Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in Behind the Candelabra dvd of the week Steven Soderbergh’s film about Liberace and his last lover, the young, blond and clueless Scott Thorson, was too gay and too sexy to be a feature film, supposedly. HBO, however, was thrilled to produce Behind the Candelabra, which stars Michael Douglas as…
dvd of the week If you were offended by Zero Dark Thirty, and there’s good reason to be, you may find solace in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is as subversively anti-American and anti-imperialist as Zero Dark Thirty was pro-American and pro-fascism. Based on the novel by Mohsin Hamid, it is the story of how Changez…
DVR This: AMC, Available on Amazon.com and ITunes While a bunch of people stopped watching The Killing – the moody, slow and rainy series about murder detectives in Seattle – after they failed to reveal who killed Rose Larsen at the end of season 1, I suggest you return, either on TV or DVD. This…
dvd of the week This is the first adaptation of a F. Scott Fitzgerald work that seems to be as in love with Fitzgerald’s writing as Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) is with Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). When Nick Caraway (a most excellent Toby Maguire) isn’t narrating the Jazz Age tragedy with Fitzgerald’s own language, director…
dvd of the week After nearly twenty years of big name American directors circling an adaptation of the classic beat novel On the Road, it was the Brazilian Walter Salles, who directed Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries, who managed to get it made; his first English-language film. Nowhere near as acclaimed as those two…
dvd of the week Despite writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s Herculean efforts at creating country noir and Ryan Gosling’s smolder, the film doesn’t quite work. The main reason is the film’s conceit, that the plot, focusing on three men in upstate New York over a generation, would be completely linear. In the first act, a daredevil motorcyclist…
dvd of the week If you forget that you hate Tom Cruise, you may like him in Oblivion, which is a serious, artful science fiction film hidden behind the veneer of a shoot-‘em-up blockbuster. Cruise plays Jack Harper, who along with his girlfriend Victoria (a most excellent Andrea Riseborough), is tasked with managing and repairing…
dvd of the week San Diego was never given the opportunity to see this road trip film about two aging lesbians, Dot and Stella (Oscar winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker), on the run from a nursing home. The only way they can prevent Dot from being forced into elder care by her granddaughter is…
Robbie Jones and Jurnee Smollett-Bell in Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor dvd of the week If you happen to come across this DVD in someone’s garbage can – do not pay for it – you may enjoy a good couple hours of hate-watching. As ineptly written and directed as the worst of the Razzie…
dvd of the week If you don’t have Netflix, you probably missed their 13-episode original series about the cruel world of Washington politics, which was also easily the best thing on TV this year. Starring Kevin Spacey in his greatest role – which is saying a lot – he is supported by Robin Wright, Kate…
