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No Country for Old Men
Winner of the top Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture, Best Director(s) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ethan and Joel Coen), the Coen brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel is their masterpiece, a perfect match of story and storyteller. Josh Brolin stars as Llewelyn Moss, an easygoing Vietnam vet poaching in the Texas desert who stumbles into the wreckage of a drug deal gone ballistic and ambles off with a fortune in money. Javier Bardem won an Oscar playing methodical mercenary Chigurh, a relentless killer with an indeterminate accent and the creepiest haircut ever allowed in a movie, who is sent to recover the money. But the story is really about Tommy Lee Jones' laconic Sheriff Bell, a dedicated lawman following the trail of corpses left in Chigurh's wake and becoming more disillusioned with the world with every death he's unable to prevent. The Coens don't explain, they show in meticulous detail with evocative and creative flair, slowly unraveling a story that seems to be spinning out of the control of everyone but the filmmakers. Their methodical deliberateness tracks every detail of the story. There are no random elements, just those details we don't yet know, and that's far more dangerous. Cinematographer (and Oscar nominee) Roger Deakins gives it the feel of a primeval frontier with his simple, stark images, a world neither compassionate nor cruel, simply harsh and indifferent and unforgiving of stupid mistakes and overweening arrogance. Powerful, brilliant, breathtaking. Woody Harrelson and Kelly Macdonald co-star.
In a moment of classic understatement, the Coens describe their meticulous filmmaking approach in the 24-minute "The Making of No Country for Old Men." "A lot of it is very procedural, people doing things to cover their tracks ..." begins Ethan in a thought completed by Joel with, "It's about physical activity in order to achieve a purpose, which honestly we've always been fascinated by." The actors and the crew also chime in on the film (costume designer Mary Zophres takes credit, or perhaps responsibility, for the most talked-about movie haircut in a decade) and talk about working with the Coens in the aptly named featurette "Working With the Coens." And the Coens and the lead actors reflect on the characters of Sheriff Bell, Chigurh and Moss in "Diary of a Country Sheriff."
Winner of the top Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture, Best Director(s) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ethan and Joel Coen), the Coen brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel is their masterpiece, a per ...Full review
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Dan in Real Life
Steve Carell has found his greatest box-office success playing vain, needy, self-absorbed characters, but I've always preferred him playing a modest, sincere man just struggling through everyday drama. It's his warmth and good humor that defines Dan Burns, a family and relationship advice columnist and widower with three daughters, in this gentle romantic comedy from Peter Hedges. The radiant Juliette Binoche is irresistible as the woman of his dreams, for whom he falls before discovering that she's the new girlfriend of his serial-dating brother (Dane Cook). The plot often falls into contrivance, but the crazy-yet-comfortable chaos of the family reunion setting smoothes it all over and the unlikely chemistry of Carell and Binoche is remarkably genuine. Emily Blunt, John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest co-star. Director/co-writer Hedges talks about his emotional connection to the script and how his locations shaped the film in his commentary track, and shares his rehearsal process in the 15-minute featurette "Just Like Family: The Making of Dan in Real Life." Together they invite the audience into a filmmaking process that feels organic and alive. Also features 11 deleted scenes (with optional commentary) and outtakes.
Steve Carell has found his greatest box-office success playing vain, needy, self-absorbed characters, but I've always preferred him playing a modest, sincere man just struggling through everyday drama. It's his warmth an ...Full review
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Hitman
The hit video game comes to the big screen in the slick, silly action thriller directed by Xavier Gens. Timothy Olyphant is the bald professional assassin Agent 47, a man bred to kill without question, until he's double-crossed by his own shadowy, vaguely religious organization. His response involves a small fortune in ammunition and a lot of corpses, and still he never bothers to put a hat over the bar code tattooed on the back of his head. Dougray Scott is the Interpol agent on his trail, and Olga Kurylenko is a feisty Russian hooker with an aversion to underwear that he reluctantly takes under his protection (but not into his bed -- a celibacy thing?). Available in separate wide-screen and full-screen R-rated cuts and a wide-screen unrated cut, all featuring four deleted scenes and an alternate ending (in rough cut form). A two-disc special edition features the 24-minute "In the Crosshairs: The Making of Hitman" and the eight-minute "Digital Hits," which address the challenges of turning a video game into a feature film. Also features brief profiles of the arsenal, a look at the score, and the obligatory gag reel. A Blu-ray edition is also available.
The hit video game comes to the big screen in the slick, silly action thriller directed by Xavier Gens. Timothy Olyphant is the bald professional assassin Agent 47, a man bred to kill without question, until he's double- ...Full review
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Sleuth
Kenneth Branagh directs the second screen version of Anthony Shaffer's play about mind games and murder plots between Andrew Wyke, a wealthy old writer out for revenge, and Milo Tindle, a young working-class man having an affair with his wife. Michael Caine, who played the young man in the 1972 screen version, is the elder this time around, with Jude Law (also a producer on the film) the younger in this two-man battle of wits and performance. Harold Pinter's adaptation slashes huge swatches of text and Branagh drops it all in a high-tech mansion of concrete and pulsing video surveillance monitors, more a bunker than a home. Caine is a force to be reckoned with, but the film comes off as little more than a contrivance for the theatrical spectacle of two actors duking it out, and Law is simply outmatched. Features two commentary tracks (one by Branagh and Caine, one by Law), the 15-minute featurette "A Game of Cat and Mouse: Behind the Scenes of Sleuth" and a featurette on the makeup. Also available in Blu-ray format.
Kenneth Branagh directs the second screen version of Anthony Shaffer's play about mind games and murder plots between Andrew Wyke, a wealthy old writer out for revenge, and Milo Tindle, a young working-class man having a ...Full review
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August Rush
Freddie Highmore (of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory") plays a dreamer of an orphan who feels music in the wind and the percussion of the streets. He runs off to find his long-lost parents (classical cellist Keri Russell and British rocker Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and ends up a kind of musical Oliver Twist, taken in by an urban cowboy Fagin (Robin Williams, playing to the rafters) who cashes in on this kid's abilities to absorb the sounds around him and beat it out on the guitar in an idiosyncratic musical style. Those scenes are great, but the rest of the "Oliver Twist" knockoff forgoes the social commentary of Dickens to play up the gooey romantic fantasy of music as the language of love. Features 10 minutes of deleted scenes. Terrence Howard and William Sadler co-star, and Kirsten Sheridan (daughter of Jim Sheridan) directs. Also in Blu-ray format.
Freddie Highmore (of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory") plays a dreamer of an orphan who feels music in the wind and the percussion of the streets. He runs off to find his long-lost parents (classical cellist Keri Russ ...Full review
DVD Info | Buy It
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