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Princess Mononoke (1997)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: ALL (2000, Jan 1st).
Pages: 1
Before it ever arrived in the U.S., this epic, animated 1997 fantasy had already made history as the top-grossing domestic feature ever released in Japan, where its combination of mythic themes, mystical forces, and ravishing visuals tapped deeply into cultural identity and contemporary, ecological anxieties. For international animation and anime fans, Princess Mononoke represents an auspicious next step for its revered creator, Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service), an acknowledged anime pioneer, whose painterly style, vivid character design, and stylized approach to storytelling take ambitious, evolutionary steps here. Set in medieval Japan, Miyazaki's original story envisions a struggle between nature and man. The march of technology, embodied in the dark iron forges of the ambitious Tatara clan, threatens the natural forces explicit in the benevolent Great God of the Forest and the wide-eyed, spectral spirits he protects. more
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Lincoln (2012)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Dreamworks (2013, Mar 26th).
Pages: 1
View larger View larger View larger View larger As with the great John Ford (Young Mr. Lincoln) before him, it would be out of character for Steven Spielberg to construct a conventional, cradle-to-grave portrait of a historical figure. In drawing from Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, the director instead depicts a career-defining moment in the career of Abraham Lincoln (an uncharacteristically restrained Daniel Day-Lewis). With the Civil War raging, and the death toll rising, the president focuses his energies on passage of the 13th Amendment. Even those sympathetic to the cause question his timing, but Lincoln doesn't see the two issues as separate, and the situation turns personal when his son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), chooses to enlist rather than to study law. more
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Django Unchained (2012)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay (2013, Apr 16th).
Pages: 1
From the moment Jamie Foxx throws off a filthy, tattered blanket to reveal a richly muscled back crisscrossed with long scars, it's obvious that Django Unchained will be both true to its exploitation roots but also clear-eyed about the misery that's being exploited. Django (Foxx), a slave set free in the years before the Civil War, joins with a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter (the marvelous Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds), who has promised to help Django rescue his wife (Kerry Washington), who's still enslaved to a gleeful and grandiose plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio, plainly relishing the opportunity to play an out-and-out villain). What follows is a wild and woolly ride, crammed with all the pleasures one expects from a revenge fantasy written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. more
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Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay (2013, Apr 30th).
Pages: 1
In lesser hands than director David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook could have been a typically cringe-inducing throwaway Hollywood rom-com. As it is, this unusual and deeply affecting story of crazy love is a bold observation about the joys and tragedy of life lived by deeply flawed characters facing triumph and adversity against a backdrop of painfully familiar family dysfunction. It's also a tremendous achievement in formal structure, with a flair for storytelling that's as moving as it is delightful. Bradley Cooper plays Pat, an until-recently undiagnosed bipolar person who's just home from a lengthy stay in a mental institution and doing his darnedest to get his head and his life back on track. His concerned parents, vividly embodied by Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, have plenty of troubles of their own when they warily take him in and tiptoe around the eggshells of a psyche that still veers wildly from seeming self-control to scary bouts of mania. more
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Zero Dark Thirty (+UltraViolet Digital Copy) (2012)
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Format: DVD
Publisher: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2013, Mar 19th).
Pages: 1
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Pitch Perfect (2012)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Universal Studios (2012, Dec 18th).
Pages: 1
Everyone loves musical smackdowns--and Pitch Perfect is full of great ones. Pitch Perfect is like Bring It On crossed with the Step Up movies, flavored with a heavy dose of TV's Glee and the Straight No Chaser boys. All of this is set appealingly on a college campus, with charming actors and a very funny script that will entertain fans, truly, from 10 to 90. The plot in Pitch Perfect follows the character of college freshman Beca (a delightful Anna Kendrick) as she decides to join her school's a cappella women's singing group. (Unlike on Glee, where the glee club is populated with outcasts, college a cappella groups are prestigious--and hard to get into.) Fellow singers include Brittany Snow as Chloe and Alexis Knapp as Stacie, a student who's hilariously slutty and innocent at the same time. more
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Cloud Atlas (+UltraViolet Digital Copy) (2013)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Warner Home Video (2013, May 14th).
Pages: 1
You've got to give it up for a movie that goes the big-canvas route and then some: Cloud Atlas is a mega-project, a star-studded near-three-hour opus that reaches for deep metaphysical meaning. And instead of one story, the movie adapted from David Mitchell's novel features six interlocking narratives, ranging from a 19th-century seafaring yarn to a pair of futuristic dystopias (one high-tech, the other a postapocalyptic return to barbarism). To emphasize the themes of eternal recurrence and transmigrating souls, the hard-working actors play multiple roles across these timelines, so you get to see Tom Hanks and Halle Berry et al. ensconced in a variety of makeup and prosthetics. This includes casting across gender and race, which means if you've ever wondered how Hugo Weaving would look as a tough female nurse, or Jim Sturgess as an Asian action hero, this is your chance. more
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Summit Entertainment (2013, Feb 12th).
Pages: 1
The Perks of Being a Wallflower maintains the fine tradition of movies like Running with Scissors and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist in its savvy, sensitive telling of high schoolers coming of age and coming to terms. Though it enters some dark emotional territory as freshman Charlie (Logan Lerman) connects with a clique of older students, the smart sense of humor threaded throughout is as charming as the heavy stuff is powerful. Charlie enters high school with some serious yet indeterminate psychological problems that have clearly devilled him since childhood. We don't get to know about the extent of his difficulties until the movie's final scenes, but they've made it hard for him to find friends. A device that comes and goes is Charlie's voice-over of letters he's writing to an unknown and unnamed friend that describe the hard shell he's kept closed around himself. more
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Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Buena Vista (2013, Mar 5th).
Pages: 1
Wreck-It Ralph is a very funny film about an arcade game "bad guy" (John C. Reilly) who's tired of being overshadowed by "good guy" Fix-It Felix Jr. (Jack McBrayer) and goes game jumping while the arcade is closed in an attempt to reinvent himself. Felix heads out to drag the oversize Ralph back to their own game, and the pair travels through a time warp of arcade games from the past 30 years that's absolutely hilarious and will cause you to never look at an electrical outlet or surge protector in the same way again. Ralph first lands in the action game "Hero's Duty," where he gets to live his dream and fight the bad guys--he even gets his hands on a hero's medal. Ralph's next stop in "Sugar Rush" yields some unexpected pitfalls that include quicksand that consists of a familiar chocolaty drink mix and a glitch called Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) who has the potential to change everything--both in her game and in Ralph's future. more
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The Last Stand (2013)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.:
Format: DVD
Publisher: Lions Gate (2013, May 21st).
Pages: 1
Any movie that heralds the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger to movie star action hero-dom after his foray into politics was going to bear the dubious honor of being auspicious. For better or worse, The Last Stand takes that honor right down the middle of the road, being neither overly ambitious nor groaningly silly in letting this 66-year-old man mug, grunt, punch, and shoot his way back into our hearts and minds as the Ah-nold screen character for which we had such affection. Schwarzenegger plays Ray Owens, the sheriff of a tiny Arizona border burg who likes the peace and calm of his job and his townsfolk friends. When the FBI informs him that an escaped Mexican drug kingpin is barreling straight toward all that calm in a supercharged custom car, he sighs and saddles up, locking and loading with his wacky friends and deputies by his side for the inevitable stand. more
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