Two very different comedies about sex addiction are among the new releases available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.
Joseph Gordon-Levittโs writing and directing debut, Don Jon, is the better of the two. An often hilarious take on Don Juan filtered through Saturday Night Fever, Gordon-Levittโs character is a hip young man living on his own, albeit with dutiful weekly meals with his parents and sister who also lives on her own, but comes to visit. The rest of his time is spent working, taking college courses, hanging out with friends, picking up women for sex and spending hours on-line looking at porn, which gives him more satisfaction than real life hook-ups. His relationship with two women, a controlling Scarlett Johanssen and a needy older widow (Julianne Moore) will slowly ease his addiction to porn.
Tony Danza and Glenne Headly make welcome appearances as Gordon-Levittโs parents and rising star Brie Larson nails the part of his not so little sister.
Stuart Blumberg, the co-writer of The Kids Are All Right makes his directing debut with Thanks for Sharing, a not completely successful take on the same subject. This one follows the ups and downs of three male sex addicts (Mark Ruffalo, Tim Robbins and Josh Gad) and one female sex addict (Alecia Moore, better known as Pink).
The biggest problem with the film is the boring, mismatched romance of Ruffalo and tri-athlete Gwyneth Paltrow. Their scenes tend to drag down the rest of the film which is only marginally better.
Robbins is the veteran of the group, fifteen years sober, who has a difficult time re-connecting with his son (an impressive Patrick Fugit) to the dismay of his wife (Joely Richardson). Best of the lot, though, is the sweet budding romance between Gad and Pink, both of whom are terrific.
The latest film from Pedro Almodovar, Iโm So Excited, is a slighter film than we have come to expect from the master Spanish director. If youโve seen the trailer of the three flight attendants singing the title tune youโve seen the best part of the film about an airliner with faulty landing gear. Almodovar legends Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz have cameos in the filmโs opening segment.
Iโm So Excited is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.
Warner Bros. has released a long-overdue Blu-ray upgrade of 1984โs haunting multi-award-winning The Killing Fields complete with an informative booklet and other extras. The film won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Hang S. Ngor; Cinematography and Editing. It had also been nominated for Best Picture; Director (Roland Joffรฉ); Actor (Sam Waterston) and Adapted Screenplay.
Universal has also upgraded several of its most popular Oscar nominees and winners, all of which are biographical dramas..
Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, 1980โs Coal Minerโs Daughter won just one, but it was a big one โ Best Actress for Sissy Spacek as legendary country singer Loretta Lynn. The film directed by Michael Apted also features excellent performances from Tommy Lee Jones as Lynnโs husband; Levon Helm as her father and Beverly DโAngelo as fellow legend Patsy Cline.
The extraordinary Dian Fossey, who worked with the mountain gorillas of the Congo, is the subject of Aptedโs 1988 film, Gorillas in the Mist which earned five Oscar nominations including Best Actress Sigourney Weaver as Fossey. The filmโs additional nominations included Best Screenplay and one for Maurice Jarreโs superb score.
Denzel Washington earned the fourth of his six Oscar nominations to date for his protryal of Rubin โHurricaneโ Carter, a boxer wrongfully imprisoned for a murder he didnโt commit in Norman Jewisonโs 1999 film, The Hurricane
Timeless Media Group is a DVD distributer of old TV shows and obscure films. Their latest release is a dual Blu-ray of The Cassandra Crossing and The Domino Principle, two 1977 films with all-star casts, all of whom had seen better days.
The cast of the German-Italian-British co-production, The Cassandra Crossing includes Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson, Ingrid Thulin and blink and youโll miss her, Alida Valli. Loren, whose husband Carlo Ponti co-produced, has the most scenes as wife of doctor Harris who has 1,000 potential patients on a train infected with bubonic plague. American military man Lancasterโs solution is to divert the train to Poland across the dangerous title crossing where all or most may perish. Itโs hogwash, but compelling hogwash.
The same canโt be said for The Domino Principle, the legendary Stanley Kramerโs next to last film, an incomprehensible mess of a film about a San Quentin prison break engineered by a mysterious Richard Widmark and shrink Edward Albert to allow Gene Hackman and Mickey Rooney to escape while Hackmanโs wife, Candice Bergen in a brunet wig to make her look less glamorous, waits. The ho-hum conspiracy drama at least has some nice locations including San Francisco and Puerto Vallarta.
This weekโs new releases include Lee Danielsโ The Butler and Frutivale Station.
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