Check Out the Trailer

There have been many documentary films made about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of them put the viewer into the war from such a first-hand perspective as this one. American journalist Sebastian Junger and British photojournalist Tim Hetherington embedded themselves with the Second Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team for an entire 15-month deployment. They went on missions with the soldiers in the Korengal valley, which was called the deadliest place on Earth.

The film’s title comes from PFC Juan S. Restrepo, a Colombian-born naturalized American soldier who was killed early in the deployment. One of the goals of the deployment was to build an advanced outpost, which the soldiers named OP Restrepo. For a year and a quarter, these soldiers are under fire on a daily basis. They’re official mission is to clear the area of insurgents and build relationships with the locals. But it’s clear that the individual soldiers have a different mission — do their job and get out alive.
Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

This Oscar-nominated foreign language film from Greece is a tale of home schooling to the extreme. I felt like I was watching a Todd Solondz film crossed with Lars von Trier. I’m surprised that the Academy recognized something so odd and uncompromising. When it’s all said and done, you know one thing for sure — you’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

With the existential touch, none of the central family is given names. A father (Christos Stergioglou, HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER) and mother (Michele Valley, ALEXANDRIA) live in complete isolation from the outside world with their three grown children. The father leaves their house, which is cordoned off by a tall wall, in his car to go to work at his manufacturing business each day. He brings home a female security guard named Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou) to fulfill the sexual needs of his son (Hristos Passalis, BLACK FIELD). The systematic way they go about it is like he’s doing a chore. I guess that’s why he has the most stickers on his headboard, rewards from father for a job well done. The older sister (Aggeliki Papoulia, ALEXANDRIA) is the most rebellious of the three and is violently reprimanded for it. The younger sister (Mary Tsoni, EVIL) follows her older siblings lead and comes up with new games for passing the time, like putting their fingers under the hot tap and the last one to pull away wins.
Read the rest of this entry »

Buy It Now!

Read my review of NEVER LET ME GO.

Director Mark Romanek’s haunting aesthetic and Adam Kimmel’s gorgeous cinematography is masterfully brought to Blu-ray. The muted color palette is brought forth in a crisp image that finds a right balance between film grain and bold detail. The greens of the Hailsham Boarding School yard are deep, while keeping inline with natural look of the entire film. There is some noise in low-lit scenes, notably an early one where Carey Mulligan stands in an observation room at a hospital, but these moments are fleeting.

The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack is respectful for the quiet film. Good for a dialogue oriented production, the voices are clear throughout. Volume of the dialogue, music and sound effects is mixed well. The soundscape however relies on the front speaker predominantly.

The special features are limited. The making of doc, “The Secrets of Never Let Me Go,” talks with the filmmakers and actors about their approach to the metaphoric sci-fi material. Considering there is no commentary track on the disc, this is all we get and it’s a pretty solid 30-minute look into the film’s production. The doc lays out how the project came together; it’s funny how serendipity plays a role sometimes. Then it moves into the artistic choices for bringing the beautiful, but sad tale to the screen. There is also still galleries of Romanek’s on-set photos, the Tommy character’s artwork, as well as the theatrical trailer.

Check Out the Trailer

Director Sam Taylor-Wood isn’t afraid to tackle an iconic tale for her first feature film. Working from Matt Greenhalgh’s adaptation of Julia Baird’s memoir, the film tells the originals of The Beatles. For many fans it would sacrilegious to mess up this story. Taylor-Wood takes a classical straight-forward biopic approach, which benefits from a great cast, which includes a standout performance from KICK-ASS’ Aaron Johnson as John Lennon.

Baird was John’s sister, so the story is told from his point of view. As a young boy he went to live with his aunt and uncle. Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas, THE ENGLISH PATIENT) was the straight-upper-lipped task master, while his uncle George (David Threlfall, HOT FUZZ) was a jokester and a drinker. When his beloved uncle died, John was heartbroken and sought out his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff, THE MAGDALENE SISTERS), who had remarried and had two daughters.
Read the rest of this entry »

Buy It Now!

Read my review of SECRETARIAT.

Disney’s transfer of their latest inspirational sports movie isn’t an inspiration, but nowhere near a loser either. The 1080p Blu-ray has a running issue with softness and noise. In darker lit scenes, the picture ranges from muddy to fuzzy. These same scenes don’t have the same lush color palette as the rest of the disc. But like its namesake, the disc excels where it needs to — the race scenes are gorgeous. Details are crisp and the colors are luscious. Even the lower grade cameras used for the horse mounted shots look great.

The disc really makes good its potential with its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack. The sounds of the horses racing washes over the soundscape and puts the viewer in the race. The LFE track is used so effectively in this instance to create a real sense of the power of these animals. Likewise, ambiance is nicely done in crowd scenes, putting us in the middle of the enthusiastic fans. Directionality is quite immersive. Voices and sound effects come from the speakers as if we are sitting in the camera’s seat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

It’s hard to not think of the Oscar-nominated SEABISCUIT when thinking about this film. The comparison doesn’t help this film about the 1970s Triple Crown winner. It has less ambition than the film about the Depression era underdog. But it does fit nicely into the canon of Disney’s inspirational sports films.

Penny Chenery (Diane Lane, THE PERFECT STORM) was a housewife before inheriting the  horse farm of her father Chris (Scott Glenn, THE RIGHT STUFF). She was determined to honor her dad’s legacy by racing their latest filly to the Triple Crown. Going against the wishes of her husband Jack Tweedy (Dylan Walsh, TV’s NIP/TUCK) and brother Hollis (Dylan Baker, HAPPINESS), she risked everything on Secretariat, a horse that critics didn’t think had the stamina to win the longer races.
Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

I’m new to the work of Johnnie To, the prolific Chinese action director, who made ELECTION, EXILED and RUNNING OUT OF TIME. This film played at Cannes when Quentin Tarantino was on the jury. He’s of course a huge fan. It’s a conventional thriller that does things in unconventional ways. We’ve seen lots of films where father goes out to avenge an attack on his daughter, but not like this one.

Johnny Hallyday, known as the French Elvis who starred as an aging hitman in Patrice Leconte’s wonderful MAN ON A TRAIN, is Costello, the avenging father, who travels from France to China after his daughter Irene (Sylvie Testud, LA VIE EN ROSE) was mortally wounded and her husband and sons killed by gunmen that stormed their home. Serendipitously, he stumbles upon hired killers Kwai (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, INFERNAL AFFAIRS), Chu (Ka Tung Lam, ELECTION) and Fat Lok (Suet Lam, KUNG FU HUSTLE) and enlists them to hunt down those responsible. All signs point to crime boss George Fung (Simon Yam, IP MAN). Unfortunately, Fung is the trio of killers’ sometime boss and Costello is losing his memory.
Read the rest of this entry »

Buy It Now!

Read my review of ANIMAL KINGDOM.

This Australian crime drama gets a wonderful true-to-the-source transfer to 1080p. The gritty 35mm look is presented with film grain in tact, but not so much that the image loses detail. The color palette is subdued, which is fitting for the dark underworld tale. The colors are natural, which helps sell the believability of the world. Blacks are especially given deep character on the screen. There were some fleeting moments of film scratches but that was all I saw.

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack is used as best as it can for the limited soundscape. The dialog heavy film features clear voices. For music and sound effects, the soundscape is weighted toward the front. The only stand out is the LFE track during some key violent moments where shotgun blast boom, making an impression on the viewer.
Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

This best of 2010 reminded of another one of the best films of 2010 — WINTER’S BONE. Both films are crime dramas set in working class families. Teens are at the center of both tales, living in worlds of violence that they cannot escape from. They have to learn to cope and maneuver through it. There is no one they can trust, so they’re on their own.

Joshua “J” Cody (James Frecheville) is 17 and his mother has an overdose. Now he has to go live with her family in Melbourne; the family she left behind for his sake. His grandmother Janine (Jacki Weaver, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK) is the sweet matriarch of a family of criminals. J describes his uncle Andrew, aka Pope, (Ben Mendelsohn, THE NEW WORLD) as the one he is most scared of, and rightfully so. He has an intense, intimidating stare and a knack for getting people to do things they don’t really want to do. Pope is the leader of a robbery gang with his best friend Barry “Baz” Brown (Joel Edgerton, THE SQUARE). When the levelheaded and kind Baz wants out, Pope becomes lost and begins to spiral out of control.
Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

The plot is simple. A pimp hunts down a serial killer who has been murdering his girls. What first-time director Hong-jin Na creates out of this premise is an edge of your seat thriller that is always one step ahead of our expectations. It made be think about how painfully conventional most thrillers really are.

Joong-ho Eom (Yun-seok Kim, RUNNING WILD) is a former cop who has went into the more lucrative pimp game. However, he’s still drowning in debt and his girls are disappearing on him, believing a client is kidnapping them and selling them as sex slaves. He gets a call from a client and sends out Mi-jin Kim (Yeong-hie Seo, BEDEVILLED), who is sick and must leave her young daughter Eun-ji (Yoo-jeong Kim) at home alone. Joong-ho starts looking into this client and discovers he was the last person to call for the missing girls. He starts to fear that he has sent out Mi-jin to meet the serial killer Young-min Jee (Jung-woo Ha, TIME).
Read the rest of this entry »