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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:30:00 -0700

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the titles below, you can watch some very funny recorded improv comedy starring Amy Poehler when you rent The Upright Citizens Brigade: Asssscat!

The Kite Runner
If you enjoyed Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel, you won't be disappointed by how closely the screen adaptation resembles the book in both plot and its ability to tear your feelings apart. I gave this warning in my review and will say it again: The Kite Runner is not for the faint of heart, and some of the most gut-wrenching scenes from the book are even harder to take visually.

That said, there is much to appreciate about this story, which follows two young boys growing up in Afghanistan before and after the Taliban come to power. The relationship between the two friends is beautifully explored, as tense political events unfold around them. When one of the boys stands mutely aside while his best friend is brutalized, the decision sets off a series of mostly agonizing events and haunts him the rest of his life. In the end, however, it's a tale of love and redemption. Special features include commentary from Khaled Hosseini and the filmmakers.

Two more titles to go - one spooky, one that will take you back in time - so read more.

Party of Five: The Complete Third Season
Check out Matthew Fox's hair on that cover. Amazing. I know it's hard to get beyond Lost and Scream and The Ghost Whisperer, but once upon a time, these stars were on a little drama called Party of Five as a family of orphaned Salinger siblings who raise themselves (or is it . . . each other?).

Season Three was a turning point for most of the characters. Charlie's (Matthew Fox) girlfriend and family nanny gets caught plagiarizing a paper for her PhD, Kate (Jennifer Love Hewitt) reveals to boyfriend Bailey (Scott Wolf) that she wants to remain a virgin, Bailey turns into an alcoholic, and sister Julia (Neve Campbell) spends a lot of time dealing with her guilt after a friend's suicide. This is a great addition to your Party of Five collection and it's a fun journey back through the fashions and style of the '90s.

The Mist
Perhaps you missed the late November release of this spooky Stephen King film, since it's sometimes hard to get in the holiday spirit and see a scary movie at the same time. If that's the case, be sure to add The Mist to your queue this week, as it's pretty much everything one could want out of a scary movie.

The movie follows local townspeople trapped in a supermarket by a thick and deadly fog. While it's spooky to wonder what, exactly, in that mist is killing people, the really scary stuff comes from the way the group deals with the threat, bringing up all kinds of topics around End of Days. Marcia Gay Harden is particularly creepy as the town's religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody.

The special two-disc set includes commentary by writer/director Frank Darabont, deleted scenes, the behind the scenes webisodes, and the complete film in black and white.

The Mist Will Creep Up on You

BuzzSugar — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:30:00 -0800

I admit that I wasn’t expecting much from the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, The Mist. I thought it might be a fun-scary movie - the kind that jolts you out of your seat with fright but isn't all that memorable. Yet just as the otherwordly mist in the film creeps into a small town in Maine and traps unsuspecting shoppers in a grocery store, The Mist crept up on me, making me realize I was in for a terrifying hour and a half. If you’re looking for quickie scares that will evaporate by the time the movie’s over, look elsewhere. The Mist is a disturbing film that taps into primal fears and real world terrors, and its doomsday mood will stay with you long after you exit the theater.

David Drayton (Thomas Jane) is a movie poster artist whose house is damaged one night after an electrical storm. Together with his son Billy (Nathan Gamble) and neighbor Brent (Andre Braugher) - with whom he's had tense relations in the past - he rides into town to buy groceries. There at the grocery store, the ordinary becomes extraordinary: a dense, white mist surrounds the building, an earthquake rattles its foundations, and a man materializes from the eerie whiteness, blood dripping from his nose, shouting "There's something in the mist! It took John Lee!" Scared yet? Well, read more

What is this "something in the mist"? We get some visual clues: a giant octopus-like tentacle attacks a grocery clerk, spidery creatures menace a group as they venture out to get medicine for an ailing man, and a flock of prehistoric-looking insects invade the store. Where did this dangerous mist with its monsters come from? Is it a pollution cloud? Did the nearby military police unleash aliens from another world? Or, as the town religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody (a creepy Marcia Gay Harden) suggests, have they come to exact God's bloodthirsty revenge as a sign of the End of Days?

Like the great disaster films of the 1970s (The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure), The Mist's narrative tension (and horror) comes as much from the characters' interactions as from the monsters the mist occasionally spits out. In the midst of a social breakdown, what groups form and who leads them? What ties dissolve? How do race, politics and religion factor in?

With a terrific cast and special effects that do not upstage the human characters, The Mist keeps one foot in the imaginary with CGI monsters and supernatural hints, and one foot firmly planted in our real fears: unchecked military or scientific activity, the breakdown of society, the end of the world. It also has one of the most shocking endings I've ever seen. Like a blank screen onto which we can project our fears, The Mist suggests but it doesn't resolve.

Photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company

Which Scary Movie Looks Scarier?

BuzzSugar — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:29:05 -0700

Which of these two scary movie trailers looks like it will be more successfully scary?

Stephen King's The Mist
"A freak storm unleashes a species of blood-thirsty creatures on a small town, where a small band of citizens hole-up in a supermarket and fight for their lives."

Japanese remake, One Missed Call
"Several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves - messages which include the date, time, and some of the details of their deaths."

Movie Preview: Kick-Ass, Starring McLovin'

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:30:00 -0800

Everyone was rumbling about director Matthew Vaughn's pet project, Kick-Ass, at Comic-Con this year, and now we finally get a peek at the official trailer. For those of you who aren't fanboys, let me explain: The film is based on the Marvel comic about a loner teenage boy (Aaron Johnson) who decides to become a superhero - despite the fact that he doesn't have any actual powers. That's when he teams up with Damon Macready (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter, Mindy (Chloe Moretz), aka "Hit Girl." ('Cause, you know, she's an 11-year old hitman.) Christopher "McLovin'" Mintz-Plasse also plays a role in their posse as "Red Mist."

I've heard it's a cheeky slant on the superhero genre, but that it's also pretty gory. The trailer seems to balance the line between a fun teen underdog tale and an assassin-style takedown, which will be incredibly entertaining to watch if done right. We don't get to see Cage's face in the preview, but Clark Duke (Dale from Greek) is in there! I'm looking forward to seeing more footage as we near the release date (April 16th), but till then, check out the video and tell me what you think when you read more.