Posts Tagged ‘dvd’
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, September 5th, 2008
TGIF and whatnot! It’s been a short week – gotta love those – and time again to start planning for the weekend. My plans include seeing my nearby Stone Bridge Bulldogs take on Robinson – the only team that beat the defending state champs last year – in a high school tete a tete tonight (if the hurricane stays away) and then taking my mom to a movie for her b-day tomorrow. If you have any weekend suggestions for the rest of the NoVa Pop Nation, spill the beans in the comments section or email novapoppin@gmail.com.
It’s truly the down season at the movies, with all but one new release: Nicolas Cage plays a hitman with a heart in the actioner “Bangkok Dangerous.” Used to be, Nic Cage in an action film would get my attention – “The Rock” is one of the best in the genre, you know – but now it just gets a “meh” reaction from me. Instead of the mainstream, this may be the weekend to expand the cinematic boundaries and try out the nonstop-Bollywood theater, Loehmann Twin Cinemas in Falls Church. Perhaps “Bride and Prejudice” sparked an interest in you for those most popular of Indian flicks. Try “Rock On,” about a Hindi rock band whose members happen upon each other 10 years after the broke up for a whole new try at the music biz, or “Singh is Kinng,” a Sikh comedy of Shakespearean errors about a Punjabi dude named Happy who accidentally becomes king of the underworld.
In the DVD world, three Thursday night shows get releases so you can round out your collection – the fantastic “Smallville – The Complete Seventh Season,” the McDreamy-licious “Grey’s Anatomy: The Complete Fourth Season” and the hip “Ugly Betty: The Complete Second Season.” “Saturday Night Live” junkies will want to check out the comedy “Baby Mama” with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, while Quentin Tarantino’s epic “Kill Bill” debuts on Blu-ray with the classic “Volume 1″ and vastly inferior “Volume 2.” And for those who live by the sage advice of the Dude, the Coen brothers’ cult hit “The Big Lebowski” gets the 10th anniversary limited-edition treatment in collectible bowling ball packaging. The Brian abides.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
Is Scarlett the color of love?
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, August 15th, 2008
It’s finally Friday and the weekend! It’s been a long week for me, and I’ve got a busy weekend for sure: reservations at Georgia Brown’s downtown tomorrow night, giving blood in the afternoon before rockin’ out at Mayhem Fest at Nissan Pavilion on Sunday. What are your plans this weekend? Anything going on that NoVa Pop Nation as a whole doesn’t know about? Drop some knowledge in the comments, or hit me up on email at novapoppin@gmail.com.
On to the movies, as some of you are assumably making some cinematic plans. “Tropic Thunder” is amazing, hilarious and downright wrong in most every way so that’s a must-see. Woody Allen’s got a new movie out, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” that’s making some headlines, too, with a makeout session between Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson, who’s making her third straight appearance in a Woody flick (after “Match Point” and “Scoop”). Oh yeah, recent Oscar winner Javier Bardem’s in it as well, starring as a Spaniard who gets involved in a love triangle with two women on vacation, which then becomes a love trapezoid when his ex-wife enters the picture. Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax is reeling this as well as “Transsiberian,” an international thriller directed by Brad Anderson (“The Machinist”) starring Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer as a couple who befriends the wrong passengers on their train. “Vicky” and “Transsiberian” are also playing at AMC Shirlington 7 in Arlington, as well as the family-friendly comedy “Henry Poole is Here,” with Luke Wilson as a guy who tries to hide away from the world in the middle-class L.A. ‘Burbs and discovers a new world next door with a divorcee and her precocious daughter.
Looking at the small screen, HBO’s well-done and engaging “Recount,” with Kevin Spacey and Denis Leary in the middle of the 2000 presidential election drama in Florida, gets a DVD release on Tuesday. The first season of “Terminator – The Sarah Chronicle Chronicles” was surprisingly good so to get you ready for the second starting next month, pick this up – and if you’ve got an HD TV, get the Blu-ray version, as all the stuff blowing up will pop that much more. And as much as I hate to admit it to the entire Internet … “Gossip Girl” is one heck of a guilty pleasure. Catch the complete first season if you like teenage trainwrecks, flighty rich parents and the geeky kid getting the hot girl (and then messing it up, then getting her back, then her messing it up, etc.)
Have great weekend, and I’ll see y’all back here on Monday!
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, August 8th, 2008
We’ve looked at books, music, crude drawings of teen girls and band geeks this week, and now let’s turn our attention to the screen with Friday Flicks. We’ll focus mostly on indie movies and what’s coming out the next Tuesday, and maybe even look at the occasional major release. (Some NoVa Poppers may, like me, be all about the animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” coming out next week. I’m hoping for a midnight showing on Thursday!)
The stoner comedy “Pineapple Express” has seen decent reviews so far, but no release gets higher this week than “Man on Wire.” The documentary follows the ballsy Frenchman Phillippe Petit, his obsession with the World Trade Center and his ensuing, death-defying act of walking between both towers on an illegally placed wire in 1974. He went from rooftop to rooftop, but what’s almost as impressive is what he had to do to get up there in the first place. The doc, which also makes for a mini-tribute to the grandiosity of those fallen skyscrapers, opens at the Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax, as does the psychological French thriller “Tell No One.” And at the AMC Loews Shirlington 7 in Arlington, the drama “Bottle Shock” stars Bill Pullman as an ex-attorney out to make the world’s perfect chardonnay, but in the meantime runs into financial trouble and has to repair the relationship with his estranged son (played by Chris Pine, who is Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ upcoming “Star Trek” film). Alan Rickman’s very bushy moustache may be worth the price of admission alone.
The DVD release list is highlighted by three TV shows on Tuesday: “The Wire – The Complete Fifth Season” wraps up the acclaimed HBO crime series with a focus on the Baltimore Sun, and of course Dominic West’s McNulty straddling the line between good cop and bad cop; “South Park – The Complete Eleventh Season” is the funniest volume yet, with the priceless “Imaginationland” trilogy and the “Guitar Queer-o” episode; and the third season of “Prison Break” hits on standard and Blu-ray DVD with a strike-shortened 13 episodes and Wentworth Miller in the pokey, needing to be broken out.
Have a great weekend! Let us know what’s up - email novapoppin@gmail.com.