VideoReport #320

Volume CCCXX- Rodan Holiday

For the Week of 10/4/11

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. And, since we have thousands upon thousands of all the best, worst, and weirdest movies in the world all right at your fingertips, why not just take a chance and rent something you’ve never heard of. Be bold, you!

Middle Aisle Monday. (Get one free rental from the Sci-Fi, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation or Staff Picks sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Dennis suggests checking out the Employee Picks section in the middle aisle, where Andy and I are neck-deep in a movie geek recommend-a-thon! Both of us have a shelf of “good movies

Andy...

that nobody ever rents” going on and I’m not saying anybody’s keeping score about whose picks rent better (and therefore prove who is loved more), but you should check out our selections of great, underrented flicks. Sure, you might go for Andy’s Japanese faves, like The Cherry Orchard or All About Lily Chou Chou. Or maybe a VCR-riffic Dennis double feature of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World and John Sayles’ City of Hope. Or howsabout the criminally-underrated crime drama One False Movewith Bill Paxton, or the similarly-neglected

...or Dennis?

Police Beat, about an African immigrant’s daily travails as a Seattle bicycle cop. Check out the young Scarlett Johannson kidnapping a lady to help her deliver her sister’s baby in Manny & Lo, or Holocaust survivor Ron Silver juggling three wives in post-WWII Brooklyn in Enemies, a Love Story. Remember, there are more movies at Videoport than you could see in a lifetime, so let two of our biggest movie nerds point out some hidden gems. (And remember, whichever shelf you choose from indicates which of us you like more!)

Tough and Triassic Tuesday. (Get one free rental from the Action or Classics sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Elsa S. Customer does not suggest How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying(in Musicals.) Every so often, I review one of Videoport’s rare VCR-only offerings (it’s VCRiffic!), usually a movie that inexplicably hasn’t been released on DVD. Well,

Robert Morse (annoying version.)

this one is available on DVD, but why Videoport hasn’t procured it is anything but inexplicable. I watched it — okay, tried to watch it — out of “Mad Men”-inspired curiosity: How To Succeed takes place in a bustling 1960s office strikingly similar in decor and social structure to MM’s Sterling-Cooper, and it exploits the same mores and double standards — and even stars an impish young Robert Morse (MM‘s shady sage, Bertram Cooper) as J. Pierpont Finch, the self-helping prodigy who skyrockets from window-washer to bigwig in short order. I figured that there’d be something to recommend here… but I couldn’t come up with a blasted thing. The acting is rigid, the singing weak, the score uninspired, and the comedy flat. Just watching the movie became a terrible slog, and even Morse’s Jerry-Lewis mugging couldn’t save it. About halfway through, we just plumb gave up. What I recommend instead, to give you a sense of the swingin’ sexism of the times: The Seven-Year Itch, The Apartment, Pillow Talk, and of course the inimitable “Mad Men.”

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday. (Get one free rental from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with your paid rental…OR…get 4 movies for 7 days for 7 bucks!)

>>> Elsa S. Customer suggests you use the super-awesome Videoport Wednesday special (4 movies for 7 days for 7 bucks) to take out an entire season of ‘Mad Men’ (in Feature Drama.) At a party, a friend asked me “So, I watched a coupla episodes of ‘Mad Men’and it seemed like a soap opera. What do you like about it?” I couldn’t give him a satisfactory off-the-cuff answer then, but I’ve been thinking

Robert Morse (insane, cool version.)

about it… kinda a lot. Allen, here’s your answer, or the first part of it, anyhow: I suppose that the chief story lines of “Mad Men” do superficially resemble a soap-style drama: [spoilers for the first two seasons! If you haven't watched, you can safely skip this list] a secret identity, adultery, the appearance of a long-lost family member, a surprise pregnancy, two secret office affairs. [end spoilers] But MM delves far below the plot-driven soapiness of these devices, novelistically exploring the characters’ emotional lives and motives in a way you rarely see play out on TV. I’d compare it not to old-school evening soaps like “Dallas,” but to the great (and relatively recent) novelistic series like “The Wire” or “The Sopranos.” Like those shows, “Mad Men” presents us with real existential crisis, our anti-hero’s fear that life is nothing beyond the moment he’s living. And like those shows, MM gets better upon repeated viewings, which allow the viewer to notice subtle parallels in the characterizations and plotlines, images and metaphors that weave through the entire series (one obvious example: the reappearing motifs of cowboy and astronaut, which sums up the series’ tension between nostalgia and progress), and a staggering attention to wardrobe details, which are not only period-appropriate but are even subtly attuned to characters’ state of mind. (A simple example: when Joan wears purple, sorrow or vulnerability cannot be far away.) One of the biggest complaints about “Mad Men”— and I agree that it’s vexing — is the conspicuous absence of minority characters. Though the civil rights movement is peeping in around the edges, it’s still a very marginalized matter in the show. There are three arguments to make: 1) Matt Weiner et al. have consciously chosen to portray a very narrow slice of culture, including a focus on women’s challenges

Mad Men style...

this robustly chauvinistic world — and they have done so with a thoroughness and empathy that wrenches my heart. 2) Check out a few episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (in Mystery/Thriller) or most other 1960s anthology series (but notably not “The Twilight Zone,” (in Sci Fi/Fantasy) which routinely grappled with issues of social and political injustice) and you’ll see minority actors playing the same magically silent, blandly accommodating roles. The recurring African-American characters on “Mad Men” — the largely silent, pleasantly efficient attendants who open doors, empty ashtrays, and operate elevators — seem like a conscious recreation of (and a commentary on) the way actors of color appear in the era’s shows — and, presumably, the way minority servants and support staff were perceived by middle-class white audiences in real life. There’s a certain eerie meta-realism at work here. But the third argument is the one I’m hanging my hope on: 3) That quietly patient support system could grind to a halt any day now. When season 4 closed, our characters had reached autumn 1965: last year, MLK won the Nobel Peace Prize; LBJ recently signed the Voting Rights Act and an order promoting greater strides in affirmative action; the march on Montgomery was just this spring. Here’s hoping that MM‘s central characters start to see the effects of the civil rights movement more and more in their daily lives. We’ve already seen it weaving in around the edges, highlighting to the viewer the overwhelming white privilege that the characters don’t even know they are reaping. (Think of Paul Kinsey asking “Why can’t it wait?,” or Betty Draper blithely telling Carla, her African-American maid, that “Maybe now isn’t the right time,” or Peggy’s utter ignorance of a client’s racist hiring practices, which are so well-know that they’ve sparked a boycott. They don’t know because they don’t need to know: their obliviousness costs them nothing, and they simply do not see how deep-seated systematic racism benefits them as it oppresses others.) If Weiner can incorporate this ever-more-crucial piece of social history into his drama and present the challenges of racism as clearly, complexly, and poignantly as he has the challenges of sexism, “Mad Men” will catapult beyond “novelistic” or “great” and land squarely in “masterpiece” territory.

Thrifty Thursday. (Get one free movie from any section with your paid rental.)

>>>Dennis suggests ‘Bored to Death’(in Comedy.) I keep thinking there should be a specific word to describe what Jason Schwartzman does, an adjective to describe the essential [Schwartzmanitude? Schwartziness?] of his onsceen persona. There’s really nobody remotely like the guy- in movies like

They're all pretty Schwartzmanic...

Rushmore, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Funny People, I Heart Huckabees, Shopgirl, and this HBO series (where he plays a writer playing detective), Schwartzman’s characters are invariably a combination , in greater or lesser degrees, of the following: they’re smug and smarmy about their abilities, but seem, at the same time, acutely aware that they’re putting people on. They’re completely self-centered, yet possessed of great self-doubt. They proclaim complete straightforwardness while engaging in almost complete self-deception. He’s creepy and endearing in equal measure. You know what he reminds me of? Like Tom Cruise’s more neurotic little brother; he’s knows he’s short and kind of a megalomaniac, but he’s self-aware enough to play around with his own image (and, unlike Cruise, you generally don’t want to punch him in the face.) In ‘Bored to Death,’ JS is at his most Schwartzmanliest (hmm…) as writer Jonathan Ames, a semi-successful but writers blocked novelist/journalist who, for very Schwartzman-y reasons takes out a Craigslist ad as an unlicensed private eye and starts going on cases with the wary help of his comic nerd best friend Zach Galifianakis (great as always) and super-rich, super-bored boss Ted Danson (stealing every scene.) He tackles every case with a self-aware Schwartzmanitude, bumbling along, relying on his knowledge of detective fiction and film noir and his genially-befuddled ordinariness to carry the day. It’s sharply written by the real Jonathan Ames who created the show (and who, apparently, did do this stuff in real life, which is odd, since I never really cared for Ames’ actual writing (he comes across like a poor man’s Spalding Gray. And as for JS, he drifts through his character’s cases, and the show, with an impressively, and entertainingly Schwartzmanic aplomb. (And “Schwartzmanic” is the winner!)

Free Kids Friday. (Get one free rental from the Children’s or Family sections, no other rental necessary).

>>>Free kids movie. No other movie necessary. Dig it.

Having a Wild Weekend. (Rent two, get your third movie for free from any section on Saturday and Sunday.)

>>>For Saturday, Regan suggests A Wedding (in Classics.)

–”What the hell is that?”

-”That’s a glass of milk.”

–”Stuff will kill you.”

-”Doctor, you should know that the body is a temple of the holy spirit.”

–”You mean you don’t drink.”

-”No.”

–”In other words, when you get up in the morning, that’s as good as you’re gonna feel all day?”

Hey now! This is a quote from the Robert Altman movie A Wedding. And I hadn’t heard anything about it, but it came out in 1978 and so did I, so it has to be fan-freaking-tastic, right? Yeah.

>>>For Sunday, Elsa S. Customer suggests Manhattan (in Comedy.) Though it plays into so many of Woody Allen’s now-notorious failings, this movie has one of the great optimistic endings. (Note: I didn’t reveal whether it’s a happy ending, because I wouldn’t ruin a movie’s ending for you… but in Woody Allen movies, I’m not even sure the idea of “happy ending” applies.) Sometimes when I’m feeling a little blue, I think of Isaac (Woody himself, natch) lying on his sofa rambling into a tape recorder, listing the things that make life worth living. It’s such a believably random tumble of the mundane and the sublime, from Cezanne’s still lifes to a crab dish at his favorite Chinese restaurant, and it always brings a big smile to my face. Give yourself a big smile. Rent Manhattan.

New Releases this week at Videoport: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (BIG ROBOTS GO SMASH!!! AAAIIEEEEE!!!), Fast Five (Vin Diesel and Paul Walker bring The Rock [I mean Dwayne Johnson, of course] to beef up this fifth, count ‘em fifth, Fast and the Furious sequel about the cars and going the fast in them), ‘Lie to Me’- season 3 (the ever-magnetic Tim Roth continues to elevate this ‘Mentalist’- style detective show with his little weirdo charisma), African Cats (Samuel L. Jackson narrates this stunningly-photographed nature documentary about, well, African cats, I’m guessing), Buck (everyone wants to see this documentary about real-life horse whisperer Buck Brannaman, so, well, here you go…), Scream 4 (Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and the gang are all back on board in this sequel that asks the question, “is there anything left in the horror genre to be self-aware about?”), The Undefeated(did

Currently riding a 1.6 on imdb.com. You're welcome!

Videoport only buy this shoddily-produced documentary/infomercial about historical footnote Sarah Palin for the giggles? Well, check the Incredibly Strange Section, where you’ll find it along with other right wing extravaganzas like Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and An American Carol, to find out), The Red Chapel (comic documentary about a pair of Danish-Korean comedians pretending to be on a cultural exchange program to Korea, when they’re really making a documentary about how much they hate Korea- should be fun…), Phase 7 (Argentinian horror about a couple trying to stay alive inside a quarantined apartment building full o’ psychos), A Boyfriend for My Wife (Argentina again, this time a comedy about a guy trying to rid himself of his troublesome wife by hiring a notorious womanizer to seduce her; see, foreign countries make dumb romantic comedies just like us!), Amer(a French erotic thriller

The original poster didn't have the strategic hair...

about, well, I’ll just let the imdb tell it: “Three key moments, all of them sensual, define Ana’s life. Her carnal search sways between reality and colored fantasies becoming more and more oppressive. A black laced hand prevents her from screaming. The wind lifts her dress and caresses her thighs. A razor blade brushes her skin, where will this chaotic and carnivorous journey leave her?”…um, yeah, that’ll work), The Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway (Pee Wee’s back!!!), Nothing Personal (intriguing-looking drama about a Dutch woman who gives everything she owns away, then hitchhikes across Ireland and meets a taciturn hermit [Stephen Rea]), Submarine (check to British Comedy section for this coming of age story about a 15 year old guy trying to 1. get laid, and 2. get his mom laid; directed by ‘The IT Crowd”s Richard Ayoade), The Hide (intense, oddball British thriller about an isolated bird researcher who befriends a bedraggled young man who stumbles into his remote cabin…and then things get twisty…), ‘The Hour’ (‘The Wire’‘s Dominic West [McNulty] stars in this gripping 1950s-set British newsroom series about BBC journalists investigating a government/espionage situation), Jeff Dunham: Controlled Chaos (everyone’s favorite, vaguely-racist ventriloquist has a new special!), ‘Bored to Death’- season 2(Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis, and Ted Danson return in this hilariously-deadpan HBO series about a struggling writer who decides to take on cases as

Funny.

an unlicensed detective), ‘In Treatment’- season 3 (Gabriel Byrne is back in this HBO series about a dedicated shrink, with his own share of problems), ‘The League’- season 2 (great, improv-y comedy series about a gang of middle-aged friends staving off adulthood through their fantasy football league), ‘Prohibition’ (Ken Burns brings his documentary skills to bear on this examination of an utterly utterly-dimwitted chapter in our nation’s history.)

New Arrivals on Blu-ray this week at Videoport: African Cats, Scream 4, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Fast Five.

Videoport presents…ZOMBIE NIGHT!!

Come to this...if you dare!!! But seriously, come to this...

Come on out to the State Theatre on Halloween Night for a Videoport-sponsored double-zombie-feature of the original Dawn of the Dead followed by the brilliant, hilarious Shaun of the Dead! And, as a zombie palate-cleanser in between, we’ve got local zombie short “Last Call” by Christian and Sarah Matzke! Get your tickets for just $6 at Videoport in advance ($8 at the door!) Plus, a zombie costume contest will win some Videoport gift certificates for some lucky ghouls out there!

VideoReport #260

Volume CCLX- Paul Blart: Bad Lieutenant

For the Week of 8/10/10

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. If anyone has a problem with that, well, I guess you don’t have to take one…

Middle Aisle Monday. (Get one free rental from the Sci-Fi, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation or Staff Picks sections with your paid rental.)

>>>Elsa S. Customer suggests Primer (in Sci Fi). SPOILER-Y!! The action starts as I imagine most great discoveries start: when someone notices something unexpected in the lab or at the workbench. Huh. That’s odd. And down the rabbit hole you go. Primer broke my brain, and I loved every minute of it. This shoestring indie (written and directed by Shane Carruth, who also appears as a chief character)

I'll just put this thing into the thing...and then, well...

is the rare sci-fi film that focuses on the sci. Two engineers tinkering in a garage come up with an invention… um, of some kind. Unlike splashy big-budget blockbusters, Primer is a film of ideas, not of spectacle. The restricted budget works in its favor: the clodgy cardboard-box aesthetic is weirdly persuasive, because it conjures up the grubby nuts-and-bolts reality of engineering. More crucially, instead of using splashy effects, this film focuses on the dynamic that arises between the characters, and on the consequences of their actions. To say more than that would be to risk a spoiler… and in any case, the proceedings get indescribably convoluted amazingly fast. It’s a little hard to follow even before the events get confusing; Carruth’s characters talk like engineers, not like expositional devices, and Carruth does us the courtesy of assuming we’re smart enough and attentive enough to keep up. It’s disturbing, it’s dizzying, it’s delicious.

Tough and Triassic Tuesday. (Get one free rental from the Action or Classics sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Videoport customer Mark Magee suggests A Wedding (in Classics.) This is one of Robert Altman’s lesser known films but it definitely deserves an audience. Similar to Altman’s Nashville in its satire of American society, Altman shows us the wedding of a young couple and the reception that follows. We meet the many dysfunctual members of the groom’s and bride’s families (one priviledged,

Lesser Altman? Still better than most anything else.

one not) and find out about the many skeletons in their closets. One of Altman’s trademarks is his overlapping of dialogue, which make his films seem so real. Althought there is a script, much of the dialogue is improvised by the very talented cast. There are about 40 different speaking parts in the film and you really get the feeling that you are there milling around with the other guests at the party; eavesdropping on the multiple conversations. The large and diverse cast (another Altman hallmark) includes Carol Burnett, Mia Farrow, Lauren Hutton, Pam Dawber, Paul Dooley and Lilian Gish. Altman films definitely are an aquired taste (it took me years to really appreciate his work), but they are always entertaining, able to make an important statement on American life and are great for repeat viewings.

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday. (Get one free rental from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Elsa S. Customer suggests A Mighty Wind (in Comedy). Do you remember the breathtaking moment in 1984′s This Is Spınal Tap when the founding members perform a lovely a cappela version of “All the Way Home,” a skiffle song from their early days? A Mighty Wind captures that sweetness and wraps it up in satire. This 2003 mockumentary from Christopher Guest purports to tell the story of

The Folksmen/Spinal Tap.

three once-prominent folk groups now gathering to memorialize their late mentor and producer. The characterizations and songs are eerily well-drawn. Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Guest himself (the trio made famous as Spinal Tap) appear as The Folksmen, a fictional fusion of folk groups like The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Jane Lynch and John Michael Higgins head the New Main Street Singers, a second-generation pop-folk neuf-tette that make their bread & butter playing to bored crowds at amusement parks. Mitch and Mickie (Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara) are the sweethearts of the folk world, once madly in love but now face to face for the first time in decades. Here, Guest manages the delicate balance that characterizes the finest satire: he knows his subject inside-out and understands what makes it great as well as what makes it absurd. We’re treated to a loving send-up of folk excesses all swaddled sweetly in the lovely music (much of it written by the cast). Mitch & Mickey’ beautiful theme “A Kiss At the End of the Rainbow” received an Academy nomination for Best Song — and deservedly so — but I’d argue that there are even finer songs in this film. A particularly fine example is The Folksmen’s “Never Did No Wanderin’.” At first listen, it’s perfect piece of folk music: haunting, mournful, potent, stirring. But then the lyrics sink in and it reveals itself as a deliciously witty indictment of folk’s cozy niche in the hearts of comfortable well-heeled suburbanites. It’s a wicked bite of parody and a fantastic song all rolled up together, indivisible.

Thrifty Thursday. (Get one free movie from any section with your paid rental.)

>>> Dennis suggests Departures (in Foreign Language.) Every once in a while a larger number of people than expected will latch onto a foreign film for unknown reasons. It happened with Sin Nombre last year and it’s happening with this unassuming little Japanese dramedy right now. Not that we’re complaining, of course- we at Videoport absolutely love it when the general public (or, in this case the Videoport community which is more ‘awesome’ than ‘general’) shows some unexpected enthusiasm about a dark horse on the rental shelves. As to why this one has reaped its modest groundswell, well, it did win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2009, although that doesn’t necessarily translate into rental gold for ol’ Videoport (witness the lackluster response when 2008′s winner The Counterfeiters is mentioned). Word of mouth is important for a foreign/indie/utterly weird movie to gain any traction rental-wise, and that seems to be the case with Departures. Which makes sense. This gently comic story of a failed cellist who leaves Tokyo [with his smiling, adorable wife in tow], moves back in to his childhood home [a former coffehouse left to him by his mother] and ends up as an assistant to a kind, masterful old mortician is exactly the sort of sweet mixture of comedy and sentiment that people can’t help but like. Sure, there’s some gross stuff with the dead bodies, but it’s always matched up with sweet scenes of our hero dealing with his supportive but spooked wife, his childhood memories, his feelings of failure, and his taciturn but kind-hearted and eccentric new mentor (the charismatic, avuncular Tsutomu Yamakazi.) As a leading man, Masahiro Motoki maybe mugs a little too much at the beginning, but gradually gains some gravity as the film goes on, and his guileless, wide-open face is nicely expressive. A nice movie.

Free Kids Friday. (Get one free rental from the Children’s or Family sections, no other rental necessary).

>>> Dennis suggests that teaching your kid about responsible DVD handling now will prevent your grandkids from having to band together to keep him from trying to take over the universe (after he’s been encased in black armor and sliced off his own grandson’s hand after dramatically revealing that he’s actually the grandson’s father.) That will happen…

Having a Wild Weekend. (Rent two, get your third movie for free from any section on Saturday and Sunday.)

>>>For Saturday, Videoport customer Mark Magee suggests Tom Jones (in Feature Drama.) A groundbreaking film in 1963, ‘Tom Jones’ captures the spirit of the classic Fielding novel in all its bawdiness and witty adult humor. The film was hugely popular for its realistic depiction of 18th century England in all its dirt and grime and its sexually open subject matter. Even though Albert Finney,

Saucy.

Susannah York and the rest of the cast are all excellent, the real star is Tony Richardson’s direction. It fits the subject perfectly; haphazard, comic, fast-paced and a little less sophisticated than serious period pieces. He uses many comic touches (sped up chases, characters speaking to the audience and creative special FX) and one can tell he truly enjoyed having fun with the content. The production values, locations and music are all excellent and enhance the mood of the film. ‘Tom Jones’ has gotten alot of flack for winning Best Picture of ’63, but given the time when it was made, I can understand its popularity and accolades. Tom Jones is still a classic comedy full of wit and great entertainment.

>>>For Sunday, Dennis suggests Together (in Foreign Language.) My theory is that somebody ran over director Lukas Moodysson’s cat after this movie. Hear me out. In his previous film (the delightful lesbian coming-of-age dramedy Show Me Love) and this one (about the culture clash when a battered wife and her two very modern kids come to stay with her brother at the contemporary commune where he lives), Moodysson displays a warm generosity of spirit

Warm in the cold.

that makes the films practically glow from the inside. After Together, though, Moodysson’s films have gotten nothing but bleaker, progressively: Lilya 4-Ever, A Hole in My Heart, and the recent Mammoth show a world defined by exploitation, cruelty, innocence destroyed, and a decided lack of hope. They’re all supposedly great movies, too (A Hole in My Heart hasn’t been released here yet), but I can’t recommend the two films from his ‘sunnier’ period enough. Together takes the potentially-sitcommy setup and avoids every cliche, every dramatic pitfall, every opportunity to create an outright villain in favor of a generous, but clear-eyed, examination of everybody’s motives and character. The mom’s a victim, sure, but she’s also not the nicest person in town, as her initial contempt for her brother’s lifestyle shows. The people in the commune (always easy targets for lazy jokes) are treated with utter fairness; their political convictions are treated with respect, and yet their foibles and occasional hypocrisy aren’t left out either. Even the sister’s brutish husband isn’t really portrayed as a complete bad guy. Add to that the best cinematic use of ABBA ever, and you’ve got a funny, wise, and genuinely touching movie. Lighten up again sometime, Lukas- we could use another movie like this one.

New Releases this week at Videoport: Date Night (comedy super-team Tina Fey and Steve Carell play a married couple who get sucked into a delightfully-silly action comedy on the titular night out; I’m watching it right now…it’s funny), ‘Stephen Fry in America’- season 1 (British comedian/actor/author/genius Fry, possibly one of the funniest people alive, takes a cab across America and is, one would assume, incredibly witty and wry at our expense), Wilco: Ashes of American Flags (everybody likes Wilco! Here’s their new concert movie! Your welcome!), The Good Heart (the ever-awesome Brian Cox [Super Troopers, L.I.E., Manhunter] stars in this acclaimed indie drama about a crusty old bartender taking in a young homeless man because, well, presumably he has a good heart…), ‘Trauma’- season 1 (Videoport brings you this already-cancelled ‘hot paramedics in San Francisco’ drama series), Multiple Sarcasms (Timothy Hutton stars in this indie dramedy about an unhappily married guy who decides to quit his job and write a play about how unhappy he is with his wife, his life, and everything; strangely, his family is displeased with him…), La Mission (Benjamin Bratt stars, in this film written and directed by his brother, as a custom car maker and former convict who tries to deal with his son coming out of the closet), Death at a Funeral (just an odd idea: remake a pretty-well-beloved British comedy from just two years ago in America, with all all-star, mostly black cast [Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover, Martin Lawrence, Zoe Saldana], get the great character actor Peter Dinklage [The Station Agent] to play the same role he did in the original, and hire the never-before-notably-funny Neil Labute [In the Company of Men] to direct the whole thing; can this possibly work out?), The Joneses (David Duchovny and Demi Moore star in this satire about a seemingly-ordinary family who move into the suburbs in order to seduce their neighbors into buying the products they’re hired to represent), My Name Is Khan (a young Muslim man with autism has his behavior misinterpreted as shifty by authorities after 9/11 [a date used by bigots everywhere to legitimize their own jackassery] and heads off to try and meet with President Obama to clear his name.)

New Arrivals this week at Videoport: Tapped (the bottled water industry gets its own furious expose with this documentary revealing how stupid and wasteful it is; I mean, I’m guessing that’s its position on the issue…), The Thorn in the Heart (unsurprisingly odd documentary from ever-interesting director Michel Gondry [Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep] about the relationship between Gondry’s steely aunt and her mentally-ill grown son), Louie Bluie and Crumb (director Terry Zwigoff’s brilliant documentaries, the former about a legendary blues musician and artist and the second about infamous underground comics legend R. Crumb, get the deluxe Criterion treatment!), Children of Invention (two illegal immigrant children are forced to fend for themselves in a model home outside Boston after their mother disappears), The Cyclops (cult sci fi director Bert I. Gordon [The Amazing Colossal Man, Village of the Giants] just can’t stop making people huge! Here some people traipsing around in Mexico run afoul of the titular, 50 foot tall, one-eyed menace.)

New Arrivals on Blu-Ray this week at Videoport: Date Night.

Extended Rates and Free Money!

Yup. Turn your 1 night rental (new releases) into a 3 night rental for just $1.75 more, and turn a 3 night rental (everything else) into a 7 night rental for just an additional 69 cents! And, buy yourself some free rental credit with Videoport’s pre-payment plans: buy yourself $25 worth of rental credit for only $20 or, if you’re feeling saucy, buy yourself $40 of rental credit for only $30!

Park for free at Videoport! Yup, just pull into any downtown parking garage and then ask for a Park & Shop sticker from your friendly neighborhood Videoporter and we’ll get you a free hour of parking therein. (And remember: parking meters are off after 6pm, Monday-Saturday and all day on Sunday, and the parking lot behind the building is open for free one hour parking after 5pm Monday-Friday and all day on the weekends).

Write for the VideoReport! Send in your movie reviews at denmn@hotmail.com or our Facebook page “Videoport Jones”! Or, you know, drop them off here in the store!

VideoReport #231

Volume CCXXXI- The Lion King Kong

For the Week of 1/19/10

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. You know…for kids!

Middle Aisle Monday. (Get one free rental from the Sci-Fi, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation or Staff Picks sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Andy suggests I Walked With a Zombie (in Classics). From the producer/director team behind Cat People (1942) comes I Walked With a Zombie (1943). I saw this years ago, and I didn’t really get into it. As a teenager, I wanted a zombie movie with rotting flesh and some brain-eating, not a moody melodrama with complex characters and no clear villain. Watching the movie again as a totally mature adult*, I was struck by the beautiful photography, spooky imagery, and intelligent writing. Now I see what all the fuss is about when people rave about Val Lewton’s low-budget, atmospheric chillers. Judging from this movie and Cat People , Lewton earned his reputation because he knew that good scripts don’t cost extra, and moody lighting goes a long way. Zombie’s story is basically Jane Eyre crossed with Rebecca, with some authentic-seeming voodoo mysticism thrown in.

*Editor’s note: hmmmm…

Tough and Triassic Tuesday. (Get one free rental from the Action or Classics sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Dennis recommends The Golden Age of Television (in the Criterion Collection). The shadowy people behind the Crterion Collection are your heroes. You might not know this fact, but look at the evidence: they buy the distribution rights to pretty much every worthwhile movie in the history of the world, rescuing overlooked gems from obscurity and giving the deluxe treament to the classics of world cinema. Plus, every once in a while, they throw a completely unpredicatble screwball of a release at us, (cult films like Equinox, experimental shorts from Stan Brakhage, and Jean Painleve), and this selection of some of the best dramatic productions from the golden age of television. Check out this lineup: Marty (1953) starring Rod Steiger, Patterns (1955) written by Rod Serling, No Time for Sergeants (1955) starring Andy Griffith, A Wind from the South (1955) starring Julie Harris, Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956), a heartbreaker written by Palance and starring Jack Palance, the original version of 1956′s Bang the Drum Slowly starring a very young Paul Newman, The Comedian (1957), written by Serling again and starring Mickey Rooney, and The Days of Wine and Roses (1958) starring Piper Laurie and Cliff Robertson. Television has always been that vast wasteland everybody’s always thought it was, but, even in the bland fifties, it was occasionally a haven for the best and the brightest. Of course, that was before reality shows.

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday. (Get one free rental from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Dennis suggests Cookie’s Fortune (in Comedy [and the Robert Altman shrine currently in the 'Staff Picks' section in the middle aisle). There's no bigger Robert Altman idolator than I am, but this one usually slips my mind; luckily, that means I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it when I watched it again recently. I guess I always remember it as rather slight. And it is- it's a slightly woozy Southern comic, sort-of crime melodrama that, in typical Altman style, takes it's time introducing characters, relationships, and it's plot (about the eccentric denizens of a small town dealing with an unexpected death). Maybe the inclusion of noted non-favorites like Liv Tyler and Chris

Even O'Donnell and Tyler are good in it. No, really...

Donnell sabotages the film’s memory. Anyway, watching it again recently, I smacked myself around for having ignored it for so long; Cookie’s Fortune, while definitely minor-key Altman, is really delightful. Especially at home in the naturalistic Altman dialogue is Charles S. Dutton, as the drunken old family retainer/murder suspect, Ned Beatty as the avuncular sheriff, grand dame Patricia Neal as the titular Cookie, and Donald Moffat as a canny country attorney. Even O’Donnell and Tyler are actually pretty good. A charming, delightful, overlooked little minor classic from Altman.

Editor’s note: Videoport also picked up Altman’s similarly-overlooked film Streamers (out for the forst time on DVD). Check it out in the Altman shrine as well.

Thrifty Thursday. (Get one free movie from any section with your paid rental.)

>>> April wants someone to explain the plot of Eden Log (in Sci-Fi), because by the end of the film I was confused and disappointed. All I could decipher was that this dude wakes up next to a dead guy underground and has to movie through levels to get to the top of the complex he’s in. There’s mutant monsters, some weird chick, and strange recordings that I suppose must somehow explain what was going on, but it didn’t. And then it has this bizarre, artsy ending. Keep in mind that it’s a French film, so…

Free Kids Friday. (Get one free rental from the Children’s or Family sections, no other rental necessary).

>>> Videoport recommends taking a free kids movie. Seriously- it’s a no-brainer.

Having a Wild Weekend. (Rent two, get your third movie for free from any section on Saturday and Sunday.)

>>>For Saturday, B.S. Eliot suggests He’s Just Not That Into You (in Comedy). Going into this thing, I was bitchin’ to my cat about how Bennifer sucks and whatnot. However, as the end credits began to verticrawl, I realized that it was really the movie that was bitchin’! There is some real insight up in here, namely that you cannot help how or what you truly feel, what you truly want. You might go all Madame Bovary crash-and-burn trying to sort it out, or you may be all stylin’ and whatnot. But, such is the way of things and stuff. Really, it all boils down to the simple wisdom of Spock Nugent, “Live long, die young, and leave a prosperous-looking corpse.” The End.

>>>For Sunday, the Anonymous Drop Box reviewer* suggests Wayne’s World (in Comedy). I should warn you up front this is a rough one… Do you remember the Grey Pouopn commercial in which two fancy cars are stopped next to each other and the old, crusty, rich white guy in one car asks the old, crusty rich white guy in the other car if he has any Grey Poupon? Then the second guy responds, ‘But of course’, to the first guy because Grey Poupon is such a fancy mustard. (I remember my parents eating Grey Poupon on hot dogs, so I don’t know how fancy it is. Personally, I don’t care for mustard. That scene was recreated for comic effect in the 1992 film Wayne’s World. I realize I’m stretching to make this little rant of mine movie-related. The reason I’m mentioning this is on January 2nd, 2010, as I was walking through the parking lot of a grocery store, a woman in an SUV pulled up next to me and asked, “Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?”, to which I replied, “Ugh”, and kept walking. As they pulled away, I noticed that the woman in the passenger seat was videotaping the event. Just in case you read past it, let me reiterate the date- January 2nd, 2010…AD! The beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. I expected the next car to ask me, “Where’s the beef?” As I’m walking to my parked car, I’m already thinking of a witty retort that I wish I had said; it goes a little something like this- “Well slap a flannel shirt on my back and put a Pearl Jam Cassette in my tape deck, my time machine worked! It must be the year 1992, because that was the last time that joke was funny. By the way, if you have any desire to see Nirvana, don’t hesitate, because you have a finite amount of time to do so.” Ironically, and this is the honest truth, on my drive home I heard two different Pearl Jam songs on two different radio stations, both fro their first album. Back in the 1990s, my brother once flagged down a car on my street to ask for some Grey Poupon, my father scolded him and told him that a man once got shot for doing that. I can sympathize. Um…oh yeah, Wayne’s World. I know I’m supposed to recommend a movie here, but, honestly I can’t. I haven’t seen this movie in like 15 years. I’d like to think my taste in film has improved in that decade and a half, so I don’t trust my own recollection of it. However, if I can offer some advice to you readers, it’s this: if you’re thinking of repeating a joke once told by Mike Myers whilst wearing a wig, think twice.

*Editor’s note: we’ve pegged this person the Anonymous Drop Box Reviewer because, well, he/she (although probably ‘he’, don’t you think?) occasionally leaves reviews in Videoport’s (handy) drop box in the back parking lot, without signing them. Fair enough. If you’d like your movie reviews (or whatever this, in fact, was) in the VideoReport, go ahead and drop them in the drop box if you like, or even to us personally in the store. Also, you can send them to us at denmn@hotmail.com. Or to our Myspace page www.myspace.com/videoportjones. Or to our Facebook page “Videoport Jones”. Or to our movie site www.videoportjones.wordpress.com. Oh, and Wayne’s World is still pretty funny.

New Releases this week at Videoport: The Invention of Lying (British comedy god Ricky Gervais writes and directs this comedy about a guy in a world where no one lies, finding out that lying…well, it can get you some stuff…),Pandorum (sci-fi spookiness with Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster waking up in a haunted spaceship with amnesia), Gamer (Gerard Butler and ‘Dexter”s Michael C. Hall star in this sci-fi action flick about people playing high tech online, interactive video games and getting all killed and stuff), Facing Ali (fascinating documentary with former opponents of the former Cassius Clay recalling all the various ways the champ beat the living crap out of them), Laila’s Birthday (a former Palestinian judge, forced to drive a taxi, tries to get home in time for his daughter’s birthday; modern-day Palestine has other plans, of course), ‘Robin Hood’- season 3 (the continuing adventures of the hottest Robin Hood the BBC has to offer), ‘Chuck’- season 2 (he’s a nerd! He’s a secret agent! He’s got a cult following!), Like Stars on Earth (a rebellious little dreamer kid is getting in all manner of trouble until he hooks up with an eccentric art teacher in this touching drama), Left Bank (Dutch/Belgian thriller about an athlete, sidelined by a mysterious ailment, who starts to suspect her European-y boyfriend is up to no good; talk to Videoport’s resident Dutch-fellow Dennis/the Rage if it’s accurate about how creepy the Dutch are…), Brothers at War (documentary follows a young filmmaker as he embeds himself as a journalist in Iraq, partly in order to understand the experiences of his two soldier brothers), According to Greta (white bread tween Hilary Duff tries to broaden her audience base by playing a suicidal teen whose cuddly gramma [Ellen Burstyn deserves a lot better] smooch her into shape; I may be cynical…), The Keeper (Steven Seagal…those who want to rent this need no more information; neither do those who don’t), Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball (remember that action movie…the one with all the…action? Well, this direct-to-DVD sequel exists…as well), ‘Damages’- season 2 (Glenn Close continues to be terrifying in this lawyer series; seriously, she scares me), No Impact Man (documentary about a Manhattan family who decide to live for a year without having any environmental impact whatsoever; and yes, Mr. Smartypants, the DVDs were packaged in carbon-neutral materials, which, unfortunately, we’ve had to replace with plastic immediately so that the case doesn’t disintegrate immediately upon the first rental…), ‘Weeds’- season 5 (Mary-Louise Parker is back, still hoping her innate adorableness will continue to keep her from being murdered by rival drug dealers in this weed-y dramedy series), You the Living (another mysterious, darkly comic Scandinavian film from Swedish director Roy Andersson [Songs from the Second Floor]), Death In Love (two sons of a woman who, they discover, had an affair with her concentration camp doctor, try to deal with their legacy in this no-doubt heavy drama; starring Jacqueline Bissett, Lukas Hass and Josh Lucas).

New Arrivals this week at Videoport: Che, Parts 1 & 2 (the Criterion people give the deluxe treatment to Steven Soderbergh’s massive biopic about the Cuban guerilla leader, starring the always-magnetic Benicio Del Toro), The Cherry Orchard (Videoport’s Andy brings us yet another obscure Japanese film, this time it’s about an all-girls school whose student body parallels the titular Chekhov play), ‘Star Wars- Clone Wars’- season 1 (the animated adventures of the George Lucas-verse; genuinely better than the prequels, anyway…), Dora the Explorer: Dora’s Christmas (some sort of children’s show, right?), UFC #47 (that stands for ‘Ultimate Fighting Championship’, in case you didn’t know, you pencil-necked geek…RRAAAAUUUGHHHH!!!), Fighter (who’s up for a Danish/Turkish action drama about a young woman rebelling against her parents in order to be a kickboxer? Me too…), Cranford: Return to Cranford (Judi Dench returns in this continuation of the British costume drama), Streamers (the Robert Altman-directed version of the David Rabe play stars Matthew Modine as one of a group of young recruits, headed for Vietnam, who try to figure some stuff out; look for it in the Robert Altman shrine in the Staff Picks section in the Middle Aisle), The Golden Age of Television (the Criterion Collection, as usual, does the human race a favor by releasing this prime selection of dramas from the golden age of television; check out the Tuesday review for the too-good-to-be-true details), Heartworn Highways (musical documentary about outsider musicians like Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, and others), Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein (the title pretty much sums this one up, don’t you think?), Clive Barker’s Book of Blood (direct-to-DVD horror movie based on a couple of stories from genuinely-terrifying story collection by Barker), here comes a whole slew of skiin’, snowboardin’, surfin’, Mountain Dew-drenched EXTREEEEEME sports documentaries: The B, The Drifter, Modern Collective, and Swift, Silent, Deep, and, please don’t say that Videoport never did anything for you- the Incredibly Strange section welcomes three prime examples of the lost film genre know as ‘nunsploitation’ with suspiciously saucy ladies of the cloth neglecting their vows in Images in a Convent, The Nuns of St. Archangel, and The True Story of the Nun of Monza! Remember…Videoport loves you and wants you to be happy.

New Arrivals on Blu-Ray this week at Videoport: Riding Giants, No Reservations, 2010, Twilight, Up, Kingdom of Heaven, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Baraka, Basic Instinct, Beetlejuice, Constantine, Never Say Never Again, Moon.

Videoport Gives You Free Money!

Seriously. Here’s the deal: pay $20 up front on your Videoport account, and we magically transform that $20 into $25 of rental credit! Pay $30 and we give you $40 worth of rental credit! Yeah, I know!

VideoReport #228

Volume CCXXVIII- 2010: The Year We Make Contact (According to 1984)

For the Week of 12/29/09

Videoport wishes us all a happy, peaceful, and slightly less shiny-side-of-disc-touchy 2010.

Middle Aisle Monday. (Get one free rental from the Sci-Fi, Horror, Incredibly Strange, Mystery/Thriller, Animation or Staff Picks sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Elsa S. Customer suggests ‘Futurama’ (in Animation). The brainchild of Matt Groening and helmed by obsessive geek and gifted writer David X. Cohen, Futurama is is a classic, old-timey workplace comedy: just a time traveller, his robot best friend, their Cyclopean middle manager, a mad scientist, a wealthy physics grad student, a vaguely Jamaican accountant, and a lobster-doctor from outer space muddling their way through the work day. It’s also a piece of seasonal fare right now: Futurama starts out on on New Year’s Eve, 2000, when pizza delivery guy Philip J. Fry accidentally submits himself to long-term cryogenic storage, and awakens on New Year’s Eve, 2999. Hilarity ensues, as do deeply buried mathematics jokes. Who doesn’t like a good mathematics joke?

Tough and Triassic Tuesday. (Get one free rental from the Action or Classics sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Dennis 2/The Rage suggests The Proposition (in Action/Adventure). Although I am not sure if this can even be called a western, since the movie was made in Australia (an eastern, is that even a thing?), we still put it in the action section because it is westernish. Now that made me even more excited, because I am a complete waste of space when working on Tuesdays, knowing next to nothing about one of the sections that’s free on Tough and Triassic Tuesdays. Now I have a movie to recommend on the days when action movies are free! And do I recommend this movie, jeez. This is the director whose movie The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen, is playing in theaters right now. I strongly doubt that The Road is anywhere near as amazing as this one though. In Australia of the late nineteen hundreds, a man called Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) is caught by local law enforcement. Charlie is part of a gang, and the guy who caught him Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone, who was also in Beowulf) strikes a deal with him, which means that Charlie has to kill his supposedly unfindable and unkillable brother. He sets out to find him, in the immense, overpowering, hot Australian outback. The screenplay was written by Nick Cave, who is also partially responsible for the movie’s stellar soundtrack. The music is really something else, co-written by Warren Ellis. Warren Ellis heads a three-piece Australian band called The Dirty Three. Youtube those guys, rent this movie, eat at Outback. Australia rules!

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday. (Get one free rental from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with your paid rental.)

>>> Elsa S. Customer suggests Clueless (in Comedy/the hastily-assembled temporary Brittney Murphy memorial shelf in the middle aisle). I’ll admit: there’s something stomach-turning about the ghoulish desire to revisit the film catalog of an actor who’s recently died. I’ll also admit: I haven’t seen many of Brittney Murphy’s movies. But still, one night soon I’ll curl up and revisit Clueless, a saucy updating of Jane Austen’s Emma set in Beverly Hills. I’ll probably even shed a tear over the bouncy, game, gamine girl playing Tai, with her round cheeks and her cheeky voice shifting from gravel to helium. She had a pert twinkle and a bright eye, and she vanished too soon.

Thrifty Thursday. (Get one free movie from any section with your paid rental.)

>>> Dennis suggests every film Robert Altman ever directed (in nearly every section). The lovely Mrs. Elsa S. Customer gave me the new oral biography of Robert Altman for Christmas. Because she is a genius. It’s a fascinating read about a brilliant and fascinating filmmaker (who just happens to be my hero, so here it comes – my ranking of every Robert Altman film at Videoport!): 1. McCabe & Mrs. Miller, 2. Nashville, 3. M.A.S.H., 4. The Long Goodbye, 5. California Split, 6. Short Cuts, 7. The Player, 8. Thieves Like Us, 9. Fool for Love, 10. 3 Women, 11. Streamers, 12. Secret Honor, 13. Popeye, 13b. Brewster McCloud, 14. Gosford Park, 15. ‘Tanner ’88′, 15b. Vincent & Theo, 16. Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, 17. O.C. & Stiggs, 18. A Wedding, 19. A Prairie Home Companion, 20. Cookie’s Fortune, 21. A Perfect Couple, 21b. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, 22. The Company, 23. Kansas City, 24. Images, 25. Dr. T & the Women. And make no mistake- you can’t even go wrong with the end of the list. Well, maybe Dr. T…

Free Kids Friday. (Get one free rental from the Children’s or Family sections, no other rental necessary).

>>> It’s a free kids movie and you don’t have to rent anything else to get it. I genuinely don’t see anything to complain about…

Having a Wild Weekend. (Rent two, get your third movie for free from any section on Saturday and Sunday.)

>>>For Saturday, Elsa S. Customer suggests Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (in Comedy). There are stupid movies, there are intelligent movies, and there’s a whole spectrum of movies in between. But it takes real care and to make an intelligently stupid movie. That’s exactly what you get from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Now, don’t misunderstand me: this is not a film for sophisticated tastes. The simple story of two genial stoner roommates on an all-night quest to sate their burger craving, H&K is jam-packed with sophomoric and scatological humor, unabashedly silly sightgags, and cheerful pandering to the key munchies-and-giggles demographic. But it does it so darned well that’s it’s real fun to watch, even if you don’t fall squarely into that demographic yourself. It’s a trifle, but an admirably crafted one. The jokes are dumb, and performed with great conviction. The actors are perfectly cast and perfectly earnest. As responsible cubicle wage-slave Harold, John Cho radiates a tightly-wound affability that makes you feel for him as his troubles mount. Kumar (Kal Penn) is the classic lay-about instigator, a good-natured goofer who always escalates a situation. These loosely sketched characters feel curiously real, in part because the two stars are so sincere and pleasant. And the supporting cast is equally notable. Neil Patrick Harris appears as himself, sort of — in the world of H&K, NPH is a wild-eyed womanizer with poor impulse control and a raging appetite for drugs and trouble, no doubt a precursor to his current sit-com role. Christopher Meloni (of Law & Order fame) shows his comic chops here, bringing humor and humanity to a repulsive caricature, a pustule-covered creep straight out of an E.C. Comic. A serious note: stoner comedies traditionally rely on stereotypes, playing up homophobic or ethnically charged jokes that are more often nasty and offensive than funny. But Harold and Kumar go to White Castle does more than parrot back the same slop; to some extent, it plays with the tropes and types, turning them inside out and upside-down, pointing out the absurdity of the assumptions built into the jokes.

>>>For Sunday, Dennis suggests Funny People (in Comedy). It’s not Judd Apatow’s best film (that’s still The 40 Year Old Virgin), but it’s certainly his most ambitious. For a guy who gets written off as a lowbrow ‘d*ck and fart joke’ specialist by people who should know better, Apatow is, quite frankly, the current savior of American film comedy, his deftly-balanced mix of heart and belly laughs rising so far above what’s expected of a summer tentpole comedy that he ought to get a medal just for trying harder than he has to. Funny People is the story of a spoiled, successful movie star who discovers that he’s terminally ill, and decides to try and win back the girl that got away, and, speaking of rising above, it stars Adam Sandler, who delivers his best work since Punch Drunk Love. Sandler’s doing some pretty courageous self-parody (his character is the star of such lowbrow comedies as Mer-man), and he shows, once again, that, like Will Ferrell, when given the opportunity, a popular comedian’s gifts can translate into a surprisingly effective dramatic actor. Sure, the film bogs down at about the hour and a half mark, and yeah, it is over two hours long (not usually a good idea for comedy), but Funny People sticks in your mind. It’s a sneaky good movie.

New Releases this week at Videoport: A Perfect Getaway (Steve Zahn brings his quirky comedy guy persona to this horror flick about pretty vacationers getting bumped off in the photogenic jungle), Vampire Killers (this British horror comedy was originally called Lesbian Vampire Killers; which is, I think we can all agree, a better title…), 9 (high-tech, post-apocalyptic animated film got great reviews and is blessedly, too dark to have made much money), Paranormal Activity (the low-budget horror success story of the year, this spooky flick made a kajillion dollars and scared off a frillion pairs of pants), Jennifer’s Body (written by the utterly-obnoxious Diablo Cody [of Juno fame] and starring the utterly-talentless Megan Fox [of baring your tummy fame], this wise-ass horror film is now available for your, um, enjoyment, I guess), Staten Island (this thriller stars Ethan Hawke and Phillip D’Onofrio went right to DVD; that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, right?), Carriers (Chris Pine [that's Captain Kirk to you], stars in this low-budget horror film about a zombie plague!), Medicine for Melancholy (indie romantic drama about a young black couple out on a date), ‘Glee’- season 1 (everybody loves this show about a high school putting on musicals and such; it stars the great Jane Lynch), ‘The United States of Tara’- season 1 (Toni Colette stars as a housewife with multiple personalities in this cable comedy series), The Marine 2 (couldn’t get John Cena back for this sequel? Just get another, lesser ‘rassler to fill in!).

New Blu-Ray this week at Videoport: Hancock, Silent Hill, Stargate, Pathfinder, Walking Tall, Wall Street, Stir of Echoes, Road House, Predator, Office Space, The Devil’s Rejects, I, Robot, Bulletproof Monk, Dark Blue, Master and Commander, Total Recall, Independence Day, and Wings of Desire.

Dennis2/ The Rage brings you his best (and worst) movies and shows of 2009:

The Best:

1. I’ve Loved You So Long

2. Eldorado

3. In Treatment

4. Taken

5. Lost, Season 5

6. Let The Right One In

7. Tell No One

8. Inglourious Basterds

9. District 9

10. Drag Me To Hell

11. Frozen River

12. Breaking Bad

13. Up

14. Star Trek

15. Buck Rogers!

The Worst:

1. Happy Go Lucky

2. New In Town

3. Religulous

4. Elegy

5. The Reader

6. Choke

7. Flight of the Concords, Season 2

8. Quantum of Solace

Andy’s Worst of 2009:

5. Mirrors: Alexandre Aja did well with High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes, then fell from grace horribly with this one. Mirrors are scary, but Mirrors is not. At all.

4. The Last House on the Left: Damn. This would have been offensive if it weren’t so bad.

3. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: Simon Pegg is funny, right? Not in this movie. And Megan Fox is like a charisma black hole.

2. Lakeview Terrace: This was perfectly entertaining to watch, then, after it was over, I started thinking about how awful it was. And the thought kept…on…coming.

1. Quantum of Solace: Not super-awful, but such a huge step down from Casino Royale. Marc Forster destroys everything he touches.

Regan’s Bestest or Most Favoritest (in no order):

1. Away We Go: This has been forgotten altogether. I blame (500) Days of Blubber.

2. Adventureland: I’m having a hard time getting people to watch this. I blame Ryan Reynolds.

3. Let the Right One In: This movie succeeds as a vampire movie and as a coming-of-age movie. Unlike Twilight. Interesting.

4. A Christmas Tale: Mathieu Amalric totally stirs my soup. Watch Kings & Queen if you likey.

5. Gran Torino: Clint at his most Clintiest. And it’s about a car which is real cool.

Regan’s Worstest of the Most Awful:

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: With the exception of the nice wardrobe and the guy who keeps gettin’ hit with lightning, oh and the fighting at sea! That was good. But otherwise, nope.

2. He’s Just Not That Into You: More Drew Barrymore, less sh***y people. That would make it a wee bit better.

3. The Ugly Truth: A child giving Katherine Heigl an orgasm. That should be the tagline.

Want some free movies at Videoport? Here are about a million ways…

1. Rent a bunch of movies. Every time you hit your next hundred rentals, we give you two free ones.

2. Rent a movie any day of the week. If you check page one of this here newsletter here, you’ll see that there’s a different special every day of the week where you get a free movie. You literally cannot come into Videoport without getting a free rental. Yeah…

3. Buy a movie. For every single movie you buy at Videoport, we give you a free rental. Now if that’s not the perfect cue to start whipping readers into a holiday buying frenzy, then I don’t know what is: this holiday season, when you’re spending all your hard-earned cash on a gang of glutinous, insatiable greed monsters (I mean your loved ones, of course), why not get a little something for yourself out of the deal? Videoport has a great selection of new and previously-viewed DVDs for sale right in the store and we can also order literally anything that’s currently in print. And, for every movie you buy from us, we give you, yourself (not them) a free rental that you can use any time.

4. Trade in your old DVDs. Got some movies or TV series that you don’t want cluttering up your shelves anymore? Bring them in to Videoport and we’ll turn them into free rentals on your Videoport account. It’s that simple!

5. Spend some money. Videoport has two different savings plans which, essentially, give you free money just for renting with us. Seriously. Put $20 onto your Videoport account and we’ll turn that twenty into $25 worth of rental credit. Pay $30 and we’ll give you $40 worth of rental credit. That’s five or ten free bucks worth of renting cash, if my math is right.

TV Review: ‘Tanner ’88′

Dennis suggests “Tanner ‘88” (in the Criterion Collection). Back in the days before HBO could boast oh, all the best TV shows ever, (their original series output basically consisting of “Dream On” at that point), it (they?) gave us a hint of the great things to come by tuning over the screen, not to reruns of Mannequin, but to satirical geniuses Gary Trudeau and Robert Altman as they teamed up to present this predictably-trenchant political series about Democratic presidential hopeful Jack Tanner. Altman regular Michael Murphy brings his signature combination of bland handsomeness and genial untrustworthiness to Tanner as he navigates the political and personal landmines of the American political process, seamlessly interacting with his supporting cast (Pamela Reed, O.C. and Stiggs’ Daniel Jenkins, Kevin J. O’Connor, and a pre “Sex and the City” Cynthia Nixon) and real life politicos, all the while allowing his two creators ripe opportunity to lay bare the duplicity, pandering, and blatant absurdity of politics in an election year. In eleven sterling episodes, the show swings effortlessly from biting satire, to wacky comedy, to, on occasion, devastating drama (the shocking ending to Tanner’s campaign stop in an inner city neighborhood wiped me out at the time…and introduced me to rap music). A challenging, hilarious, thought-provoking series. (Also check out Tanner on Tanner in Feature Drama where the creators and cast reteamed fifteen years later to catch up with the characters, and see what the political life has done to them).