Category Archives: DVDs

The film Hanna is a typical coming of age story. When it opens in a tundra setting, the protagonist Hanna is doing what all 16 year old girls like to do on the weekend: hunting a wild reindeer. After she has successfully killed her target, a man sneaks up on her and the two engage in a brief but tense fight. It’s apparent that neither are fighting to hurt the other, and it turns out the man is her father, and that this is just another Saturday morning for the two. It is revealed that Hanna and her father have been living on their own, completely disconnected from civilization as we know it and her father has brought her up to be a deadly assassin and a walking encyclopedia. She may not have a driver’s license like most girls want at her age, but she can snap your neck in less than three seconds flat.

Hanna is a breath of fresh air into the stale genre that is suspense thriller. During the very few and surprisingly brief action scenes, the camera rarely cuts away (a cheap trick that way too many action blockbusters are guilty of these days). What’s particularly engaging about this thriller is that director Joe Wright is more interested in the development of Hanna’s character than he is in staging those elaborate action sequences, and it makes for a very rewarding hybrid of traditional coming of age story and international espionage thriller, all filtered through a fairy tale lens. It’s a testament to Joe Wright’s talent that the film comes off as anything but a mess, despite all this mixing and matching.

Saoirse Ronan (I don’t know how to pronounce it either) gives a very nuanced performance in Hanna, as a teenage girl by loyalty to her father and the desire to grow up independently from him. The film is at its best when it follows Hanna’s travels with a lovable family of tourists and explores how far removed she really is from society. Hanna is a grade A anti-thriller that excels when it’s pulling its punches instead of throwing them.

View the theatrical trailer below and find the DVD in our collection!

It’s impossible to view this film without drawing parallels between Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Emilio Estevez’ The Way.  Both unfold as a journey to a holy shrine undertaken by diverse pilgrims who come to reveal themselves to each other, and to themselves, as they are tested by the rigors of the landscape and the physical hardships of the odyssey.

Martin Sheen embraces the role of Tom, who travels to France to collect the remains of his son Dan (played by Emilio Estevez, his son in real life) who has died accidentally during his pilgrimage on the 800KM Camino de Santiago.  Tom is a staid ophthalmologist who has lived a conservative lifestyle, while Dan has sought his interpretation of a more meaningful existence by testing  boundaries and pushing the envelope.  Neither fully accepts or understands the raison d’etre of the other in a classic father/son standoff.

In an effort to assuage his grief and grasp the motivation  behind Dan’s pilgrimage, Tom determines to trace the journey in his son’s footsteps,  leaving some of Dan’s ashes at various way stations along the Camino as a way of honoring his memory and accomplishing for Dan what he is physically unable to complete for himself.

But, this being a pilgrimage, no one’s journey is a solitary one, so Tom is reluctantly thrown into the mix with follow travelers. There is Joost, the jovial Dutchman, who is seeking to regain his wife’s affection, Sarah, a prickly Canadian, who is trying to quit smoking and recover from an abusive marriage, and Jack, a hard-drinking Irishman with writer’s block, whose next big novel will be a thinly disguised rehash of the lives of his fellow pilgrims.  There are as many reasons for making the pilgrimage as there are pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago.

Along the way, we are in turn amused by the interactions among four such diverse seekers, and moved by poignant self-revelations. This is all played out against the scenic backdrop of the breathtaking Pyrennes and the Basque country, mingled with the quaintness of small villages.  Here, affable innkeepers gather the sojourners offering respite and relaxation before the journey begins anew the next day.  Food and drink are plentiful, but accommodations are sparse and crowded, further breaking down the physical and emotional barriers that separate the seekers.

Glimpses of Dan in the faces of his fellow travelers reassure Tom that father and son are moving towards a reconciliation, and that the journey has become as much a spiritual trek as it has been a physical one.  Dan reminds his father, “You don’t choose a life, you live  it.”  We sense that Tom has awakened a capacity for allowing, as much as he has clung to his rigid philosophy of choice.

View the official movie trailer for The Way and our catalog to check-out a copy today.

“Morally you’re supposed to overcome your impulses, but there are times you don’t want to overcome them.” So says one of the characters in Roman Polanski’s newest film: Carnage. It’s a sentiment that only brings itself to light gradually throughout the film, until finally the characters are devoid of any moral sensibilities which is humorously amplified in this intensely claustrophobic film. The film is very condensed (both in running time and setting), since it takes place entirely in a cramped New York apartment and is told in real-time (meaning the film never jumps in time). The set-up is as follows: when two boys in grade school get into an altercation, the parents of the children get together to converse about the event in a civilized manner. Needless to say, nobody is acting civilized by the end of the film.

Carnage is a dark comedy for sure, seeing that all the laughs are at the expense of the characters’ discomfort and uncomfortable interplay, but the over-the-top performances (that are more akin to the stage than the screen) keep the film from veering into depressing territory. The film is funny because although the situation takes place in a state of heightened reality, it all comes from a place of truth. All parents have delusional perceptions of their children and it’s only natural for them to become irrational once somebody threatens those perceptions. The script doesn’t look down on these characters, it simply highlights the comedic absurdity of adults who believe they are above acting like children (which we’re all guilty of).

All four actors put in wonderful performances across the board as the two central couples: Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly), and Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Cristoph Waltz). This film would be nothing without committed actors and thankfully all four are up to the task. John C. Reilly is terrific as Michael, a middle class door to door salesman who takes pride in his mediocrity and pessimism, and Jodie Foster’s Penelope is pitch-perfect as the passive-aggressive (later, just aggressive) wife that instigated the meeting. Kate Winslet and Cristoph Waltz (in another standout role since Inglorious Basterds) have a wonderful chemistry (or lackthereof) as an elitist couple that are really only there as a courtesy.

Making the most out of its tiny setting and small cast, Carnage is a wonderful little film that proves the power of writing and acting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “The only way to have a
friend is to be one.” It’s a lesson that Fin, the protagonist of The Station Agent, has never taken the
time to learn. Fin is a train enthusiast that inherits a little shack of a
train depot and decides to retire early, not so that he can enjoy life, but so
he can seclude himself from it. He’s fairly smart, a diligent worker, and is
quite handsome, but nobody notices any of these qualities upon meeting Fin,
because all people tend to notice is that he’s a dwarf. Society can be very
cruel (but not particularly clever) when it comes to the way we treat people
who are different from us, and it is because of these mindless actions that Fin
has written off the rest of the world. Of course, what Fin doesn’t realize is
that the actions of strangers and friends are not synonymous with each other,
and everybody’s capable of making a friend. After all, it is harder to open
yourself up to a potential friend than it is to withstand a stranger’s hurtful
comments.

When Fin moves in to the train depot, he gets a little more
than he bargained for when he meets Joe, his overly-friendly neighbor who just
likes to talk. Along the way he also meets Olivia, played by the always
wonderful Patricia Clarkson, who is dealing with issues of her own. Through
Joe’s incessant but harmless nagging, the three of them form an unlikely
friendship despite Fin’s initial protests. It’s in the way that it
authentically captures human interactions that makes The Station Agent one of the best films about friendship ever made.

Director/writer Thomas McCarthy laces the script delicately
with very subtle human moments that makes the film feel so down to earth. None
of the characters are perfect, and they all make mistakes, but it is that sense
of realism that draws us in to the film. These are people that we ourselves
would want to spend time with, once we get to know them, and it makes for a
very pleasant viewing experience, even when unpleasant events occur. The Station Agent is truly like a good
friend: reliably sweet and will leave you with a smile after every visit.

- Nick

Critics have said that Brian DePalma has spent his entire
career in the shadow of Alfred Hitchcock, but that is an unfair assertion. He
has certainly torn a few pages out of Hitchcock’s playbook, but his films have
their own signature styles. While Hitchcock made films that are timeless,
DePalma makes films that are very much of their time. He relishes in technology
and entrances viewers with modern-day visual storytelling techniques that would
make Hitchcock envious. Although Scarface
would be more popular, Blow Out is
the film that solidified him as one of the best directors of all time.

John Travolta plays Jack Terry, a sound technician who’s
reduced to working on B-movie horror films despite his genuine talent. While
out one night recording sounds for the film, he accidentally witnesses a
possible murder attempt… or did he? Paranoia sets in and Jack is determined to
get to the very bottom of this “conspiracy” no matter what the costs are.

It might be hard to tell these days because of his seriously
puzzling career choices as of late, but John Travolta is a tremendous actor,
and Jack Terry is one of his most realized characters. Travolta is very
believable as a man getting caught up in a wave of self-doubt and paranoia,
while still retaining the charm that made him a star. John Lithgow is
frightening as the villain of the film, and any fans of season four of Dexter
will enjoy seeing the prototype of Lithgow’s superb Golden Globe winning
performance.

DePalma creates an intelligent thriller by avoiding all the
usual clichés of the genre. His film treats its audience with respect by
letting scenes play out with barely any dialogue, allowing the viewers to
figure out for themselves what exactly is happening. When we see Jack doing his
job and recreating an event with sound effects, it’s exhilarating without
calling attention to itself. Jack doesn’t narrate his process for the
audience’s benefit, because he never would do that in real life.

Blow Out is a
textbook example of how to elevate a film out of its B-movie plot, to a truly
stunning piece of filmmaking. DePalma paired with Travolta is a match made in
heaven, which is evident in the scenes of Jack engineering sound and video
right in front of our eyes. While Hitchcock is certainly an influence on Blow Out, only Brian DePalma could have
made Blow Out into the masterpiece
that it is.

- Nick