Month: March 2012

Romantics Anonymous (NR, 2010, Tribeca Film)
Angélique (Isabelle Carré) may be the most talented chocolatier in the entire galaxy. But her gift of shyness is even more remarkable — so much so that she hides behind a covert alter ego (known only as “The Hermit”) while selling her creations through a distributor who protects her identity. But with her protector’s passing, Angélique must start over with a new chocolate distributor, and her shyness frazzles her so horribly that she unwittingly accepts a job as their door-to-door salesperson instead of in the kitchen. Whoops. Fortunately, the man who hires her (Benoît Poelvoorde as Jean-René) is every bit the nervous wreck she is, which means she immidately understands him better than anyone ever has. With both Angélique and Jean-René being single — and, frankly, with the cover art picturing them standing together while a heart-shaped chocolate swirl watches over them — you probably can guess the play “Romantics Anonymous” eventually makes before you even press play. Perhaps realizing it, “Anonymous” spares pretense and gets right to it in a fashion only two socially crippled people could pull off this charmingly. From beginning to end, “Anonymous” very explicitly tells a story about neuroses and the awful ways people trap themselves in prisons that exist entirely in their own heads. But it takes that bit of ugliness and wraps it inside one of the most fiercely pleasant little stories you might see all year. The embrace is genuine: “Anonymous” neither makes fun of nor tucks its characters’ complexes away. And with that embrace leading the way, everything else — silly, funny or wholly life-affirming — feels perfectly right as well. In French with English subtitles.
Extra: Director interview.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (PG-13, 2011, Warner Bros.)
It means well. Or at least, we have to presume everyone responsible for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” — first as a novel, but more famously in this form — meant well. But mercy, is this ever nauseating. “Close” tells the story of nine-year-old Oskar (Thomas Horn), whose father (Tom Hanks as Thomas) died in the World Trade Center on September 11 and left behind a key of mysterious origin. Oskar is determined to find the key’s lock — so much so that he travels across all five of New York’s burroughs and meets countless people whose stories of “the worst day” (as he calls it) become part of his own. Told with restrained deference, such a story could serve a wonderful purpose even with the understanding that it dramatizes a searingly painful tragedy still fresh in our minds. But “Close” gracelessly lives up to its name for all the wrong reasons. It pummels its audience with exploitative (and repeated) recordings of Thomas calling home moments before death. It screams from within Oskar and his mother (Sandra Bullock) that Thomas is dead, never to return, and maybe even part of the ashen air New Yorkers breathed in the days that followed. Too often and with too much crass, “Close” uses fictional characters to bludgeon an audience that mourned for real, cloyingly talking down to us as if we somehow can’t understand the gravity of the day like they do. If it means well, so be it, but if it does, its failure to convey that is superlative. Horn turns in a monster performance, and it isn’t his fault Oskar — between some ear-piercingly bratty monologues and the aforementioned bludgeoning of the audience — is completely loathsome despite his age and loss. But he is, and there may be no genuinely sadder realization in “Close” than that.
Extras: Two behind-the-scenes features, 10 years later feature.

A Dangerous Method (R, 2011, Sony Pictures)
With respect to the movie-titling powers that be, calling what lies within a dangerous method amounts to being rather dangerously polite. But when burgeoning (and married) psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) crosses a stark ethical line with a beautiful new patient (Keira Knightley as Sabina), his motivations for doing so surpass simple sexual conquest or even love. Those desires certainly come into play, but the true spark at the heart of “A Dangerous Method” lies in Jung’s belief that psychiatry is about telling people what they can become instead of simply assessing what they are. It’s a methodology with which his hero and friend Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) sharply disagrees, and it’s that battle of wills — more than Jung’s harsh affair with Sabina or the music he must face with regard to ethics and fidelity — that drives this story. “Method” is dry and distant during even the most heated moments of Jung and Sabina’s relationship, but it springs to wide-eyed life when Jung and Freud dissect that relationship and fret over how it relates to the betterment of their profession and humankind itself. Their ideas form a script that’s wordy, intellectually dense and occasionally (possibly by design) completely full of it. But the glimmer they share during these volleys is infectious enough to ensnare anyone who finds kinship in their curiosity.
Extras: Director commentary, behind-the-scenes feature, AFI’s Harold Lloyd Master Seminar with director David Cronenberg.

Soda Springs (NR, 2012, Monarch Home Entertainment)
After an eight-year absence, Eden (Jay Pickett) is back in his hometown of Soda Springs. But this isn’t your typical homecoming, because Eden never left willfully. Rather, his time away was spent in prison following a spell of drunk driving that ended in a wreck that cost multiple people their lives. When Eden returns home, things have changed — in some ways significantly, and much to his surprise. But Soda Springs is still a small town, his now-former wife (Miranda Frigon as Pam) still lives here, and while a few folks are ready to welcome him back with a clean slate, most — including the cops and Pam’s new husband (Michael Bowen) — have no intention of forgiving him. Were this real life, Eden would be wise to just start over elsewhere. But where’s the entertainment in that? “Soda Springs” has no desire to make it so easy on Eden, but it returns the favor by taking a few tricky roads of its own. Eden’s story isn’t wildly out of step with what the first impressions of his character might imply, but “Springs” treats his development with a degree of care that eventually yields a surprise or two. That goes as well for the rest of the town, too. “Springs” toes an engaging line by emitting a comfortable vibe without wallowing in predictability, and its last act is an understated testament to the virtues of telling a story that satisfies without resorting to neat and tidy measures to do so. No extras.

The Broken Tower (NR, 2011, Focus World)
If you don’t know who Hart Crane is, fair warning: A trip through “The Broken Tower” isn’t bound — nor is it necessarily meant — to close the gap. Crane, for those unfamiliar, had emerged as one of the most influential poets of his age by the time he killed himself in 1932. Shot almost exclusively in monochrome, and not so much a biopic as a dramatized performance set amid biographical companion scenes, “Tower” makes Crane’s poetry the star, and James Franco (who wrote, directed and stars as Crane) holds an impressive dramatic note in his delivery of Crane’s work. In between, there are readings of Crane’s letters, some dramatizations of various moments of his life … and frankly, not a great deal else. “Tower” is beautifully shot, and it makes a case for the less-is-more approach with numerous scenes where not a word is spoken for minutes at a time. Buy into its storytelling vision, and you can interpret the state of Crane’s psyche in much the same way you can siphon your own ideas from his poetry. It certainly isn’t a conventional way to recite the events of a man’s life, if it really even recites them at all, but it’s a strangely fitting tribute for that very reason.
Extras: Franco/filmmakers commentary, interviews with Hart Crane scholars.

The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (NR, 2008, Music Box Films)
Say, how important is the art of storytelling to your enjoyment of a movie? “The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch” takes an earnest stab at it with the story of Largo Winch (Tomer Sisley), whose covert adoption two decades earlier by billionaire financier Nerio Winch positions him as the surprise heir to Winch’s company. “Winch” adequately handles its declaration of these events, insofar that it’s clear Nerio died “accidentally” and the people responsible now have a younger and impossibly talented new target once Largo’s existence comes to light. But when matters of storytelling are at hand, “Winch” staggers wildly, bumbling through some comically juvenile attempts to talk big-business shop like an adult and clumsily accommodating awkward subplots, sloppy exposition, a frequently unconvincing lead playing a similarly unconvincing heir, and more location and timeline jumps than is reasonably necessary. All this dramatic flailing merely serves as excuse to continually throw Largo to the wolves, but “Winch” should’ve just skipped most of the pretense. For every clumsy piece of exposition, there’s a piece and a half of action that puts Largo’s true talents — wheelman, stuntman, knife fighter extraordinaire — to great use. Throw in all those exotic locales and the eventual payoff on an otherwise sloppy romance subplot, and “Winch” is a ton of fun for the eyes, if not often the ears. Kristin Scott Thomas and Mélanie Thierry also stars. In English and French with English subtitles.
Extras: Largo Winch digital comic, behind-the-scenes feature.

Hop (PG, 2011, Universal)
“Hop” purports to tell the tale of Fred (James Marsden), who became the first human Easter Bunny after taking the reigns from the talking rabbit who didn’t want the job. Eventually, it gets around to telling that story. First, though, let’s get to know Fred, a slacker with two overtly disappointed parents, zero job prospects and one baffling disinterest in befriending E.B., who is the first bunny anyone has ever known to talk, play drums and have access to untold riches of Easter candy. Then there’s the story of Fred’s job interview, two jam sessions (in person with the Blind Boys of Alabama, and in video game form to Hole’s Easter anthem “Celebrity Skin”) and a weird sendup of “America’s Got Talent” that feels designed solely to help David Hasselhoff fulfill some contract obligation with Universal Studios. And so on. “Hop” is, like the “Smurfs” and “Chipmunks” movies before it, a live-action movie in which people and computer-animated characters mingle freely. And like those other movies, it wastes too much time on the humans and not enough on the characters everyone paid to see. But perhaps it’s just as well if “Hop’s” vision of the Easter Bunny’s workshop involves conspiracies, hostile takeovers, infighting and E.B. nearly being cut into pieces by multiple circular saws. There’s a glimmer of magic when we first visit the workshop early on, but the rest of the movie works overtime to choke that magic completely out. Sadly, outside of animation, the choke job is the only thing “Hop” does consistently well.
Extras: New short, five behind-the-scenes features, games.

Die (NR, 2010, Entertainment One)
In an event henceforth referred to as “The Trials,” six people wake up trapped in glass holding cells deep inside some mysterious facility near who knows where. Why their captor (John Pyper-Ferguson) rounded them up is a mystery to them, but the clouds part when it’s revealed that all six have unsuccessfully attempted suicide and carried on reeling through life after receiving a second chance. Disappointed in their collective ingratitude, their captor decides to play a game where one captive’s die roll determines whether another can survive a predicament loosely related to their suicide attempts, and hey, do you think you’ve seen this movie before? “Die” has some loosely interesting ideas about leaving literal life-and-death decisions in the hands of fate, but it applies them to what otherwise is the umpteenth movie since “Saw” to kidnap a half-dozen people and play some ironic game with their lives. The formula was fresh when “Saw” did it and brilliant when “Fermat’s Room” perfected and classed it up, but it’s dead tired at the point. Though not terrible (save for perhaps the twist at the end), “Die” also isn’t fresh, and a few musings about fate’s liberating power aren’t enough for it to liven up a sub-genre in desperate need of some time off. No extras.

Also
— “The BBC Natural History Collection” (NR, BBC Earth): Some come close, but nobody does nature as comprehensively and magnificently as BBC Earth, and this 18-disc set — which includes “The Life of Birds,” “The Life of Mammals,” “The Blue Planet: Seas of Life,” the special edition of “Planet Earth” and all the original extras from each series’ standalone release — stands as proof positive. A similar set released in 2008 with the regular edition of “Planet Earth,” and it’s kind of a bummer that BBC didn’t wait a few weeks to include “Frozen Planet,” which releases April 17 on its own. Other than that — and especially if you don’t have the 2008 version — there’s little with which to argue.
— “Casablanca: 70th Anniversary Limited Collector’s Edition” (NR, 1942, Warner Bros.): Along with a limited theatrical run in various cities, Warner Bros. is celebrating the 70th birthday of 1944’s Best Picture winner (not a typo; apparently the Academy took its time back then) with this DVD/Blu-ray gift set. In addition to the film, the set includes two new documentaries (“Casablanca: An Unlikely Classic” and “Michael Curtiz: The Greatest Director You Never Heard Of”), three previously-released documentaries (“The Brothers Warner,” “You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story” and “Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul”), and a handful of physical bonuses (60-page production art book, replica of the original film poster, four drink coasters).

The Muppets: The Wocka Wocka Value Pack (PG, 2011, Disney)
Let’s not ask how Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter, a puppet, are biological brothers. If that irregularity bothers you, you’re watching the wrong movie. What matters is that as Gary grew up, grew tall and found a girlfriend (Amy Adams as Mary), Walter turned to The Muppets for inspiration while his growth stood still. And when Walter finally gets a chance to visit The Muppets’ studio in Los Angeles with Gary and Mary, what he discovers — The Muppets have long since disbanded, and a greedy oilman (Chris Cooper) plans to tear the decrepit studio down for good — amounts to a staggering loss of innocence. It also, however, leaves Walter no choice: He has reunite The Muppets and save their studio. If all this sounds farfetched to you … again, wrong movie. “The Muppets” operates in a bizarre meta-fiction where all the previous TV specials and movies were specials and movies, and this, for the first time in movie form, is their reality. Even then, it breaks the fourth wall with crazy regularity. There are song-and-dance numbers as part of a production within the production, there’s singing and dancing just because, and “The Muppets” blurs the lines between nostalgia, self-parody, act-within-an-act, and earnest storytelling with insane, jubilant abandon. The logic doesn’t check out, the cameo counter overheats, and the confluence of ideas frequently goes off the rails. But rarely is there a moment in “The Muppets” that isn’t at least somewhat wondrous. And with full respect to the old guard and all the good feelings they bring back, the newest face in the crowd may be the biggest star of the whole show. Don’t be a stranger, Walter.
Extras: Segel/writer/director commentary, deleted scenes, three behind-the-scenes features, bloopers, theatrical spoof trailers, 15-song digital soundtrack, intermission Easter egg.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (R, 2011, Universal)
Because there’s no point in tiptoeing around the inevitable, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” cuts to it almost straight away: There’s a mole lurking around the upper echelon of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and that mole is suspected of feeding information that violently sabotaged a delicate operation in Hungary during the Cold War’s hottest hour. The fiasco is such that retired spy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) has been reactivated in hopes of smoking out the defector before the damage worsens. Got all that? Good, because that’s the easy part of this test. The noise covering up the truth is extensive and messy, and the film adaptation of “Spy” lacks the space and time afforded to the John le Carré book and Alec Guinness-fronted television series to sort it out. Rest assured, it’s still up to the task. Just don’t rest those eyes while it pulls it off. “Spy” has a monstrous cast of suspects, motives and methods to corral, and it bounces between multiple chronologies with abandon in order to rope it all in. Context always accompanies the leaps, but only if you keep your eyes on the road and take good mental notes. If something sounds even vaguely like a clue, chances are good it is, and if you tuck it somewhere in the back your mind, chances are similarly good “Spy’s” outstanding homestretch will reward you continuously for doing so. John Hurt, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch, among several others, comprise a stellar ensemble cast.
Extras: Deleted scenes, cast/filmmakers/le Carré interviews, behind-the-scenes feature.
— For further study: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (NR, 1979, Acorn Media Group): The 1979 television series makes its Blu-ray debut. Available April 24. Includes six episodes, plus a new interview with director John Irvin, deleted scenes, an interview with le Carré, production notes, a characters/terms glossary and a le Carré bio and booklist.

Carnage (R, 2011, Sony Pictures)
The carnage in “Carnage” would presume to be a nasty beating given by the son of Alan and Nancy (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) to the son of Michael and Penelope (John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster). As the film opens, the parents are completing the process of amicably resolving the issue without cops and lawyers, and within minutes, Alan and Nancy have their coats on and their feet halfway out the door. One innocuous comment leads to another, small talk begets not-so-small talk, and 84 minutes later, whatever plans these people had to do the right thing and call it an early night lay in greater ruin than Michael and Penelope’s child’s face. Fortunately, and unlike its characters, “Carnage” is anything but wasteful with its time. What begins as a polite but passive-aggressive spat between parents degenerates, in real time, into a drunken, all-access shredding in which husband and wife turn on each other, the men form alliances to spite the women, and everyone eventually behaves far more poorly than the two kids who started this mess. (In what amounts to an excellent allegory about adults always making an issue about themselves, we never even meet the kids.) “Carnage” flails all the way through, and if you come away thinking the whole exercise was utterly pointless, there is no shortage of exhibits with which to make your case. But all that flailing serves at the whims of a sharply, darkly, cleverly and consistently funny script. And that script’s point about even the most wannabe sophisticate having a button that turns them into a raving child? Dead on.
Extras: 40-minute onstage Q&A with Reilly and Waltz, behind-the-scenes feature, red carpet footage.

Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (NR, 2000/2003, Anchor Bay)
Murder as sport isn’t a new concept, and with respect to the fervor surrounding “The Hunger Games,” neither is the notion of teens killing teens while the government watches over with a crooked smile on its face. If you disagree, it’s time to get to know “Battle Royale,” which ran rampant across its native Japan’s awards circuit while American theaters pretended it didn’t exist. It’s no secret why. “Royale” — in which the government counters rampant bad behavior by bussing dozens of teens to an island, giving each a unique weapon, and turning them loose for three days until only one remains alive — first surfaced in 2000, one year removed from Columbine. And in stark, gruesome contrast to “Games'” PG-13 presentation, it has no qualms about presenting images of junior high students mowing each other down with assault rifles, cutting necks with crude tools and even demoralizing the weak-willed into taking their own lives. Over the top? Certainly. But if you’re telling a modern-day fable about punishment gone frightfully awry, going overboard has its merits. “Royale,” to its credit, toes the line between extreme and gratuitous. It’s hard to watch for sure, but as much due to the characters and concepts it develops — and subsequent attachments they form with the viewer — as all the blood it spills.
Contents: Along with the director’s cut of the first film, this set — which marks the film’s official and legal American debut — includes the original theatrical cut of first film and the “Requiem” cut of “Battle Royale II.” A bonus disc includes a documentary about the film, behind-the-scenes features, audition footage, film festival/press conference footage and promotional material.

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (NR, 2010, Music Box)
One could argue, with little difficulty, that “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life” utterly fails to tell a comprehensive story about Serge Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino), who blazed numerous trails as one of the world’s most prolific, successful and unclassifiable musicians and entertainers. But one also could argue, with equal confidence, that it’s a better movie for it. “Gainsbourg” plays the usual biopic hits, introducing us to a young Gainsbourg (Kacey Mottet Klein) growing up in Nazi-occupied Paris before touching on the advent of his success, the height of his fame, and the customary comedown. As a shallow primer, it’s fine; as a story that gets to the heart of Serge’s flaws and desires, it’s lacking. But there’s no shortage of means elsewhere for that kind of insight. The real object of “Gainsbourg’s” affection is the thrill of life itself — the highs and lows of creativity in bloom, the considerable advantages (and pratfalls) of listening to the heart instead of the head, and the bullheaded rationalization for reaching out for more even after reality slaps your hand away. Crammed with great music and happily willing to take storytelling roads less traveled — many of its best scenes involve Serge talking to his imaginary alter ego, who takes the form of a Tim Burton-styled Muppet — “Gainsbourg” celebrates the dreamer in anyone and simply uses its namesake (albeit affectionately) as its vessel. That may not sit well if you showed up hoping to learn about Gainsbourg himself, but it makes for a much more resonant experience. In French with English subtitles.
Extras: Mathieu Amalric’s documentary “Joann Sfar (Drawings)” (Sfar wrote and directed “Gainsbourg”), behind-the-scenes feature, storyboards/character sketches.

A Lonely Place to Die (NR, 2011, IFC Midnight)
Alison (Melissa George) and her fellow climbers already averted one near-fatal scare while scaling a cliff deep in the Scottish Highlands. But things get a whole lot more dangerous after they discover a young girl who either has been hidden, was buried alive or actively hid herself underground. She speaks no English, and even if she did, she’s too spooked to say anything to anyone. And who can blame her? “A Lonely Place to Die’s” back-of-box description spoils entirely too much that is best left revealed by the movie itself, so on the premise that you don’t peek and undermine the experience of seeing it play out, let’s just say the girl is hiding/hidden/buried for a reason. The climbers aren’t the only adults in the picture, and the wilderness isn’t the only place “Place” goes. What begins as a tense but dry thriller soon spills out of control in terms of stakes and scope, and any fears about this being nothing more than some climbers in poorly-explained peril fades away once the additional pieces are introduced. Just let the movie itself, rather than the box, reveal those pieces. “Place” does everything reasonably well, but the gradual pace with which it pulls back the curtain is its best asset by far. No extras.

Roadie (R, 2011, Magnolia)
For 20 years, Jimmy (Ron Eldard) has dutifully carried gear for Blue Oyster Cult, but as the band’s fortunes sag ever lower, they no longer can keep him on the payroll. With nowhere to go, Jimmy heads to the one place he always can go: his mom’s (Lois Smith) house in his old hometown. An errand gone sideways sends him straight into a few more people (Jill Hennessy, Bobby Cannavale) from his past, and the impromptu rumble that breaks out between nostalgia, regret, festering bitterness, recaptured youth and broken dreams is more than enough to knock over a guy who professes to have seen it all. Discussing how “Roadie’s” mood evolves from here would venture uncomfortably into spoiler zone, but it only half-matters when plot plays such a distant second fiddle to mood. If you laid out what happens next on paper, “Roadie” could scarcely be more banal. But watching it play out — complete with all those disparate moods engaging in a very emotionally messy (but, thankfully, never weepy or whiny) battle — is a different situation entirely. “Roadie” isn’t really about music or the road, and you need not have carried a guitar in your life to find some common ground in Jimmy’s story. (It helps, though, to love music just a little bit.)
Extras: Behind-the-scenes feature, photo gallery.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (R, 2011, Sony Pictures)
For the unique sliver of the population who consumed Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy but couldn’t be bothered with subtitles after the Swedish film treatment arrived to great acclaim three short years ago, this one’s for you. Frankly, without you, there’d be little point. The original trilogy of “Dragon Tattoo” films was plenty exhaustive, and between Noomi Rapace’s iconic portrayal of Lisbeth Salander and the considerable polish applied to the production as a whole, it wasn’t exactly hurting for Hollywood to swoop in and offer a makeover. Perhaps recognizing its precarious position, the new “TGWTDT” plays it pretty safe: It’s a little flashier, perhaps, but only a little, and neither Rooney Mara (as Lisbeth) nor Daniel Craig (as Mikael Blomkvist, the disgraced journalist who crosses her path on two separate occasions en route to uncovering a murder that’s much bigger than either of them) take their characters anywhere Rapace and Michael Nyqvist didn’t previously go. It also, in case you’re wondering, didn’t change the setting. Everyone speaks English, but we’re still in Sweden, and the familiar series themes still apply. Overall, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is a solid, compelling mystery that takes its time (158 minutes) unfurling itself and the characters embroiled within. But it was all those things already in 2009, and nothing done here even slightly antiquates what already was done there.
Extra: Director commentary.

The Sitter (R/NR, 2011, Fox)
Noah (Jonah Hill) isn’t a babysitter. But unless being his not-quite girlfriend’s emotional doormat is a profession, the jobless, directionless twentysomething isn’t anything else either. So on a night in which his mom’s friend needs a last-minute babysitter in order for them to enjoy a rare night out, Noah volunteers to watch the friend’s three children (Max Records, Landry Bender, Kevin Hernandez). Surprisingly, only two of the three kids are the worst children you’ve ever met — a sign that somewhere deep in the heart of “The Sitter,” a tiny flame of restraint still burns. Mostly, though, “The Sitter” is everything you expect it to be, with one wacky disaster feeding into another while Noah breaks into a diamond store, flees a maniacal drug kingpin (Sam Rockwell) and chases after a van that he stole and has since been stolen from him. None of this necessarily is a terrible thing, because “The Sitter” isn’t necessarily terrible itself. The one kid who isn’t detestable is very likable, the kingpin is pretty funny, and when Noah has a moment to catch his breath, he’s both likable and funny. That may not be enough to counter how predictable “The Sitter” is, and it’s little match for how inexplicably awful those other two kids are. But a loud, dumb comedy with some merit, tucked away though it certainly is, is better than one without any … right?
Extras: Unrated cut, two behind-the-scenes features, bloopers.

The Descendants (R, 2011, Fox)
For 23 days, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) lay in a coma, and on this day, Matt (George Clooney) — Elizabeth’s husband and a suddenly-flustered father of two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller as college student Alexandra and 10-year-old Scottie, respectively) who themselves are dealing with their new reality in their own tumultuous way — has to prepare his family and friends to say goodbye. Unfortunately, one turn of events compels Alexandra to tell her dad about another turn that happened before Elizabeth’s accident, and the revelation that his marriage wasn’t as solid as he thought knocks Matt back even harder than the realization that his wife is about to die. There are additional complications beyond this that won’t be spoiled, but it’s almost beside the point. The heart of Matt’s heartache — how do you find peace when the path to closure is effectively sealed? — is the point of “The Descendants,” and the movie’s handling of it is meandering in the best sense of the word. Matt is sad, angry, vengeful and occasionally bitterly, wryly funny. He flails, schemes, stammers to be a good dad, and — along with his daughters and Alexandra’s sort-of boyfriend Sid (a scene-stealing Nick Krause) — grows five years older in a couple hours’ time. Almost immediately, “The Descendants” draws the battle line between Matt and his situation, and it’s never not a losing battle. But the valiant way with which he goes down swinging looks nothing like defeat, and for all the wandering it does, “The Descendants'” ability to mine so much good from so much bad is doggedly triumphant.
Extras: Three behind-the-scenes features.

Young Adult (R, 2011, Paramount)
Contrary to first impressions, Mavis’ (Charlize Theron) belief that she’s better than the people she left behind in her small hometown isn’t entirely attributable to her slowly blackening heart. She is, after all, pulling a good living in Minneapolis as the ghost writer of a massively popular (though sagging) series of young adult books, and everyone back home knows it. But when word awkwardly reaches her that her former high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson) just celebrated the birth of his first child, a sudden rash of third-life-crisis fidgeting sends her back home to inexplicably claim him from his presumably happy marriage. Mix that karma-ravaging plan with Mavis’ fidgeting and set it in a town full of people who didn’t necessarily like her the first time around, and you have the makings of a pretty wacky comedy — if “Young Adult” was interested in being one. Happily, it isn’t. “Adult” is funny, but it’s a darkly, indignantly funny manifestation of jealousy and regret that’s a little too raw to waste on banal gags. The resentment from all sides is palpable, but so are its origins and reasons for being. Thanks especially to Matt (Patton Oswalt), a former bully magnet who becomes Mavis’ unlikely ally and even more unlikely source of vicious, soul-shredding honesty, that resentment is very arguably righteous — often cathartically so. And yes, in spite of this bundle of bitter raw nerves, “Adult” somehow remains funny. Opportunities abound for it to coast to a bland and easy ending, but it wants no part of any such thing.
Extras: Filmmakers commentary, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes feature.

Melancholia (R, 2011, Magnolia)
Ideally, it should never be necessary, but sometimes a movie is best understood if you understand the filmmaker’s grasp of it before you make a reach of your own. “Melancholia” tells two stories on a literal collision course — one, of a chronically depressed woman (Kirsten Dunst as Justine) trying (and failing) to endure her own dusk-to-dawn wedding reception, the other of a planet (named Melancholia) that emerges from behind the sun and appears destined to crash into Earth in a matter of days. Writer/director Lars von Trier conceived “Melancholia” during his own battle with depression, and the film’s arguable hypothesis — that those who fight despair daily assume an unlikely position of strength when the prospect of total doom sends all who are happy and normal into a sudden and simultaneous tailspin — provides foundation for an end-of-the-world story that’s refreshingly out of step with the blockbuster also-rans. Just hang on to that grasp for dear life: Though engaging simply by way of its originality, “Melancholia” has no qualms about keeping viewers at arm’s length, opening on a caustically melodramatic note before throwing it over to a family that makes even a wedding beans counting contest seem dreary and tragic. Even with Justine’s condition laid bare, the oppressively bleak mood sometimes comes off as a dare to just hate the whole production instead of a slow-burning distillation of a sharply insightful metaphor. You can defy the dare and find something extraordinary waiting in the film’s resolution, but the gift of your patience and understanding is requested.
Extras: Five behind-the-scenes features.

Come Fly With Me (NR, 2010, BBC)
Discount carrier FlyLo Airlines runs a busy racket, and the British airport that houses its hub is nothing short of bustling. But no one in “Come Fly With Me” works harder than “Little Britain” creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams, who play more than 40 characters — from airline employees to security personnel to passengers to the woman who runs the coffee kiosk when she isn’t busy inventing excuses to close down before noon — throughout the show’s first season. “Fly” plays out like a mockumentary, but unlike most mockumentary presentations, its humor is the diametric opposite of dry. From the comically bad costumes and hairpieces to voices you typically only hear on cartoons to many of the gags themselves, the tone is about as subtle as a Krusty the Clown standup special. Fortunately, even at its most pandering, “Fly” is considerably funnier than poor Krusty. And when it’s at its sharply funniest — most often when the camera is trained on incompetent Chief Immigration Officer Ian Foot — it’s a riot. Even the gentle-voiced narrator, whose descriptions of these hapless people call to mind a BBC Earth documentary more than “The Office” or Christopher Guest, is so out of place in this genre as to be kind of surreal. No one involved in this production — in front of or behind the camera — would survive long enough to receive a day’s pay in our world, and that doesn’t feel like an accident on “Fly’s” behalf.
Contents: Six episodes, plus a behind-the-scenes documentary, a photo gallery and promotional material.

The Adventures of Tintin (PG, 2011, Paramount)
Say this for “The Adventures of Tintin:” With a cute (and surprisingly informative) hand-drawn animated opening credits sequence and a clever early homage to Tintin as he’s remembered in cartoons and comic books, this computer-animated reboot pays more reverence to its roots by minute four than most of these dreadful movies do after 90-plus. Inevitably, “Tintin” uses its incredible visual presentation — born out of motion capture, but considerably less dead-eyed than the likes of “The Polar Express” — in the service of a big, flashy adventure with stormy seas, pirate ships, treasure and more treachery than you might expect from a story that features Tintin’s adorable dog Snowy as much as Tintin himself. The second half arguably goes overboard in terms of set pieces and spectacle. But between the lines of all that flash, the soul of the original “Tintin” is hearteningly potent. Tintin, Snowy, and the bumbling washed-up sea captain who becomes an unlikely ally form a terrifically likable trio. The characters thrown in for comic effect are actually funny. And the villains are classically rather than tritely (or worse, obnoxiously) villainous. “Tintin’s” visual presentation may scream 2011, but if you listen rather than just look, the heart and soul of an old-time radio serial about pirates and treasure still beats loudly and proudly.
Extras: Eleven behind-the-scenes features.

My Week with Marilyn (R, 2011, Anchor Bay)
Maybe you had to be there. Or maybe the problem is that we’ve been here enough times already. Whatever the case, there’s something a little bit off about “My Week with Marilyn,” the purportedly true story of a guy (Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark) who turned an unsolicited job interview into a stint as Lawrence Olivier’s (Kenneth Branagh) assistant and then parlayed that gig into a brief affair with the star (Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe) of Olivier’s current project. At its best — when Clark crashes into the movie industry uninvited, when he and Monroe dance around each other while getting acclimated, and especially when Williams brings every admirable and regrettable facet of Monroe’s exhaustively documented talents and troubles to life — “Marilyn” is a very nearly enchanting story about a guy living beyond his wildest dreams and a girl getting a rare chance to just be herself again. But even for a week, “Marilyn” can’t really get away from Marilyn. The excitement of the early going returns in flashes later on, but it mostly gets battered by the depressing reality of a damaged person stuck in a culture too shallow and self-absorbed to pull her away from the encroaching abyss. “Marilyn” finds its heart in time to wrap up on a fond note, but as often accompanies the end of an affair, it’s a fondness for what could have been more than what actually was.
Extras: Director commentary, behind-the-scenes feature.

Worth Mentioning
— “Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales: The Complete Collection” (NR, 1963, Shout Factory): If Shout Factory’s excellent “Underdog” box set had an unwelcome side effect, it was the realization that Underdog’s Total TeleVision forebear didn’t have a set of his own. Mere weeks later, problem solved. The six-disc “Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales” collection includes all 70 of Tennessee and Chumley’s adventures, as well as the adventures of Tooter Turtle, The King and Odie, Klondike Kat and The Hunter. Extras include creators/voice cast commentary, a behind-the-scenes feature and a 16-page color booklet with liner notes and various pieces of concept and promotional artwork.
— “Doctor Who” remasters (NR, BBC): Collectors and fans, start your wallets, because BBC is going a little crazy with remastered special editions of classic “Doctor Who” stories. Starting in February and ramping up this week, the output includes “The Tomb of the Cybermen” (1967), “The Sensorites” (1964), “The Face of Evil” (1977), “The Three Doctors” (1973), “The Robots of Death” (1977) and “The Caves of Androzani” (1984). Along with the remastered picture, each set includes a nice helping of extras, with commentaries, multiple behind-the-scenes features, a photo gallery and DVD-ROM content accompanying each story. The sets continue with another wave in April, so stay frosty.

Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season (NR, 2011, HBO)
Presented carelessly, high fantasy is inaccessibly, pretentiously, eardrum-rupturingly unbearable to all but those who love the genre unconditionally. So if you’re wondering why HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books has ensnared all walks of life en route to being 2011’s most seismic new show, let that be your first clue. “Game of Thrones” doesn’t betray its source material even slightly, nor does it dumb down the themes and mythology that power the seven-family battle royale for control of the Westeros continent’s Iron Throne. But amid the mountains of sex, violence, treachery and betrayal that ravage these seven kingdoms,”Thrones” weaves stories — about worrying parents, children bent on upending the natural order, the grave and stupid mistakes people make after an earlier stupid mistake catches up with them — that could originate from anywhere. It’s reverent, heartfelt, philosophically timeless and occasionally strangely contemporary. Thanks especially to Tyrion Lannister (arguable cast MVP Peter Dinklage), a dwarf outcast with prestigious family connections who uses his unique standing to perform feats of subversion no one else could get away with, it’s often extremely funny as well. When you get right down to it, “Thrones,” is just another sterling family drama in the tradition of sterling HBO family dramas. That it makes room for sex, violence, treachery and betrayal as well? Merely a glorious bonus. Sean Bean, Michelle Fairley, Jack Gleeson, Mark Addy, Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, among many others, comprise a stellar ensemble cast.
Contents: 10 episodes, plus commentary, five behind-the-scenes features, a guide to Westeros and character profiles.

Like Crazy (PG-13, 2011, Paramount)
From the moment Anna (Felicity Jones) left a silly note on Jacob’s (Anton Yelchin) windshield and Jacob called the number on the paper, they’ve been embroiled in a romance that may be too authentic for its own good. How long it’s been isn’t totally clear: “Like Crazy” first touches down at a university in Los Angeles — he’s a local, she’s studying on a student visa before returning to London — and it liberally skips forward in time as the two wrestle with the realities of living so far apart and having separate sets of dreams that wreak additional logistical havoc. Authenticity is “Crazy’s” primary objective, and it’s a mission that does away with most of the customary peaks, valleys, speeches and neat resolutions that typically carry a love story across the finish line. To a disinterested eye, “Crazy” may amount to nothing more than a succession of scenes whose only graspable context is vague chronology. But in place of the usual storytelling comforts lies a vivid picture of everything wonderful and terrible about newfound love — excitement for the unknown, untold possibilities, reckless spontaneity and the miserable helplessness that comes with being so far away from someone and having no power beyond patience to do anything about it. “Crazy” even grasps, almost too well, the unsettling realization that you might be too tired to hold onto something if you spend too much energy chasing it in the first place. Revelations like these are extremely difficult to convey at all, much less with impact, and “Crazy’s” ability to hit them flush makes those missing ingredients hard to actually miss.
Extra: Filmmakers commentary.

High Road (R, 2012, Millennium Entertainment)
In a rather dizzyingly short amount of time, Fitz (James Pumphrey) has watched his band break up, watched his friends and bandmates devote their time to brighter careers, watched his plan to fall back on a drug-dealing career go very dangerously south, and heard about his girlfriend (Abby Elliott) making out with her boss (Ed Helms). A short time after that — and don’t worry, because “High Road” fills in the details — he’s watching the road after knocking out his 16-year-old neighbor’s dad (Rob Riggle) with a cowbell, technically kidnapping the kid (Dylan O’Brien as Jimmy) and hitting the highway to nowhere while Jimmy’s dad and a really shady alleged cop (Joe Lo Truglio) give chase. (It should be clarified here that Jimmy not only came along willingly, but pretty much engineered his own kidnapping, because the alternative — going to school that day — sounded worse.) If this sounds like the kind of movie someone made up on the spot, guess what? It sort of is. Spearheaded by Matt Walsh of “Upright Citizens Brigade” infamy, “Road” is a hodgepodge of absolutely hysterical improvisational comedy that, balled together, comprises a surprisingly coherent road trip movie as well. The aforementioned roll call of events? That isn’t the half of it, especially once Fitz and Jimmy flee town. “Road’s” cast is probably too big for its (or any road trip movie’s) own good, and a good two-thirds of these characters are glorified excuses for bits that may only tangentially address the main matter at hand. When those bits are as frequently and sharply funny as these are, though, it hardly matters. Zach Woods, Lizzy Caplan and Matt L. Jones also star.
Extra: Cast/crew interviews.

Columbus Circle (PG-13, 2012, Universal)
Abigail (Selma Blair) looks pretty good for someone who hasn’t set foot outside her New York City apartment unit (never mind the building) in nearly 20 years. As for why she’s gone dark and disappeared from her previous life, maintaining contact only with a single family friend (Beau Bridges), it’s best to let “Columbus Circle” explain at its own pace. Sadly for Abigail, the murder of her non-nosy neighbor across the hall — and the subsequent disruption of a life free from intrusions by curious outsiders — means the movie’s pace doesn’t quite jibe with her own wishes. It doesn’t take a sleuth to realize a connection eventually brews between the events across the hall and the conditions of Abigail’s voluntary exile, nor does it take a student of film theory to understand why delving further — and even discussing the existence of certain other characters who appear in and around Abigail’s building — would spoil entirely too much. So that’s all you get for now, and for a while, “Circle” offers little more, gingerly handing out revelations in satisfying but pretty thriller-by-numbers fashion. Then, as if to look at the scoreboard and realize it’s the fourth quarter of a low-scoring game, “Circle” gets a little crazy and wrenches the works. You might see it coming or you might not, and you might even have the third act figured out once the fallout from that twist butts heads with the endgame. By then, though, all that safe storytelling has done a pretty good job of making Abigail’s situation legitimately interesting. And even if you have the ending spelled out, “Circle’s” delivery of the final turn is too poetically enjoyable to disappoint. Amy Smart, Jason Lee, Kevin Pollak and Giovanni Ribisi also star. No extras.

Footloose (PG-13, 2011, Paramount)
Harmless or pointless? Take your pick. The new “Footloose” does as the old “Footloose” did: A big-city boy named Ren (Kenny Wormald filling Kevin Bacon’s shoes) moves to a small town that, after losing a carful of teenagers in a tragic accident, went on a banishment tear that counted public displays of dancing among its victims. Ren bucks the establishment, led by a reverend (Dennis Quaid) whose son died in the crash, and because that isn’t enough, he takes a liking to the reverend’s daughter (Julianne Hough) as well. All of this has happened before in 1984, and if Paramount is still kicking in 2040, maybe it’ll happen again then. As remakes go, “Footloose” could scarcely play it safer: The plot’s the same, the character names are the same, the scenes you remember most vividly get full callbacks here, and even the soundtrack brings back the songs everyone associates with the original. Were it not for some small character tweaks and a freshening up of the hair, clothes and (at least partially) song and dance, the whole thing would be pointless. Arguably, especially if you hold the original in high regard, it still is. But in the wake of so many wretched remakes and reboots, “Footloose’s” harmlessly unnecessary place in the world is preferable to the alternative. It’s unabashedly lively and wholly uninterested in applying the usual lacquer of faux-gritty self-seriousness that most remakes chug by the bucketful. What it lacks in imagination, it reclaims in reverence for the movie that paved its way.
Extras: Director commentary, deleted scenes, three behind-the-scenes features, music video.

Wyatt Earp’s Revenge (PG-13, 2012, Sony Pictures)
James “Spike” Kenedy (Daniel Booko) is, as is made clear in “Wyatt Earp’s Revenge’s” opening scene, a bad man. Sadly for him, he’s also a foolish man, and when a bullet from his gun errantly kills the love of young Wyatt Earp’s (Shawn Roberts) life, he’s a wanted man as well. Earp posses up, sets out on a hunt for Kenedy, and that pretty much is all there is for “Revenge’s” plot outline. That isn’t a knock, either. Though “Revenge” may be trading on its name, it has no designs on being a sequel to “Wyatt Earp,” which itself has no use for a sequel. Rather, “Revenge” is a classically lean cat-and-mouse chase that breaks no ground, redefines the American Western not one bit and won’t, as “True Grit” and “Blackthorn” did, transcend genre lines and draw in people who don’t otherwise care for this stuff. Again, though, those aren’t knocks. Westerns are rare enough that even a law-abiding one is welcome once in a while, and “Revenge’s” laser focus on both the hunter and his prey is enjoyable in a classically no-nonsense kind of way. Val Kilmer appears sparingly to recount the story as an older Earp.
Extra: Behind-the-scenes feature.

Immortals (R, 2011, Fox)
There is, to be certain, a whole lot of talking in “Immortals” — almost as if an attempt is being made to establish a meaningful context for the scramble between the power-hungry King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) and a gods-appointed villager (Henry Cavill as Theseus) to secure the Epirus Bow. Why the Epirus Bow? Why Theseus? And who are all these other people? In a clunky, blathering way reminiscent of junior high school students reciting a Shakespeare play, “Immortals” explains, and the rambling result appropriately feels like a story slapped together out of obligation more than desire. The reason “Immortals” is here is to stagger us with a loud, ornate, CGI-laden palette of violence that you’d best believe looks incredible. If that — and only that, because “Immortals” does nothing else particularly well — is why you’re here as well, you’ll get what you came for. Just be prepared to earn it: For every minute of action, there are two chock full of dramatic pauses, thousand-yard stares and slow verbal climbs up very shallow hills. Freida Pinto, Stephen Dorff, John Hurt and Luke Evans also star.
Extras: alternate opening, two alternate endings, deleted scenes, two behind-the-scenes features, “Immortals: Gods & Heroes” graphic novel.

Worth Mentioning
— “Transformers Prime: Season One” (NR, 2010, Shout Factory): The movies get all the mainstream attention, but if you’re looking for the real Transformers resurgence — or, at least, the one that pays respect to the legacy instead of trampling all over it — you’d best be looking here. Includes 26 episodes, plus commentary, two behind-the-scenes features, a physical copy of the 96-page “Transformers Prime” graphic novel and a season two preview.
— “Adventure Time: It Came From the Nightosphere” (NR, 2010, Cartoon Network): It takes a special kind of cartoon to take a premise about a boy and his magical talking dog going on adventures, infuse it with all kinds of incredibly twisted overtones and still emerge with something that’s strangely, hilariously precious. But that’s “Adventure Time” — arguably the best thing going on Cartoon Network right now — in a nutshell. Cartoon Network continues to annoy the show’s fans by releasing random compilations of episodes instead of full season sets, and it’ll likely infuriate them by releasing a few more before asking them to buy the same episodes again once the season sets inevitably come out. There’s nothing funny or adorable about that, of course, but if seeing the episodes in the order they aired isn’t of great import to you right now, you can’t go wrong with this collection. Includes 16 episodes, plus a collection of fun facts about the characters.
— “The Lion King 1 1/2” (G, 2004, Disney) and “Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride” (G, 1998, Disney): They arrive, deservedly, with less fanfare than the much-ballyhooed “Lion King” Blu-ray sets that debuted last year. But if you’re that rare combination of “Lion King” completionist and Blu-ray aficionado, the day you’ve been waiting for has finally come. Both sets include DVD and digital copies as well, and “The Lion King 2” includes a new animated short starring Timon and Pumbaa.