Let’s take a look at what hits shelves today and see what we can spend our kroners on:
Grab ‘Em Right Away
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Directed by: Niels Arden Oplev
Written by: Nikolaj Arcel & Rasmus Heisterberg
Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace & Sven-Bertil Taube
Why you should buy this? Because it not only gives you a brilliant story but also hope that the remake to come (to be directed by David Fincher) will probably be amazing. There are few mystery thrillers that actually ‘thrill’ me as it plot unfolds in front of me. Even though the film alludes to certain mental issues in the Lisbeth character (Rapace, shown above), it never exploits said conflicts as plot contrivances, which I like a lot. In your garden-variety Hollywood film with a $100M+ budget a lot of broad character representations are to be expected. Here they’re non-existent. A lot of the small details are alluded to so subtly that when you watch this movie a second time (which is easily do-able even with its near two-and-half hour runtime) everything is even clearer than before. This film ranks up there with the great crime thrillers, from The Silence of the Lambs to Chinatown.
Check ‘Em Out:
A Single Man
Directed by: Tom Ford
Written by: Tom Ford
Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore & Matthew Goode
Why should you rent it? Because it’s one of those rare love stories that actually makes you believe without a shadow of a doubt what the meaning of true love is. Colin Firth plays George, who’s recently lost his lover of sixteen years. He’s been in a depression ever since. That said, unlike many other films, this depression isn’t shown by screaming at night or lots of angsty behaviour, but rather just moving along his day with the idea that he just has to get through it. Every so often you will see him burst out or show a lack of interest in whatever is going on around him as he drifts back into his memories of himself and Jim (Matthew Goode). Even though this movie does show us the meaning of true love and how a character comes to realize the meaning of that himself, I found myself bothered by the ending of the film. I believe this movie would definitely become a dramatic staple in my film viewing if Ford had just ended the film about two minutes earlier. I get exactly what the ending is but it felt too much like the happier ending that the general viewing audience would want as opposed to the ending that it felt I deserved after sitting through the movie. Julianne Moore also gives a great performance that’s only hindered by how much screen time the role has to offer us, which isn’t much.
Brooklyn’s Finest
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Written by: Michael C. Martin
Starring: Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke & Wesley Snipes
Why should you rent this? Because it’s the first time since Training Day that Fuqua has made a movie worth watching. It’s not the greatest cops-and-robbers movie that’s ever been made, and Training Day is definitely better but it’s still a good movie to hang out and watch with your friends. With some great acting from all of the leads as well as a few character actors like Hassan Johnson and Michael K. Williams offering solid turns, the film is more than worth the rental fee.
The Rest
ER: The complete Thirteenth Season
Life on Mars (UK): The Complete Collection
Bluray
Jason and the Argonauts