This week's new releases are chock full of entertainment value. Whether it's a raunchy Danish road trip comedy, romance, or action you desire, this week's got it all. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: September 25, 2012.

It may be Fall but the heat is still on with a strong wave of DVDs for rent this week, and on the horizon. This week in particular features a slew of strong indie features, so check out the full lineup inside! 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: September 18, 2012.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M Anderson
Ratings (out of five): *** 1/2

Movies about teachers can run the gamut from goopy to overly earnest, and even occasionally inspiring. Tony Kaye, the controversial director of American History X, gets credit for trying to explore the dark side of the genre, even darker than Half Nelson. In that movie, Ryan Gosling's history teacher wrestles his demons externally with drugs, but in the emotionally powerful, enlightening drama Detachment, the main character keeps everything inside.

Continue Reading Detachment

It's a slim release week but we've got a lot of great indies on the slate. Check them all out, plus lots added for next week, inside!

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: September 11, 2012.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M Anderson
Ratings (out of five): **

Fernando Di Leo was a kind of mad genius in the Italian sub-movie industry, starting as a writer for Spaghetti Westerns and moving up to directing a series of astounding crime movies. Raro Video has been slowly unleashing a good many of these in the past couple of years, and many of them are very much worth looking into, especially for exploitation fans. Sadly, Madness (1980) is not one of them.

Forgoing any of the twisty plots and unbelievable action of his earlier films, Madness focuses on a handful of characters and stays mostly in one place. Joe Dallesandro stars as "Joe," an escaped killer who runs around the countryside in a tank top. Apparently, he buried some stolen loot under a fireplace in a country house. 

Continue Reading Madness

Reviewer: Philip Tatler IV
Ratings (out of five): ****

On his ballot for the recent Sight and Sound poll, Weekend director Andrew Haigh cited Michael Mann’s The Insider as one of the ten best films ever made. Watching Weekend, the inclusion makes total sense. Haigh’s tightly controlled, color-coded mise-en-scene is very closely akin to Mann’s. Weekend also shares visual DNA with two other recent astonishing breakthrough films – Steve McQueen’s Hunger and Antonio Campos’ Afterschool. However, unlike the three filmmakers mentioned above, Haigh’s film has a deep humanity that provides a messy contrast to his visual restraint.

Continue Reading Weekend (Criterion)

This smaller release weeks brings us some new-to-DVD gems, including Patricio Guzman's searing documentary against Augosto Pinochet, Fritz Lang's elusive Secret Beyond the Door, and more. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: September 4, 2012.

Reviewer: Philip Tatler IV
Ratings (out of five): ****

Paul Fejos’ Lonesome is a kaleidoscopic document of the cadences of modern (circa 1928, anyway) living and loving. It’s a simple tale –an ordinary working stiff falls for a woman he meets at the beach – told via a series of florid, propulsive camera tricks and highly advanced montage.

The beginning of Lonesome has the familiar feeling of a city symphony – think People on Sunday or Man With A Movie Camera. Manhattan wakes up; boats shuttle through the harbor, crowds pound the pavement, and a title card offers the philosophical thesis of the film: “In the whirlpool of modern life, the most difficult thing is to live alone.”

Continue Reading Lonesome (Criterion)

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Ratings (out of five): ***

The Duplass Brothers, Mark and Jay, are back with this sweet indie comedy that is surprisingly funny, if a bit less interesting substantively than Cyrus. While it suffers a bit from some contrived plottings, the cast and good humor shine through sweetly.

Jason Segel and Ed Helms, both doing some of their best work to date, play estranged brothers who reconnect to help each other out of sticky situations. Segel's Jeff is, as the title suggests, a slacking manchild who currently lives with his mother (Susan Sarandon, who seems to be having a second life lately supporting roles in indie dramedies -- and I'm not complaining).

Continue Reading Jeff, Who Lives at Home

It's a nice mix of mainstream and arthouse on this week's new slate of DVDs. Rent everything from action and romance blockbusters to Oscar-nominated French films and Hollywood golden age classics. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: August 28, 2012.