiting Shooting Locations with Filmmaker Tony Elwood,” which stars the movie’s special effects props master and clocks in at just eight minutes. Worth the triple dip? That depends on your obsession. But from this fan’s perspective, the answer is yes.

Griff the Invisible (Vivendi, 93 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Ryan Kwanten, one of the young stars of HBO’s “True Blood,” continues to pick interesting and edgy side projects when his main job doesn’t require him to be bare-chested as Jason Stackhouse. Here, Kwanten plays a nervous, nebbish, incredibly meek office drone who endures torment at the hands of his co-workers even as he finds release and fulfillment in his imagination, leading a double life as a costumed superhero. His imaginary world comes under duress when Kwanten meets an equally quirky girl that his brother is trying to date. This is not your typical comic book fare. It’s not a cult classic, but it’s definitely an interesting, thought-provoking film worthy of being checked out.

Also Available:

Larry Crowne

Bite Marks

Main Street

Sea Rex 3D

Infernal Affairs

Beginners

My Fair Lady

Farscape: The Complete Series (Full review coming, 2011 Holiday Gift Guide)

West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Edition

Spy Kids: Triple Feature

Being Human:  The Complete First Season

Rio Sex Comedy

Neverwhere: 15th Anniversary Edition

Whitechapel: The Ripper Returns

Flypaper

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New Releases for Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011

Posted Nov 16, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Nov 16, 2011 at 08:50 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Frankenhooker
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Directed by: Frank Henelotter
Run time: 90 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Famed genre director Frank Henelotter is best known for the twisted Siamese twin schlockfest series, “Basket Case,” but in 1990 he gave fans one of the decade’s most irreverent slices of subversive gore.

“Frankenhooker,” a loose retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic misunderstood monster tale, asks several important questions that few other films might, namely would someone you loved be angry if you brought them back from the dead and if you use wanton hooker parts to reanimate your beloved’s head, will she become a hooker too?

This is a classic example of the silly, gory gross but fun films that populated movie theaters in the late 80s and early 90s. And that’s the best way to approach something like “Frankenhooker,” by just going into it expecting nothing but fun.

There’s no deep story here, no defining character development. The lead actor, James Lorinz, a dead ringer for Andrew McCarthy, isn’t even very likeable. If Jennifer Delora, one of the “hookers” whose body parts help build the title character, is to be believed on one of the disc’s insightful extras, Lorinz wasn’t well-liked on set either.

But the film itself is an absolute blast, behind the scenes friction or not.

Henelotter is no stranger to working with practical special effects, and the various reanimated body parts that eventually take center stage in the third act are superior to his early work, most notably the detached Siamese twin Belial, whose herky-jerky stop-motion movements in Henelotter’s first film were distracting, have been vastly improved on here.

Just the sight of a bunch of weeble-wobbling body parts with mutated mouths and teeth and claws dragging the poor pimp Zorro into a stand-up freezer to devour him is hilarious.

Longtime fans, this disc should be at the top of your holiday wishlist!

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes, but none hotter than Jennifer Delora, looking just as dirty hot as she did in her 1986 debut, “Bad Girls Dormitory”
Nudity – Yes
Gore – Yes
Drug use – Yes
Bad Guys/Killers – Zorro, the killer pimp
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Audio commentary with Frank Henenlotter; three featurettes, including “A Salad That Once Was Named Elizabeth” and “Turning Tricks: Jennifer Delora Remembers Frankenhooker”; Jennifer Delora’s Frankenhooker photo scrapbook; trailer.
On the Web – http://synapse-films.com/dvds/horror/frankenhooker-blu-ray/

13 (Anchor Bay,90 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): “13,” the Hollywood remake by director Géla Babluani of his own 2005 black and white French feature, has an A-list all-star cast(Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, Michael Shannon, Alexander Skarsgård, just to name a few) and a B-movie’s pulpy, goofy heart. That means for every absorbing sequence in the film, there are a handful of clunky moments or transitions that jar you and force you to remember “13” is more conventional and less controversial than it might wish to be. That doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting, entertaining movie. It’s just not a great one. But Rourke and Statham deliver the goods, with Rourke being more vulnerable than in recent work and Statham playing a rare bad guy role. Shannon comes off as crazed and unpredictable, which is exactly what you would hope(and expect) to see. Winstone turns in yet another solid, understated performance in a career filled with memorable moments. And Sam Riley, the in-over-his-head protagonist, willing to go to any lengths to help his family through an expensive ordeal, is memorable not so much for playing it low-key, allowing his bigger-named co-stars to shine, but for striking the right balance between unlikely underdog and improbably lucky. The main problem with the film, which again is not a huge detriment, is pacing. Babluani keeps the action crackling along throughout the first two acts. It’s only in the third act that you notice lulls and lags, which are to be expected given the level of sustained tension he maintains for the first 70 minutes. 

Bedlam: Season One (BBC, 300 minutes, Unrated, DVD): An amazingly spooky, surprisingly sexy supernatural show from across the pond, the BBC’s “Bedlam” is an enjoyable mash-up of popular paranormal shows from the U.S. that places much of the action in a former institution that is converted into upscale housing. Of course, the place is haunted, but these ghosts don’t just linger in the shadows. They aren’t afraid to make their presence known in a big, bad way, often with deadly consequences. This isn’t a hit on par with “Doctor Who,” “Being Human” or “Torchwood,” but it is far superior to “Primeval” or “Demons,” two other, similar sci-fi shows from the BBC.

The Change-Up (Universal, 112 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): Dude, Ryan Reynolds did not have a good summer. First, he tanked as DC Comics’ superhero “Green Lantern,” and then he got stuck in this dreadful comedy with Jason Bateman where someone thought it would be fun to revisit the body-switching comedies of the 1980s like “Like Father, Like Son” or “Vice Versa.” Bad, bad idea. The jokes fall flat almost immediately, there’s zero chemistry between Reynolds and Bateman, circumstances get tolerated by bosses that would justify immediate termination in real life and for some unknown, but appreciated, reason, Leslie Mann flashes her bare breasts like three times.

The Cannonball Run (HBO Studios, 95 minutes, PG, Blu-Ray): They don’t make movies like this anymore, all-star ensembles that stretch a silly idea to the breaking point but still somehow manage to entertain. Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, though, most every film like “The Cannonball Run” featured Burt Reynolds and a revolving door of A-to-D-list celebrities in cameo roles. You can’t beat the chance to see Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Dom DeLuise, Adrienne Barbeau, Farrah Fawcett and more, especially since most all of the top stars have since passed away. 

Also Available:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

Sleeping Beauty

Band of Brothers/The Pacific Gift Set (Full review coming, 2011 Holiday Gift Guide)

The Perfect Age for Rock and Roll

Alleged

Blue Velvet

Gia

Atlas Shrugged

A Better Tomorrow

Little Big Man

Not To Be Overlooked:

Pearl Jam Twenty (Columbia, 146 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Cameron Crowe has always been a music lover first. His films all move with a rhythmic grace, propelled by meticulously crafted soundtracks and/or concert performances that enhance and elevate the story, not merely fill space. Here, Crowe, showing his early journalistic roots, chronicles the band that has meant much to him over the past 20-plus years, the seminal rock band Pearl Jam, whom Crowe has been a fan of since their early days as Mookie Blaylock. This is a fantastic documentary, filled with quiet moments of film captured by the band members themselves, that gives longtime fans a peek behind the curtain. At times, you almost feel guilty for eavesdropping in on conversations that are refreshing for their frankness and surprising because they reveal that even a band like Pearl Jam has moments when everyone doesn’t get along and the band’s very existence is thrust into peril. Above all else, “Pearl Jam Twenty” will immediately make you seek out the band’s back catalog, as well as albums by Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Green River and Soundgarden.

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CBS Plans Midseason Changes

Posted Nov 15, 2011 by Walt Belcher

Updated Nov 15, 2011 at 11:51 AM

CBS is adding two series in January and changing its Thursday and Sunday lineups.

“Undercover Boss” replaces “Amazing Race” at 8 p.m. Sundays, starting Jan. 15.

“¡Rob!,” starring Rob Schneider, moves in at 8:30 p.m. Thursday slot after “The Big Bang Theory.”

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NBC Sets Midseaon: Changes in Prime-TIme

Posted Nov 15, 2011 by Walt Belcher

Updated Nov 15, 2011 at 09:04 AM

  NBC plans to put “Community” and “Prime Suspect” on the shelf in January and will add three previously announced new series for mid-season.

A legal drama, “The Firm,” will replace the low-rated “Prime Suspect: on Thursdays and the returning “30 Rock” will take over the Thursday 8 p.m. time period from “Community” which is expected to return later in the season.

Three other previously announced freshman series—supernatural drama “Awake” and comedies “Bent” and “Best Friends Forever” are not on the midseason schedule.

New musical drama “Smash,” easily the most anticipated of NBC series this season, will follow “The Voice” on Mondays, as previously announced. Both series will debut the week of Feb. 5 when NBC has the Super Bowl.

Freshman comedies “Up All Night” and “Whitney” will swap time slots with “Up” following “The Office.”
“Whitney ” will be paired with “Are You There, Chelsea?” on Wednesdays starting Jan. 11.

New reality series “Fashion Star,” hosted by Elle Macpherson, will debut March 13 taking the place of “Parenthood” on Tuesdays to form an all-reality night paired with The Biggest Loser.

When “Smash” premieres Feb. 6, new newsmagazine “Rock Center With Brian Williams” will shift to Wednesdays at 9 p.m., with current time period occupant “Harry’s Law” moving to 9 p.m. Sundays.

Full midseason schedule below:

MONDAYS
8-10 p.m.—“The Voice” (season premiere Sunday, February 5; series resumes February 6)
10-11 p.m. - “SMASH” (beginning February 6)

TUESDAYS

8-10 p.m.—“The Biggest Loser” (beginning January 3)
10-11 p.m. - “Parenthood” (through February 28)
10-11 p.m. - “FASHION STAR” (beginning Tuesday, March 13, 9-11 p.m. ET with two-hour premiere; one-hour broadcasts resume March 20)

WEDNESDAYS

8-8:30 p.m. - “Whitney” (beginning January 11)
8:30-9 p.m. - “ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA?” (beginning January 11)
9-10 p.m. - “Rock Center with Brian Williams” (beginning February 8)
10-11 p.m. - “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”

THURSDAYS

8-8:30 p.m. - “30 Rock” (beginning January 12)
8:30-9 p.m. - “Parks and Recreation”
9-9:30 p.m. - “The Office”
9:30-10 p.m. - “Up All Night” (beginning January 12)
10-11 p.m. - “THE FIRM” (two-hour premiere Sunday January 8; Thursday time period premiere January 12)

FRIDAYS

8-9 p.m. - “Who Do You Think You Are?” (beginning February 3)
9-10 p.m. - “Grimm”
10-11 p.m. - “Dateline NBC”

SATURDAYS

8-9 p.m. - “Harry’s Law” (encore broadcasts)
9-10—“THE FIRM” (encore broadcasts)
10-11 p.m. - “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (encore broadcasts)

SUNDAYS

7-9 p.m. - “Dateline NBC” (beginning January 8)
8-9 p.m. - “Harry’s Law” (beginning March 4)
9-11 p.m. - “The Celebrity Apprentice” (beginning February 12)

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New Releases for Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011

Posted Nov 5, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Nov 5, 2011 at 10:25 AM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Trespass
Genre: Home Invasion Thriller
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Run time: 90 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: It’s like watching a prize fighter past his prime, in less than tip-top condition, trying to compete in a ring filled with young studs.

This is no “Rocky” fairy tale. There isn’t going to be an unexpected, completely improbable comeback.

This is going to be the equivalent of 15 rounds of punishment, a slow slog to Hell. In short, today we’re dissecting the latest Joel Schumacher film, and it ain’t pretty. The guy has lost his mojo and I don’t think it’s coming back. Not now, not ever again.

Schumacher is an iconic genre director, no doubt. This is the guy who gave us “The Lost Boys,” “8mm,” “Flatliners,” “Falling Down” and “A Time to Kill,” one of the best John Grisham adaptations. Hell, this is the guy who directed Mr. T in “D.C. Cab,” a longtime guilty pleasure. Ok, I saw it in the theater. I can’t lie.

But Schumacher is also responsible for “Batman and Robin” and “The Number 23” and “Phone Booth,” a movie about a guy stuck in a phonebooth! Lately, he’s been directing smaller, direct-to-DVD genre pictures like the weird Nazi/zombie hybrid “Blood Creek” and the Curtis “Fiddy Cent” Jackson-starring “Twelve.”

“Trespass” has the feel of a throwaway action movie from the 1980s, except it isn’t. It has elements of the surprisingly good Bruce Willis vehicle “Hostage” from several years ago, only it’s nowhere near that good.

There are moments – tiny, tiny, seconds-long snippets of dialogue and acting and scene composition that smack of genre greatness, that punch through the heavy-handed melodramatic crap and give a full-throated yell.

Nicolas Cage delivers most of these moments, and it is because of those moments that I love him. Cage always brings something to his seemingly random, pluck a script out of a hat, film choices of late.

Here, he channels his early-career spastic Cage, with his rat-a-tat-tat delivery and buggy eyes. He practically froths in one of the film’s best moments when Cage finally man’s up and delivers a rousing indictment of the situation, blistering through his limp, barely-there captors.

The problem is there just isn’t enough of that raw, crazy spirit, that shoot for the moon exuberance that carried the best B-movies back in the day. There’s no switch where Cage goes from goofy “Vampire’s Kiss” method actor to kick-butt Castor Troy killing machine from “Face/Off.”

Instead, Schumacher’s lazy camera eye and the increasingly ludicrous script from Karl Gajdusek, who otherwise has only written a handful of episodes for the ghost soap “Dead Like Me,” bury any fun to be had.

In fact, I counted five distinct points that the movie could have ended well before it did. The single best moment in the movie when you are conned into thinking that Cage and Nicole Kidman are about to go medieval on their captors’ butts, happens about an hour in. If the scene had played the way I wanted it to, the film would have ended with a bloodletting of epic proportions about 10 minutes later.

This is not a highpoint in the career of anyone involved. “Trespass” is quickly forgotten. Up-and-comers like Cam Gigandet and established stars like Cage and Kidman will have five or six new films on their IMDb resumes to bury this disaster in no time.

But Schumacher, that’s a different story. He isn’t as prolific as he was earlier in his career, which might be a blessing. “Trespass” may end up being a weight around his neck, dragging him down to the bottom of the lake.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Nicole Kidman, aging hot.
Nudity – No.
Gore – No.
Drug use – Yes.
Bad Guys/Killers – The worst home invaders ever. 
Buy/Rent – For fans of Cage only, this is a rental. But only as a curiosity.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Inside the Thriller featurette.
On the Web – http://www.trespass-the-movie.com/

Also Available:

Tabloid – Errol Morris returns with a wonderfully irreverent, yet completely timely and topical documentary about celebrity, true crime and the ridiculous lengths people will go for what they believe is love.

“Tabloid” might seem slight, a small topic for a filmmaker of Morris’ stature, yet his eye for story has never been sharper, and his leading lady, Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming, who found in beauty pageants the confidence she needed to pursue any dream that popped into her blonde, bubbly head, even if it meant stalking and kidnapping a Mormon missionary whom she believed was her soulmate.

Watching and listening to McKinney tell her story, her big wide eyes filled with delight, and hearing the same account from others who lived through the ordeal, you realize how detached from reality she really is, and it’s both chilling and fascinating. It’s like watching a game of Operator, where one kid starts a story that gets passed down a line in whispers until the person at the end of the line is told something wholly different than what the first person said.

This one is a definite rental.

Cars 2 – Pixar returns with a sequel to one of its most popular franchises. Children everywhere rejoice. Parents weep at the amount of merchandising they will now have to buy.

Copland – One of Sylvester Stallone’s finest moments, a genuinely good police drama about corrupt cops in New Jersey.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind – George Clooney’s directorial debut is uneven but exciting, a take on the life story of Chuck Barris, the host of “The Gong Show,” who maintained that he led a secret double life as a CIA assassin.

Crazy Stupid Love – Women everywhere could barely get past Ryan Gosling’s abs of steel in the trailer. But the rest of the movie is pretty amazing too.

Water for Elephants – Hey, Francis Lawrence, you’ve directed the ridiculously good and gory big-budget, sci-fi/horror hybrids “Constantine” and “I Am Legend.” What do you want to do next? Come again? A movie about a traveling circus based on an international bestseller starring the kid from “Twilight”? Huh?

Wintervention – It’s a movie about the fanatics who live for winter, for snow, for strapping tiny strips of wood to their feet and hurtling down a mountain at incredibly dangerous speeds.

Californication: The Fourth Season – This show started strong, but there’s only so many bad decisions one guy can make before he either angers everyone around him to the point of exile, or he contracts something that a shot of penicillin won’t cure.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – There’s a silk fan and two women trying to stay connected yet they’re living in parallel timelines and the fan is mystical or something. If you read the book, you know what I’m talking about.

The Phantom of the Opera – This isn’t the stage production, this is the original 1925 classic starring Lon Chaney, restored and featuring two versions, one silent, of the iconic film.

An Invisible Sign – Jessica Alba tries to play mousey and plain. Does she not understand she is way too hot to pull that off?

Roswell: The Aliens Attack – Of all the movies about Roswell to watch, this is not the one.

Rawhide: The Fourth Season, Volume 2 – Remember that good looking guy named Clint Eastwood who starred on the TV western “Rawhide”? It’s a shame his career never went anywhere after that.

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