Movie & TV DVD Releases this week. June 22 2010
The Last Station
Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, and James McAvoy lead an impeccable cast in The Last Station, a sweet comedy-drama about the final days of the Russian novelist Tolstoy. Nineteenth-century paparazzi lurk outside of Tolstoy's estate, hoping to snatch a picture of the rumored strife between the world-famous writer (Plummer, The Insider), who's launched an antimaterialist movement, and his aristocratic wife, Sofya (Mirren, The Queen). Also lurking is Tolstoy's aide, Chertkov (Paul Giamatti, Sideways), who despises Sofya and pushes to change Tolstoy's will to prevent Sofya from inheriting the royalties from Tolstoy's books. Into this nest of conflict comes a young secretary, Valentin (McAvoy, Atonement
), who idolizes Tolstoy and strives to live by the principles of abstinence and vegetarianism… only to find his purity tested by sensual temptations (including a headstrong young woman played by Kerry Condon of Rome) and an unexpected sympathy for Sofya. Moments of sly comedy keep The Last Station from becoming overly literary. The movie as a whole lacks the emotional punch it reaches for, but every scene is a polished jewel, expertly and passionately crafted by the actors and writer-director Michael Hoffman (A Midsummer Night's Dream), rich with feeling and social detail. Mirren, of course, is superb, with a wonderful portrayal of a woman who can't help turning her genuine passions into a performance that repels her husband. --Bret FetzerRemember Me
Rebel Without a Cause meets Ordinary People in postmillennial Manhattan, resulting in Hollywoodland director Allen Coulter's Remember Me. Twilight's tousle-haired Robert Pattinson plays Tyler, a chain-smoking New York University student with a substantial chip on his shoulder. Drifting through life devoid of ambition, he lost his older brother to suicide, his parents are divorced, and his father, Charles (Pierce Brosnan), spends more time in the boardroom than with his kids (Lena Olin plays Tyler's mother). Tyler takes refuge in his friendships with wisecracking roommate Aidan (Tate Ellington) and artistic younger sister Caroline (Ruby Jerins). One night, he and Aidan enter a scuffle outside a club, and Sergeant Craig (Chris Cooper) takes him in for mouthing off, even though he was trying to break things up. When Aidan discovers that they go to school with Craig's daughter, Ally (Lost's Emilie de Ravin), he dares his pal to date and dump the Queens coed to get back at Craig. Game for anything, Tyler gives it a try, and Ally takes the bait, but he puts all thoughts of revenge aside when he finds himself falling in love. Ten years before, Ally lost her mother (Martha Plimpton in an unbilled cameo), and she understands him better than most anyone else, but the timing is off, and the events of 9/11 will change the lives of both families forever. The descent toward melodrama at the end threatens to derail Coulter's delicate project, but he sets things right in time to make Remember Me an affecting experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
She's Out of My League
A gorgeous girl takes an interest in an ordinary guy in She's Out of My League, only to find their relationship questioned, criticized, and outright scoffed at by their friends and families. When airport security guard Kirk (Jay Baruchel, best known from supporting roles in Knocked Up
and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
) recovers the cell phone of knockout Molly (Alice Eve, Crossing Over
), she asks him out to a hockey game as thanks. When a romance blossoms, Kirk is amazed--but not half as amazed as his buddies, who explain at length why Kirk is inferior in every way to this "perfect girl." This emphasis on the social ripples of the romance separates She's Out of My League from the usual average-guy-beautiful-girl romance; the web of admiration, envy, insecurity, and social anxiety is the real topic of the movie, not bland morals like "love is blind" or "true beauty is within." Well, that and a lot of embarrassing comic bits involving shaving, premature ejaculation, and more--some bits wouldn't be out of place in There's Something About Mary
. It's not a great movie (Molly's role is underdeveloped, though not as badly here as in most boy-centered sex comedies), but Baruchel's puppy-dog charm, the better-than-average dialogue, and a strong supporting cast (particularly T.J. Miller, Cloverfield, and Krysten Ritter, Confessions of a Shopaholic
) lift She's Out of My League above the ordinary. --Bret FetzerGreen Zone
Matt Damon reteams with his Bourne Supremacy
director to create a thriller grounded in contemporary politics: the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) travels across war-torn Iraq, pursuing the intelligence he's been given, but every site indicated comes up empty of WMDs. Investigating the source of the intelligence, he finds himself caught between CIA agent Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson, 28 Days Later
) and politician Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear, Little Miss Sunshine) over the identity of "Magellan," the supposed source. As Miller tracks down an Iraqi general, he ends up further and further afield, facing danger from all sides. It's hard to say which is the greater accomplishment--that Green Zone manages to turn a still-volatile political issue into a propulsive action movie, or that it manages to depict Iraqi people as individuals with a wide range of responses to what's happened to their country. Damon's performance is low-key but effective as Miller tries to maintain some semblance of moral clarity in a circumstance that muddies everything. Also featuring Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone
) as a compromised journalist and Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner
) as an Iraqi civilian who gets dragged into far more than he expected. --Bret FetzerRelate Links:
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