It’s Tuesday once again and it’s time to sift through the new releases to find a few gems…and a few throwaways. Check them out below and let me know what you are watching this week.
Grab ‘Em Right Away
Mad Men – Season 3
Created by: Matthew Weiner
Starring: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks & John Slattery
Why should you buy this? I know it’s more or less redundant for me to say what everyone across the internet has been saying for the past three/four years, but it is one of the best shows in TV today. I rarely consider TV shows for purchase when it comes to my DVD/Blu-ray collection but this definitely is worth it. Television continues to be a viable medium for storytelling because it gives writers the time they want to be able to fully flesh out a set of characters that we enjoy seeing week to week on our HD screens at home. This show does it in spades. You find week to week always getting more and more interested in what and who these characters are what they really want. This season Sterling Cooper has been bought by an English corporation and we get to see how Don Draper and the rest of the creatives and account men at the agency react to all the changes that are happening there and at the same time a new child is entering the Draper household with Betty pregnant. Don is assaulted on all fronts with nowhere that is safe or predictable from day to day what will happen. I continue to think that Peggy Olson is one of the most interesting characters of the show and we begin to ask if her ambition is finally starting to outreach her grasp this season. If you like the show you’re going to buy it already and if you’ve never seen it I highly recommend that you find the time to catch up.
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Directed by: Wes Anderson
Written by: Roald Dahl & Wes Anderson
Starring: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon & Willem Dafoe
Why should you buy this? It definitely is a fantastic movie. Wes Anderson has always been a director that I respect for his desire to always make his movies his own. He is without a doubt one of those directors that when you watch a film of his, without knowing it, you know immediately it’s his movie and his story. However, I’ve never been the biggest fan of his, with only The Royal Tennenbaums being his only other film I truly enjoy (love is probably the better word). Fantastic Mr. Fox however just had me from opening to end. It seems almost that all Mr. Anderson needed was to put his stories in the beauty that is stop-motion animation and it would fix all my problems with his overly quirky characters. The animation itself is refreshing. I love to see that this old way of doing stop-motion animation won’t die. It was just entrancing to see things like how the hair on all the characters shifted throughout the movie. It’s a great movie that maybe children will have a hard time loving but fans of Anderson and those who were on the fence about him will love as well.
Give it a Chance:
Brothers
Directed by: Jim Sheridan
Written by: David Benioff & Susanne Bier
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire & Natalie Portman
Why should you rent this? It’s not my favorite film of last year but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t impress me. Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal remind me that they can both be amazing in a film like this. Some may find it a bit overly dramatic but I actually found most of the scenes pretty understandable, in that I didn’t feel that anyone was leaving character and being someone else for the sake of creating drama where there wasn’t. The way Gyllenhaal underplays the role was just a joy to watch. Check it out for sure.
Avoid it like the Plague:
The Blind Side
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Written by: John Lee Hancock & Michael Lewis
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw & Quinton Aaron
Why should you just let the QB be sacked? I don’t know what people are talking about when they say how great Sandra Bullock was in this film, but that was quite possibly my biggest complaint about the movie. Her character seemed so unrealistically out of this world I couldn’t take it seriously. This movie isn’t all bad it’s a film I couldn’t recommend to someone, especially when there are other films telling the same issues much better. The movie strikes me as if before it got approval some Disney-like writers decided to give it a once over and make sure that everything was so peachy and uplifting that you couldn’t believe that bad things happen in this world.
Jordan’s Blu-ray Deals of the Week
Gattaca [$9.49]
The Last Waltz [$9.99]
Robocop [$9.99]
The Usual Suspects [$9.99]
Eyes Wide Shut [$9.99]
The Rest
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
The Men Who Stare at Goats
The African Queen (1951)
Red Cliff International Version – Part I & Part II
Red Cliff (Theatrical Version)
Darker than BLACK (The Complete Series)
Bigger Than Life (Criterion Collection)
Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove
Blu-ray
Yojimbo (The Criterion Collection)
Yojimbo & Sajuro (Criterion Collection)
Days of Heaven (Criterion Collection)
Phantom Punch
What are you picking up this week?