New DVD Releases: May 10
You will heart this week's New DVD Releases! First up, one of the best independent films of the year, the heartbreaking love story Blue Valentine, featuring bravura performances from Ryan Gosling and Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams. Oscar winner Natalie Portman is joined by Ashton Kutcher for the little sex comedy romp No Strings Attached, about two friends who try their hand at the age-old canard of "friends with benefits." The documentary Never Say Never chronicles the unlikely and unstoppable overnight success story that is Justin Bieber, who went from YouTube kid to selling out Madison Square Garden in just two years. Finally, the Oscar-nominated director of The Triplets of Belleville returns with another animated masterpiece, the Oscar-nominated film The Illusionist. Come back again next Tuesday to catch a fresh set of New DVD Releases!
Writer-director Derek Cianfrance devastates with his second independent feature, a thrillingly authentic heartbreaker of a love story. Blue Valentine (Starting at $16.99: Up to 43% in Savings) finds married couple Dean (Ryan Gosling), a house painter, and Cindy (Michelle Williams, nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance), a nurse, struggling to raise their young daughter in hardscrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania. The thousand papercuts of domestic life--a missing dog, Dean's apparent lack of ambition, sexual harassment from a doctor colleague--have left Cindy cold and disillusioned. To try and regain their spark, Dean impulsively books a getaway at a honeymoon hotel. Through flashbacks, we learn how the couple met and fell madly in love: Dean, working for a moving company, painstakingly decorates a WWII veteran's room in the same convalescent home where Cindy visits her grandmother. Fate brings them back together, just as Cindy realizes that she's pregnant. Their beautiful, sweet courtship makes the agonizing death of their love affair all the more savage. Featuring a magnificent musical score from Brooklyn band Grizzly Bear, the film--which was mostly improvised, including the delicate scenes between Gosling and Williams on the streets of Brooklyn--is spectacular, carried off with a realism and integrity rarely achieved in movies about young relationships. Simply crushing, but gorgeous all the same for its depressingly true-to-life depiction of how love fades. Get it Now on Aol Shopping.
Ivan Reitman directs Oscar winner Natalie Portman alongside Ashton Kutcher in a film about sophisticated relationships (told in an entirely unsophisticated way). No Strings Attached (Starting at $16.99: Up to 43% in Savings) follows the relationship between long-time friends Emma (Portman), a young beautiful doctor, and Adam (Kutcher), an up-and-coming television writer. Having popped in and out of one another's lives for years--including when they were young, and Emma rejected Adam--suddenly the two find themselves tumbling in bed together. Emma--in part because she is preoccupied with her residency at a hospital--worries that their friendship will suffer if they begin a relationship, so she proposes having casual sex and eschewing love. Adam agrees at first, but before long he finds himself becoming jealous of Emma's colleagues, showering her with gifts, and falling in love. Meanwhile, Adam's flirtatious father Alvin (Kevin Kline) begins dating one of his exes, making things even more challenging. Emma tries to ward off Adam, believing that love is an impossibility, and that she will inevitably hurt him. But when she succeeds, she begins to realize that her feelings for Adam are stronger than she thought. Crude humor and a stale, predictable rom-com plot derail what is otherwise a complex adult conversation piece--is sex without love possible to sustain? Get it Now on Aol Shopping.
I can say, unequivocally, that I will never watch this movie. Take that, Bieber. Never Say Never (Starting at $17.99: Up to 40% in Savings) is the documentary experience that follows teen pop sensation Justin Bieber as he emerges from complete obscurity overnight to become a global music icon, culminating in a sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden. Just two years before the concert--which is the centerpiece of the film--Bieber was just a small town teenager screwing around on the drum set, recording videos of himself and posting them on YouTube. Interviews with his single mother, vocal coach, producer Scooter Braun, and mentor Usher are juxtaposed against home video footage that chronicles Bieber's unlikely meteoric rise to prominence. As he attempts to keep his feet on the ground--with the help of his loved ones and by spending time with his childhood friends--he is greeted by legions of delirious teeny boppers screaming their dingbat heads off. He is taken on a whirlwind tour leading up to the show, performing alongside such names as Miley Cyrus, Boyz II Men, and Jaden Smith. Good for you kid, I'm not in the least bit jealous. Okay, maybe a little. Get it Now on Aol Shopping.
Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) directs this luminous and austere animated feature based on a screenplay written by famous French mime, actor and director Tati as an homage to his estranged daughter. The Illusionist (Starting at $28.88: Up to 26% in Savings)--nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature--follows a lonely, 1950s French illusionist named Tatischeff as he struggles to compete with more modern forms of art. His humble but whimsical act continually is brushed aside in favor of newer acts--namely a rock band--forcing him to take his ornery rabbit on the road to increasingly smaller and more humble venues. From bars, to restaurants, and even to private parties, the illusionist gamely plies his trade, even as the future becomes more and more dim. In a remote Scottish village with no other entertainment, he for a time regains his luster, enough to catch the eye of a young lady named Alice. Convinced that he is a real magician, capable of supernatural feats, she tags along with him to Edinburgh. The illusionist showers fatherly affection on Alice, selling off everything to keep her happy, but all the while knowing that eventually she will learn that he is nothing but an illusion. Heartbreaking, whimsical and languid, this is a triumphant work of art. Get it Now on Aol Shopping.
Writer-director Derek Cianfrance devastates with his second independent feature, a thrillingly authentic heartbreaker of a love story. Blue Valentine (Starting at $16.99: Up to 43% in Savings) finds married couple Dean (Ryan Gosling), a house painter, and Cindy (Michelle Williams, nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance), a nurse, struggling to raise their young daughter in hardscrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania. The thousand papercuts of domestic life--a missing dog, Dean's apparent lack of ambition, sexual harassment from a doctor colleague--have left Cindy cold and disillusioned. To try and regain their spark, Dean impulsively books a getaway at a honeymoon hotel. Through flashbacks, we learn how the couple met and fell madly in love: Dean, working for a moving company, painstakingly decorates a WWII veteran's room in the same convalescent home where Cindy visits her grandmother. Fate brings them back together, just as Cindy realizes that she's pregnant. Their beautiful, sweet courtship makes the agonizing death of their love affair all the more savage. Featuring a magnificent musical score from Brooklyn band Grizzly Bear, the film--which was mostly improvised, including the delicate scenes between Gosling and Williams on the streets of Brooklyn--is spectacular, carried off with a realism and integrity rarely achieved in movies about young relationships. Simply crushing, but gorgeous all the same for its depressingly true-to-life depiction of how love fades. Get it Now on Aol Shopping.Ivan Reitman directs Oscar winner Natalie Portman alongside Ashton Kutcher in a film about sophisticated relationships (told in an entirely unsophisticated way). No Strings Attached (Starting at $16.99: Up to 43% in Savings) follows the relationship between long-time friends Emma (Portman), a young beautiful doctor, and Adam (Kutcher), an up-and-coming television writer. Having popped in and out of one another's lives for years--including when they were young, and Emma rejected Adam--suddenly the two find themselves tumbling in bed together. Emma--in part because she is preoccupied with her residency at a hospital--worries that their friendship will suffer if they begin a relationship, so she proposes having casual sex and eschewing love. Adam agrees at first, but before long he finds himself becoming jealous of Emma's colleagues, showering her with gifts, and falling in love. Meanwhile, Adam's flirtatious father Alvin (Kevin Kline) begins dating one of his exes, making things even more challenging. Emma tries to ward off Adam, believing that love is an impossibility, and that she will inevitably hurt him. But when she succeeds, she begins to realize that her feelings for Adam are stronger than she thought. Crude humor and a stale, predictable rom-com plot derail what is otherwise a complex adult conversation piece--is sex without love possible to sustain? Get it Now on Aol Shopping.I can say, unequivocally, that I will never watch this movie. Take that, Bieber. Never Say Never (Starting at $17.99: Up to 40% in Savings) is the documentary experience that follows teen pop sensation Justin Bieber as he emerges from complete obscurity overnight to become a global music icon, culminating in a sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden. Just two years before the concert--which is the centerpiece of the film--Bieber was just a small town teenager screwing around on the drum set, recording videos of himself and posting them on YouTube. Interviews with his single mother, vocal coach, producer Scooter Braun, and mentor Usher are juxtaposed against home video footage that chronicles Bieber's unlikely meteoric rise to prominence. As he attempts to keep his feet on the ground--with the help of his loved ones and by spending time with his childhood friends--he is greeted by legions of delirious teeny boppers screaming their dingbat heads off. He is taken on a whirlwind tour leading up to the show, performing alongside such names as Miley Cyrus, Boyz II Men, and Jaden Smith. Good for you kid, I'm not in the least bit jealous. Okay, maybe a little. Get it Now on Aol Shopping.Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) directs this luminous and austere animated feature based on a screenplay written by famous French mime, actor and director Tati as an homage to his estranged daughter. The Illusionist (Starting at $28.88: Up to 26% in Savings)--nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature--follows a lonely, 1950s French illusionist named Tatischeff as he struggles to compete with more modern forms of art. His humble but whimsical act continually is brushed aside in favor of newer acts--namely a rock band--forcing him to take his ornery rabbit on the road to increasingly smaller and more humble venues. From bars, to restaurants, and even to private parties, the illusionist gamely plies his trade, even as the future becomes more and more dim. In a remote Scottish village with no other entertainment, he for a time regains his luster, enough to catch the eye of a young lady named Alice. Convinced that he is a real magician, capable of supernatural feats, she tags along with him to Edinburgh. The illusionist showers fatherly affection on Alice, selling off everything to keep her happy, but all the while knowing that eventually she will learn that he is nothing but an illusion. Heartbreaking, whimsical and languid, this is a triumphant work of art. Get it Now on Aol Shopping.
