VideoReport #354

Volume CCCLIV- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Batman

For the Week of 5/29/12

Videoport is local, independent, knowledgeable, helpful, inexpensive, and has all the movies you could possibly want. We’re not trying to be braggy. Just stating facts.

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!

You guys know you get a free rental with every movie you buy from Videoport, right? Just checkin’…

>>>Dennis suggests taking advantage of Videoport! We love it! Here’s how- there are a couple of ways to get yourself free money at Videoport, thus knocking our already-low prices down to the “clerk starvation zone!” Yeah! When you pre-pay money on your Videoport account, we’ll give you some extra money for free. $20 buys you $25 in rental credit, and $30 buys you $40 in rental credit. (Plus it’s good for any pesky extra day charges as well.) Look, you’re going to spend your entertainment dollar here at Videoport anyway, so why not pre-pay, get some extra money for free and just have it sitting there waiting for you? Or, if you’re a math person, why not look at it as either a 20% or 25% discount on what you were going to spend anyway? Either way, you’re taking advantage of us…and we love it!

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!

>>>Elsa S. Customer suggests Gypsy (in Musicals- new on DVD at Videoport!) Man, parents can really screw you up, huh? In 1962′s Gypsy, hectoring stage mother (and frustrated would-be performer) Rose Horvick won’t let anything stop her in the climb to vicarious fame — not her daughter’s reluctance, not the lackluster shows June puts on in shabby theaters, not the rough life of the road or the toll it takes on her children and her love life, not even June’s elopement when she gets fed up with the whole biz. No, Rose just turns her attentions to her shy second-banana daughter, Louise (Natalie Wood)… and I guess we all know how that works out, since Louise goes on to become world-famous burlesque artist Gypsy Rose Lee. It’s a bittersweet story of unsought success and family friction, suitable for the wry talents of legendary songwriter Stephen Sondheim, and many of the songs he wrote for Gypsy went on to become familiar standards, including “Some People,” “Let Me Entertain You” (see below), and “Everything’s Comin’ Up Roses.” The great Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday, Auntie Mame, Picnic) plays the complex role of Rose to the hilt, sometimes giving us glimpses of vulnerability and fear under the dogged determination that protects it. For all this complexity and bittersweetness, the movie has plenty of brassy fun, too. For my money, “You Gotta Get a Gimmick,” where the brazen workaday strippers showcase their, um, talents in an off-key bump ‘n’ grind number, is the best five minutes in the flick.

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 a Paul Schneider marathon! Yeah! Who’s with me? Wait- you don’t know who Paul Schneider is? Well, pull up a chair. Schneider started out an actor pal of indie director David Gordon Green (in the days when Green seemed to want to be the next Terrence Malick instead of hanging out with the Apatow crowd in movies like Pineapple Express, The Sitter, ‘Eastbound and Down’ and the regrettable Your Highness.) Schneider had a small character role in Green’s excellent George Washington, but Green built his next movie All the Real Girls around Schneider, and introduced us all to a uniquely-compelling indie leading man. Although not part of the mumblecore empire, All the Real Girls is definitely a good fit for Duplass Brothers fans. In it, Schneider plays a small town lothario, a scruffily-handsome, soft-spoken charmer whose aimless life of drinking and bedding seemingly every woman in his narrow little world perks up with the arrival of his best friend’s little sister, a college girl played by Zooey Deschanel. As the two warily circle each other, Schneider’s carelessly-promiscuous character starts to feel things for the new girl, and about himself. That’s it, really- in the tradition of indie coming-of-age dramas everywhere, there’s not a lot of plot in All the

This is the guy…

Real Girls; it’s all about the characters, and while there’s some fine, low-key, fully-inhabited work by the likes of Danny McBride, Shea Whigham, and, as Schneider’s sad-eyed mother who loves her son but knows him all too well, the ever-perfect Patricia Clarkson, the movie belongs to Deschanel and Schneider. She’s much more rumpled and appealingly, yes, real than her current persona might suggest, and Schneider is simply brilliant. Just look at the scene where he responds to Zooey’s declaration of love with surprising anger- that’s a leading man right there. Sadly, the world didn’t exactly catch Schneider fever, but he’s got two excellent supporting roles in the excellent indies Away We Go and Lars and the Real Girl. In each, he plays a harried,sensible brother dealing with hard times, and in each, he’s magnetic, in a very sensible, ordinary way, if that makes any sense. Away We Go, especially, has a picaresque structure that encourages scene-stealing, and Schneider sure runs off with his, a monologue where he worries about being a father to his daughter, now that his unreliable wife has run off. Schneider’s career took an unexpected turn when he was cast alongside Amy Poehler in her (again, excellent) sitcom ‘Parks and Recreation.’ It was a little jarring seeing such an indie fixture, and someone whose onscreen persona was so refreshingly-un-actorly get such a high profile gig. On the show (about the inner workings of the titular government body of tiny Pawnee, Indiana), Schneider played city planner Mark Brendanowicz, a laid-back, relaxedly-womanizing bureaucrat who more often than not served as the laconic voice of reason to Poehler’s daffily-enthusiastic Leslie Knope. Unfortunately again, Schneider was written out of the show at the end of the second season, under mysterious circumstances. Actually, they’re not mysterious so much as I don’t know what they were, but I suspect that, as the show became a bit broader (in a good way), Mark’s level-headedness sort of made him the odd man out. And while his replacements, Rob Lowe and Adam Scott, are stellar additions to Pawnee’s increasingly-weird little world, I miss the guy. So for now, Schneider’s just back out there making the indie world a little more interesting…

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!

>>>Elsa S. Customer suggests Capturing the Friedmans (in Documentary.) Man, parents can really screw you up, huh? If Gypsy (see above) gives that message in brassy musical numbers, 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans imbues it with a slow sense of creeping dread and sorrow. Director Andrew Jarecki initially planned to make a documentary about New York area’s birthday clowns, including popular performer David Friedman, when he stumbled upon something much more painful. Friedman’s father and younger brother were prosecuted for several unsavory acts, including dozens of counts of molestation and possession of child pornography… and home movies taken by the Friedmans during that period captured their most private moments on tape. It’s an examination of the slippery nature of truth and the crumbling, contradictory arguments that any legal case rests upon, as well as a glimpse into the painful world of an unhappy family. (Gypsy and Capturing the Friedmans make a weird double-feature. Of course, both are testaments to the damage wrought on children by their parents… but, oddly enough, they share a song. Seeing David Friedman as a birthday clown singing “Let Me Entertain You” is eerie enough under the circumstances presented in the film — but when you know that the song he’s banging out was originally written by Stephen Sondheim for terrified tomboy Louise to belt out uneasily in the scene where she reluctantly strip for the first time before a packed burlesque house, it becomes positively bizarre.)

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

>>> It’s a free movie, no other rental necessary. Find that deal somewhere else…

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

>>>For Saturday, Dennis suggests a ‘manly men vs. the outdoors’ double feature with The Grey (in Action/Adventure) and The Edge (in Mystery/Thriller.)Sure, you might call these both “manly, late-middle-aged British men vs. nature” flicks as well, but I’m not gonna be the one to say that to Messers Liam Neeson and Anthony Hopkins. In the recent The Grey, Neeson plays a depressed but manly oil pipeline wolf sniper (what? that’s a job) whose flight home crashes in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness forcing him to face off against a pack of ravenous wolves. And in The Edge, Anthony Hopkins plays a bookish billionaire whose flight goes down (alongside Alec Baldwin and a guy who might as well have ‘bear chow’ stenciled on his sweater) forcing him to face off against one seriously determined bear. In each, everyone looks to the Brit to save the day, since they’re the only ones who know how to start a fire, navigate the wilderness, or seemingly tie their own shoes. Along the way, there’s some fun roughing it, McGuyver-style survival tips, a fair amount of trudging, the occasional fur and fangs attack to liven things up and, also in each, some Hemingway-style macho pronouncements from our heroes. I kid the slumming, overqualified thespians trudging through the tundra, however- both movies are actually a lot of fun. If I had to pick one, I guess it’d be The Edge, as it throws a few more twists into the formula (and Baldwin’s a lot more fun to watch than the interchangeable roughnecks Neeson’s got to work with), plus the legendary (and real) Bart the bear is a lot more formidable than the oft-cgi-looking wolves in The Grey. However, if it came right down to a “respected, almost-elderly British dude vs. a ravenous beast” showdown, my money’s on Liam; seriously, is that guy seven feet tall or what? Yup, if you need a guy to punch a wolf in the face, Liam’s your man.

>>>For Sunday,Elsa S. Customer suggests a Christopher Lee movie marathon!Happy

Hello, Elsa…

Birthday, Christopher Lee! That’s Sir Christopher Lee, or Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Member of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, and holder of the Guinness record for most film roles EVER. That’s Christopher ****ing LEE: Francisco Scaramanga of the Bond flick Man with the Golden Gun, Count Dooku of Star Wars II & III, Saruman of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the great monster (opposite Peter Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein) in Curse of Frankenstein, The Jabberwock in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Lord Summerisle of Summerisle in the original The Wicker Man* —- and, y’know, HE’S DRACULA. Happy birthday, Mister Sir Commander Lee, sir. And many happy returns.

*Plus, check out the even-more-bananas recent sequel to The Wicker Man, The Wicker Tree in the Incredibly Strange section! (Is Christopher Lee in it? Watch it and see…)

We suck! You get it…

New Releases this week at Videoport: ‘True Blood’- season 4 (Anna Paquin and all thos shirtless guys keep on sucking! Blood. You know, because of being vampires and everything. You get it…), Man on a Ledge (Sam Worthington plays the titular dude on a thing in this thriller about a guy [on a ledge] whose request for a certain negotiator [the ever-watchable Elizabeth Banks] may mask an ulterior motive or two), Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes directs and stars in this adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known tragedies, a bloody drama about a professional soldier whose overweening pride and inability to play politics brings about some serious carnage; costarring Gerard Butler, Jessica Chastain, and legendary Vanessa Redgrave as his terrifying mom), Goon (surprisingly decent reviews for this raucous hockey comedy about a mild-mannered dude with a real talent for ice-fighting; costarring Liev Schreiber and Jay Baruchel), We Need to Talk About Kevin (from director Lynn Ramsey [Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar] comes this gripping drama about a long-suffering mother [the always-riveting Tilda Swinton] as she attempts to come to grips with the fact that her increasingly-troublesome son might just be a psycho; costarring John C. Reilly), Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (in the long and storied tradition of rushing a cheapie knockoff into production to cash in on an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster comes this historical horror mashup that is in no way similar to the upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter; I’m shocked that you’d even suspect such a thing…), The Aggression Scale (some hitmen and some teenagers fight over five hundred grand in this nasty-looking thriller that features a mini Twin Peaks reunion with costars Dana Ashbrook [Bobby Briggs] and the ever-awesome Ray Wise [Leland Palmer] ), Harry Belafonte: Sing Your Song (if you don’t love Harry Belafonte, I’m pretty sure you might actually be Hitler; for all you non-Hitlers, this is a documentary about the man’s life), ‘Monroe’- season 1 (excellent British character actor James Nesbitt [Jekyll, Murphy's Law] tries to pull a Hugh Laurie, starring as a brilliant, egotistical surgeon in this BBC medical comedy/drama), Michael (super-creepy stuff from Germany; a mild-mannered accountant secretly holds a ten year old boy captive in his basement for several months), ‘Wallander’ (after checking out the quite good British detective series starring Kenneth Branagh, why not rent the original Swedish version, now available at Videoport! We rock!)

New Arrivals on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: True Blood- season 4, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Aggression Scale, Velvet Goldmine, Blue Velvet, Coriolanus.

You know you get a free rental every time you buy a movie from Videoport, right? Just another reason to choose Videoport over some crappy corporate chain nonsense…

Yeah, this is us hanging out with John Waters. No big deal…

 Write for the VideoReport!

Send your movie or TV reviews (or pretty much anything else movie or TV-related) to us at denmn@hotmail.com, or our Facebook page “Videoport Jones.” Or just drop it by the store, if you’re not into that whole computer fad…

VideoReport #353

Volume CCCLIII- Terminator 5: I’m Not Very Good at Terminating, I Admit It

For the Week of 5/22/12

Videoport will give you a free movie every single day. You know, if you’re not careful…

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 Seven-Per-Cent Solution (in the Mystery/Thriller section). I’ve caught Sherlock Holmes fever, and it has nothing to do with the recent Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey, Jr. movies. It has something to do with the new BBC show Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and the Hobbit, but my interest has more to do with the fun late ‘70s mysteries The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and Murder By Decree. Seven-Per-Cent, which was written by Nicholas Meyer and based on his novel, is similar to Time After Time (which Meyer wrote and directed). They’re both based on imagined meetings between famous characters (fictional and historical; to be honest, I keep forgetting that Sherlock Holmes never actually existed!). Time After Time is about H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper through time to 1970s-era San Francisco after Ripper steals Wells’ real time machine. Seven-Per-Cent features Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud. I think Meyer was ahead of his time here, since the historical/fantasy mash-up is practically its own genre now, with things like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. In Seven-Per-Cent, Dr. Watson (played with a stuffy British accent by Robert Duvall) lures Holmes (Nicol Williamson) to Vienna to meet Dr. Freud (Alan Arkin, also having fun with an accent), who he believes is the only doctor capable of curing Holmes of his cocaine addiction. After some pretty horrific drug withdrawal scenes (the movie doesn’t take addiction lightly), a weakened Holmes helps the doctors investigate the murder of one of Freud’s patients. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution somehow goes from heavy addiction drama to murder mystery to Indiana Jones-style adventure story. It all adds up to a total blast of a kind that I imagine Arthur Conan Doyle would never have thought to write.

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 House on Telegraph Hill (in Mystery/Thriller.)Released under the “Fox Film Noir” banner, this post-WWII Rebecca-type mystery is in no way a film noir, but it’s still worth a look. In the over-explain-y introduction, set, rather shockingly in a concentration camp, heroine Valentina Cortese steals a deceased friend’s ID and heads to San Francisco to claim some freedom, and the dead woman’s inheritance. Sure, there’s a too-cute little son, but he’d been sent to America before he knew mom, so that’s not a problem, but the seemingly-welcome attentions of blonde and greasy lawyer Richard Basehart, and the suspicious and shiftily-Mrs. Danvers-like attentions of her new mansion’s caretaker threaten to derail her plans for a cushy retirement. All in all, it’s a serviceable little mystery (although you might want to hip check that overly-precious little kid over the house’s tempting cliff), with a surprisingly-well-and-thrillingly edited San Fran car chase/careen scene that’s genuinely thrilling.

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 using the 2-for-1 comedies rental special on Wednesday to rent a whole season of the show ‘Party Down.’ (It only lasted two seasons, and each season only has two discs. I’d recommend you use the 3 movies for a week for 7 bucks to get a third disc of ‘Party Down,’ but honestly I don’t know if your humor center can handle it; you might blow a gasket or something. Well, you know your limitations…

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 presents his “movies I watched on vacation that I didn’t like enough to actually recommend checklist!” Yup, took some time off and, me being me, I watched a lot of movies, some of which looked promising, some of which I thought I’d give a chance to, and some of which I think I was just feeling sort of perverse about watching. Sadly, as sometimes happens, we (the lovely Ms. Elsa S. Customer and I) reacted with a greater or lesser degree of “meh” to the majority of them, so I thought I’d share, so you can say “meh” as well! Enjoy! Meh!

-Boogie Woogie (in Comedy), a sour comedy about the contemporary art world made me as hostile as something you don’t really care about at all can. Decent cast, including Stellan Skarsgard, Gillian Anderson, Danny Huston, Jack Huston (he plays the half-face guy on Boardwalk Empire), Charlotte Rampling, Christopher Lee, Joanna Lumley, Alan Cumming, and Heather Graham and Amanda Seyfried if they’re your thing. Trouble is, I hated everyone and the film’s take on contemporary art was about as sophisticated as your drunk uncle angrily saying, “My kid could paint that!” while looking at a Jackson Pollock. (Instead, why not rent the documentary My Kid Could Paint That; it’s much more insightful.)

-Paranormal Activity 3 (in Mystery/Thriller.) I dunno- I continue to maintain that the whole “found footage” horror genre has a lot of potential, if only people were talented enough to take advantage of it. The first one in this series was okay, the sequel dipped below the “okay” line with diminishing returns, largely due to a lack of imaginative ways to utilize the gimmick and a collection of characters you actively rooted against. The third ticks up a bit, (I’d say it’s back to “okay”) thanks to one neat innovation (a character hooks his homemade surveillance camera up to an oscillating fan- never seen that before), and some characters you actually didn’t want to see turned into ghost food.

-The Debt (in Mystery/Thriller.) I may catch some heat for this one, as everyone seems to like it, but this bi-generational spy thriller left me with the blahs. Look, I love Helen Mirren, you love Helen Mirren, but that doesn’t mean everything she does is as great, and improbably sexy, as she is. There’s some good stuff in this tale of three Mossad agents whose late middle aged fame due to a legendary mission as younger agents is threatened by a deep dark secret, but considering how all of you guys hyped it up, I was disappointed. Sorry Helen.

-My Son My Son What Have Ye Done? (in Mystery/ Thriller.) Hoo boy, did I not get this. Not just the deliberately opaque symbolism (produced by David Lynch and directed by Werner Herzog, I was prepared for such eventualities), I just did not get the tone, or the very raison d’etre of the whole enterprise. Michael Shannon’s huge, very unsettling face at the center of it as a clearly-insane would-be actor/ messiah who finally does something really crazy and gets the police involved, the movie combines Herzog’s obsession with the chaotic evil of nature and madness with some of Lynch’s favorite actors (all doing their stylized Lynchian schtick) and it all just sits there, acting weird and daring me to try and understand it. It ain’t dull, that’s for sure. Actually, it was a little dull…

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

>>> Check out all the new kids stuff this week at Videoport! We’ve got three DVDs of ‘Phineas and Ferb,’ a new ‘Yo Gabba Gabba,’ ‘Jack’s Big Music Show- Let’s Rock!’ and two discs of the Japanese animated show ”Ni Hao, Kai-lan!” In gratitude, let’s not let kids actually handle these discs until they know how to do it correctly, huh?

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

>>>For Saturday, Dennis suggests that it’s getting nice out and that makes it the perfect time to take a nice walk, drive, bike, or rollerblade excursion to Videoport. We’re nice and helpful, we have the appropriate amount of air conditioning, and all the movies in the world. It’s a nice, fun, relaxing outing for a beautiful Spring/Summer day. And then you can scurry back home, sink into your couch and watch all the movies you rented indoors, away from all that stupid nature.

>>>For Sunday, Dennis suggests Tiny Furniture(in the Criterion Collection.) Now that everyone is

“Why did I read that internet message board?”

freaking out on the internet about writer/director/star Lena Dunham’s show ‘Girls’ on HBO, I thought I’d check out this, her feature film debut and see if all the white noise blather had any validity. (In case you’re not on the intra-nets [and more power to you, by the way], ‘Girls’ has been routinely jabbered at as racist (for concentrating on three relatively well-off white girls in Manhattan), superficial (for concentrating on three relatively well-off white girls in Manhattan), and/or classist (for, well, you get the idea.) Well, not having seen the show itself (I don’t pay for HBO; I rent shows when they come out on DVD from Videoport, like a smart person), I’d say it seems like a smarter, hipper, younger version of Sex and the City crossed with a Whit Stillman movie. (That’s the sort of completely valid, totally informed commentary you get from a guy who can’t afford cable!) Anyway, Dunham’s movie (picked up for release by the Criterion Collection, I’ll have you know) seems like a pretty good indicator of what to expect. In it, Dunham, in the grand tradition of young aspiring writers everywhere, plays a young aspiring filmmaker who, graduating from college, moves back in with her acclaimed artist mother (Dunham’s real mom, acclaimed artist Laurie Simmons) and her overachieving little sister (Dunham’s real little sister, presumably an overachiever) while she tries to figure out her next move. And, like all such vaguely-ambitious college grads, Dunham’s Aura sponges money, wine and food, goes to parties, sort of tries to find a job, and circles what she clearly can’t see are the wrong guys. Now, on the internets, Dunham (a 23 year old [at the time] writer/director/star presenting her own personal vision on the screen) is taking some serious abuse, for the three reasons stated above (plus some of those good ol’ ignorant, misspelled fratboy ridicule of her physical appearance), but I take umbrage on her behalf. Umbrage, I say. I liked Tiny Furniture just fine; every writer or filmmaker is entitled to one navel-gazing, autobiographical coming-of-age-as-an-artist story, and Dunham’s version of herself here is actually pretty affecting. Look, everyone’s movie doesn’t have to be about everything; if Dunham’s movie is about a normal-looking, relatively-well-off Manhattanite trying to find her way, then that’s her story, and it’s unfair to take her to task for not widening her vision to encompass things she wasn’t trying to talk about. Now, if she’s still telling the same blinkered, narrow-focused storied three movies from now, I think the internet crazies might have something to blab about (although they should really have learned proper punctuation and spelling by that point.) You know, like when Woody Allen didn’t have a black character in his New York stories for two decades or so. Until then, let’s give a young, female filmmaker a chance to tell her story. I liked Dunham’s. You probably will too.

What all the smart kids are renting…

New Releases this week at Videoport: Certified Copy (the Criterion Collection brings its patented deluxe edition treatment to this new film from the great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami; in it, Juliette Binoche and handsome opera singer William Shimell seem to meet and tentatively fall in love in sunny Tuscany, only things aren’t as simple as all that…), Red Tails(the story of the Tuskeegee Airmen, the all-black

Say what you want about George Lucas, but that is a cool poster.

fighter pilot squadron who fought for their country against the Nazis in WWII only to see their country treat them like dirt back home; stay classy, America; starring Cuba Gooding Jr [who was also in the old HBO movie The Tuskeegee Airmen-check the Drama section],Terrance Howard and ‘The Wire”s Tristan Wilds and co-written by the unlikely pair of George Lucas and ‘The Boondocks”

Seriously, 773-1999 to reserve.

Aaron McGruder), ‘Sherlock’- season 2 (Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are back as a modern day Holmes and Watson in this undeniably-fun BBC series [also undeniably popular- call 773-1999 to reserve your copy if you're smart...]), The Strange History of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (the long and storied history of discriminating against gay people wanting to serve their country never had a weirder period than the time when everyone essentially just agreed to stick their fingers in their ears and go, ‘LALALA- I’m not listening!’ for a decade or so; this documentary explains how the hell that happened…), The Woman in Black(Daniel Radcliffe trades in his Harry Potter togs for some Victorian big boy clothes in this spooky Gothic thriller

Huntin’ ghosts like a big boy!

about a grief-stricken young lawyer vs. a haunted house), Trailer Park Boys: Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys (after their ill-fated trip to cause trouble here in Maine, Ricky, Julian and Bubbles unsurprisingly get into more trouble crossing back into Canada…), Lights in the Dusk (a bored security guard falls under the spell of a loopy femme fatale and her conman partner in this 2006 film from Finnish master director Aki Kaurismaki), Downloading Nancy (check the Incredibly Strange section for this tragic thriller about a deeply unhappy wife who engages a man over the internet to torture, and possibly kill her; good cast, including Maria Bello, Jason Patric and Rufus Sewell), The Swell Season (touching musical documentary follows Glenn Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the stars of Once, as they set out on tour with a band and find their real-life relationship struggling to cope with their newfound fame), 11-11-11 (after the death of his family, a guy heads to Spain where his father and brother hint that he’s involved in some fishy religious spookiness because he keeps seeing the number eleven everywhere. From the director of three of the Saw movies, so you know it’s good…), This Means War (two hunky spies [played by Captain Kirk and Bane] decide that their dueling crushes on cute-as-a-bug Reese Witherspoon allow them to use the Patriot Act to violate everyone’s civil rights in order to win her; it’s the #1 romantic comedy in some Orwellian nightmare of America!), The Secret World of Arrietty (sure, Videoport’s owner Bill scored us an imported copy of this new film written by universally-beloved Japanese animator Hiyao Miyazaki, but now the rest of the world has caught up to Videoport finally so here’s the official release featuring an American dubbed version with Amy Poehler and Will Arnett), ‘Hell on Wheels’- season 1 (‘Deadwood’-style AMC series about the post-Civil War era and the building of the transcontinental railroad; starring solid character types like Colm Meaney and Tom Noonan), We Were Here (acclaimed 2012 documentary about the first arrival of the AIDS virus in San Francisco), My Piece of the Pie (comic French social satire about a laid off factory worker who finds herself the housekeeper of the rich industrialist who shut the factory down…and the nanny of his impressionable little son), My Perestroika (documentary examines the end of the Cold War through the eyes of five Moscow schoolmates and how they adjusted to the new Soviet Union), Golf in the Kingdom (a young American philosophy student on his way to India [Dirk Calloway from Rushmore] decided to play one final game of golf on a legendary course, only to have his plans hijacked by an eccentric, mysterious golf pro [The Matchmaker's David O'Hara]; costarring my buddy, Malcolm McDowell), Mutant Girls Squad (it’s like the X Men, only it’s set in Japan, so all the mutants persecuted by the government are hot chicks in schoolgirl outfits and there’s a lot more gore; check Videoport’s Made in Japan section for this, and much, much more just like it), Newlyweds (Ed Burns is still making New York-set relationship dramas, nearly 20 years after The Brothers McMullen, which is good I guess, even if I bailed out on them about 12 years ago…), Perfect Sense (Ewan McGregor and Eva Green steam things up in this odd, apocalyptic love story about a lonely scientist and a hunky chef whose intense coupling may or may not be responsible for a worldwide plague which robs everyone of their five senses), Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr. (the good people at Criterion give the boxed set imprimatur to Iron Man’s dad, a pioneering cult director of decidedly weird movies; the set includes his: Babo 73, Chafed Elbows, No More Excuses, Putney Swope, Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight), The First Beautiful Thing (vibrant Italian comedy/drama about a free-spirited single mother whose irrepressible optimism in the face of hardship sustains her young family), Birdsong (former Masterpiece Theater miniseries about a dreamy WWI soldier longing for the girl he left behind)

New Arrivals this week at Videoport: A Tale of Two Cities (Videoport helps out all those kids who don’t want to do their homework, bringing in a DVD of the 1935 Ronald Coleman adaptation of this Dickens classic; which you really should read, kids…), Gypsy (who’s up for a big, brassy musical ’bout strippers! I mean, it’s from 1962, so don’t get too excited or anything…), The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky’s enigmatic classic about an old man’s birthday party, and the possible end of the world, gets a 2 disc deluxe reissue, and Videoport’s got it for you.)

New Arrivals on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: Swingers, One for the Money, Underworld 3: Evolution, Rampart, Chronicle, Mother’s Day, This Means War, The Secret World of Arrietty, Red Tails, Hell on Wheels- season 1, The Others, The Devil Inside, Being John Malkovich, Sherlock- season 2.

VideoReport #351

Volume CCCLI- Revenge of the Vengeance-Havers

For the Week of 5/8/12

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. That’s just something we think you should know…

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!

>>> Elsa S. Customer suggests Baghead(in Incredibly Strange.) In the Duplass brothers’ indie hit, four

Can horror be mumbly? Kind of…

would-be actors (self-described “extras for life”) decide to jumpstart their careers, so they take up for spontaneous weekend in the woods where they hope to hammer together a script starring themselves, more or less as themselves: The Stud, The Vamp, The Nice Guy, and The Ingenue. But here’s the heartbreaking point: these aren’t characters lazily sketched out as the same old stereotypes; these are complex people with knotty, interwoven dynamics trying desperately to wedge themselves into simple movie stereotypes and clearcut relationships. In a drunken blur, the ingenue (Greta Gerwig (Greenberg, Arthur, Damsels in Distress) dreams of a figure lurking in the woods with a bag covering his head, and The Stud seizes upon this image as the heart of their screenplay. Aaaand then things start to get eerie. This isn’t a winking deconstruction of horror movie tropes, but a stumbling, hesitant, occasionally hilarious, and weirdly convincing portrait of how average humans might react to a possible horror-movie threat: with blasts of panic, sure, but mostly with skepticism, irritation, on-group resentment, and stretches of just plain boredom. The label “mumblecore,” which all too often suggests an aimless, craftless extemporizing, is misleading here. On the screen, Baghead has an unpolished cinema-verite quality, and the dialogue is similarly rough and improvised, but under that raw surface are crystal-clear character and theme that carry all the way through from beginning to end.

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!

>>>Elsa S. Customer suggests The Warriors (in Action Adventure.) So, um, I finally watched 1979′s The

Great…a Yankees fan. Shouldn’t be too hard to beat the crap out of.

Warriors, a touchstone flick referenced endlessly in MST3K, The Simpsons, and other pop-culture strip miners. From what little I knew about it (an eerily empty and blighted New York City subway populated only by roving gangs of, y’know, warriors; a seemingly eternal night of guerrilla warfare, a half-shirtless cast clad in leather vests), I assumed The Warriorswas a post-apocalyptic gangland epic, Mad Max set in the NYC subway. But it ain’t. The Warriors takes place in then-contemporary New York… which accounts for the squalid atmosphere. (Seriously, the 1990s clean-up campaign was overly aggressive and rife with systemic abuse of authority, but, y’all, 1970s New York was a sewer.) In the film’s opening, every street gang in the city is called to the Bronx for an uneasy summit meeting. The staggering proposal: since gang members vastly outnumber police, an intergang truce would allow them to rule the city unchallenged. Unfortunately, the movie drops the intriguing idea of class warfare and kleptocracy (and the social and philosophical questions it raises); instead, the Warriors are wrongly implicated in a gang slaying and have to hustle their way home to Coney without getting jumped by rival gangs. That’s right: the film offers the possibility of total social upheaval, then bait-and-switches to the epic adventure of some guys getting lost on the the subway. Aaaand then it plunges from the merely tedious into the absurd. Among the gangs The Warriors have to evade: The

Ummmm…

Turnbulls, a reasonably realistic gang in reasonably realistic garb (jeans, bandannas) bearing a reasonably realistic range of weapons (chains, knives, two-by-fours, and — a little outlandishly — a great big school bus that they cling to); The Orphans, a weedy-looking bunch in monogramed drab-green t-shirts; The Baseball Furies, a band of bat-wielding soldiers in full face paint and old-timey baseball uniforms; the Hi-Hats’, suspendered tights-wearing mimes in top hats and, again, full face paint (why doesn’t it get smudged in combat?); The Lizzies, a tough all-girl gang who (OH MY GOODNESS) might not be as beguiled by The Warriors’ sexual magnetism as they let on; The Riffs, who habitually perform some sort of martial-art/standing yoga en masse and in shortie bathrobes; The Hurricanes, who all sport porkpie hats; The Punks, strapping guys in overalls and rollerskates who all dress like oversized Chucky dolls, which is not nearly as scary as it might sound. And about ten other gangs too ridiculous to describe or keep track of, though we randomly identified a few: The Referees (in vertical-striped black-and-yellow shirts), The Benatars (in horizontal-striped jerseys, snap-brim fedoras, and sassy-short feathery haircuts; c’mon and hit them with your best shot), The Traffic Cones (in blaze yellow satin jackets, not super for evading your enemies in the dark streets), and The Buffetts (in Hawaiian shirts). I don’t know what’s more bananas: seeing the gangs get more and more hilarious, or trying to suspend my disbelief when it turns out that these world-weary rakes and streetwise criminals can’t read a damn subway map, or watching Dexter’s dad (James Remar) strut around shirtless, threatening to rape women and unleashing homophobic taunts on his fellow gang members, or both of us saying at the same moment, “Hey, is that the less memorable sister from ‘Too Close for Comfort’?” (It is.)

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 you make your life better by watching ‘Friday Night Lights’ (in Feature Drama.) The lovely Ms. Emily S. Customer and I just finished the fifth, and sadly final, season of this tragically-neglected tv series about Texas high school football. Now wait a minute- I see most of you checking out at the mention of a certain team sport, but let me try to convince you to give it a shot. I have some reasons: 1. It is one of the favorite shows of Videoport’s Regan who not only has a fine and analytical mind (with regards to movies and tv anyway) but also hates football, and all team sports, with a withering passion. 2. Ms. Elsa S. Customer, also, has no interest in sports whatsoever, and yet she loves it. (This is also how I explain why she loves me.) 3. While the central football theme is, well, central, FNLis hardly uncritical about Texas football

Clearly yelling something inspirational.

culture; all the fanaticism, overemphasis on sports rather than academics, parental pressures, jock culture, sexism and more all get some serious examination. 4. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton (as Coach Eric Taylor and wife Tammy) are, without exaggeration, the most realistic portrait of a married couple ever on tv. They’re not squeaky-clean, perfect tv marrieds, either- they make mistake, hurt feelings, ignore important things on occasion- but Chandler and Britton have such a handle on their characters, and the myriad, tangled conflicts and compromises that go into a long-term relationship. 5. I can count on one hand the number of episodes that did not make me break down in manly, manly- man-tears. You know that scene just before the big game in Hoosiers when hard-nosed coach Gene Hackman says, “I love you guys”? Well, there’s a moment like that in nearly every episode. And it’s not cheap sentiment either; all earned, all emerging from character and situation, and all deviously-employed to make a guy break down in man-tears. 6. Far from being the sausage-fest the subject might suggest, FNLhas a startling number of some of the best, most rounded, and downright human female characters television has produced in its regrettably-sexist history. Apart from Britton (whose Tammy Taylor is simply one of the best female characters on tv ever), there’s Aimee Teegarden who turns the potentially-thankless and tiresome role of the Taylor’s teen daughter into something much more interesting, Adrianne Palicki, who similarly turns stereotypical “bad girl” Tyra into someone much more interesting, and I’ll even give you Minka Kelly’s head cheerleader Lyla Garrity. 7. Of course, the dudes get some great roles, too, and there are literally a dozen or more, apart from the incomparable Chandler, along the way. Special mention for golden boy QB (with a SPOILER) Jason Street, cocky African American running back (with some serious challenges to overcome) Smash Davis, good-looking bad boy with a heart Tim Riggins (I’m willing to forget that John Carter or Battleship ever happened- that’s how much I love Taylor Kitsch’s Riggins), ‘The Wire”s Michael B. Jordan as the troubled kid from the wrong side of Dillon’s tracks (Ms. S. Customer actually burst out crying when she recognized him, saying, “I’m just so happy Wallace is okay!”), painfully-earnest farmboy/running back Luke Cafferty, gangly comic relief nerd turned unlikely football player Landry (Jesse Plemons is like Matt Damon’s goofier-looking, funny little brother), and, my personal favorite, underclassman backup quarterback Matt Saracen,

Wallace is okay!

whose series-long journey to manhood is absolutely heartbreaking in the hands of actor Zach Gilford. 8. Unlike most high school shows, FNL takes place in real time; people graduate, time passes, and that inexorable passage of time underlies everyone’s journey. It’s part of the greatness of the show; no matter how great you are in high school, it’s over in four short years. And then your life starts.

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!

>>>Andy suggests Sherman’s March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South during an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation (in the Documentary section). Hungry for more history after watching Ken Burns’ epic documentary The Civil War, Ross McElwee’s documentary Sherman’s March was, to say the least, not what I expected. But I felt while watching it that the filmmaker really got away with something, and his movie is a real achievement. The movie begins with McElwee getting a grant to make a documentary about William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous March to the Sea and its lasting effect on the South. Then McElwee’s girlfriend breaks up with him and, devastated, he sinks into depression. He starts having disturbing nightmares about nuclear holocaust. After bumming around for a while, McElwee heads South to make his movie. The idea, I guess, was to follow Sherman’s route and document the experience. But, in his fragile emotional state, he keeps getting sidetracked when he meets women or bumps into ex-girlfriends. Inevitably and invariably, the women break it off with him and the nuclear holocaust nightmares return, and our vulnerable, needy filmmaker uses some of the grant money to get a motel room and mope. The director, who also provides the deadpan narration, is kind of a sad sack, but as his movie rambles on, his romantic missteps, neurotic obsessions, and surprising tangents (there’s one involving Burt Reynolds) become more and more charming. As we get to know Ross, we pick up more of his subtle sense of humor and sympathize with his easily bruised heart. But I had to wonder, What kind of grant did this guy get? Was he supposed to make an educational film? Because I certainly can’t imagine seeing the finished movie on PBS or in a high school history class. Sherman’s March is a personal story about one sensitive, creative man who is obsessed with a certain kind of woman: women who use him and trample on his poor heart; boisterous women who amuse and surprise him, but are ultimately not interested in him. Of course, Ross is using the women, too, for the purpose of his film. He is trying to understand the enigma of the Southern Woman, and that becomes the broader theme that Sherman’s March is about.

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

>>>It’s a free movie. Deal with it.

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

>>>For Saturday, Videoport customer Jeremy has this to say about Mad Dog and Glory (in Feature Drama): “It’s so confusing and awesome!”

>>>For Sunday, Where the Wild Things Are (in Feature Drama.) When I first heard rumblings that Maurice Sendak’s beloved, iconic storybook was being transformed to a big-budget Hollywood film, I shuddered. How could such a dreamy, surreal allegory of childhood imagination, love, and rage ever survive the battering, bruising reduction that all great books suffer when they’re transferred from page to screen? Then I learned that the project was helmed by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggars and my anxiety abated a bit. If anyone can craft a dream on the screen, it’s director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation.) and if anyone understands the delicacy, elasticity, and occasional savagery of childhood dreams, it’s Dave Eggars. And the movie surpassed my hopes: it never suppresses the wildness of the Wild Things or tries to simplify them; it gives them scope to rage and thunder without denying their gentler moments. It’s a triumph. It’s a rumpus. In honor of the late, great Maurice Sendak, let the wild rumpus start.

 

Kate’s back. And all steamy…

New Releases this week at Videoport: Underworld: Awakening (Kate Beckinsale is back as the queen of the vampires, surprising everyone who hadn’t realized she wasn’t in the last movie after all), The Vow (Rachel McAdams gets amnesia, looks at husband Channing Tatum’s abs, decides to stay with him anyway), ‘Chuck’- season 5 (everyone’s favorite nerd spy is back for more comic thrills), Tim

You already know if you want to see this.

& Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (by now, you either think Tim and Eric are conceptual comic geniuses or two really unappealing guys who like to make you squirm at their repellant antics; this movie will do nothing to change whichever opinion you currently hold), ‘The Big C’- season 2 (Laura Linney returns in this darkly comic series which proves that just because you get cancer, it doesn’t mean you can’t be a selfish, snarky person), George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorcese directs this loving, 2-disc documentary about the life and career of the erstwhile Beatle), Seven Days in Utopia (Robert Duvall and Melissa Leo star in this family-friendly feelgoodery about a young hotshot pro golfer who ends up learning some crusty life wisdom from an eccentric old rancher; think of it like The Legend of Bagger Vance, but with Robert Duvall instead of Will Smith…), The Front Line (intense Korean war film about the final battle of the Korean War to decide the final border between North and South), Reykjavik to Rotterdam (did you like Contraband? Do you like reading? Well then, this is the Icelandic original it’s a remake of, where a retired smuggler gets lured back into the smuggling game for one more smuggle), The Shrine (in this horror movie, some young journalists infiltrate a cult reported to engage in human sacrifice; I’m sure nothing’s gonna go wrong…)

New Arrivals this week at Videoport: Cycling Shorts (for all you pedal-pushers out there, Videoport brings in this compilation of 28 bicycle-related short documentaries.)

New Arrivals on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: Robots, Cinema Paradiso, Underworld: Awakening.

VideoReport #345

Volume CCCXLV- Kickpuncher 4: The Punchkickinator

For the Week of 3/27/12

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. If you can find a better deal than that, marry it. We hope you will be very happy…

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!

>>> Videoport customer Meghan C. suggests Happy Accidents (in Incredibly Strange.) If you’re not shopping for your romantic comedies in the Incredibly Strange section, you’re doing it wrong. Because “romcom”s, as the kids call them, are terrible. And the Incredibly Strange section is great. And in that section there’s a romantic comedy called “Happy Accidents” that’s sweetly rom and kind of quirky-not-ha-ha com and except for some unfortunate 90′s floating-images-montage nonsense, pretty perfect. Ruby (Marisa (meh) Tomei) and Sam (Vincent (so-much-better-than-Noth) D’Onofrio, a commitment-phobic realist and a childlike romantic respectively, meet in a park and fall in love despite Ruby’s skepticism that like every other knucklehead she’s dated, Sam might not be as sweet and wonderful as he seems. When Sam reveals that he’s actually a time traveler from the future, Ruby thinks he’s crackers, and so do you…or do you? Instead of a lame “will-they-won’t-they”, this is a really well-executed “is-he-isn’t-he”, with a healthy dose of “with love like that who cares, you twit?!” mixed in. Philip K. Dick it ain’t, but the gentle sci-fi element keeps it this side of saccharin. Plus, Vinnie, you know?

Tough and Triassic Tuesday! Give yourself a free rental from the Action or Classics section with any other paid rental!

>>> Dennis suggests The Caine Mutiny(in Classics.) But, you know, with some reservations. Weirdly enough I think this was the first Humphrey Boagart movie I ever saw (my dad liked WWII movies), so my first experience of Bogey was that of an indecisive, neurotic tyrant and not the Mr. Cool Guy he’s since become in my cinematic world view. As Captain Queeg, skipper of a rundown minesweeper in the Pacific, Bogart’s all petty torments and irrational anxieties and obsessions- it’s pretty unnerving, and probably something of a change of pace at the time for him. In this adaptation of the Herman Wouk novel, the crew of the Caine eventually rebels against Queeg’s authoritarian command and the titular mutiny (led by stolid first mate Van Johnson) takes place, leading to a lengthy courtroom drama. Frankly, it’s the courtroom

Queeg, fiddling with his balls. (That'll be much less filthy when you see the movie...)

stuff that’s the real draw here, a fact that Wouk himself used to transform his novel into the long-running play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (which was filmed to great effect by Robert Altman at one point in a tragically-out-of-print version.) In the film, which shows all the events before they’re again recounted in the later courtroom scenes, things get a little draggy (especially when it takes time out to deal with a junior officer’s romantic plot and his weirdly-jealous mom), but stick with it; when the trial gets under way, you’re in for some world-class performances from Bogart (whose gradual breakdown under cross examination is riveting, and unlike anything he’d done since The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), and both Fred MacMurray (as an intellectual, scheming mutineer) and Jose Ferrer, as defense attorney Barney Greenwald, take turns stealing scenes. MacMurray’s untrustworthy blandness is put to the best use since Double Indemnity, and, as the brilliant, conflicted Greenwald, Ferrer underplays, until he springs his trap on poor ol’ Queeg (even if his role is hamstrung by the film’s determination not to offend anyone- it leaves out the anti-Semitism subplot so central to the novel/play, and goes out of its way to let the military off the hook at every turn.) Plus, he gets one of the best last lines ever, challenging the smug MacMurray to a fight with the classic, “If you wanna do anything about it, I’ll be outside. I’m a lot drunker than you are, so it’ll be a fair fight.”

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday! You’ve got a free rental coming from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with any other paid rental!

>>>Dennis suggests some intensive movie geek double featuring! One of the advantages of having Videoport in your life is the ability to plumb the depths of the Videoport shelves to engage in an eccentric course of cinematic study. Let’s watch!

1. Shadow of the Vampire and Nosferatu (both in Horror.) Whether you’re checking out the original silent vampire classic or Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake with Klaus Kinski, it’s film geek de rigueur to pair it up with 2000′s Shadow of the Vampire, a prankishly-goofy recreation of the making of the original, with John Malkovich as director F.W. Murnau and Willem Dafoe as actor Max Schreck who, in this retelling, is actually a vampire, coerced into appearing onscreen and occasionally snacking on his costars.

2. My Week With Marilyn (in Drama) and The Prince and the Showgirl (in Classics.) Michelle Williams (as Marilyn Monroe) and Kenneth Branagh (as Sir Laurence Olivier) enliven this behind-the-scenes tale of the making of the relatively-forgettable 1957 romantic comedy mismatch of two of the least-compatible movie stars of all time.

3. RKO 281 (in Drama) and Citizen Kane (in Classics.) Liev Schreiber is typically-magnetic portraying Orson Welles in this HBO movie about the making of Citizen Kane, and Welles’ antagonistic (and litigious) relationship with James Cromwell’s William Randolph Hearst.

4. Baadassss! and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song (both in Incredibly Strange.) Mario Van Peebles does his career best acting and directing in this biopic about his father Melvin’s trials in making his groundbreaking blaxploitation cult classic.

5. Ed Wood and Glen and Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space (all in Incredibly Strange.) I generally disdain Tim Burton’s precious, too-pleased-with-themselves quirk-fests, but I concede that his biopic of legendarily-incompetent auteur Wood is a near-masterpiece. Recounting the making of Wood’s two most-infamously-awful flicks, Burton and star Johnny Depp (and a brilliant Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi) craft a heartbreakingly-funny portrait of the least-talented, most-optimistic filmmaker ever.

6. CQ (in Feature Drama) and Barbarella (in Sci Fi.) While aspiring director Jeremy Davies in CQ isn’t making the psychedelic sci fi sex opera Barbarella per se, his 1960s spacy sex romp Dragonfly is clearly meant to stand in, and CQ is a lovingly-satirical look at the Jane Fonda semi-classic.

Thrifty Thursday! Rent one, get a free rental from any other section in the store!

>>>Dennis suggests Bucktown (in Incredibly Strange.) The blaxpliotation era in American film was a good news/bad news type of deal. As the independent/low budget/grindhouse genres flourished in the 1970s, suddelny there was a market for black actors and filmmakers on the big screen. Of course, for the most part, that market was largely for fairly stereotypical roles in films that emphasized sex, violence, and, well sex and violence, really. Still, some performers survived and thrived in this new wild west of American film and overcame its limitations, becoming legends in the process. Bucktown, a fairly-typical 1975 blaxploitation product features two of the genre’s icons, Pam Grier and Fred Williamson, along with perennial blaxploit all-star the awesomely-named Thalmus Rasulala, in a typically-entertaining action drama about a righteous brother stickin’ it to the man. A lot of blaxploitation movies follow the form of a Clint Eastwood western, and Bucktown is no exception. Williamson is the stylin’ outsider who rides into the cartoonishly-awful (and racist) town (on a train) to attend his brother’s funeral, only to get caught up in the town’s hellish ugliness. Like Clint, Fred initially scores a victory, beating up some honky deputies, only to suffer some setbacks when the man strikes back. Also like Clint, Fred rises from his seeming grave to exact his revenge against whitey. There’s some marginally-interesting subtext when Fred calls in his big city pals to help out, only to see them succumb to the temptations of power, but that’s the basic idea. As ever, the main attraction of a blaxploitation flick is the opportunity it affords its stars to do their thing, and Bucktown‘s basically notable for Williamson and Grier. For those in the know, Pam Grier needs no introduction; statuesque, formidable, and uniquely-sexy, Pam remains the blaxploitation era’s prime icon for a reason, even if she’s shunted off into girlfriend mode for most of the movie. Williamson was an interesting second-tier hero of the genre, a former NFL-er-turned-actor whose impressive physicality and charisma made up for a rather more limited skill set. He’s a formidable action guy, and is more than capable with his customary bevy of buxom babes (see especially his increasingly-kooky duo Hell Up in Harlem and Black Caesar), and he and Pam, in blaxploitation world, make the perfect couple. Seriously, watching them together in Bucktown, you know that whitey doesn’t stand a chance.

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

>>>Videoport reminds us all that touching the shiny side of a DVD indicates one was, perhaps, not taught proper behavior in one’s childhood. Just sayin’…

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

>>>For Saturday, Dennis suggest you take the ‘most movie for your buck’ Videoport challenge! Sure, there’s an amazing free rental deal every day at Videoport. You know it. But why not work the system to try and pack as much entertainment as possible into your weekend. Some ideas:

1. A tough guy triple feature with the Clint Eastwood triple feature disc of Every Which Way But Loose/ Any Which Way You Can/ Honkytonk Man (in Comedy), and a couple of Charles Bronson double features Death Wish 2/Death Wish 3 and Death Wish 4/The Ambassador (in Action.) That’s seven movies for the price of only two!!

2. A classic comedy laugh-fest consisting of some Marx Brothers double feature discs Room Service/At the Circus and Go West/The Big Store (in Classics) alongside the W.C. Fields Short Film Collection (in the Criterion section.) Four features, six shorts, all for the price of two. Not bad…

Those are just a few suggestions- try to beat the record!

>>>For Sunday, Dennis suggests Warrior (in Feature Drama.) While on some level, a boxing or wrestling fan should consider MMA (mixed martial arts) as the best of both worlds, in reality, I’ve always found the actual MMA/UFC scene to be a bastion of sloppy thuggery, excessive macho posturing, and Joe Rogan. So, along with most of the world, I initially passed on this MMA-themed action drama- it just had that douche-y bro-stink all over it. But, perhaps persuaded by Nick Nolte’s best supporting actor nomination (he lost), I finally checked Warrior out and I gotta say…much better than I’d anticipated. Sure, the whole MMA thing still seems a decidedly lunkheaded milieu, but the movie is never less than watchable (bordering on riveting) due to its two stars, Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy. Apart from the fact that they both have clearly spent insane, animalistic hours at the gym, both of these guys are accomplished, charismatic actors in their own rights. Edgerton (an Aussie) and Hardy (a Brit) convincingly portray two Pittsburgh brothers whose lifelong rivalry, exacerbated by their alcoholic father (Nolte), culminates in a movie-friendly final confrontation at the traditional big MMA tournament. Like Rocky, et al, Warrior‘s pretty formula, but, for all that, it’s at least as affecting. Edgerton and Hardy (soon to be a megastar as Bane in the new Batman movie) are both pretty damned affecting, and convincing as brothers; both have a soft spoken, averted eyes torment thing going on (and their accents are spot-on.) And Nolte, as the remorseful, aging old trainer/father deserved his nomination; his scenes with his understandably-estranged sons walk a wrenching balance of recrimination and empathy. Sure, the film’s style might be a bit glib (is it really that easy to get into the big tournament?), but the final third of the film is nothing but solid gripping fight action (nicely bonded to character motivation), and the big showdown of brother against brother (was there any doubt?) will produce a veritable waterfall of manly, manly man-tears.

New Releases this week at Videoport: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (this exists; we’re all to blame in some way…), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, this drama about a mute li’l guy running around NYC trying to find a lock that fits the key his dad left him before dying on 9/11 stars the likes of Tom Hanks, Max Von Sydow, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright, Viola Davis and more), A Dangerous Method (based on a book written by Portland resident [and Videoporter] John Kerr, this drama centers on the contentious relationship among psychoanalytical pioneers Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, and their patient Sabina Spielrein; directed by David Cronenberg and starring Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Machael Fassbender- that ain’t bad… ), ‘Eureka’- season 4.5 (small town, all the maddest scientists in the world; what could possibly go wrong?), ‘South Park’- season 15 (by season 15, you know whether or not you like this show…), The Broken Tower (James Franco takes on another famous gay American poet biopic after playing Allen Ginsberg in Howl; this time he writes and directs himself as Hart Crane, alongside the always-riveting Michael Shannon [Take Shelter]), In the Land of Blood and Honey (Angelina Jolie writes and directs this foreign language drama bout the presumably-doomed love of two people on opposite sides of the Bosnian War ), Hop (the animated version of Russell Brand is the new Easter Bunny!), The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (Kristin Scott Thomas continues her lucrative bi-lingual film career costarring in this French thriller about the secret adoptive son of a murdered billionaire attempting to prove his legitimacy without being murdered his own self), Korkoro (Videoport-beloved French director Tony Gatlif [Latcho Drom, The Crazy Stranger, Vengo] continues his exploration of Gypsy life with this post-WWII drama about a Gypsy family traveling the French countryside alongside a little orphaned boy), The Zombie Diaries (with London overrun by the ravenous undead, whatcha gonna do? Why, capture it all on shaky handheld cameras and post it on Youtube, if you’re the plucky survivors in this British entry in the zombie sweepstakes), Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, season 6, part 1(everyone’s favorite grumpy chef continues to travel the world and eat weird stuff), and four, count ‘em four new DVDs of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000′! This time around, Mike, Joel and the ‘bots lob snark-bombs at the cinematic stinkburgers King Dinosaur, The Castle of Fu Manchu, Code Name: Diamond Head, Last of the Wild Horses.

New Arrivals this week at Videoport: Tokyo Drifter (check Videoport’s Criterion section for this super-snazzy new edition of Seijun Suzuki’s oddball yakuza hitman classic.)

New Arrivals on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

VideoReport #344

Volume CCCXLIV- The Punchening

For the Week of 3/20/12

Videoport gives you a free movie every day. How you gonna 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!

>>> Videoport customer Jenna G. suggests Starman (in Sci Fi/Fantasy.) For middle aisle Monday, I suggest John Carpenter’s Starman. I was hesitant to rent this “tender, moving, science-fiction love

Plus, Karen Allen. Rrrroooooowwwwrrr...

story” from 1984…but it stars Jeff Bridges and aliens are awesome. Bridges plays Starman, who crash lands in Wisconsin and clones the body of recently deceased Scott Hayden. Scott’s widow, Jenny (Karen Allen), reluctantly joins Starman on a cross country race against time and the US government! Casting was critical for this movie. I can’t imagine Starman as funny or endearing had he not been played by Jeff Bridges. If you’re not convinced, Starman revives a dead deer. A DEER! Rent it, watch it with the family! How often do you read a glowing recommendation here for a PG movie?

Tough and Triassic Tuesday! Give yourself a free rental from the Action or Classics section with any other paid rental!

>>>Write for the VideoReport! Send your reviews to us at denmn@hotmail.com or our Facebook page “VideoportJones!”

Wacky and Worldly Wednesday! You’ve got a free rental coming from the Comedy or Foreign Language sections with any other paid rental!

>>>Andy suggests these films that attempt to answer the question: What the heck is wrong with comedians? I mean, sure, we all like to laugh, and sometimes it’s fun to make other people laugh. But it takes a certain kind of personality to want to make EVERYBODY laugh, and I’m not sure it’s a very healthy personality. (I have personally known some comedians, and they are nice and wonderful people… and obviously the exceptions to the rule).

Funny, unlikeable people...

Funny People (in the Comedy section). This is a well written and very well acted (by Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan, and Oscar-nominee Jonah Hill) movie about a selfish and competitive bunch of stand up comedians. Since it’s a dramatic movie about the comedy world made by people who have been there, it has a great deal of insight into that kind of personality I’m talking about. I like the movie a lot, but I don’t really like any of the characters, except Eric Bana as an Australian businessman (notably not as a comedian).

Funny. Possibly mentally ill...

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (in Comedy). In this documentary about Conan’s post-Tonight Show tour, he is revealed to be a needy, hostile, and sometimes downright mean guy. His insecure need for constant adulation seems to border on mental illness. Even as I was laughing at his jokes and shtick, I felt sorry for him. But damn, he’s funny, and he’s genuinely appreciative of his fans, which helps him remain lovable.

Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story (in Documentary Arts). Eddie Izzard might be a lot nicer and more pleasant than some of the others listed here, but there is still something sick about just how driven and self-sacrificing he was on his long, painfully difficult road to fame. From being tied up and unable to free himself as part of an improvised magic act to losing all his money as an owner of his own comedy club, Izzard suffered innumerable setbacks before finally, miraculously achieving success… and then more setbacks.

The Ricky Gervais Show(in Comedy). What kind of people do this? Ricky Gervais* and Stephen

Funny. Clearly a d*ck...

Merchant start conversations with their “friend” Karl Pilkington, a radio producer-turned-author with a low I.Q. and a high tolerance for abuse. Then, as Karl talks and exposes his childish misconceptions about the world, Ricky and Steve mercilessly mock him for his stupidity. And that’s it! Of course, it is very funny, but I can’t imagine being as rude and hurtful to anyone as Ricky and Steve are to Karl. And why does Karl keep coming back for more? What is wrong with these people?

(*For more Ricky Gervais cruelty, check out the bonus features on disc 2 of season 2 of Extras. There’s one featurette dedicated to Ricky’s harassment of his longtime editor. It’s sad and humiliating.)

Thrifty Thursday! Rent one, get a free rental from any other section in the store!

>>>Elsa S. Customer suggests What Happened Was (in Feature Drama.) The DVD case makes Tom Noonan’s two-person character piece look like a frothy little romantic comedy, which is a striking bit of mis-marketing. “What Happened Was” tells the story of co-workers Jackie and Michael (Karen Sillas, Tom Noonan) who, after months of circling each other , finally meet for a weirdly stilted first date. Its a story about hesitation, apprehension, and the longing for human connection. You’ll recognize writer-director-actor Noonan as The Sorta Creepy Guy from “X-Files,” Manhunter, House of the Devil, Synecdoche, NY, and pretty much whatever else you’ve seen him in. He’s looming and lanky with intensely brooding eyes — a peculiar fella to meet for a first date. And what follows is a peculiar date, for sure. It’s tense, awkward, and ultimately very touching.

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

>>>If you teach your kids about handling DVDs properly now (i.e.- DON’T TOUCH THE SHINY SIDE!), you’re 87% less likely to see them wreck your car as soon as they turn 16. It’s science…

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

>>>For Saturday, Dennis suggests Super (in Incredibly Strange.) Writer/director/freak James Gunn got his start working for even-bigger freak Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma Pictures, a company so dedicated to the art of bad movies that their movies are frequently unwatchable. Making the out-of-its-tiny-little-mind Tromeo and Juliet and other Troma “films”, Gunn laid the groundwork for his future career making much better, even weirder, movies on his own, like the gleefully-repulsive (and funny) Slither (starring the great Nathan Fillion), and Super (starring The Office‘s own Dwight Shrute, Rainn Wilson) and proving that it’s possible to escape from Tromaville with your career and your talent intact. Like Slither, Super is out of its tiny little mind, doing for the superhero genre what Slither did for the alien invasion one. In it, Wilson plays a mild-mannered (to the point of social maladjustment) fry cook named Frank who, at film’s beginning, is completely content, in that he’s somehow scored the hand of a way-out-of-his-league beauty (Liv Tyler), a recovering addict who waitresses at the diner where he works. When a slimy club owner/drug dealer (a very funny Kevin Bacon, clearly enjoying himself) steals his clearly-not-recovered beloved away, Frank has an epiphany/breakdown where he becomes convinced that the way to win her back/save the world is to become a real life superhero. (The fact that this epiphany includes writhing anime tentacles which saw the top of Frank’s head off so that the finger of God can poke him in the brain suggests that Frank maybe has some issues/James Gunn is still delightfully bananas.) Stitiching together an ill-fitting costume and getting some superheroic insight from a gung-ho comic shop clerk (a wild-eyed Ellen Page), Frank christens himself the Crimson Bolt and starts lumbering through the streets looking for miscreants to smash on the head with his trusty pipe wrench. This is some violent, very darkly-comic stuff, contrasting Frank’s maniacal desire to do some sort of vaguely-defined good, and the harsh reality that calling yourself a superhero doesn’t mean that you’re not just a half-bright vigilante in silly clothes smacking people with a wrench. Things get even darker when Frank/Crimson Bolt decides to make his wife’s new lover/dealer his ultimate target and (with Page tagging along as his unwanted sidekick Boltie) launches a violent assault on Bacon’s henchman-riddled mansion. Super is what you’d expect from a James Gunn joint- imaginatively, crazily violent, lots of fun character actors doing their thing (The Wire‘s Andre Royo, Linda Cardellini, Gregg Henry, Fillion, Michael Rooker), and some genuinely-twisted humor. In addition, I’ve got to say that Wilson is very affecting as Frank/CB- his simple-hearted misfit is clearly insane and dangerous, but you can’t help but feel for the guy. And his scenes with Tyler (also very good) are quite affecting as well- Frank can’t see the danger signs of a clearly-desperate, wounded woman clinging to the first decent guy she sees; Frank just thinks they’re happy, and that everything he’s ever wanted is now his, forever. The loss of something like that- I’ve heard worse superhero origin stories.

(Also, Super would make a great double feature with the Gunn-penned The Specials, another oddball superhero flick about “the fifth or sixth best superhero team in the world,” which featured my favorite tagline of all time: “Not as good as regular superheroes, but slightly better than you!”)

>>>For Sunday, Elsa S. Customer suggests The Prisoner (in Sci Fi/Fantasy.) The legendary British series is hard to describe — or, more precisely, the show’s quirks and basic premise are easy to describe, but any description will fail to convey the deeply weird, whimsical tone of the show. The premise is neatly encapsulated in each episode’s credits: ice-cool Bond-James-Bond type (Patrick McGoohan) resigns in high dudgeon, then tools through swingin’ London in his hip roadster to his bachelor pad, where he’s drugged and abducted by unknown forces. Each episode opens with our protagonist looking out his familiar apartment window to see the surprising view, a quaint little seaside village where he’s held prisoner. That image sums up the whole series: the familiar framing the impossible. The village is a dreamy balance of playful and sinister, Kafka wrapped up in Dr. Seuss. The inhabitants — some presumably prisoners themselves, some employees and agents of whatever power maintains this little prison — promenade cheerfully around the verdant landscape, bedecked in colorful stripes, carrying rainbow parasols, greeting each other with a friendly salute specific to the island, listening to cheery announcements and instructions from the omnipresent loudspeakers, and busying themselves with band concerts, local elections, and art competitions. Amid this unchanging atmosphere of forced jolliness, the show’s more surreal elements strike all the harder. Our nameless protagonist, known only as Number 6, is questioned daily by Number Two, presumably the immediate subordinate of an unseen Number One who oversees the absurd prison village — but Number Two is routinely replaced. Even the geography of the little village is uncertain: sometimes, it seems clearly an island, others a little seaside town on the mainland. Mainland of where? Um… If you’re noticing a lot of “presumably”s in this review, that’s because the show tells us very little and leaves us to presume most of the story and background. Was Number Two a spy? Presumably. Did he resign for reasons of conscience? Presumably. Is he being held by some political agency, on his side or another? Presumably. So much of what we think we know keeps changing, shifting, twisting away from our understanding, creating a free-floating dreamlike paranoia that makes the show work as an allegory for almost anything. Is it an exploration of identity in the modern world, an elegy for the lost simplicity of village life, a study of existential crisis, a rant against the nanny state, a chilling metaphor for life under a Communist regime, or a less specific indictment of the power of social indoctrination? Well… sure, presumably.

New Releases this week at Videoport: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) (Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara star in this inevitable American remake of the already-insanely-popular-and-dark Swedish thriller; all the rape, none of the subtitles!), The Muppets (Jason Segel fulfills his lifelong dream and brings the Muppets back from obscurity in this utterly-delightful new movie; my niece Penelope is now obsessed with the Muppets. She’s six. Never, ever doubt Penelope…), The Sitter (your enjoyment of this filthier Adventures in Babysitting update may depend on your love or annoyance with Jonah Hill; I thought it was okay- plus any time you let Sam Rockwell be weird and funny is always a plus), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Gary Oldman leads a great, British pudding-faced cast [Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, John Hurt, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong] in this deceptively-gripping, measured adaptation of the John LeCarre spy novel about the hunt for a Russian mole in Cold War-era British intelligence), Carnage (Roman Polanski directs this intense drama about a two couples [played by an exceptional cast: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly] who come together for an evening after their sons are involved in a fight, and things get pretty dark…), My Joy (acclaimed Ukrainian drama about a truck driver whose picaresque adventures through the bleak Russian landscape gradually become pretty dark…), Suicide Room (bizarre Polish flick about a teenaged boy whose obsession with the titular online fantasy site gradually becomes pretty dark…), Jess + Moss (enigmatic indie about two second cousins spending a summer exploring their decrepit surroundings and remembering their strange, David Lynchian childhoods; cool person/geek alert: the female lead is played by Sarah Hagan, who was Millie in ‘Freaks and Geeks’ and one of the potential slayers in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’), Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (Videoport’s Sam is raving about this biopic of the legendary [some might say infamous] French singer; never, ever doubt Sam…), Roadie (from the director of the improbably-moving pedophile drama L.I.E. comes this drama about the titular aimless roadie [Ron Eldard] who takes time off from lifting things for Blue Oyster Cult to take care of his ailing mom, and to steal his ex-girlfriend back from her husband), Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (biopic about the troubled, decidedly odd fella who wrote the titular instrumental 60s classic, among others), Creature (a good ol’ gory monster movie set in the Louisiana swamps and featuring genre vet Sid Haig, for horror movie cred), Happy Feet 2 (they’re penguins. They dance. What more do you wanna know?)

New Arrivals this week at Videoport: ‘Upstairs Downstairs’- the Complete Series (are you suffering from ‘Downton Abbey’ withdrawal? Well, Videoport’s got your back, bringing in the entire run of this similarly-beloved BBC series about the various goings-on and whatnot between the servants and aristocrats of a London townhouse at over 30 or so years in this 1971 series), ‘Inspector Morse’- season 1 (you know how British people like to murder each other and stuff? Well, Videoport’s bringing in yet another beloved BBC ‘crusty policeman pursues the seemingly-endless parade of Britishy killers’ series to join the dozens of similar shows on our shelves), D2: The Might Ducks (Emilio Estevez, with the hockey, and the little kids…you remember…), Track 29 (typically-bananas thriller from director Nicholas Roeg [Insignificance, Walkabout] with Theresa Russell’s bored housewife taking up with the mysterious stranger [an early, typically-magnetic performance from Gary Oldman])

New Arrivals on Blu Ray this week at Videoport: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011), The Sitter, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Carnage, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions.