The End of Potter.

Rose Byrne

Notes from the back row- July 12, 2011

Wizards rule. Sure they’re a bit nerdy— their power comes from remembering books and thinking real hard— and they aren’t usually strong enough to single-chop off an Orc’s head nor dashing enough to nail an Elf princess but Wizards are cool nonetheless. They dress for comfort with big floppy hats, robes and killer beards and Wizards don’t give a shit what other people think. They’ll turn you into a newt if you step to them.
Harry Potter however— not really that cool. Actually he appears to be wearing a bomber jacket on the poster for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, which opens this week at both the Village 8 and Squamish’s Garibaldi 5. A bomber jacket is utterly un-Wizardly. It’s trying way too hard to look tough, and we all know it’s pretty much impossible to look tough when you’re carrying a wand. “Ooooohhhhh watch out! Here comes Harry Potter and his wand!” Ask any seven-year-old with a loose tooth, wands are for fairies.
Don’t get me wrong— the Harry Potter books are great for kids but cinematically, I’m tired of that guy. This is the eighth Potter flick, EIGHTH!! You know the best thing about Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan? You didn’t need to recall every detail of the other seven to make sense of what you were watching. Not the case with Potter’s films, the first of which came out a decade ago. Who can remember that? Kids maybe.
Anyhow, in this, the final installment, Potter fights off the evil Voldemort and it’s an balls-out Wizard war chock full of real action and battle scenes mashed together with profound messages about life, death, love, loyalty and all that other good stuff. Deathly Hallows Part 2 is actually one of the best Potter films, and also the shortest at just over two hours (many fans will call it too short.)
From giant spiders to dragons to Wizards spurting balls of magic all over each other, Deathly Hallows 2 packs a hefty punch (and a few kisses) but unfortunately the spectacle again overpowers the storytelling and unless you already know what’s going on, it’s hard to tell what is actually going on. Or why you should care.
But if you like Harry Potter, if you love Harry Potter, you’re gonna go apeshit for this one. The tale of the Boy-Wizard finally concludes and it’s a helluva ride.
For more adult tastes, especially adults who menstrate, the Village 8 is bringing back Bridesmaids, the Kristen Wiig tour-de-force about a down-on-her-luck baker who competes with a rich, well-put together bitch (Rose Byrne) to host the ultimate bridal experience for a friend (Maya Rudolph.)
Bridesmaids is entertaining (I chuckled) but certainly women are gonna dig this way more than dudes. Writers Wiig and Annie Mumolo use their feminine touch and produce a flick that’s unique and totally relatable for the fairer sex. Compare this to something like the male-written (male-fantasy) Cameron Diaz vehicle Bad Teacher and it’s easy to see why Bridesmaids has pulled in $158 million domestically and become the most successful chick-targeted R-Rated comedy ever (beating out Sex and the Shitty.)
Hopefully the film execs are paying attention to Bridesmaids’ success and will start bankrolling more female-driven projects. Judging by the crap heap of films Hollywood’s pinched out onto us this summer, they really have nothing to lose.
The Download of the Week is an overly gory, hyper-violent and super stylized 80’s exploitation homage that’s even cooler than a Wizard with a laser gun. It’s Hobo with a Shotgun, it’s Canadian-made, and it’s definitely not for the Potter crowd.

Horrible Bosses and Kevin James next horrible movie

If she is the boss i like the company's dress code.

Notes from the back row- July 5th/2011

For years I’ve been pretty hard on the Whistler Village 8 for not having a 3D projector but it turns out Whistler’s lack of 3D might also mean we are seeing our films in better quality than other places.
There’s been a bit of controversy– apparently theatre owners and projectionists have been cutting corners and projecting on the cheap, lowering the luminance to extend the lives of their bulbs. (The 3D bulbs apparently cost twice as much as regular ones, and burn out twice as fast.)
Many people have complained that the 3D films look “too dark” and apparently Michael Bay recently sent a note to all 3D theatres imploring them to screen Transformers 3 with the projection specifications he included.
But the story doesn’t end there. Apparently some theatres are also running their 2D movies through the 3D projectors because swapping out a 3D projector is a lot of work and usually requires an expensive technician but 3D projectors distort the image on 2D flicks. So we can all thank the Village 8 for at least projecting our films properly and at the best quality possible.
(Here’s a tip – if you are watching a 2D movie somewhere else and it looks like crap, turn around. If you see two beams of light coming from the projection booth it means they are using the 3D system and screwing with the way the film should look. Ask for your money back plus a free pass.)
Of course, film projection is a real art form. Both Hitler and Joesph Stalin were huge movie buffs with private theaters and personal projectionists sweating bullets to make sure they didn’t screw up. The Inside Circle is a 1991 Russian film about a bright young projectionist who gets the gig working for Stalin only to realize that any mistake, even one botched reel swap-over, would mean certain death. Stalin, it seems, was a horrible boss.
And so, apparently, is Jennifer Anniston, who plays a sexed-up dentist continually harassing her sissy male hygienist in Horrible Bosses, opening (in beautiful 2D) this week at the Village 8.
Three losers (Charlie Day, Jason Sudekis, Jason Bateman) decide that in these tough economic times the only way to further their careers is to kill their bosses (Aniston, Colin Farrell, and Kevin Spacey.) Of course, things go horribly awry.
Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon made King Of Kong, one of the best documentaries of recent years, but he’s also responsible for the Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn crapheap Four Christmases so this one could go either way. It goes kinda bad.
Unlike Office Space, a classic comedy about the emasculation of the working man, Horrible Bosses gives us characters who are such pussies it defeats the premise. We don’t care for these guys and don’t feel they deserve success. The film is mostly montages and rape jokes but other than a few bits of humour and good-girl Jen Aniston talking slutty Horrible Bosses is a misfire, a squandered chance at doing something funny with a better-than-decent cast. Stupid R-rated humour can be awesome, so long as it isn’t too stupid.
Zookeeper also opens this Friday and to call it stupid would be high praise. Kevin James, who sucks yet continues to get work, stars as a zookeeper who has a hard time with the ladies. To help him out all the zoo animals suddenly reveal their secret (they can talk!) and vow to help him get a lady using their animal-style mating advice. It’s a PG rated kids movie with talking animals trying to help a loser get some pussy. So beyond stupid you could say this movie sucks asinine.

good short film – Plot Device

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.

Hardly anyone ever watches short films because so many of them are arty filmschool garbage made by people with fancy equipment and nothing to say and little or no sense of humour. This little flick though, is worth watching. Aimed primarily at geeky filmmakers, it still holds up for regular movie folks too. Good work Seth Worley and the people at Red Giant

Bad Teacher, Cars 2, Transformers

Bad Teacher, no apple.

Notes from the back row- June 21

Bad teachers and junky Cars

I’m down on teachers– high school especially. To be fair, molding the minds of our future is perhaps the most important job out there, and no teacher is paid what they should be, but as a kid I just wasn’t buying the whole uber-authoritive, all-knowing vibe many of them were laying down (plus I f@ckin’ knew I’d never use the quadratic equation ever again in my life, or need to know what year the Magna Carta was signed.) There are good teachers, but as they told us so many times, “It only takes one bad apple…”
Pity I didn’t have Cameron Diaz’s character from Bad Teacher, opening Friday at the Village 8. Diaz stars as a gold-digging pottymouth teacher who likes pot smoking, hard drinking and not doing her job. Rather, she focuses all her energy on wooing an overly-geeky, unrealistically wealthy substitute played by Justin Timberlake. Diaz is looking for a meal ticket so she can get out of the education game and focus on her real career, looking hot. The plot thickens when an overly keen colleague (Lucy Punch, killing it) also sets her sights on JT and the sarcastically awesome gym teacher (Jason Segel) pursues Diaz. Somewhere in there is a lesson to be learned, but it’s buried under f-bombs and wild-n-wet carwash fundraisers.
Bad Teacher isn’t as kick-ass as it sounds however. Rather than go for the bad taste jugular director Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard- Dewey Cox Story) eases up and doesn’t deliver as much ‘Bad’ as he should. Instead we get a one-note character in a patched-together script that lacks the punch of Bad Santa or the solid kid characters of School of Rock. Although there are moments of comedic brilliance it’s the writing that ultimately sinks this one. Bad Teacher deserves a “C” but we’ll give her a “B-“ because she looks so slippery when wet.
Speaking of road signs, Cars 2 rolls into town this week. Thanks to its toy line and merchandise, the first Cars has been Pixar’s biggest moneymaker to date so a sequel was no surprise. What is astounding is how much said sequel sucks.
The tenderly delivered moral lessons and the Americana-nostalgia of the first Cars are replaced by the glitz and glamour of a globe-trotting race circuit cut amongst an international espionage tale starring Mater the tow truck (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy.) They hang this film on the imbecile sidekick.
With predictable clichéd character arcs (how many times have we seen the “on-again-off-again Best Friend storyline?) and overly cheese-dick sentiment this one can easily win the title of “shittiest Pixar flick yet.” Which isn’t to say kids (young boys at least) aren’t gonna eat it up–there are few clever bits and decent James Bond-y action sequences. The 3D in Cars 2 is apparently not too bad but Whistler viewers will never know as we are exclusively 2D up here.
Pink Floyd fans might get a bit confused when Transformers: Dark of the Moon opens next Tuesday. It looks good but it’s 2 hours 37 minutes of movie without Megan Fox. Megan’s been replaced by Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington Whiteley and if you don’t know who that is you can just Google it on your iPhone. You can also look up when the Magna Carta was signed, Bernoulli’s principle of fluid dynamics, how to say “Pineapples cannot talk” in French, the equation for Photosynthesis and all the other crap you were forced to learn in high school and then instantly forgot in real life.

Green Lantern and the Penguins

Notes from the Back Row- june 14

“It’s certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life… At one time you’ve got it, and then you lose it, and it’s gone forever.”

Trainspotting was one of the best films of the 1990’s. The character Sick Boy proposed the above theory mostly to illustrate the downward trajectory of Sean Connery’s career post-James Bond but the concept holds for almost anyone, especially comedians. Take Jim Carrey for instance. He had a string of hits in the late 90’s (Me, Myself, and Irene, Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, The Mask, Man on the Moon) and in his heyday truly upped the ante for physical comedy (especially with his TV stuff on In Living Colour.) But getting old is hard on comedians and to prove it this Friday at the Village 8 Jim takes a shot at the “Funny CGI animals who poop a lot” genre with Mr Popper’s Penguins.
Carrey stars as a rich and successful (yet emotionally unfulfilled) real estate developer who inherits six penguins that turn his world upside down and teach him what’s important in life. To his credit, Carrey mugs it up in reaction shots and pulls out all his old tricks while dealing with not-real co-stars with characterization-names like “Stinky” and “Bitey.” The real problem isn’t even Carey however, it’s that director Mark Waters plays it safe and actually restrains his rubber-faced star from going full-out bonkers and possibly saving what is an otherwise stupid movie. Of course, it’s aimed at ten-year-olds so perhaps I’m expecting too much. One good thing is Carla Gugino also stars as Mr Popper’s ex wife and she is always worth it. Her all-naked role as Marv’s psychiatrist in Sin City was a high point but I knew she was a hitmaker as far back as Son in Law.
Sin City, coincidentally, is one of the best comic-to-movie adaptations because, while it certainly embraced the unrealistic, it also kept things down to earth. Green Lantern, also opening this Friday, goes off the charts the other direction, opening with a heavily CGI’d montage/backstory/prologue full of aliens, foreign planets, high concepts and drifting clouds of evil puke-looking stuff. Almost ten minutes later we meet some real humans, namely Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) a cocky fighter jet pilot who is chosen by a magic ring to save the world while simultaneously learning a valuable moral lesson about falling in love with Blake Lively.
Green Lantern is directed by Martin Campbell, the guy who rebooted the Bond franchise with Casino Royale. Unfortunately, he doesn’t bring the same level of grounded grittiness and Green Lantern ends up just being really out there and kind of hard to follow. Peter Sarsgaard stars as the bad guy but his giant forehead continuously throws the viewer out of the film. That kind of thing works in Sin City or Dick Tracy, where the filmmakers set up an alternate reality and ease the viewers into it, but here– not so much. Superhero fans might as well just go download The Green Hornet instead. At least those guys are having fun with it.
The good news is, Bad Teacher is coming next week and, if the R-rated red band trailer is any indication, Cameron Diaz’s boozy, pot smoking, trash talking teacher just might be the hit of the summer. Cameron Diaz made her film debut alongside Jim Carrey in The Mask and while she was never a superstar actress, whatever she had, she’s hung on to. Maybe Sick Boy’s theory only works on dudes…?

Red Band Trailer- Bad Teacher

Red band trailers are always so much better than the regular ones. This looks not that bad. With all the girl-power talk going on post-Bridesmaids this could be the one-two punch female driven comedy is looking for.

Super 8, Monster movies, crap-ass Judy Moody

Heather Graham is about the only good part of the Judy Moody movie, unfortunately she doesn't reprise the RollerGirl role.

Notes from the back row- june 6

Summer is usually full of action and romance flicks but anytime is a good time for a monster picture and this week producer Steven Speilberg and director JJ Abrams (Cloverfield, Lost) take us back to the old school with Super 8, a film set in 1979 that focuses around a group of kids, a weird train crash, some amateur filmmaking and a big ol’ monster.
Joe Lamb is a young teen who opens the film at his mother’s funeral while his buddies wonder if she has zombie potential. His cop-dad is a work-a-holic and about all he has going for him is a band of friends, a super 8 camera, and plans to make a horror movie starring the slightly older Alice, who comes from the wrong side of the tracks and ,of course, becomes the love interest. One the first night of filming a pick-up truck derails a train and the kids uncover a wicked-cool artifact and an ominous warning– “They will kill you. Do not speak of this or else you and your parents will die.”
Aside from the story, Super 8 is very much about a love of movies and making movies. Abrams, obviously a big fan of Speilberg, recognizes the film takes place in his hero’s golden era and he desperately wants to hit the same notes as classics like ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind or The Goonies. Abrams doesn’t quite get there (things unravel a bit as he moves towards the great reveal) but Super 8 is still pretty solid, a nice mix of sci-fi, horror and young romance. For real family entertainment (its rated PG-13) this is probably one of the better flicks of the summer. Makes a guy wish we had a drive-in theatre in one of those big-ass parking lots.
On the total opposite end of the spectrum, Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer makes a guy wish Doctor Kevorkian were still alive, so he could end the suffering. Directed by John Shultz, the “artist” responsible for such garbage as Like Mike and Aliens in the Attic, Judy Moody is aimed pretty much solely at Tween-age girls but even they should be able to see this one as being as much fun as picking undigested Ritalin out of a loud-and-messy shitpile.
Crap and other bodily excretion actually feature prominently in the film– Judy Moody encounters a face-full of puke and there’s a recurring gag about bigfoot shit (in a sandwich no less). This is what happens when c-rate filmmakers tackle d-rate source material and slap together a film with utterly unlikeable characters. Avoid at all costs, this one is as worse than running over your own dog, in front of your kids, and having it all somehow end up on Youtube.
And that’s it for new flicks. It’s a very kiddie-centric week at the good old Village 8. But for the rest of us, and keeping with monster movies, the Download of the week is John Carpenter’s The Thing.
The Thing stars Kurt Russell as part of a twelve-man Antarctic research team that fall prey to a savage shape-shifting alien that can assume any form, including human. With no help coming from the outside world the film is riddled with tension and paranoia as the crew attempt to discern who is really real and who might be….The Thing! This one, released in 1982, is a remake of an old Howard Hawkes flick and another remake, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim), is set to hit theatres this October, so check Carpenter’s out now, notable because it has absolutely no romantic subplot whatsoever. You don’t see that much anymore, summer or otherwise.

X-Girls love comic geeks

January Jones is in the new X-Men flick. Who new January could be so hot, it usually snows where i live.

Notes from the back row- June 1, 2011

Geek is the new chic. Gamers, hackers, and code monkeys are suddenly scoring the types of chicks usually reserved for jocks, pretty boys and trust-funder douches. Female geeks have always been pretty hot and while leading scientists are still unsure as to the exact cause of this phenomenum early reports accredit the Internet –dudes who know how to use a computer automatically know how to order shit from Victoriassecret.com or Tiffany.ca
Personally I think the recent rise of comic book movies is also helping break down doors. Geek is big money now that CGI technology and a lack of original ideas in Hollywood means comic stories can finally be done justice. As such, X-Men– First Class, opening Friday at the Village 8, is poised to be a massive success despite a ho-hum trailer and hard-to-sell concept (kid X-Men??WTF?)
Set in the 1960s Cold War, First Class is the 5th X-Men flick (if you count Wolverine) but with a smart script and solid acting it actually re-energizes what was a floundering franchise.
In this origin story we learn Professor Charles Xaviar (James MCAvoy from Wanted) used to be a real charmer back before the baldness set in and his future nemesis Magneto/Eirk (Michael Fassbender from Inglorious Basterds) had some pretty rough times at the hands of an Auschwitz-doctor-turned-nutbar (Kevin Bacon- slapping it on pretty thick but just pulling it off).
The two mutants become friends thanks to the CIA, who needs a hand with the Soviet/Cold War conflict. Chuck and Erik then hit a couple swinging strip clubs and a few other old-school setpieces in order to set up a band of merry mutants. And then it’s off to save the world.
Director Matthew Vaughn is an action specialist with a comic book pedigree (Kick-Ass) and Bryan Singer (who directed the first two X-Men, the good ones) is credited as one of the writers (he even ties the opening scene of First Class to his original X-Men flick) so First Class certainly has geek street cred.
The acting, even from the supporting mutants, is solid, the story is intelligent and there is a blatant “coming-out-of-the-closet” parallel for people who like thematic depth with their summer blockbuster ass-kicking and explosions. All in all, X-Men¬– First Class feels more like an old school James Bond Spy flick than a 2011 summer tentpole but it looks slick and watches must faster than its 130-minute runtime.
Speaking of pitching tents, First Class also stars January Jones (TV’s Mad Men) as Kevin Bacon’s frosty sidekick (too frosty perhaps) and Jennifer Lawrence and Rose Bryne also sport enough cleavage to remind us the 60s were a real groovy time.
I guess we should all pour some on the block and reminisce all the Blockbuster Video stores that will close down this month. Even though they never had one of those shady/awesome porn rooms in the back and they essentially put the mom-and-pop-movie-lover video stores out of business, Blockbuster wasn’t all bad– They had good selection and were the first joint to really take their snack section seriously so we didn’t have to go to a whole ‘nother store to get our Almond M&Ms. I won’t miss blockbuster (at all) but I guess I am glad they existed.
And thus the DVD is officially dead. Which means Hackers the 1995 compu-thriller (starring Fisher Stevens and Angelina Jolie with short hair) will be referred to as just “The Download of the Week.”
Hackers is cheesy but fun and it set up a future where the geek shall inherit the earth. That future is now.

Bonus Angelina shot.

Happy Panda, Hungover Hangover

Angelina's voice is back in Kung Fu Panda 2. The rest of her is still in our dreams.

Notes from the back row-

Return of the Sequel
With the Canucks pushing for the Cup it’s a wonder that anyone is out at the movies these days but if you are heading out for a flick this weekend get ready for some sequels.
Kung Fu Panda 2 opens this week and it’s one of those rare sequels that lives up to its predecessor. Jack Black returns as the voice of Po, a chunky Panda who learned to kick ass last time around and now has to save China, his own inner peace, and Kung Fu itself from a maniac peacock (Gary Oldman.) Said peacock also once murdered Po’s parents and if we learned anything from Tarantino it’s that Kung Fu and Revenge are a match made in heaven. The Furious Five supporting cast gets to do a lot more too this time around at only 91 minutes long things move quickly and are easy to like.
One of the biggest pit-traps of sequels is that they usually just recycle jokes from the first installment. Kung Fu Panda 2 avoids this (mostly) by going heavier on the action while still letting Jack Black do his thing. It’s worth checking out with the kids although Whistler is still without a 3D projector so make sure you warn the little ones beforehand to avoid disappointment. Also, Angelina Jolie is back voicing Tigress, so it’s good for adults too.
Speaking of adults, The Hangover Part 2, now playing, is this summer’s first R-rated comedy. To some extent this one does fall prey to the classic sequel recycling issues. Bear in mind that the bar was set pretty high– the first Hangover was the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time and relied on a unique one-off situation and virtually unknown, big talent stars in Zach Galifinakis and Bradley Cooper.
Now director Todd Phillips’ actors are A-listers but that comes with high expectations. The plot is essentially the same –the worst morning after ever– but Phillips changes the setting– to Bangkok this time, land of Ladyboys and drug dealing monkeys.
This time around the guys lose the bride’s younger brother but otherwise it’s more of the same – dudes yelling at each other, Tyson, Ken Jeong as the brunt of some Asian jokes, male full frontal, a decent car chase, and, in one of the worst calls ever, Paul Giamatti as a supposed tough-guy villain. I can barely stand Giamatti when he delivers award-winning performances. And this is far from that.
Despite the faults there is some decent juvenile humour to be had in The Hangover Part 2 (the title is a nod to The Godfather Part 2) will still appeal to high-fivin’ white kids stoked that university is over. For the rest of us however, this sequel feels kind of tired, kicked-in, nauseous and hungover.
Not much happening on the DVD/download front this week except Black Swan gets a release and is worth watching if you like dancing, psychological horror, Mila Kunis, or hallucinated lesbian cunnilingus scenes (or all the above.)
Also worth checking out– Inside Job, the documentary about how Wall Street swindled America and knowingly caused the last recession. This one is an Academy Award Winner and Goldman Sachs is all over the news lately because they are getting called out by everyone from the US government to Rolling Stone magazine for purposely screwing people over. The moral of it all – Banks suck ass and we should start keeping our movie admission money in coffee cans buried in the yard.
X-Men: First Class comes to town next week and until then, Go Nucks!

Angry Pirates ride the red tide.

you should see her younger sister...

Notes from the back row- May 17, 2011

Cannes you dig it?

The Cannes Film Fest is happening right now in the south of France and from what I hear about the dress code on those beaches, we all wish we were there. The big film event so far is The Tree of Life, from director Terrence Malik (The Thin Red Line, Badlands.) Apparently it’s a bit too cerebral for some audiences (there were some boos at the press screening) but The Tree of Life tackles big ideas about life an existence, and stars Brad Pitt as a tough-love father in the 1950s. We all know Brad doesn’t make shitty films, and Malik is a real cinema artist, so keep and eye out for this one, it’s supposed to come out over here later this month. Sean Penn also stars in a minor role.
Another flick getting at lot of press at Cannes is The Artist by French director Michel Hazanavicius. It’s a silent film, shot in black and white, with a square aspect ratio (aka really old school) and while those details will cost the film most of its North American audience real cinema lovers should check it out because how often do we get to see any filmmaker take a risk these days?
The Artist, set in late-20s Hollywood, is about a Douglas Fairbanks-esque silent film star whose career begins to slide with the advent of “the Talkies.” The French have always had a special appreciation for classic American Cinema and this one hits all the marks. Word on the beach is The Artist is the front-runner for the prestigious Palm D’Or but we’ll see how well it does over here–it’s a French movie but you don’t need subtitles. Maybe that will help with timid North American viewers.
Of course, Cannes isn’t all pomp, circumstance and topless broads. They do show Hollywood fare and last week they screened Pirates of the Caribbean 4 –On Stranger Tides, which opens at the Village 8 this Friday. Johnny Depp is back as Captain Jack Sparrow and this time the loveable rogue is race/searching to find the fountain of youth while bouncing around the ships of his old chum/enemy Barbossa (who’s turned and is working with the English) and Blackbeard, the pirate other pirates are afraid of.
The good news is Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly are gone, their love story is replaced by a dude and a thirsty mermaid. Luckily, Jack gets to flirt with Penelope, an old flame who may or may not be Blackbeard’s daughter, and there are a couple big action set-pieces in there too. This one is 2:08 long, the shortest of all the Pirate flicks, and sure, it drags a bit. Director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) has never done action before and it shows. You’d think ‘choppy’ editing might work in a sword fight scene but not here. Pirates 4 is the probably the worst of the bunch but it still delivers up to anyone’s realistically expected. Keith Richards and Judi Dench have cameos and Depp does his thing. And much like the best way to kick off summer movie season, Penelope Cruz is smokin’.
That’s pretty much it for new flicks so the dvd/download of the week is 1964s Band a Parte (Band of Outsiders) by Jean Luc Goddard. It’s a love story, a bromance, a mystery, a thriller and a comedy. It also stars Anna Karina and contains cinema’s coolest dance sequence (shot without music.)
On the other end of the spectrum, Leighton Meester and Minka Kelly star in The Roommate, a really bad movie with incredibly hot chicks. It’s also out on DVD/download.