The week’s DVDs begin with some spookiness:
DVDs for May 28 by Boo Allen
This week we begin with some spookiness:
Dark Skies (***1/2)
Writer-director Scott Stewart pays homage to Hitchcock and Kubrick with several small touches that distinguish this horror-alien thriller. Using virtually no special effects until the last act, Stewart pieces together a chilling story touched with suspense, nuance, suggestion, and innovative camera work to deliver a few well-earned chills. A couple (Josh Hamilton {not the former Texas Rangers outfielder} and an increasingly impressive Keri Russell) have two young sons. To complicate the parents’ already fragile home life, the younger son seems to be having dreams somehow translated into reality, frightening events that manifest themselves by odd occurrences around their house. After several diversions involving psychologists, friends, skeptical police, and a suspicion of the parents for child abuse, the couple learn they are being visited by invisible aliens who enter the body before taking it away. An eccentric expert on the phenomenon (J.K. Simmons) helps them in their seemingly impossible mission to save their child, if not the world.
Rated PG-13, 97 minutes. The DVD includes commentary from Stewart and nine alternate and deleted scenes.
The Numbers Station (**1/2)
This murky mystery-thriller stars a near comatose John Cusack as burnt-out CIA agent Emerson Kent. He quickly shows his deadly prowess for dispatching unwanted enemies before being shuffled off to a remote base in rural England. There, he guards station operator Katherine (Malin Akerman), while she de-codes and/or translates a barrage of top secret information, such as, for instance, troop movements in Afghanistan. About the time that Kent receives orders to kill Katherine for reasons that remain vague, a group of heavily armed bad guys storm the compound and try to wipe out everyone. Only Kent stands in their way. Danish director Kasper Barfoed competently delivers some action-filled sequences, that is, when Cusack isn’t moping around like someone just killed his dog. With Liam Cunningham, Lucy Griffiths.
Rated R, 89 minutes. The DVD also includes a 14 minute “making of” featurette.
Tomorrow You’re Gone (**)
Charlie (DVD sweetheart Stephen Dorff), a recently released convict, is obligated to another ex-con (Willem Dafoe) for his help when they served time together in prison. Once out, Charlie must put a hit on someone to settle the score. About the time that the murder goes awry, Charlie becomes incongruously involved with free-spirited Florence (Michelle Monaghan). She inexplicably clings to Charlie no matter how he treats her. From there, director David Jacobson doesn’t exactly clarify all of Charlie’s actions, or, for that matter, where Charlie’s palpable angst is coming from, with the result being a drama filled with shadowy characters doing nefarious acts but without much clarification.
Not rated, 92 minutes.
Last Kind Words (**1/2)
Writer-director Kevin Barker creates and then maintains decently spooky atmospherics for the majority of this horror-thriller. But since logic always takes a beating in this genre, this often stylish film succumbs to the apparent inconsistencies and basic irrationalities of a story of 17 year- old Eli (Spencer Daniels) who moves with his fractured family to a rural Kentucky farm. There, while meandering in a local forest, he meets the mysterious Amanda (Alexia Fast). Before long, he encounters bodies hanging from trees, including Amanda’s, and begins hearing stories from the landlord (Brad Dourif) of long forgotten lynching victims. What is real, and what is not? Beats me.
Not rated, 87 minutes.
Sommore: Chandelier Status
The saucy comedian delivers her stand-up act to a receptive crowd in this filmed Miami performance. With no brakes, she dishes on arrogant celebrities, her surgeries, and, of course, her sex life. Please sir. Can I have sommore?
Not rated, 76 minutes.
Bink & Gollie and more stories about friendship
This new animated release from Scholastic Storybook Treasures prepares kids for summer vacation time. Bink and Gollie are reluctant best friends who discover how to strengthen their friendship. Other tales include “A Sick Day for Amos Mcgee,” written by Philip C. Stead, “The Other Side,” by Jacqueline Woodson, and Michael Foreman’s “Cat and Canary.”
Not rated, 36 minutes. The DVD includes a sing-along and interviews with illustrators Tony Fucile and Erin Stead and authors Philip Stead and Jacqueline Woodson.
And, from this week’s TV arrivals:
Red Widow–season one
In our week’s top TV-Series-To-DVD, a breakout A.B.C. series loosely based on the Dutch series “Penoza.” Radha Mitchell stars as Marta Walraven, married San Francisco mother of three and daughter of a Russian mobster (Rade Serbedzija). When her husband is murdered in retaliation after a misguided heist by a family member, Marta finds herself for the remainder of the season’s eight episodes, on two discs, co-operating with a vicious mob rival (Goran Visnjic) to smuggle in drugs to support her family. It’s Walter White on the Bay. Clifton Collins Jr. plays the Javert-like F.B.I. agent hounding her. With, Jakob Salvati, Lee Tergesen, Will Traval.
Rated TVPG-DLSV, 344 minutes. The collection includes the 14 minute “making of” featurette “Red Widow—the Journey,” eight deleted scenes and a four minute blooper reel.
Dance Academy: season one: volumes one and two
The debut season of this popular new series from TeenNick arrives in two packages of 13 episodes on two discs.
It’s the start of a new year at Sydney, Australia’s premier dance school when Tara arrives to meet new friends Kat and Sammy and to develop a crush on Ethan. Volume two picks up after the holidays, and Tara has been awarded a full first year scholarship at the school filled with teen drama and romance.
Neither set is rated and both run about 325 minutes.
Top Gear 19, Doctor Who: the Visitation—special edition, Doctor Who: The Snowmen, Doctor Who: series seven, part two
B.B.C. Home Entertainment releases four titles from two of their longest running series. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May abuse a variety of automobiles in Top Gear 19, a three disc set of excitement. Among others, they drive an Aston Martin, a Viper, a Lexus, and a Shelby Mustang to torture the roads in and around, among many places, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and even London. Also included is their African special in which they seek to find the source of the Nile, while using three unexceptional station wagons. In the two disc Doctor Who: The Visitation (1982-1984), Dr. Who turns up in 1666 England, site of the deadly Great Plague. The good doctor (Peter Davison) arrives only to discover that aliens, the Terileptils, plot to take over the planet during the crisis. With Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Matthew Waterhouse. The set also includes a 45 minute “making of” featurette, a 27 minute segment on the world of Doctor Who, and a 32 minute reminiscence with Davison, Fielding and Mark Strickson. Matt Smith plays the doctor in Doctor Who: The Snowmen (2012), co-starring Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara. The Christmas special sees the duo saving the holidays from Doctor Simeon (Richard E. Grant) in 1892. The single disc also includes a “behind-the-scenes” featurette and two prequel episodes: “Vastra Investigates” and “Children in Need Special: The Great Detective.” In Doctor Who: series seven, part two (2012-2013), the doctor (Matt Smith) searches, for the third time, for Clara. Before facing terrifying monsters in outer space, they find themselves trapped in a Russian submarine as well as in other unexpected locations. Not rated, 360 minutes. The two disc set also holds two prequels: “The Bells of St. John—a prequel,” and “Clarence and the Whispermen.”
Also on DVD: Dead Mine, My Dog Tulip, Newton Boys, Reuben Reuben, Speechless.