New DVD Releases for the Week of June 9 2009
Here is a list of the new DVD Releases for the week of June 9 2009 (for TV on DVD releases head over to Daemon’s TV):
Gran Torino
Synopsis: Clint Eastwood stars in “Gran Torino,” marking his first film role since his Oscar®-winning “Million Dollar Baby.” Eastwood plays retired auto worker Walt Kowalski, an iron-willed veteran living in a changing world, who is forced by his immigrant neighbors to confront his own long-held prejudices. The people he once called his neighbors have all moved or passed away, replaced by Hmong immigrants, from Southeast Asia, he despises. Resentful of virtually everything and everyone he sees, Walt is just waiting out the rest of his life… until the night his teenage neighbor Thao tries to steal his prized ’72 Gran Torino, under pressure from Hmong gang-bangers. But Walt stands in the way of both the heist and the gang, making him the reluctant hero of the neighborhood — especially to Thao’s mother and older sister, Sue, who insist that Thao work for Walt as a way to make amends. Though he initially wants nothing to do with these people, Walt eventually gives in and puts the boy to work, setting into motion an unlikely friendship that will change both their lives.
Cast: Clint Eastwood
Director: Clint Eastwood
Recommendations: I missed that one at the movies, but did hear some good things about it, so I’m definitely going to check it out.
Buy it: GRAN TORINO on Amazon (also available on Blu-ray)
Crossing Over
Synopsis: Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create — in 21st century L.A.
Cast: Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Sean Penn, Cliff Curtis, Ashley Judd, Alice Braga, Summer Bishil, Jim Sturgess, Josh Gad, Alice Eve
Director: Wayne Kramer
Recommendations: This looks like an ok movie, but the cast is quite impressive. It looks good enough for a rental.
Buy it: CROSSING OVER on Amazon
Nobel Son
Synopsis: Barkley Michaelson is in a deep rut. He’s struggling to finish his PhD thesis when his father, the learned Eli Michaelson, wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Barkley and his mother, Sarah, a renowned forensic psychiatrist, now have the ill-fortune of living with a man-eating monster whose philandering ways have gotten less and less discreet. As if Barkley’s world is not bad enough, on the eve of his father receiving the Nobel, Barkley is kidnapped and the requested ransom is the $2 million in Nobel prize money. Needless to say, Eli refuses to pay it and so starts a venemous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge. In the words of Michel de Montaigne, the 16th century philosopher: “There is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead.”
Cast: Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Eliza Dushku, Bill Pullman, Danny DeVito
Director: Randall Miller
Recommendations: I’m not sure about this movie. The trailer looked ok, but I am interested in checking it out to find out what it’s all about. Plus I really love Alan Rickman.
Buy it: NOBEL SON on Amazon
The International
Synopsis: In The International, a gripping thriller, Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war. Directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) from an original screenplay written by Eric Warren Singer, The International is being shot on location in Germany and throughout Europe.
Cast: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Brian F. O’Byrne
Director: Tom Tykwer
Recommendations: Reviews for The International were just ok, but since Clive Owen is in it, I kind of have to check it out.
Buy it: THE INTERNATIONAL on Amazon (also available on Blu-ray)
Fired Up!
Synopsis: Shawn Colfax (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Nick Brady (Eric Christian Olsen), the stars of the Gerald R. Ford High School football team, are dreading the prospect of another summer at football camp. When Nick hatches a scheme for the two to join their school’vs cheerleaders at cheer camp instead, they find themselves awash in a sea of gorgeous young women. It all goes great until Shawn falls for Carly (Sarah Roemer), the beautiful head cheerleader who sees right through them.
Cast: Nicholas D’Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, Sarah Roemer, John Michael Higgins, Molly Sims, Philip Baker Hall, Danneel Harris
Director: Will Gluck
Recommendations: Fired Up! is definitely not the movie of the year, but it might be fun to check out when it airs on TV.
Buy it: FIRED UP! on Amazon (also available on Blu-ray)
