VideoReport #405

Volume CDV- Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Recipe for Dr. Pepper

For the Week of 5/21/13

Videoport gives you a free movie every single day. That, and about 73 other reasons, means we are awesome and you should cancel your Netflix subscription.

Middle Aisle Monday! Take a free rental from the Science Fiction, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation, or Staff Picks sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Andy suggests The Fly (in Sci-Fi/Fantasy). “I’m talking about penetration beyond the veil of The Flesh!” The Flesh! You know it’s a David Cronenberg movie when the people talk this way. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is a very Jeff Goldblum-like eccentric genius who invents a teleportation device. His Telepods can perfectly transport objects from one pod to the other, except when the objects are living things (The Flesh!). That’s when baboons get turned inside out*. So Brundle tweaks his invention and then, in a restless, drunken moment, decides to test his invention on himself (and a sneaky housefly). And it works! And then he notices that The Flesh is changing. You know the rest. Seth Brundle becomes “Brundlefly.” The Fly is an artfully made, smart, and disgusting science fiction film. For every thought-provoking moment in the movie, there’s at least one barf-provoking one. David Cronenberg is a filmmaker of great intelligence, taste, and craft, who also seems to realize that subtlety is inherently un-cinematic, and, frankly, boring. I would like to recommend The Fly to fans of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Both films share a deliberate, no bullshit approach to storytelling. They seem simple and straightforward, but with lots of big ideas under the surface. Both films are musically spare and quiet, but then explode with noise and elaborate special effects. There is nothing unnecessary in these movies. Their focus makes so many other movies seem cluttered and busy. And the characters in The Fly are often as isolated in their nearly empty, unnamed city as the Antarctic residents in The Thing. But most importantly, both The Fly and The Thing qualify as two of the best and smartest sci-fi horror films of the 1980s, and essential viewing for any horror fan.

*Why baboons? Why doesn’t Brundle test his invention on a smaller, cheaper, and easier to acquire test subject like a mouse, a guinea pig, or a dog? Just a small quibble.

Tough and Triassic Tuesday! Give yourself a free rental from the Action or Classics section with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests writing for the VideoReport! We’re all in this together people: you rent the movies, we rent you the movies, but we all love the movies. And to talk about them with each other. That’s where The VideoReport comes in, people­—a weekly forum for us all to share our reviews of our favorite, or least favorite films and TV shows. And then to start a lot of arguments. So send your reviews to us at denmn@hotmail.com, our Facebook page “Videoport Jones”, or just drop them off at the store. All lengths, all movies and shows, any time! C’monnnnn!

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday! You’ve got a free rental coming from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests some standup comedy goodness! With this week’s release of the new Kevin Hart standup film, Kevin Hart: Laugh At My Pain, here are some suggestions for a standup comedy double feature to go along with it. (OR a triple feature if you want three of these for a week for only seven bucks: warning—your sides may bust wide open).

1. Richard Pryor: Live On The Sunset Strip. Funniest example of the standup arts ever filmed.

2. Richard Pryor: Live. Exactly as funny as #1.

3. Patton Oswalt: My Weakness Is Strong. Pure, perfectly constructed comedy.

4. Any of the three Louis CK DVDs.

5. Maria Bamford: Plan B. Wow.

6. We’ve got a bunch of George Carlin. Pick one.

7. Patton Oswalt: Finest Hour.

8. Sandra Bernhard: Without You I’m Nothing. I don’t know what this is, but it’s brain-twirlingly awesome.

9. Zach Galifianakis: Live At The Purple Onion. His standup remains twice as funny as his movies.

10. The Comedians of Comedy. Bamford, Galifianakis, Oswalt, Jon Benjamin, Michael Ian Black, Sarah Silverman, and more all on the same bill? Yup.

Thrifty Thursday! Rent one, get a free rental from any other section in the store! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Dennis suggests Shaun of the Dead (in Incredibly Strange.) The movie triumvirate of director/writer Edgar Wright and costars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are the closest thing to a sure thing in movie comedy these days. In the TV show ‘Spaced’ (in British Comedy), Hot Fuzz (in Comedy), and Shaun of the Dead (in Incredibly Strange), they have an infallible comic sensibility which does the seeming impossible: they work on every level. They’re all verging on perfect but Shaun actually is. Perfect, I mean. The tale of an underachiever whose bad day (his girlfriend dumps him) is topped off by a zombie invasion, Shaun is several things all at the same time: a legitimately scary and violent horror movie, a romantic comedy, a buddy comedy, and action flick, even a heart-wrenching drama. In another movie (assuming there exists another film so ambitious), this might seem overstuffed, off-balance, or just a big ol’ mess. But Shaun, improbably, manages to run all of its disparate elements in brilliantly effortless parallel. I honestly can’t think of another film like it. (Oh, and the third feature from the trio comes out in August. It’s called The World’s End, and it’s going to be awesome.)

Free Kids Friday! One free rental from the Kids section, no other rental necessary!

>>>You get a free movie from the kids section, with no other rental necessary! Yeah! (Note: if you complain about the Friday special, that means you hate children.)

Having a Wild Weekend! Rent two movies, and get a third one for free from any section!

>>>For Saturday, Dennis suggests ‘Friends’ (in Comedy.) When I first started working at Videoport, I rather sheepishly admitted that I like Friends. People scoffed, one laughed, Regan may have whipped something at my head. But former Videoporter Laree Love, a cool arbiter of taste if ever there were one, validated my opinion simply by saying, “F*** it—funny is funny.” And for all its faults (the whitest TV show of all time?) and syndication ubiquity, Friends is still damned funny. So now Videoport has just brought in the entire ten season run of the show. Don’t let your friends keep you from renting them. Funny is funny.

>>>For Sunday, Videoport customer Deb T. suggests Seven Psychopaths (in Incredibly Strange.) Post-modern – like quinoa – sounds more unapproachable than it is. When someone says they saw a post-modern movie or read a post-modern book, don’t run away. Did you read a Choose Your Own Adventure book when you were a kiddo? Well, then you’ve read a post-modern book. It’s hard to describe exactly what is post-modern, but here’s a try: Regular fiction is 2-dimensional. You watch the film it starts and goes to the end. You are a passive audience. You can believe what is happening. The characters do what they’re supposed to do. You have no idea what the writer’s thoughts were about the film. When a film is post-modern, those things don’t happen. It could be shot by the point of view of an unreliable narrator so you have to spend your time trying to figure out whether to believe him or not. The characters could lash out at the way they’re written – and may even overpower the writer. The writer herself could even put herself into the film to deal directly with these characters. It may even seem that decisions about the film are being made just at the same time the film is going along. Basically, you see beyond the story, you see the outside of the story, you see the construction of the story. You are even part of the story in a way. It’s more than just 2-dimensional. With that said, no, this isn’t a review about a Charlie Kauffman movie – although, yes, go see them. All. It’s about Seven Psychopaths, which I rented recently because I saw it on the shelf and vaguely remembered the title – yet nothing else about the film. Let’s start with the review. First, holy cast of characters – Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, and even Tom Waits(!). My goodness. While they were all fun, Sam Rockwell’s character Billy and Christopher Walken’s character Hans were my favorites. Billy – because I love lovable crazy – and everyone should have a loyal psychotic friend. And Hugh – because (beside the fact that everyone has to love Christopher Walken) he plays such a nuanced role – between the loving husband and the slightly off personality to his job as part of a dog-kidnaping team and his thoughtful voluntary contributions to the film itself. The story is fun because it’s different – and post-modern. It’s about a writer trying to write a screenplay called “Seven Psycopaths” – (hey . . .wait a minute . . . ) However, he doesn’t want it to be all about guns and gore. He actually wants it to end being about love, peace and hope. His friend, Billy, has other ideas – and wants to help him write it. Billy’s character takes over the story for a bit and makes you wonder if he changed the story in the middle. Such as did the Jack of Diamonds killer have a different identity at the beginning of the film than the end? Upon reflection, you can see what parts Billy had his hand in, and which parts Marty wrote himself. There are parts of the film they didn’t need – they didn’t need to hammer away at the fact that he was basically writing the film as it happened. However, I guess the constant reminders make the audience better understand what is happening. There were other parts of the film I enjoyed greatly – such as the conversations between characters on their thoughts about film – such as on women in movies (or this movie) and pets in movies. The movie as a whole is fun, fast, easy to understand with a nice combination of gratuitous violence, sentimentality, odd humor, and thoughtful commentary on screenwriting as a whole. And, in the end, after all the psychopath stuff goes down, we are treated to a lovely monologue by Hans that ties the film up in a nice bow. It made me happy. If you like strange and funny. If you want to dip your toe into post-modern without making your head hurt too much. If you like to write fiction. Or if you like shih tzus, go rent this movie. It’s a fun one.

New Releases this week at Videoport: ‘True Blood’- season 5 (vampires are real! And they drink this junk that’s like vampire Red Bull instead of human blood! Except when they don’t- which is often! And then there’s all the vampire sex! The kids seem to like it…), Beautiful Creatures (a young woman learns that her family heritage comes complete with a spooky old mansion and some mysterious powers; with an overqualified cast for this sort of thing including Emma Thompson, Jeremy Irons, Margo Martindale, Viola Davis, and Pruitt Taylor Vince), The Last Stand (Arnold Schwarzenegger, back from that job he was woefully unqualified for, returns to doing what he’s minimally qualified for, playing a lunkheaded action hero, this time alongside Johnny Knoxville), Side Effects (from always-interesting director Steven Soderbergh comes this thriller about a woman, prescribed experimental anti-anxiety medication by her doctor, who has some, um, issues; good cast including Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Cjanning Tatum, and Catherine-Zeta Jones; Videoport’s Regan says it’s pretty good!), Parker (Jason Statham plays, well, Parker; based on the Donald Westlake books, Parker is an enigmatic professional thief; based on Statham’s career, Parker is a dude who punches people until everything turns out okay), Stand Up Guys (slumming all-stars Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, and Christopher Walken star in this mob thriller about some aging mobsters out for one last big night on the town), Return To Nim’s Island (you know that movie about the little girl having adventures on a tropical island starring Jodie Foster? Well here’s the sequel- no one from the first movie is in it. Matthew Lillard is. Good luck), Yossi (there was a movie ten years ago called Yossi and Jagger about two Israeli soldiers in love; now here’s the sequel, following one of the pair as he tries to cope with the suspicious fact that he’s now the only one in the title), Open Road (Andy Garcia and Juliette Lewis lend their mid-wattage star power to this indie about a young free-spirited occasional waitress who’s torn between the free life of the road and some people who seem to like her), Gregory Crewdson-Brief Encounters (check out Videoport’s Documentary Arts section for this documentary about the famed photographer whose stunningly weird images make everyone feel funny), Cool Air (HP Lovecraft fans rejoice! Here comes another adaptation, this time of the tale of a guy who begins to suspect there’s something odd about his neighbor, who needs his apartment kept reeeeaaaaal cool all the time), A Common Man (Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross [two of the best British Bens] star in this thriller about a seemingly mild-mannered citizen who plants bombs all over the city and demands the release of several international terrorists), Kevin Hart: Laugh At My Pain (new standup comedy concert film from the diminutive, and very funny, Hart), Nightfall (Simon Yam [IP Man] stars in this Hong Kong-based thriller about a jaded detective out to discover who bumped off a beloved pianist), Witness: A World in Conflict Through a Lens (HBO documentary series about war photographers documenting atrocities around the globe), Penthouse Playboys (three young urban professionals [read: douches] in modern day Seoul cope with sex addiction, relationship troubles, and lots and lots of sex in this Korean erotic drama), Picture Day (Canadian drama about a young woman whose badass reputation forces her to repeat her senior year of high school where she befriends a dorky freshman she used to babysit; starring the very, very talented Tatiana Maslany, who you should check out on the show ‘Orphan Black’ on BBC America)

New Releases on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: Parker, Last Stand, Beautiful Creatures, A Common Man, Side Effects, ‘True Blood’- season 5.

Get yourself some free money at Videoport!

As if you needed another reason to rent here, Videoport has these deals which just plain give you free money. Check it out: pay 20 bucks up front on your rental account, and we turn that into 25 dollars worth of rental credit. Do the same thing but with 30 dollars, and we give you 40 dollars worth of store credit. That’s either five or ten free bucks, which you were going to spend here anyway eventually. So why wouldn’t you go for this deal? Um–you hate deals maybe? I’m not your psychiatrist…

VideoReport #404

Volume CDIV- Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Three Men and a Baby Kid

For the Week of 5/14/13

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. Movies are great. Therefore we make your life great every day. You’re welcome…

Middle Aisle Monday! Take a free rental from the Science Fiction, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation, or Staff Picks sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Dennis suggests A Sound of Thunder (in Sci Fi/Fantasy.) People like to throw around the phrase “the worst movie of all time” around here. We at Videoport have a lot of movies (like, a lot) and they’re not all great.

Right, so…my dumptruck full of money is where?

In fact some of them are downright dreadful, loathsome, or downright crimes against cinema, if not humanity itself. But only a select few can be held up, marveled at, and, upon watching, dry-heaved over as the truly worst of the worst. And some of those aren’t even terrible in a fun way. They just make you feel all sad and bloated with despair for the human race. (Battlefield Earth, I’m looking at you…) Nope, to truly contend for true “worst movie of all time” there has to be something special. Or, you know, what the opposite of special is. Maybe it’s truly terrible acting, or a script seemingly written by a special needs chimp, or, in the case of A Sound of Thunder, the most laughable special effects of all time. Sure, it’s easy to make fun of low-budget, ancient, or amateurish special effects in movies. But what sets this one apart from the latest Syfy Chanel Roger Corman hybrid-monster cheese-fest (coming soon: Veloci-Panda! Hammerhead Frogbat! and Three-Headed Octo-Crab!), this adaptation of a five page Ray Bradbury story cost $52,000,000 dollars. Go on and rent the movie. I’ll wait. Great-now describe where you think they spent that money. Sure, Edward Burns has to cost, what, ten grand, and it’s got Ben Kingsley (a great actor continuing the Michael Caine legacy of “only appearing in anything, ever, where they give me a big pile of money”), but please, and take your time, explain to me where the rest of that money went. (To summarize the plot- in the future, companies go back in time to take rich jerks on safaris to dinosaur times. There are strict- I say strict!- protocols in place to prevent idiots from, say, killing a butterfly and causing massive disruptions in the space-time continuum and destroying the world as we know it but, well…) To render the unimaginable splendor of walking amongst dinosaurs, not to mention the havoc wrought by that whole space-time deal on the modern world, the film employs all the technological wizardry of an early Playstation game. Or maybe the visual sleight of hand of the Land of the Lost TV show. Seriously, I’m not just crackin’ wise here, people- watching the interaction of actors (in cheap plastic bubble time safari helmets) “interact” with things which appear to be projected on a drive-in screen somewhere in the background. I cannot do justice to the delightfully-batsh*t god-awfulness of the effects here (which, far from being used sparingly, or sheepishly make up more than half the movie)- I say just watch it, crack open all the beers, and marvel at…the worst movie of all time!!

(It might not be the worst. It’s close.)

Tough and Triassic Tuesday! Give yourself a free rental from the Action or Classics section with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests a Bogart gumshoe back-to-back taste test with The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. These two Bogart detective classics tend to get lumped together in the public consciousness, since they’re both Bogart, both from around the same time, and both undeniably among the best detective movies ever made. There are essential differences however which leads to the inevitable question: which is better? For

That’s Marlowe.

that, let’s go to the tale of the tape! The Big Sleep (1946, directed by Howard Hawks). The Maltese Falcon (1941, directed by John Huston). In Sleep, Bogart is Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, while he’s Daishell Hammett’s Sam Spade in Falcon. Both men are Bogart-cool, but there are significant differences. Marlowe’s a former cop with a code of honor who gets sucked into the shenanigans of the wealthy Sternwood clan, especially when he meets haughty daughter Lauren Bacall. Spade’s tough guy cool is accompanied by a more shifty, even sadistic streak, and he’s motivated by a dame, sure (Mary Astor’s compulsive liar and man-trap), but also by the tantalizing promise of untold wealth in the form of the titular maguffin- a legendary jeweled sculpture. Marlowe’s code, as cockeyed as it can seem, is more altruistic at heart- he’s hired to solve a case, but as it becomes apparent that something’s really rotten (and the impossibly formidable Bacall is in trouble), he plunges on, even after he’s been warned off, bought off, and beaten to a pulp. Because that’s what he does. Spade? Spade likes the danger, the dirt, and the dames (he’s even sleeping with his partner’s wife), and his eyes light up at the sight or promise of money. He takes on a case for it, endures beating and getting mickey-ed for it, sleeps with dames to get it (not really a hardship, but still), and takes a lot of chances on its account. He too, we find out, has a code- but it’s harder to pin down than Marlowe’s (which isn’t easy in itself). Motivated by the dough, he’ll still show equal courage to Marlowe, and ultimately do something like the right thing- this time, anyway. As far as the supporting cast of each goes, Sleep, has a great turn by diminutive character legend Elisha Cook Jr, the peerlessly smoky Bacall, and a

That’s Spade.

weirdly sexy performance by Martha Vickers as Bacall’s spoiled, druggie, nympho little sis who, as Marlowe says, “tried to sit in my lap when I was standing up.” Sleep, though has what may be the all-time bonkers ensemble cast of greatness, with Sydney Greenstreet as the erudite-ly evil mastermind Kasper Guttman, purring and scheming with delicious abandon, Peter Lorre as foppish dandy Joel Cairo, absolutely hilarious, and deceptively dangerous henchman. There’s Astor, pathologically lying her way into Spade’s, um, heart, I guess, her self-consciously arch pretension and clipped dialogue a constant, and constantly entertaining babble of deception. And Cook’s here too, this time as one of the greatest snotty little punks in screen history, a too-tough talking henchman (“the gunsel”) whose too-big overcoat hints at just how effective he’s gonna be. In the end? I have to give the slight edge to The Maltese Falcon which, due to a once-in-a-lifetime cast and masterfully energetic direction by Huston might just be the most purely entertaining film of all time. Of course, if you use the daily deal to rent them both, the big winner is you, you lucky so and so…

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday! You’ve got a free rental coming from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests After Hours (in Comedy.) After the “original” Hangover was overrated by frat bros leading to (soon, so very soon) a third installment of broad, boozy nonsense and Ken Jeong’s ass, I’d like to bring the concept of the “one crazy night” movie back to earth, and greatness, with this 1985 dark comedy from renowned comedy master Martin Scorcese! And starring beloved comic hero Griffin Dunne! Yeah- who’s with me? Well shut up, because this movie is great. Dunne brings his signature blend of squirrelly untrustworthiness to the role of a Manhattan office drone who, sensing an easy conquest with flighty Soho boho Rosanna Arquette, heads off to her apartment for a rendezvous. And thus begins the sort of night that would cause Bradley Cooper to try and make some snarky wisecrack before wetting himself and running away. Lost money, unexpected subway fare hikes, unexpected dead people, suspicious burglaries, spooky sculptures, Cheech & Chong, Dick Miller, several insane blondes, Monkees music, and an actual lynch mob later, and After Hours has become a unique sort of comedy nightmare, getting inside the skin of the average guy and revealing how our insecurities and weaknesses can lead us to some very dark and dangerous (and squirmily funny) places. Warning: there are no comically scatalogical monkeys in After Hours. Apologies frat brosephs…

Thrifty Thursday! Rent one, get a free rental from any other section in the store! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Dennis suggests getting some free money at Videoport! (admittedly, that’s advice good for every day, but no one gave me a review for Thursday- and send your reviews to denmn@hotmail.com). Here’s the thing- you’re gonna want to rent movies at Videoport all day every day because we are so awesome and have all the movies and Netflix sucks and cable is too expensive and ridiculous. So why not get yourself some free money to discount our prices even more and stretch your entertainment dollar and so forth, etcetera. Check it- pre-pay $20 on your Videoport account and we give you $25 dollars in rental credit. And $30 buys you a whopping $40 in rental credit. That’s either a 20/25 percent discount or 5/10 free bucks depending on how you look at it. And that’s not including the added benefit of feeling superior to those dopes who don’t play it smart like you. Everybody wins.

Free Kids Friday! One free rental from the Kids section, no other rental necessary!

>>>You get a free movie. You don’t have to rent anything else. We think that’s very nice.

Having a Wild Weekend! Rent two movies, and get a third one for free from any section!

>>>For Saturday, Dennis suggests ‘New Girl’ (in Comedy.) With the second season of this one finishing up last night, I’d heartily recommend checking out the first season of what has unexpectedly become one of the best sitcoms on TV. Fashioned as a starring vehicle for everybody’s favorite hipster-target Zooey Deschanel, it quickly established itself as one of the best ensemble comedies on TV with Jake Johnson (as slacker Nick), Lamorne Morris (as slightly more together voice of reason Winston), and Max Greenfield (certified scene stealer as would be ladies man Schmidt) sharing time with the funny and goofy Deschanel as roommate/pals. It’s not going to break any ground, necessarily but New Girl has become appointment viewing for me, with the cast’s fresh, improv-y chemistry winning me over to a ridiculous degree by this point. Funny is funny. New Girl is funny.

>>>For Sunday, Emily S. Customer suggests Silence of the Lambs (in Mystery/Thriller.) If you’ve been watching Bryan Fuller’s current series Hannibal, which follows FBI consultant profiler Will Graham as he collaborates with respected psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter to solve a series of serial slayings (and you should be watching it, btw: it’s eerie and tense and dreamy in a way that’s hard to describe), now is a great time to revisit the films based on Thomas Harris’ infamous book series. The large and small details of character and plot that flicker through the films’ background will give you a chuckle (or, depending on the detail, a chill) when they pop up — sometimes identically, sometimes repurposed — as background elements or plot details in the TV show. And you’ll see how both Silence of the Lambs and Fuller’s Hannibal tap into a crucial aspect of Lecter’s personality: his steely insistence on courtesy, no matter how dissonant or irrelevant it might seem. His peculiar brand of civility shapes almost all of his behavior in Silence of the Lambs. In fact, the entire story of SotL unfolds because he is trying to make up for another person’s crudeness to Clarice Starling. Think about it: Clarice Starling is just a student — an ace student, unusually diligent and intelligent, sure, but she’s completely uncredentialed and inexperienced, in no way qualified to face off against a notoriously brilliant fiend. Why does the FBI send her on such a vital mission? Well, they don’t. Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn), Agent-in-Charge of the Behavioral Science Unit, spells that out for Starling in her briefing: “I don’t expect him to talk to you, but I have to be able to say we tried.” Crawford quite reasonably expects Lecter to toy with Clarice briefly to break his boredom, then throw her back to the agency with her (and their) questions unanswered. And that’s almost what happens: Dr. Lecter spares little time for this green recruit, dismissing her fumbling with scalding precision and sending her back to Crawford with a scolding. It’s only after a fellow inmate humiliates her more crassly — and rudely — that Lecter summons Starling back and hastily offers to salve the indignity the only way he can. The phrase isn’t uttered until much later in the film, but this is their first quid pro quo, a reciprocal arrangement to atone for a transgression in his home: “Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.” “Then do this test for me.” “No, but I will give you a chance for what you love most.” “What is that, Dr.?” “Advancement, of course.” Lecter offers his help and information to make amends for her humiliation at another’s hands. Like any good host, he shoulders responsibility for any indignity visited upon a guest under his roof, and he makes amends to right that wrong. It’s just that his idea of righting a wrong is, well, different from other people’s. Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s notion of hospitality is sinister beyond description, but he clings to it with unbending propriety.

New Releases this week at Videoport: ‘Dexter’- season 7’ (Michael C. Hall is back killing his way through all the serial killers Florida has to offer; which is, unsurprisingly, a lot of serial killers), Cloud Atlas (Tom Hanks stars, and stars, and stars as nearly 50% of the cast of this epic sci fi drama about how one life’s impact stretches through time; directed by the Wachowskis [The Matrix] and Tom Twkwer [Run Lola Run]), Back to 1942 (Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody bring the Hollywood presence to this wrenching Chinese epic about the legendary drought which descended on China just in time for the Japanese invasion; man…), Beware of Mr. Baker (documentary about the titular Ginger Baker, the one-time drummer for Cream who has a reputation for being a tad, shall we say, ornery?), The Bletchley Circle (BBC series about a quartet of women working in the titular WWII codebreaking center who, in their spare time, track down a serial killer; man…), Escape (Norwegian action about a young woman, kidnapped from her slaughtered family in the days after the black plague, who must escape from the band of merciless marauders dead-set on doing the things a band of Viking-types do after the pillaging is done), A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (director Roman Coppola [CQ] recruits cousin Jason Schwartzman, alongside an interesting cast [Bill Murray, Kathryn Winnick, Aubrey Plaza] and, um, Charlie Sheen to bring us this indie quirk-fest about a graphic designer who has a dear-death experience and starts having a series of increasingly odd encounters), Liz & Dick (professional cautionary tale Lindsay Lohan and some guy with a gravelly voice impersonate the most insufferable celebrity couple of their time Elizabteh Taylor and Richard Burton in this TV movie; I saw about half of it! It’s as bad as you think!), Mindfulness Meditation for Anxiety (ommmmmm…ommmmmm…my bed is not full of spiders…ommmm….), Texas Chainsaw (the undisputed horror classic!…is the inspiration for this unnecessary remake which was in unnecessary 3D in theaters; now it’s in good ol’ 2D! Enjoy!), Frankie Go Boom (Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy stars in this comedy about a guy whose brother has been filming, and humiliating, him his entire life; when the brother gets out of rehab, things should be better…or else his pranks will be more focused and cruel…), Stitches (check Videoport’s Incredibly Strange section for this one. Why? EVIL ZOMBIE PARTY CLOWN! EVIL ZOMBIE PARTY CLOWN!), Walk Away Renee (sort of a sequel to his acclaimed documentary Tarnation, this doc follows director Jonathan Caoette as he takes his mentally ill mother on a cross country road trip; I’m sure it goes fine…),

New Arrivals at Videoport: ‘Topper’ (Leo G. Carroll stars in this 1950s TV series adaptation of the classic comedy about an uptight banker haunted by a pair of charming, if meddlesome, ghosts), Jeff Dunham: A Very Special Christmas (holiday comedy stylings of a racist ventriloquist? Where do I line up?!), The Ritz (cult 1976 comedy about a straight shlub [great shlubby character actor Jack Warden] forced to hide out from the mob in a gay bath house; costarring Rita Moreno…as Googie Gomez!), ‘Ray Bradbury Theater’ (1985 anthology series consisting of adaptations of stories from sci fi master Bradbury; starring the likes of William Shatner, Jeff Goldblum, Leslie Nielson, Peter O’Toole, and on and on)

New Releases on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: ‘Dexter- season 7’, Frankie Go Boom, Naked Lunch

VideoReport #403

Volume CDIII- Indiana Jones and the Secret Life of Bees

For the Week of 5/7/13

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. How can you beat that? You can’t, that’s how…

Middle Aisle Monday! Take a free rental from the Science Fiction, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation, or Staff Picks sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Videoport customer Matthew B. suggests War Of The Dead (in Incredibly Strange), saying, “This is probably the best Nazi zombie movie I’ve ever seen!”

>>>Dennis suggests ‘Luther’ (in Mystery/Thriller.) I’ve written before about how depressing it is to see the cast of The Wire (the best show in the history of television) not get the success their talents deserve. Watching the huge cast of that show go from enlivening some of the most well-realized, complex characters in TV history to playing cops, drug dealers, or lawyers on crappy/mediocre series is a bummer (and, yes, I realize that those are the roles they were playing on The Wire, too- but there’s playing a drug dealer on The Wire, and playing one in some show on the USA network.) Oh, and the fact that most of these actors are black is the most iron-clad proof of institutional Hollywood racism I can possibly think of. Anyway, one guy we don’t have to worry about is Idris Elba. After playing arguably The Wire’s most magnetic character, upwardly-mobile drug kingpin Stringer Bell, Elba’s landed some decent movie roles and this BBC cop vehicle for himself. As John Luther, tormented London super-cop, Elba (getting to use his own accent for a change) elevates what could be standard cop show stuff with his very presence. We first see him chasing a monster of a crook and letting the creep fall to his death once he determines that the information the guy’s given him (about the whereabouts of his most recent victim) are true. Clearly the guy’s got some serious issues, but, in the tradition of super-cops everywhere, he’s allowed back on the force, albeit with the standard “you’re on thin ice, Luther!” warnings, and Elba makes the most of his role, imbuing him with a tortured dignity that makes the whole thing exceptionally watchable, even when it occasionally veers into cliche or outright silliness. (Mostly involving the entertainingly bonkers killer played by Ruth Wilson, who has sort of an Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes thing with Luther.) So maybe it’s a little beneath his talents, but at least it’s a chance for Elba to strut his stuff.

Tough and Triassic Tuesday! Give yourself a free rental from the Action or Classics section with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests the films of Ray Harryhausen. With the death last week of this pioneering visual effects master, why not revisit some of the films in which his stop-motion creatures livened up the lives of generations of movies and movie-goers. His meticulously crafted and animated creatures had more life and imagination in their slightest movement than most CGI character can boast from a bloated, big-budgeted three hours of nonsense. Check out:

-Mighty Joe Young (where he apprenticed)

-20 Million Miles to Earth

-The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

-The 3 Worlds of Gulliver

-Mysterious Island

-First Men In The Moon

-The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

-Sinbad and The Eye Of The Tiger

-Clash of the Titans (the 18981 version; rent it alongside the blandly empty new one and see, for all its fancy computer graphics, how much more interesting the original’s effects are)

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday! You’ve got a free rental coming from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests some sweet, sweet Andy Richter (in Comedy.) So Andy Richter has settled back into his role as Conan O’Brien’s sidekick and, while he’s good at it, there was a time when he was thought of as a comic leading man in his own right. Videoport’s got both of his starring vehicles, and they each reveal that that wasn’t such a crazy idea after all. In Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Andy plays, well, Andy- put-upon worker in a faceless corporation who often imagines himself in much more interesting situations as a way of coping with his humdrum life of Andy-ness. It’s a lot like Scrubs (which came along later), with Andy’s flights of fancy visualized as a comic counterpoint to the invariably more ordinary and demeaning facts of everyday life. Andy’s funny, and genial, and the show was a little bit ahead of its time. Not a lot, but still- maybe a week and a half. Then there’s Andy Barker, PI, where Andy, playing Andy, is a mild mannered accountant who, moving into his new office, finds himself approached for assistance by people looking for its previous occupant- a private eye. So Andy, partly out of boredom, and partly because, being Andy, he’s so nice and genial, starts taking on cases. If this one sounds familiar, too, it’s because it predated the very similar Bored to Death. So again, Andy’s was about a month and a half ahead of his time. That sounds about right in summing up Andy Richter’s appeal to me…

Thrifty Thursday! Rent one, get a free rental from any other section in the store! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Emily S. Customer has a movie theme night suggestion for you. I admit it: I love to have guests over for theme movie nights. (Possibly related: I’m a huge dork.) LOVE IT. So what do you eat when you watch movies about giants? Obviously: tiny food so you and your guests can pretend to be ENORMOUS GIANTS laying waste to the teeny weeny little treats. I’m thinking mini-quiches, stuffed cherry tomatoes, little bitty baked potatoes, a tiny little loaf of homemade bread, the smallest possible cupcakes for dessert, served on saucers with hors d’oeuvre forks and all washed down with splits of champagne or liqueur glasses of juice. Suggested viewing: The Iron Giant and The Princess Bride. Don’t forget to stomp around and roar!

Free Kids Friday! One free rental from the Kids section, no other rental necessary!

>>>Dennis suggests you get yourself a free kids movie! What’s that? You don’t have any kids? Well, then get something for your inner child then, smart guy- it’s free.

Having a Wild Weekend! Rent two movies, and get a third one for free from any section!

>>>For Saturday, Emily S. Customer suggests some Bass! This week, legendary graphic designer Saul Bass would have turned 93. In his honor, I’m going to revisit great movies featuring Bass’ legendary (and often Oscar-winning) title sequences, including the vertiginous gestalt skyscraper of North by Northwest, the splintered text of Psycho, the obsessive spiraling vortex of Vertigo, the stripped-down style of Goodfellas, the ominous physicality of Bunny Lake is Missing, the surreal distortion of Seconds, the scrawled chalked-up walls of West Side Story, and the brassy black & white papercut silhouettes of Anatomy of a Murder.

>>>For Sunday, Dennis suggests a little televisual comfort food with ‘Castle’ (in Drama) and ‘Psych’ (in Comedy.) You know how everyone loves murder mysteries, but not everyone wants CSI-style recreations of blood and semen and whatnot? Well, both of these long-running, utterly pleasant and funny sort-of cop shows deliver a weekly serving of fun whodunnits alongside a clearly-silly central premise which allows for funny hijinx from their effortlessly funny and charming leads. In Castle, it’s all-around awesome guy Nathan Fillion (that’s Captain Mal Reynolds from Firefly to you, mister) as Rick Castle, successful and wealthy mystery novelist who, through some connections in the mayor’s office, is allowed to tag along with beautiful, no-nonsense detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) while he secretly bases his new detective character on her. It’s really pretty irresponsible for the NYPD, since Castle is constantly wandering into dangerous crime scenes (he has a bulletproof vest with “writer” emblazoned on it made up special), but his finely honed mystery writer’s insight keeps helping the real cops solve a murder every week, so they let it slide. Of course, Fillion’s the real draw here; effortlessly charming and funny (and soulful when need be), he’s a big kid playing copper and he (and the viewer) has a ball. I thought, and still think, really, that the show’s beneath him, but, well, Firefly’s never coming back, and there are worse gigs. As for Psych, the silliness factor is ramped up even more, with James Roday’s slacker possessing such powers of observation and recall that everyone thinks he’s a psychic. So, alongside his oft-unwilling best friend, the sensible Gus (the indispensable Dule Hill from The West Wing), Shawn Spencer hires himself out to the most credulous police department in the nation (Santa Barbara) as a freelance psychic investigator. Roday’s smarmy self-referential schtick could have gotten old fast, but he’s actually consistently funny, especially in his scenes with the slightly more responsible Gus; there’s no question that these guys have been besties forever, with their comic chemistry often approaching terminal giggles levels. Plus, Psych’s amiable goofiness often extends to some clever and silly tribute/theme episodes which generally pay off nicely. (And hearing Hill exasperatedly say the name “Shawn” is never not funny.) So if you want your TV murders to be breezy, funny, and easily digestible, Castle and Psych go down smooth.

New Releases this week at Videoport: Upstream Color (the new film from Shane Carruth, writer/director of the still-stunning Primer brings us another mind-bending film about things that may not make all the sense; seriously, this guy is someone you should pay attention to; what’s it about? Just watch it…), Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise stars as a man of action in this thriller based on a series of books about a kick-ass hero who is, um, about a foot taller than Cruise), Safe Haven (a woman with a deep, dark secret heads to picturesque South Carolina and meets a hunky stranger who helps her cope with her deep, dark secret in this newest in the unending series of films adapted from the books of schmaltz-meister Nicholas Sparks [The Lucky One, The Last Song, Dear John, The Notebook]), Mama (cool-guy director Guillermo Del Toro [The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth] produces this horror flick about a pair of young sisters, adopted by a new family, whose survival in the wild may have had something to do with their titular parent who may not, and I’m not spoiling anything here, be totally normal), ‘30 Rock’- season 7 (say goodbye to one of the best sitcoms in TV history with this final season of the backstage antics of Liz Lemon, Jack Donaghy, Tracy Jordan, and the rest), Hitler’s Children (from the people at Film Movement comes this fascinating documentary about the present-day descendants of infamous Nazis and how they have coped with their unwanted legacy), The Girl (if the Anthony Hopkins Hitchcock left you wanting more of the legendary, and legendarily creepy, director, this second biopic, this time with Toby Jones portraying Hitch as he tries to craft Tippi Hedren into his ideal heroine), To the Arctic (it’s like March of the Penguins, but with huge monsters that could rip you face off when Meryl Streep narrates this stunningly filmed nature documentary about a mama polar bear and her two cubs as they cope with the vicious Arctic winter and the effects of global warming on their habitat), Bunohan: Return To Murder (it’s revenge action, Muay Thai style when a brother returns home to avenge his brother’s death, probably by kick-boxing the bejeezus out of a bunch of dudes), The Oranges (Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener, Allison Janney, Oliver Platt, and Alia Shawkat star in this indie dramedy about two suburban families whose peaceful coexistence is threatened when the daughter of one starts an affair with the father of the other), The Rabbi’s Cat (animated fable about a rabbi’s cat who eats a parrot, learns to speak, and decides to convert to Judaism himself), Superman Unbound (White Collar’s Matt Bomer gives voice to Supes in this animated movie where he and Supergirl have to battle Braniac), Starlet (good-looking indie about the unlikely friendship that grows between a 21 year old aspiring actress and an elderly woman when the actress discovers a stash of money hidden inside something she bought at the old woman’s yard sale), Clandestine Childhood (life’s tough for a kid when your parents are hiding out from the Argentinian government and you can’t tell the girl you’re in love with that your name is not your name and that you might have to flee at any moment), ‘Cake Boss’- season 4 (there’s this guy who makes cakes. He is apparently the royal ruler of said cakes? I have no further information…), ‘Fringe’- season 5 (the often-quite-good sci fi series wraps it up; did they make sense of all the alternate dimensions and doubles and bald dudes and sci fi goop and whatnot? Rent it and find out!)

New Arrivals at Videoport: Kidnapped (the last film from famed Italian horror director Mario Bava, this crime thriller follows a trio of amoral bank robbers whose abduction of three hostages leads to some seriously unsavory shenanigans; includes Bava’s original cut, called Rabid Dogs), Vegan Mashup (local cooking DVD made by local filmmaking legend Betsy Carson), Touch (cool pedigree from writer Elmore Leonard and director Paul Schrader involved in this 1997 dark comedy about a young guy [Skeet Ulrich] who starts getting stigmata; throw in Christopher Walken and I’m sold), Private Resort (why did Videoport bring in the DVD release of this forgotten 1985 teen sex comedy about a pair of horny guys chasing girls at the titular getaway? It was one of the first films of a little fella named Johnny Depp…), Elmo: The Musical (if you ever wanted to hear that high pitched voice shrieking songs at you, this is your time…), Messenger of Death (Bronson! Yup, Charles Bronson’s 1988 action flick features Chuck as a guy whose family is killed and who then learns to accept the inevitability of death and come to inner peace; Oh wait, no he doesn’t- he picks up a shotgun and blows the crap out of the guys who did it. My apologies…), Viva Zapata! (Marlon Brando slaps on a handlebar mustache and some bronzer to portray the legendary Mexican revolutionary in this 1952 biopic),

New Releases on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: Jack Reacher, Safe Haven, Mama, Upstream Color, Monsters, and Videoport now owns every Star Trek movie on Blu Ray, just in time for the new one! Yeah!

Get free money at Videoport!

Look, we know you love us. And you’re gonna keep spending your hard-earned rental dollars here (and not on some scratched DVDs plunked out from a plastic vending machine in a scabby 7-11 parking lot), so why not get yourself some free money. Yup- prepay $20 on your Videoport account, and we give you $25 worth of rental credit. And if you prepay $30, we give you $40 worth of rental credit. That’s just free money you’re leaving on the table, people.

VideoReport #402

Volume CCCCII- Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Colonel’s Recipe

For the Week of 4/30/13

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. And is awesome.

Middle Aisle Monday! Take a free rental from the Science Fiction, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation, or Staff Picks sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Emily S. Customer suggests Repo Man (in Incredibly Strange/the Criterion Collection.) Whoa. Did you ever notice that all of Otto’s repo co-workers are named after beers? All those teenaged afternoons and midnights watching and rewatching, and I never. Ever. Noticed. A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don’t realize that there’s, like, this lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, “plate” or “shrimp” or “plate of shrimp” out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

Tough and Triassic Tuesday! Give yourself a free rental from the Action or Classics section with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests you not use Netflix (reason 3,986 or one million). The N-word announced that it is purging some 1,800 movies from its service because…um, I’m trying to think of some other explanation than “because they suck” but I’m coming up empty here. Anyway, among the titles that this faceless, crap corporation thinks you shouldn’t be allowed to see (and which Videoport has on its shelves at all times because we do NOT suck) includes the likes of: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Adaptation, Attack!, Audrey Rose, Bad Timing: A Sexual Obsession, Beach Red, The Belly of an Architect, Big Daddy, The Big Knife, The Black Stallion, Bucktown, Burn!, Cleopatra, The Comedy of Terrors, Comic Book Confidential, Countryman, Count Yorga Vampire, Cutter’s Way, Cul De Sac, Deep Impact, ‘Downton Abbey’- season 1, Fellini Satyricon, Fritz the Cat, Gandhi, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (yeah- we have it), Goldfinger (and most of the James Bond flicks), Gregory’s Girl, High Anxiety, Hour of the Wolf, Interiors, Joe Dirt, Killer’s Kiss, Kiss Me Stupid, The Knack…and How to Get It, La Cage aux Folles,

This is one of my favorite movies. Netflix doesn’t think you need to see it.

Longtime Companion, Look Back In Anger, The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Moderns, Mulholland Drive, My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Naked Truth, Never On Sunday, Platoon, Sleepless in Seattle, Snatch, ‘Sports Night’, Stardust Memories, Thieves Like Us, War Games, Without You I’m Nothing, and, oh, almost 2000 more. Why? Um, see the whole “sucking” theory. You see, once we have a movie at Videoport, we have it. We’ve bought it because we think you guys want to watch it, and we don’t arbitrarily ditch it because we don’t care about you. Screw Netflix for a variety of reasons, but most recently because of this one. Come to Videoport- we want you to see all the movies, and we don’t snatch them away from you because of the sucking. Videoport- we don’t suck!

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday! You’ve got a free rental coming from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with any other paid rental! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>>Dennis suggests the films of Catherine Breillat (in Foreign- and if you never want to have sex again.) Admittedly, I’ve only seen a few of this French auteur’s movies, namely The Anatomy of Hell, Fat Girl, and Romance (Videoport’s also got Perfect Love, Sex Is Comedy, A Real Young Girl, 36 Fillette, Brief Crossing, The Last Mistress, Bluebeard, and Sleeping Beauty), but I am hesitant to dip my toes back into the murky psychosexual waters of her oeuvre. Specializing in tales of sexual degradation, humiliation, and almost inevitable violence, Breillat relentlessly hammers home one major theme: men and women cannot, ever, engage in any sort of sexual relationship without it turning into a twisted, exploitative hellscape of exploitation, psychological torture, self-loathing, plain old loathing, and, again, almost inevitable acts of depravity and violence. Perfect for Valentine’s Day. Breillat (also a novelist) is a talented filmmaker, assured with her camera and capable of creating some interesting characters, even if those characters are always defined by their sexual hangups, deep wells of self-hatred, and, in her women’s case in the films I’ve seen, an utter assurance that their bodies are the locus of all horror and grossness in the universe. Obviously, Brielllat is working through some themes in her work, and it’s interesting to see a talented filmmaker return, again and again, to those themes to examine them from different perspectives. It’s also undeniable that hers is an artistic reaction against the very real position of women in a world where their bodies are often in a state of all-too-vulnerable peril from men and a male-dominated society. But it’s also true that I started getting the giggles (assuredly not her intent) at about the ¾ mark of The Anatomy of Hell. The premise therein: a damaged woman is convinced that her body (and by extension those of all women) is the most disgusting thing in the world. She hires a gay male prostitute, takes him to her isolated, cliffside home, and has him spend the night explaining, and demonstrating, why men find women’s bodies so disgusting. Said night involves voyeurism, disturbing games with a certain female product and a cup of water, a garden implement, and lots and lots of poetic/florid dialogue. Look, I get that I’m a guy and all, but Breillat’s relentless, obsessive circling back to her one overriding theme, despite her undeniable filmmaking skill, becomes first a puzzle, then a drag, and then the marginalized mutterings of someone whose obsessions suffocate under the weight of their own isolation. That being said, I do intend to watch the rest of Breillat’s films- I like talented, obsessives. I might take home a copy of Say Anything with the next one, just to remind myself that every human relationship doesn’t end in a pit of howling madness with everyone bleeding from various orifices.

Thrifty Thursday! Rent one, get a free rental from any other section in the store! OR Get any three non-new releases for seven days for seven bucks!

>>> Regan suggests Lucas (in Comdy.) The cicadas are coming, so maybe you might like to take home Lucas. Waht doesn’t Lucas have? It doesn’t have Corey Feldman! No Feld-dog, thank God. He makes a fine Frog Brother, but that’s it. It does have a young Corey Haim in what might the his best acting effort in his brief career. And the fire-crotch from Goonies! And Charlie Sheen! And Jeremy Piven who looks like he’s 40 because he’s already balding! Oh, and a young Winona Ryder! She’s so goddamned cute in this. Seriously, Leukoplakia, date Rina- Maggie’s just turning into a twatty cheerleader. So celebrate this weird-ass sh*t that happens every 17 years with a viewing of the Roger Ebert-approved Lucas! It even has slow clapping. You love slow clapping!

Free Kids Friday! One free rental from the Kids section, no other rental necessary!

>>>Former Videoporter Stockman suggests The Emperor’s New Groove. My shoes are squeaky! Actually just the left shoe. What’s your deal leftie? Why you gotta be that way? On the plus side every time my shoe squeaks it reminds me of Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove. He speaks chipmunk. Technically he is versed in all the woodland creatures. “Squeak, squeakin’, squeak, squeakity.” “Did you eat the acorn?” Being reminded of Kronk is a very pleasant pastime as opposed to say listening to ones shoes squeak; so I guess these sort of cancel each other out. This movie is one of the many that’s on my “Kid’s Movie Crusade” list which is made up of all the movies that I love, that are awesome, and that do not deserve the burdensome and pointless stigma of being shrugged off as a “Kid’s Movie”. This movie is awesome! And free on Fridays! The exposition of what the Emperor’s New Groove even means is delivered by an elderly man who was thrown out a window! How does that not sound brilliant? Sure, said elderly man is animated, but that’s the joy of animation! You can throw people out windows easily!

Having a Wild Weekend! Rent two movies, and get a third one for free from any section!

>>>For Saturday, Former Videoporter Stockman suggests Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (in Animation.) Oh well hello there current Videoporter Andy and, as I’ve mentioned previously based on our mutual love of Brain Donors, the future Mr. Former Videoporter Stockman. You just keep giving me more reasons to insist we run away together! Other than Brain Donors I now know that we’ll both be great at running due to our gym attendance and we both love the first 45 minutes of Fellowship of the Ring. It’s one of my favorite nap movies because I think a whole section in the middle is really boring and not worth watching. I fall asleep after they leave the dwarf caves and wake up just in time to see some more goblin butt kicking, perfect. I encourage everyone to give the trilogy a try again – with naps! I love the whole trilogy like Gollum loves his precious, obsessively, and with an uncomfortable level of creepiness. But I understand that sometimes a good nap (or it’s opposite a good workout) is just the ticket to refreshing movie enjoyment. I also love Heavenly Creatures! That is an excellent choice for favorite movie indeed. Fancy you mention favorite movies though because you happened to mention one of mine and I’m delighted to recommend it! Who Framed Roger Rabbit never ceases to boggle my mind. That someone sat around watching cartoons and noted that you couldn’t kill one is genius alone. To then take it one step forward and say this makes a brilliant premise for a noir feature? Mind, go find some cubes with letters on them and string words together from adjacent cubes because you just got boggled! I know it’s based on a book, but I’ve chosen to ignore that fact because I don’t like it. Though the movie is at this pointed dated it does not show. Part of that is the chosen setting, but the most important part of that is as Andy referenced the workmanship that went into this film. The level of detail, similar to LOTR, is worth watching alone. It creates such a cohesive well-structured movie. It takes a dedication and respect for the script, the development, and production of a film that more often than not is thrown out the window. This film is a paragon of quality, go watch it. NOW can we run away together Andy? How many more reasons must I come up with?

>>>For Sunday, Emily S. Customer suggests ‘The Good Wife’ (in Mystery/Thriller.) Okay, true fact: Videoport’s Regan told me I should be watching this show and I was all “aaaaaargh, really? No thanks!” because I am a fool. I was less than charmed by the idea of yet another snoringly boring legal procedural with glossy high-polish offices and posh suits and outrageous clients. And Julianna Margulies put me off with a few lackluster performances ove the years (notably her guest arc on “Scrubs,” in which her flat affect reduced a promisingly vicious character to a juiceless cardboard cut-out), so I was not keen. And then there’s the name, which predisposed me to think of it as “Law and Order: Gender-roles Reinforcing Unit.” And then I gave up. This is what 12-step programs call “contempt prior to investigation,” or what the proverb calls “judging a book by its cover,” or what Regan calls “NOT LISTENING TO ME, YOU FOOL.” Man, what a fun show this is. It’s snappily written with fresh, interesting characters who engage in unexpected ways. The secondary and tertiary characters are always fully drawn: believably idiosyncratic enough to give the show some interesting texture but never wacky for the sake of being wacky. The conflicts — professional and personal — are honest and well-communicated and always seem logical in retrospect but not totally predictable or telegraphed. It manages to feel crisp and fresh and surprising but always makes sense, which is the highest praise I can give a drama. I’m going to have to back up to S1 and watch every episode in order. Thanks, Regan.

New Releases this week at Videoport: Silver Linings Playbook (Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrnece, along with the film itself, got nominated for all the Oscars; sure, maybe suggesting that love and a victory at a dance contest are all you need to overcome crippling depression and mental illness is a little Hollywood/irresponsible, but in the hands of ever-interesting director David O. Russell [Three Kings, The Fighter, I Heart Huckabees] we’ll allow it), The Guilt Trip (Seth Rogen and Barbara Streisand play the week’s most unlikely comedy team in this road trip movie about a 30-something inventor who travels across country with his doting mom for reasons that only high-concept comedy can explain), Broken City (Mark Wahlberg, Russel Crowe and Catherine Zeta Jones star in this thriller about a private eye hired by a big city mayor to spy on his own wife for reasons which, shockingly, might not be on the up-and-up), The Details (dark comedy about a dissatisfied suburban family man whose inner turmoil turns to psychotic vendetta against the racoons invading his backyard; starring the likes of Tobey Maguire, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Elizabeth Banks, Kerry Washington, and Dennis Haysbert), MANBORG (sorry about the caps, but didn’t you see? It’s called MANBORG! It’s about a half man, half cyborg! Or, as you might say- MANBORG!), Not Fade Away (Sopranos creator David Chase writes and directs this New Jersey-set coming of age tale about a teenager forming a rock band in response to the Rolling Stones’ 1964 appearance in America; costarring Chase’s Sopranos pal James Gandolfini), The Revisionaries (did you know that most of the country’s textbooks are edited by a collection of reactionary Texans whose Tea Party sensibilities rewrite history to exclude such kooky theories as, um, evolution? Yeah- watch this documentary and get very sad and very mad), Young and Wild (born into an evangelical Chilean family, a 17 year old girl is forced to act out with the titular crowd in order to explore her burgeoning sexual urges), El Bulli: Cooking In Progress (foodie alert: documentary about the workings at the titular restaurant, one of the most acclaimed eateries in the world), Save The Date (my two girlfriends Alison Brie [Community, Mad Men] and Lizzy Kaplan [Party Down] star in this indie rom-com about two sisters coping with their particular romantic doubts while preparing for one of their weddings; costarring cool indie guys Martin Starr [Freaks and Geeks, Party Down], Greoffrey Arend [Super Troopers] and Mark Webber [Scott Pilgrim vs. the World]), ‘Eden of the East’ (check Videoport’s anime section for this Japanese fantasy about the aftermath of a missile attack which leaves a young girl in possession of magic powers…and a ton of cash), Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (documentary about the titular spiritual leader who brought Tibetan Buddhism to the west, and lived a very un-monk-like life of debauchery at the same time), The Endless Possibility of Sky (the newest gay-themed drama from Bangor native director Todd Verow)

New Arrivals at Videoport: The Sinister Urge (from legendarily abysmal director Ed Wood comes this smutty melodrama about a psycho who watches smut and then goes after the stars of said smut- darn that smut!)

New Releases on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, King of California, The Details, Silver Linings Playbook, Broken City

Get free money at Videoport!

Look, we know you love us. And you’re gonna keep spending your hard-earned rental dollars here (and not on some scratched DVDs plunked out from a plastic vending machine in a scabby 7-11 parking lot), so why not get yourself some free money. Yup- prepay $20 on your Videoport account, and we give you $25 worth of rental credit. And if you prepay $30, we give you $40 worth of rental credit. That’s just free money you’re leaving on the table, people.

Videoport cares. You should rent from us. That’s all.

We all want things to be comfortable, cheap, and convenient. We’re Americans, after all.

But the pursuit of these qualities in our lives above all else isn’t always a good thing. Take huge, faceless corporations, for example. Places like Wal-Mart thrive because people looking to spend less don’t care that:

-their goods are made from what are essentially slaves in China (or in crumbing, unsafe Indian factories)

-that the company treats its employees like garbage

-that its predatory practices drive out local businesses and cost the jobs of people whose companies treat them well

-that they get sued constantly for trying to get away with literally everything at the expense of their workers, communities and customers

-(New one as of 5/1/13): that Netflix drops movies from its service all the time. Just because they don’t think they matter. Check out a partial list here and see what they think you don’t need to see

But hey, at least you can save a few pennies.

Look, I know I’m an interested party here. It’s no secret that the video store biz is in trouble. And while we at Videoport did a little dance every time another plastic rental chain went under (screw you, Blockbuster, Home Vision, Hollywood, Movie Gallery- you shouldn’t have messed with us), I also know that, apart from the fact that I love my job, and Videoport, and my coworkers with an irrational passion, that there’s value in a place like ours.

I could talk about the facts that:

-our staff have been here forever, and know literally everything about movies, and how the store works

-we like nothing more than turning people on to movies and TV shows they’re going to love as much as we do

-we routinely do stuff for free (donating movies, this here VideoReport) to help the store because we want it to do better. And because we love it.

-our owners have stuck it out in this business for 25 years, dedicating themselves to keeping the place running and all of us in the jobs we love.

-those owners treat their employees so well that no one ever leaves, ever. (Hell, Andy’s still the new guy and I think he’s been here for six years).

-we’re responsible neighbors, and tireless supporters of local business (practically all our supplies and services come from local companies).

-we’ve taken on all comers, and are still standing.

And now there are these stupid vending machines (where you can stand in a shady 7-11 parking lot and have a scratched copy of one of fifty crap movies farted out at you), and the internet in the form of the N-Word, Netflix (where, when it’s working, you can let a company determine what you can download and when). These places, operating according to the Wal-Mart principles above, don’t care about movies. They might as well be selling rubber vomit for all they care about movies, and you. They work together to undermine the few video stores like ours that are still trying to do things the right way.

And they’re winning.

They’re winning because people want to save a few pennies (although Videoport has raised its prices exactly three times in 25 years, and when you do the math, they’re not much cheaper at all). They’re winning by luring people into remaining sedentary, isolated, and alone. But they’re also winning because they’re ever so gradually eroding people’s standards and expectations. I mean, you can’t expect to have all the movies in the world in one place at reasonable prices tended by helpful, well-treated, knowledgeable employees and run by a conscientious, responsible local businessman, can you?

Oh right, you can. It’s called Videoport. It’s right here.

Come rent some movies at your friendly local video store. We’ll help you find just the right ones.

773-1999 to reserve what you want to watch tonight. Trust me- we’ve got it.