dvd of the week Ang Lee won his second Oscar for directing this gorgeous adaptation of Yan Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, a book that begins with an old man saying that “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” The film begins similarly, with Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) telling…
dvd of the week When I saw that The Intouchables was a true story about a quadriplegic, I found other movies to see. I just didn’t want to do the work. And when I tell you that it is in French and subtitled, you may not want to do the work either. But The Intouchables…
dvd of the week While a great deal of the press about The Master is focused on how it is supposedly a fictional retelling of the birth of Scientology, I think this does a disservice to both the film and to Scientology. While it may have been inspired by L. Ron Hubbard’s early days, it…
dvd of the week Ben Affleck’s film about the insane plan the CIA devised (“This is the best bad idea we have”) to rescue six American embassy workers from Iran in 1980 is thrilling, funny and nearly flawless. The merging of a satirical comedy about Hollywood, the paranoid suspense in Iran, and the wonkish, but…
dvd of the week Stephen Chbosky adapted his own novel for the screen and made a movie even more acclaimed and beloved than his book, which is a tall order. In Pittsburgh in the 1980s, Charlie (Logan Lerman) is a depressive outcast who befriends and is befriended by his high school’s one gay student Patrick…
dvd of the week I was one of the very few people who loathed Flight, the film about a high functioning but still very messy alcoholic airline pilot (Denzel Washington) whose impressive skills saves most of his passengers during a harrowing plane crash, but whose addiction enables him to be a convenient fall guy for…
dvd of the week The second animated film by Tim Burton to be nominated for an Oscar, Frankenweenie has more flashes of brilliance in it than anything he has done in more than a decade. It is the story of a strange, nerdy boy – both a budding filmmaker and a genius scientist – who…
dvd of the week The second season of that other musical on TV starts Feb. 6, which should give you enough time to catch up by watching the first 15 episodes. Like Glee, Smash is amazingly uneven, occasionally sublime, but mostly fascinatingly bad. The story of the making of a Broadway musical about the life…
dvd of the week In 2074, mobsters use time machines to send their enemies 30 years back in time to be killed and disposed of by loopers. More and more loopers are “closing the loop,” the phrase for being forced to kill their 30-years-older selves in a violent method of contract fulfillment. But when Joe…
dvd of the week Written by 30 Rock writer Kay Cannon and directed by Avenue Q’s Jason Moore; Pitch Perfect is Bring It On crossed with Glee with an injection of Bridesmaids. It’s not perfect, but it’s a damn funny crowd-pleaser. Beca (Anna Kendrick) is a world-weary freshman at Barden University who spends her free…
