FaveBot

True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 3 days ago
• #

Returning for its fifth season, True Blood is HBO’s sexy, scary, wildly entertaining drama series from Oscar®- and Emmy®-winner Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. In addition to returning cast favorites – human/faerie waitress Sookie Stackhouse, her vampire suitors Bill Compton and Eric Northman, soul-searching pal Tara, shape-shifting boss Sam, rakish brother Jason, clairvoyant Lafayette and teen-vamp Jessica – Season 5 introduces a whole new wave of otherworldly characters. There’s Vampire Guardian Roman, president of the Vampire Authority, who wants co-existence between humans and vampires; vampire zealot Salome (yes, the Salome), intent on recreating the world in God’s vampyric image; Authority Chancellor Nora, who shares the same maker as Eric; werewolves J.D. and Martha, who want a reluctant Alcide to take his rightful place as packmaster; and many more. Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, True Blood Season 5 goes deep into the battle between the Vampire Authority and “vampire fundamentalists” – a political power play whose outcome could decide not only the fate of Sookie and her Bon Temps friends, but of all human existence. Directed by: Various Actors: Various, Category:

Silver Linings Playbook

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 3 days ago
• #

Life doesn't always go according to plan. Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper) has lost everything -- his house, his job, and his wife. He now finds himself living back with his mother (Jacki Weaver) and father (Robert DeNiro) after spending eight months is a state institution on a plea bargain. Pat is determined to rebuild his life, remain positive and reunite with his wife, despite the challenging circumstances of their separation. All Pat's parents want is for him to get back on his feet-and to share their family's obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles football team. When Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a mysterious girl with problems of her own, things get complicated. Tiffany offers to help Pat reconnect with his wife, but only if he'll do something very important for her in return. As their deal plays out, an unexpected bond begins to form between them, and silver linings appear in both of their lives.In lesser hands than director David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook could have been a typically cringe-inducing throwaway Hollywood rom-com. As it is, this unusual and deeply affecting story of crazy love is a bold observation about the joys and tragedy of life lived by deeply flawed characters facing triumph and adversity against a backdrop of painfully familiar family dysfunction. It's also a tremendous achievement in formal structure, with a flair for storytelling that's as moving as it is delightful. Bradley Cooper plays Pat, an until-recently undiagnosed bipolar person who's just home from a lengthy stay in a mental institution and doing his darnedest to get his head and his life back on track. His concerned parents, vividly embodied by Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, have plenty of troubles of their own when they warily take him in and tiptoe around the eggshells of a psyche that still veers wildly from seeming self-control to scary bouts of mania. Pat has a plan to win back the unfaithful wife whose restraining order is still in force because of the violent episode that sent him away after he nearly killed her lover. Interjected into this wobbly family scenario is Tiffany, a friend of a friend who is embroiled in her own turmoil of mental instability following the recent death of her husband. Jennifer Lawrence is a charming revelation as Tiffany, flexing sensitive acting muscles that are as toned as her lithe form. She throws herself into the role of a depressed, promiscuous young woman who needs Pat in her life about as much as she needs another personal tornado to rip her apart. But the movie magically reveals that these two disturbed souls have a destiny that's never really in doubt; although the whirlwind turns the movie takes to get them there are often breathtaking. Russell liberally adapted the movie from Matthew Quick's 2008 novel, and he deftly imbues the story with a vibrant sense of place (suburban, blue-collar Philadelphia) and each character, no matter how tangential to Pat and Tiffany's journey, with quirks and nuances that brilliantly reveal their essence. The subject of mental illness has rarely been portrayed with such honesty and candid respect. Constantly keeping us off guard, Silver Linings Playbook soars from darkness to a kind of screwball comedy that is as tender and touching as it is unpredictable. There are several tour-de-force moments that Russell constructs with the surest hand of direction, dialogue, and the talents of his cast. A key scene unfolds in a small living room where eight people are crammed together, each adding important pieces to the whole, and which thrums with a masterfully rhythmic pace. Another sequence follows the buildup to one of Pat's manic outbursts with a dizzying and increasingly stressful manifestation of the madness careening around in his head. It seems hard to believe that a love story with real humor, real pain, and genuine resonance that gets from point A to point B--it begins with a lone figure mumbling to himself and ends with a jubilantly staged ballroom dance--can succeed with so few missteps. But Silver Linings Playbook turns it all into an absorbing reality wherein life stumbles heartwarmingly toward what real love is all about. --Ted Fry Directed by: David O. Russell Actors: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Anupam Kher, Category:

Parker

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 5 days ago
• #

Parker (Jason Statham) is a professional thief who lives by a personal code of ethics: Don't steal from people who can't afford it and don't hurt people who don't deserve it. But on his latest heist, his crew double crosses him, steals his stash, and leaves him for dead. Determined to make sure they regret it, Parker tracks them to Palm Beach, playground of the rich and famous, where the crew is planning their biggest heist ever. Donning the disguise of a rich Texan, Parker takes on an unlikely partner, Leslie (Jennifer Lopez), a savvy insider, who's short on cash, but big on looks, smarts and ambition. Together, they devise a plan to hijack the score, take everyone down and get away clean. Also starring Michael Chiklis.The great crime novelist Donald E. Westlake was so prolific that he required several pen names to attach to books that covered all the writing styles at his command. Much loved by many was Richard Stark, Westlake's moniker for the author who wrote about a deliciously enigmatic professional thief named Parker. Parker has shown up in several movie adaptations, but Parker is the first to identify him with that name. Even though hulking bulldog Jason Statham plays him with the brute force and inelegant craft that has made the actor such a predictable action hero, Parker neatly captures the essence of the man that Westlake/Stark painted on the page. Parker is ostensibly based on the Parker novel Flashfire, though its plot is essentially the same kind of revenge tale all the other Parker character movies have been. After a well-planned heist (a terrific sequence staged at the Ohio State Fair), Parker's cohorts double-cross him and leave him for dead. But he recovers like the superhuman criminal hero he is and goes on a laser-focused quest to get back his share of the score--nothing more, nothing less. If it so happens that he kills a bunch of worse bad guys and ends up with far more than was owed him along the way, well, Parker won't complain. Veteran director Taylor Hackford more than carries the weight for both Parker and Statham, crafting set pieces and entertaining crime fantasies right up to the inevitable happy ending for our felonious yet principled protagonist. Parker makes his way from Ohio to New Orleans to Palm Beach, among other places, in tracking down the gang that jacked him. Each setting has a distinct sense of place, and we root for Parker in exactly the right way to show that bad guys can often be good even when they're doing terrible things. The Palm Beach third act is first rate, not least because of Jennifer Lopez, who plays a lonely real-estate agent who haplessly teams with Parker for some less than predictable shenanigans. Lopez seems to be hoping for the same kind of impact she made in Steven Soderbergh's terrific Elmore Leonard adaptation Out of Sight way back in 1998. Though Parker is not nearly as great a movie, Lopez truly shines. The same goes for an interesting and committed supporting cast that includes Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Patti LuPone, Bobby Cannavale, and a thoroughly ravaged-looking Nick Nolte. Lots of movies have made heroes out of criminals--yay! the bad guy wins!--and Parker makes a fine entry to the world of violent, fun fantasies in which crooks come out on top. Statham's line featured in the Parker trailer pretty much describes his ethos as well as the movie's slick take on crime-does-pay: "I don't steal from people who can't afford it, and I don't hurt people who don't deserve it." Would that all Hollywood action movies could carry the same credo. --Ted Fry Directed by: Taylor Hackford Actors: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Category:

King Creole

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 6 days ago
• #

Elvis Presley delivers one of his finest early performances in King Creole. Elvis plays a teenager named Danny Fisher, who is forced to drop out of school to help support his ineffective father (Dean Jagger). Drawn to trouble like a magnet, Danny is saved from a jail term by New Orleans salloonkeeper Charlie Le Grand (Paul Stewart), who gives the boy a job as a singer. It isn't long, however, before local gang boss Maxie Fields (Walter Matthau), a shadowy figure from Danny's criminal past, puts the muscle on the boy, insisting that Danny sing at his establishment. To lure Danny to his side of the fence, Maxie relies upon the seductive charms of his gun moll Ronnie (Carolyn Jones), while Danny's true love Nellie (Dolores Hart) suffers on the sidelines. In addition to the expected musical numbers (which are cleverly integrated into the storyline), the film's highlight is a brief exchange of fisticuffs between Elvis and Walter Matthau. Together with Jailhouse Rock, King Creole is one of the best filmed examples of the untamed, pre-army Elvis Presley. The picture was adapted from Harold Robbins' novel A Stone for Danny Fisher.Before his handlers convinced him to settle for the safety of a screen franchise, the young Elvis Presley harbored riskier dreams as an actor, not just a star. This 1958 drama, his fourth feature outing, hints at the underlying seriousness of that goal. Presley plays Danny Fisher, a New Orleans teenager struggling to graduate from high school while working in a sleazy French Quarter club to support his family. He's also characterized as a troubled youth with a dangerous temper and feelings of shame and resentment toward his meek, unemployed father (Dean Jagger). When Danny's gift for singing provides him with a potential career break (and the requisite excuse for Elvis's production numbers), his involvement with a ruthless gangster (Walter Matthau) and his sultry, alcoholic moll (Carolyn Jones) soon threatens both his future and his family.

That story line, with Danny torn between a budding romance with a good waitress (Dolores Hart) and the bad moll, Ronnie (Jones), proves as effective as it is predictable, hardly surprising given its source in an early Harold Robbins bestseller. But King Creole also boasts an impressive production pedigree (including the team behind no less a classic than Casablanca, producer Hal Wallis and director Michael Curtiz), and the supporting cast helps elicit one of Presley's most emotional performances. Jones in particular rises above her role's inherent clichés, her self-loathing and sexuality both palpable. Presley, still a few years away from the more sanitized image that would be integral to those franchise features, is young enough to be a credible teen, but more crucially he makes his rage and yearning largely convincing.

Ironically, the dramatic sparks prove all the more welcome in light of the largely forgettable music, which variously plunders Chicago blues ("Trouble," a knock-off of "Hoochie Coochie Man") and unconvincingly crosses Presley's Memphis rock with Crescent City jazz ("Dixieland Rock"), all to far less effect than Presley's two preceding movies, Jailhouse Rock and Loving You. --Sam Sutherland Category:

Silver Linings Playbook (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet)

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 7 days ago
• #

Life doesn't always go according to plan. Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper) has lost everything -- his house, his job, and his wife. He now finds himself living back with his mother (Jacki Weaver) and father (Robert DeNiro) after spending eight months is a state institution on a plea bargain. Pat is determined to rebuild his life, remain positive and reunite with his wife, despite the challenging circumstances of their separation. All Pat's parents want is for him to get back on his feet-and to share their family's obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles football team. When Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a mysterious girl with problems of her own, things get complicated. Tiffany offers to help Pat reconnect with his wife, but only if he'll do something very important for her in return. As their deal plays out, an unexpected bond begins to form between them, and silver linings appear in both of their lives.In lesser hands than director David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook could have been a typically cringe-inducing throwaway Hollywood rom-com. As it is, this unusual and deeply affecting story of crazy love is a bold observation about the joys and tragedy of life lived by deeply flawed characters facing triumph and adversity against a backdrop of painfully familiar family dysfunction. It's also a tremendous achievement in formal structure, with a flair for storytelling that's as moving as it is delightful. Bradley Cooper plays Pat, an until-recently undiagnosed bipolar person who's just home from a lengthy stay in a mental institution and doing his darnedest to get his head and his life back on track. His concerned parents, vividly embodied by Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, have plenty of troubles of their own when they warily take him in and tiptoe around the eggshells of a psyche that still veers wildly from seeming self-control to scary bouts of mania. Pat has a plan to win back the unfaithful wife whose restraining order is still in force because of the violent episode that sent him away after he nearly killed her lover. Interjected into this wobbly family scenario is Tiffany, a friend of a friend who is embroiled in her own turmoil of mental instability following the recent death of her husband. Jennifer Lawrence is a charming revelation as Tiffany, flexing sensitive acting muscles that are as toned as her lithe form. She throws herself into the role of a depressed, promiscuous young woman who needs Pat in her life about as much as she needs another personal tornado to rip her apart. But the movie magically reveals that these two disturbed souls have a destiny that's never really in doubt; although the whirlwind turns the movie takes to get them there are often breathtaking. Russell liberally adapted the movie from Matthew Quick's 2008 novel, and he deftly imbues the story with a vibrant sense of place (suburban, blue-collar Philadelphia) and each character, no matter how tangential to Pat and Tiffany's journey, with quirks and nuances that brilliantly reveal their essence. The subject of mental illness has rarely been portrayed with such honesty and candid respect. Constantly keeping us off guard, Silver Linings Playbook soars from darkness to a kind of screwball comedy that is as tender and touching as it is unpredictable. There are several tour-de-force moments that Russell constructs with the surest hand of direction, dialogue, and the talents of his cast. A key scene unfolds in a small living room where eight people are crammed together, each adding important pieces to the whole, and which thrums with a masterfully rhythmic pace. Another sequence follows the buildup to one of Pat's manic outbursts with a dizzying and increasingly stressful manifestation of the madness careening around in his head. It seems hard to believe that a love story with real humor, real pain, and genuine resonance that gets from point A to point B--it begins with a lone figure mumbling to himself and ends with a jubilantly staged ballroom dance--can succeed with so few missteps. But Silver Linings Playbook turns it all into an absorbing reality wherein life stumbles heartwarmingly toward what real love is all about. --Ted Fry Directed by: David O. Russell Actors: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Anupam Kher, Category:

Dark Command

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 10 days ago
• #

From the star and director of The Big Trail. In this pre-civil war saga - a Confederate renegade William Cantrell (Walter Pidgeon) clashes with the new Kansas City marshal, Bob Seton (John Wayne). Their mutual ill towards each other peaks when Cantrell steals Seton's girl, Marie McCloud (Claire Trevor), manipulating her into marriage to get even with Seton. Marie starts to question her decision when Seton exposes Cantrell and his guerrillas as war profiteers who've been raiding both Union and Confederate lines. The star-studded cast includes Roy Rogers as Marie's younger brother and George "Gabby" Hayes as Seton's best friend. Beautifully directed by legendary director Raoul Walsh (Pursued). Academy Awardsr nominee for Best Art Direction (John Victor Mackay) and Best Original Score (Victor Young).Historically dubious but vigorously entertaining, Dark Command is the best of John Wayne's many movies for Republic (not counting Wayne's lovely producing debut Angel and the Badman and those two John Ford films). Set in "Bleeding Kansas" just before and during the Civil War, it highlights the romantic triangle of amiable but unschooled Texan Wayne, banker's daughter Claire Trevor, and schoolmaster Walter Pidgeon--just long enough for the earnest pedagogue to become embittered, turn into bushwhacker William Quantrill (here Cantrell), and start wreaking havoc in the Border States. This was Republic's first star vehicle for Wayne, following his breakthrough in Stagecoach (away from Republic), and it's an uncharacteristically impressive production: good writers working from a W.R. Burnett novel, Raoul Walsh brought in to direct, music by Victor Young, and strong costars and supporting cast (Marjorie Main, Porter Hall, Raymond Walburn--and Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes!). Wayne himself is delightful. --Richard T. Jameson Directed by: Raoul Walsh Actors: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Walter Pidgeon, Roy Rogers, George Gabby Hayes, Category:

Ministry of Fear (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 10 days ago
• #

Suffused with dread and paranoia, this Fritz Lang (M) adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene (The Third Man) is a plunge into the eerie shadows of a world turned upside down by war. En route to London after being released from a mental institution, Stephen Neale (The Lost Weekend’s Ray Milland) stops at a seemingly innocent village fair, after which he finds himself caught in the web of a sinister underworld with possible Nazi connections. Lang was among the most illustrious of the European émigré filmmakers working in Hollywood during World War II, and Ministry of Fear is one of his finest American productions, an unpredictable thriller with style to spare.Though not as well known or praised as some of director Fritz Lang's other film noir efforts like The Big Heat (1953) or The Woman in the Window (1944), his 1944 thriller Ministry of Fear remains a visually striking and frequently taut blend of noir tropes and wartime espionage drama. Based on the novel by Graham Greene, the picture stars Ray Milland as a man, newly released from an asylum, who becomes embroiled in a plot by Nazi agents in England to deliver Allied military plans into the hands of the enemy. He soon finds himself the quarry of both the Axis and British police, with only comely Austrian refugee Marjorie Reynolds (Holiday Inn) to help him. Aided immeasurably by Henry Sharp's cinematography, which steeps the action in an almost supernatural layer of white fog, and Victor Young's suspenseful score, Ministry of Fear works best at depicting the mounting layers of threats, all seemingly unrelated, that weave around Milland, underscoring his questionable mental state and Lang's ability to tap into the psychological elements of noir. Once the disparate threads come together, the film becomes a bit more standard-issue thriller material, due in part to associate producer Seton I. Miller's script, which sands down the emotional complexities of Greene's source material (much to the dismay of the author, who disavowed the final product). But Lang completists and noir aficionados should appreciate this lesser effort from the director, especially with so much to recommend it, from Milland, one year away from his Oscar win for The Lost Weekend, and Dan Duryea's alarming turn as a duplicitous tailor with a pair of lethal shears, to Criterion's crisp 2K digital restoration. The Criterion Blu-ray and DVD are supplemented by a 17-minute interview with Lang scholar Joe McElhaney, who discusses the film's production, its relation to other works by the director, and its comparison to Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, among other topics. An original theatrical trailer and liner notes by Glenn Kenney round out the extras. --Paul Gaita Directed by: Fritz Lang Actors: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram, Category:

The Miracle of the Bells [Blu-ray]

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 13 days ago
• #

Hollywood press agent Bill Dunnigan (Fred MacMurray) attempts to carry out a deathbed promise he made to the only girl he ever loved, an aspiring actress names Olga Treskovna (Alida Valli), who dies after completing her first and only film. As promised, Bill takes her body to the Pennsylvania coal town of her birth for the funeral arrangements. To arouse public interest, and get the reluctant studio to release the film, he enlists the aid of local priest Father Paul (Frank Sinatra) and asks all the local churches to ring their bells for three days. Studio head, Marcus Harris (Lee J. Cobb) wants to reshoot the film with a movie star, rather than risk losing a fortune on an "unknown" whom he can no longer groom for stardom. Her story becomes a national phenomenon, but will this man-made miracle convince Harris to change his mind or will it take a genuine miracle. Irving Pichel (The Most Dangerous Game) directs this wonderful, heartwarming classic that recalls such films as Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary. Ben Hecht and Quentin Reynolds adapted the best-selling novel by Russell Janney. Directed by: Irving Pichel Actors: Fred MacMurray, Alida Valli, Frank Sinatra, Lee J. Cobb, Category:

The Four

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 17 days ago
• #

Gangs of spies. A royal secret service. A covert governing organization. A divine constabulary. Everyone wants to know about a stolen coin cast and a mysterious circulation of counterfeit currency. Every government agency and financial interest in the region has an interest and a plan. But this scam is only the beginning of their problems.
Something supernatural is happening. Someone is forming an army of the undead, created to crush anything that stands in their way, making their way to the capital.
Coldblood. Iron Hands. Emotionless. Life Snatcher.
They are kung fu superheroes. They are THE FOUR.
And they may be our only chance.
Based on the greatly-loved novel The Four Detective Guards by Wen Ruian, Gordon Chan’s (THE KING OF FIGHTERS, PAINTED SKIN, THE KUNG FU MASTER) film adaptation is the first for the big screen, and the beginning of a planned trilogy.


DVD EXTRAS
Making of
Deleted Scenes
Trailer


English Subtitles Directed by: Gordon ChanJanet Chun Actors: Deng Chao, Ronald Cheng, Liu Yi Fei, Wu Xiu Bo, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Category:

Jack Reacher (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)

• Tracked by: DVD for Novel , 17 days ago
• #

From The New York Times bestselling author Lee Child comes one of the most compelling heroes to step from novel to screen - ex-military investigator Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise). When a gunman takes five lives with six shots, all evidence points to the suspect in custody. On interrogation, the suspect offers up a single note: “Get Jack Reacher!” So begins an extraordinary chase for the truth, pitting Jack Reacher against an unexpected enemy, with a skill for violence and a secret to keep and a target on Reacher’s back. When you hire Tom Cruise to be in your Tom Cruise movie, there's never a question that you're going to get your money's worth. The movie may not be worth the expense, but as a professional who delivers 100 percent 100 percent of the time, Cruise will give the proceedings his undivided attention. In Jack Reacher Cruise plays the title character with complete gusto, and even though it ends up a pretty run-of-the-mill crime drama, his presence and commitment elevates this violent, bloody, and attractively atmospheric movie to the level of, well, a reliably pleasurable Tom Cruise experience. Jack Reacher is the protagonist in a series of popular novels by Lee Child. There was some sniping among fans that Cruise bears no resemblance to Child's Reacher, a burly, shadowy former army policeman who has moved into the private investigator business--but mostly for Cruise himself. No matter; as a leading man, Cruise is always going to be himself anyway, so the ghostlike qualities built in to his character take on their own mythical qualities that allow both Cruise and Reacher to get the job done. In a somewhat unsettling opening sequence that shows a lone gunman killing a handful of seemingly random people at a public park, the mystery is born and Reacher materializes to help the police sort things out. Again seemingly, the killer has been positively identified and apprehended and is dead-to-rights guilty. But this former army sniper asks for Jack Reacher to suss out the deeper crazy truth. Reacher and the alleged gunman have a history that dates back to their military service when Reacher investigated him for heinously murdering civilians during a psychotic break, a crime that he really did commit, but for which he went unpunished due to one of those pesky legal technicalities. Nevertheless, Reacher's goal is justice, and his investigative instincts tell him this new crime points in an entirely different direction. There are several sequences that play brilliantly in the context of Reacher's skill as a killing machine on his own. One takes place in the close confines of a tiny hallway and bathroom where Reacher faces down a posse of thugs armed with guns and a baseball bat, besting them all in a flurry of acrobatic brutality. He also single-handedly beats up a gang of toughs in the alley behind a bar. But the movie's high point is an excellent chase scene between two roaring muscle cars on the dark streets of Pittsburgh (the city itself plays a great role throughout), with Cruise clearly and expertly handling the wheel himself. Though somewhat convoluted, the plot is well conceived and the large cast supports Cruise's commanding presence nicely. Richard Jenkins and Robert Duvall do their usual excellent work, though it is Werner Herzog as a wildly over-the-top villain who makes things positively gleeful in his few scenes. Of course it always comes back to Tom Cruise and his dedication to the movie's greater good that makes Jack Reacher so enjoyable, even when its reach exceeds its grasp. --Ted Fry Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie Actors: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, David Oyelowo, Werner Herzog, Category: