BLOGS
Hey girl, Ryan Gosling wants to drive your car.
Drive
It got stiffed by the Academy, but Nicolas Winding Refn's stylish thriller Drive, is still one of our favorite movies of 2011, powered by beautiful visuals, some great performances (among them Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman) and a killer soundtrack that we can't stop listening to. Just watch the first fifteen minutes and try not to be seduced by the film's '80s-style noirish vision of Los Angeles.
Extras: Four behind the scenes featurettes and an extended interview with Refn.
Click here to read our review
The Thing
Dream House
Universal released a pair of horror movies last fall and watched them deservedly sink without a trace. The least interesting of the two is The Thing, yet another underwhelming attempt to reboot/remake a classic '80s chiller, in this case, John Carpenter's beloved 1982 picture starring Kurt Russell. This new Thing is designed as a prequel to the earlier movie, but really it's just a dull rehash with none of the wit or scares of the Carpenter flick. Dream House, on the other hand, would seem to have everything going for it: a strong cast (Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts) and a respected director (Jim Sheridan of In America acclaim). So what went wrong? Blame it on "creative differences," as in, Sheridan had a vision for the film that clashed with the movie's producers. And you can probably guess who won out. That's probably why the released version of Dream House is such a muddle. We'd like to believe there's a superior director's cut out there, but odds are pretty good that we'll never get a chance to see it.
Extras: The Thing comes with deleted and extended scenes, two featurettes and a commentary track with the director and producer. Perhaps not surprisingly, Sheridan does not contribute a track to the Dream House disc, but there are four behind-the-scenes documentaries that studiously avoid mentioning the movie's troubled post-production process.
Click here to read our review.
In Time
After a well-received supporting role in The Social Network, 2011 was supposed to be the year where Justin Timberlake graduated to leading man status. But the results proved mixed. While his rom-com Friends With Benefits was a modest hit, this futuristic action vehicle, directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) and co-starring Amanda Seyfried, failed to ignite at the box office. Chalk it up to a convoluted premise that involved the characters stealing time in order to remain forever young. We still love the futuristic slang that the film tried to coin though, including "Timekeepers" and "Minutemen."
Extras: Deleted and extended scenes and a lone making-of featurette.
Click here to read our review
Best Picture Academy Award Winners: Five Film Collection
With the Oscars approaching, now's as good a time as any to revisit past Best Picture winners so you'll be able to see how this year's nominees stack up. This five-disc set kicks off with the 1996 champ The English Patient, followed by 1998's Shakespeare in Love, 2002's Chicago, 2005's Crash and 2007's No Country for Old Men. Your mileage may vary, of course, but we personally think only two of these movies -- Shakespeare and No Country -- actually deserved to win (and even in the case of No Country, we would have preferred to see There Will Be Blood triumph instead). The least deserving? Crash, of course, followed closely by Chicago. The English Patient, meanwhile, strikes us as the King's Speech of its day: an entirely serviceable and mildly enjoyable period piece that was the compromise choice amidst more daring, interesting films (specifically Fargo and Secrets & Lies).
Extras: None.
The Piano
Speaking of movies that deserved to win Best Picture, Jane Campion's gorgeously strange 1993 drama makes its Blu-ray debut. Holly Hunter and a crazy young Anna Paquin (both of whom won Oscars for their roles) play a mother and daughter who travel to New Zealand (along with the titular piano) to make a new family with a rough man of the soil (Sam Neill). When he proves an unsatisfactory mate, Hunter finds herself falling for another man (Harvey Keitel) who strikes a daring bargain with her involving the return of her prized instrument. Shot on location in New Zealand, The Piano is far and away Campion's strongest film and one of the best movies of the '90s.
Extras: Just the original theatrical trailer.
Also on DVD:
Jessica Chastain was in a number of high-profile films last year, but one that may have slipped past your radar was Texas Killing Fields, a based-on-a-true-story crime picture about two detectives (Sam Worthington and Jeffrey Dean Morgan) pursuing a serial killer in a rural Texas town. If you don't have enough bombast in your life, pick up Transformers Limited Edition Collector's Trilogy, which packages all three of Michael Bay's Transformers extravaganzas into one massive box set along with ten hours of bonus features. Or if you just want the final installment in the trilogy, you can pick up the new edition of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which offers bonus features not included on the previous release last year. One of the odder films released last fall was the PG-rated The Big Year, which starred Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson as a trio of birdwatchers competing to see who can see the most number species of birds in North America. If you wondered who in the world would go and see a movie like that, the answer is not very many people. The Big Year was one of 2011's biggest bombs, costing $41 million and grossing only $7 million. Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano returned to the yakuza genre with Outrage, a twist-filled (and wildly violent) mob story set in contemporary Tokyo. Produced by Jamie Foxx, the documentary Thunder Soul tells the life story of a popular high school band leader in Houston. If you don't want to shell out the dough for that 5-film Best Picture winner collection, you can pick up two of those titles independently. Shakespeare in Love and The English Patient are both newly available on Blu-ray, along with Salma Hayek's passion project, Frida and Anthony Minghella's Civil War epic, Cold Mountain, which finally won Renée Zellweger an Oscar. Finally, the 1952 classic To Kill a Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition gets a lavish special edition release, complete with a feature-length making-of documentary, archival interviews with star Gregory Peck (who played upstanding Southern lawyer and one of the best movie dads ever, Atticus Finch), a commentary track with the film's director Robert Mulligan and a booklet of production photos and storyboards. In honor of Universal's 100th anniversary, similar releases are being planned for two other of the studio's classics, E.T. and Jaws. Can't wait.
Think you're a TV or movie expert? Prove it! Play Trivia Without Pity, our new online trivia game with over 2,000 questions about the shows and films you love -- and love to hate.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!
BLOG ARCHIVES
The Moviefile
February 2013
11 Entries
January 2013
16 Entries
December 2012
21 Entries
November 2012
19 Entries
October 2012
20 Entries
September 2012
19 Entries
August 2012
19 Entries
July 2012
17 Entries
June 2012
24 Entries
May 2012
21 Entries
April 2012
22 Entries
March 2012
26 Entries
February 2012
24 Entries
January 2012
25 Entries
December 2011
27 Entries
November 2011
22 Entries
October 2011
22 Entries
September 2011
29 Entries
August 2011
27 Entries
July 2011
30 Entries
June 2011
25 Entries
May 2011
13 Entries
April 2011
23 Entries
March 2011
22 Entries
February 2011
33 Entries
January 2011
39 Entries
December 2010
21 Entries
November 2010
29 Entries
October 2010
23 Entries
September 2010
25 Entries
August 2010
26 Entries
July 2010
29 Entries
June 2010
36 Entries
May 2010
22 Entries
April 2010
26 Entries
March 2010
30 Entries
February 2010
19 Entries
January 2010
19 Entries
December 2009
15 Entries
November 2009
21 Entries
October 2009
27 Entries
September 2009
30 Entries
August 2009
28 Entries
July 2009
34 Entries
June 2009
27 Entries
May 2009
24 Entries
April 2009
23 Entries
March 2009
18 Entries
February 2009
30 Entries
January 2009
56 Entries
December 2008
51 Entries
November 2008
61 Entries
October 2008
102 Entries
September 2008
86 Entries
August 2008
99 Entries
July 2008
116 Entries
June 2008
95 Entries
May 2008
86 Entries
April 2008
67 Entries
March 2008
14 Entries
Blog Categories
A Festival for the Rest...ival
20 Entries
Accidents Do Happen
46 Entries
Adventures in Fakery
77 Entries
Alien Nations
3 Entries
Animation Desensitization
79 Entries
Awards Schmawards
17 Entries
Box Office Tally
79 Entries
Burning Questions
4 Entries
Coming Soonish
9 Entries
Cool Nerds Guide
6 Entries
Cop Rick
4 Entries
Crazy In Love
2 Entries
Director? I Hardly Knew Her!
154 Entries
Disease of the Week
1 Entries
Doc Watch
1 Entries
DVDs Unwrapped
24 Entries
Footage Lost (And Found)
2 Entries
For Your Amusement (Park)
10 Entries
Foreign Relations
49 Entries
Future Tense
1 Entries
Galleries (and Other Picture Postcards)
23 Entries
Gangster's Paradise
4 Entries
Getting Dramatic
3 Entries
Girls on Film
75 Entries
Happy Anniversary
9 Entries
Hi, High School
1 Entries
Hollywood To TWoP: Hello There!
36 Entries
I Voted for GORE!
101 Entries
I Want My DVD
221 Entries
I Want My VOD
20 Entries
I've Got Two Tickets to Merchandise
33 Entries
IMDb Fun Times
6 Entries
Indie Snapshot
41 Entries
Indie, Indie, Come Back Home
38 Entries
It Came From New York
6 Entries
It Came From San Diego
14 Entries
It's a Major Award!
75 Entries
Legal Eaglese
21 Entries
Let's Blame the Media!
49 Entries
Let's Go To The Video!
29 Entries
Letterbox of Recommendations
22 Entries
Lights, Camera... Action Jackson!
177 Entries
Little TV Shows That Done Hit the Big Time
71 Entries
Martial Artistry
11 Entries
Momentous Occasions
25 Entries
More On Movies
37 Entries
Movie Merchandise
4 Entries
Musicalifornication
47 Entries
Name That Tune
2 Entries
Obituaries Without Pity
23 Entries
On the Frontlines
1 Entries
Oscars and Grouchery
11 Entries
Politicking
3 Entries
Pros and Controversy
26 Entries
Read All About It
4 Entries
Real People, Fake Movies
21 Entries
Remakes R Us
7 Entries
Reviews of Movies We Haven't Seen Yet
42 Entries
Reviews of Movies We've Actually Seen
485 Entries
Scary Monsters & Super Creeps
103 Entries
Sci-Fidelity
147 Entries
Script From the Headlines!
56 Entries
Separate but Sequel
246 Entries
Sequelitis
19 Entries
Shameless Self-Promotion
27 Entries
Sing Out, Louise
3 Entries
Sports in Our Shorts
6 Entries
Strike Watch
14 Entries
Stupid Cinematic Celebrity Sayings
34 Entries
Sundance Sundance Revolution
13 Entries
Swords and Sorcerers
2 Entries
Taste the Reading Rainbow
93 Entries
Tears in Heaven
1 Entries
The Art of the Cannes
6 Entries
The Biz
122 Entries
The Casting Conch
192 Entries
The History, Booooyyyyy!
79 Entries
The Kongs of Comedy
199 Entries
Theatre With an "R" and an "E"
11 Entries
Things to Know
1 Entries
Things We Learned
1 Entries
Time Tripping
1 Entries
Top of the
1 Entries
Top of the MWoP
5 Entries
Trailer Trashing
72 Entries
Trailers Without Pity
37 Entries
Video Games Killed the Movie Star
23 Entries
Watching Movies With Kids
4 Entries
We Call Do-Over
177 Entries
We Watches the Watchmen
33 Entries
What's Up, Documentary?
17 Entries
When Animal Movies Attack
13 Entries
YA Wasteland
3 Entries
You Got Comic Book in My Movie
249 Entries
You Know, For Kids!
132 Entries
Comments