Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Week of August 20th

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Relating

The story of elderly couple Anne and Georges (Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintigant), Michael Haneke's Oscar-winning Amour begins with a tragedy and then fleshes out the life of the couple in their twilight years. Though devoted to one another, Anne and George's relationship changes due to strokes, partial paralysis, and the different ways they will need to care for one another. Their daughter (Isabelle Huppert) would like to see caretaking done by professionals, in a nursing home, but the husband and wife would rather do for one another until, eventually, there is nothing left to do. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Low key, wryly self-aware, slightly depressed Martin has recently moved to Nevada in This Is Martin Bonner, taking a job helping recently released prison inmates rejoin society. When he forms a bond with former inamate Travis (Richmond Arquette), their friendship highlights their similiarites as much as their differences: though both middle aged men are starting over, Travis wants a second chance with his old life and a renewed connection with his daughter, and recently divorced Martin is beginning again... a new life in a new town.

Abandoned as a baby, blue-eyed Bo Wa Chuen was raised by his adopted family in a poor fishing community in the Cantonese Floating City. When his adopted father leaves and the family can no longer afford to take care of him, Bo begins to climb the social ladder, beginning as a laborer and enentually becoming a valued engineer to Hong Kong's British colonials... but his identity and value in society always comes back to his half-Caucasian hertitage, and his heart lies on the fishing boats where he began. With Josie Ho and Bau Hei Jing.

A Giant World

After her mother's death, teenaged M.K. (Amanda Seyfried) reconnects with father in the animated Epic, but finds that he is to preoccupied with his theory of tiny people living in the woods to even notice her. Walking through the woods, she realizes her father was right: shrunk down to their size, M.K. is thrust into the battles of the tiny people trying to keep the forest alive. M.K. is entrusted with the leaf pod that will heal the forest, and, with the help of the captain of the Leaf Men (Colin Farrell) and a scrappy loner (Josh Hutcherson), she must keep the pod safe from the Boggans (Christoph Waltz) who would corrupt the forest. With Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Hunted

Retired veteran Benjamin Ford (Robert De Niro) lives in a remote cabin in the woods, spending his time with Johnny Cash records and flashbacks of Bosnia in Killing Season. When he meets Emil (John Travolta), a Bosnian, the two share stories, have a drink, and go hunting together the next morning... but Emil is really hunting Ford, and will do anything to make the old soldier "confess." As they navigate the woods, they alternate roles as hunter and hunted, each using his time with the upper hand to unravel the mystery of the other, but in the end, will either of them get the answer they need? On DVD and Blu Ray

Colette (Andrea Riseborough) is arrested after an unsuccessful IRA bombing attempt in Shadow Dancer, but she strikes a deal with MI5 agent Mac (Clive Owen) to earn her fredom. Collette's bombing failed because she doesn't want to kill anyone, and she's only willing to inform on her IRA contacts because she's promised "no one dies, no one gets hurt"-- the only deal she can agree to, because her Belfast cells are run by her brother (Aiden Gillen). Mac fights to keep his deal with Colette, but his higher-ups (Gillian Anderson) start pushing to capitalize on her as an asset, and gradually "no one dies, no one gets hurt" might not protect Colette, much less her family. On DVD and Blu Ray

Despite not being able to frame a shot or hold her camera steady, Rachel dreams of being a documentarian, filming her destined-for-stardom best friend Leann (Torrey DeVitto) as they travel by bus to vegas in Evidence. When her footage is found at the site of a massacre, only detectives Reese and Burquez (Stephen Moyer and Radha Mitchell) can untangle the first person footage of the bus crash and violent murders with intuitive freeze-frames, enhancements, and zooms. As the story comes together from Rachel's documentary and heat-damaged cell-phone videos, the detectives race to discover the identity of the masked serial killer who cuts people apart with a welding torch before he strikes again. With Nolan Gerard Funk.

Wrongly Accused

Revisiting the case of the West Memphis 3 (most recently documented in the third Paradise Lost film), the documentary West of Memphis tells the story of the three boys accused and convicted of a 1993 murder. Amassing a case that not only was there was not enough evidence to convict the boys, but that all the evidence proving their innocence was thrown out or considered inadmissable, the film explores the Arkansas court that convicted them, and how public outrage finally led to their release.

Arrested for kidnapping and murder 1970, Angela Davis became an activist icon. Free Angela and All Political Prisoners tells Davis' story as an educated woman, member of the Communist Party, and Black Panther. After her political beliefs pubilcly ended her career teaching at UCLA, she began receiving death threats, and she bought guns in case she would have to defend herself. When the guns used in a courtroom standoff were traced back to her, Davis was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list. The film tells the story of Angela's trial and activism that help form a snapshot of the gender and racial divide of the early 70s.

Comedies

Lindsey (Anna Kendrick) is out bowling with her easy-going, supportive boyfriend Ben (John Francis Daley) when the Rapture claims half the population in Rapture-Palooza. The post-rapture world has to put up with the occasional falling brimstone, harrassment from foul mouthed crows, and trash-talking locusts that are immune to most bug sprays, but the worst part is The Beast (Craig Robinson), who rules the world from Lindsey's home town of Seattle. When The Beast descides to make Lindsey his bride, she and Ben have to find a way to stop The Beast and end the End Of Days... and God (Ken Jeong) isn't going to be much help.

Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan's sex tape goes awry-- but not the way you'd think-- in Scary Movie V. The children from their wild night go missing, and their hauntings and posessions spoof every horror movie made in the last few years, forcing Ashley Tisdale and Simon Rex to find a way stop the paranormal activities (wink wink, nudge nudge) in order to get on with their lives.


New this week in our TV New Releases:
Boardwalk
Empire
Season 3
Nucky Thompson's (Steve Buscemi) hold on Atlantic City has to evolve as prohibition makes bootlegging the largest operation in organized crime, and he'll have to contend with the gangsters in New York and Chicago if he wants to stay alive.

TV on DVD

Late summer/early fall is a great time to come in and check out all the New Release TV Shows at Reckless. In just the next month alone, we’ll be getting in new seasons of over 35 TV shows!! Get caught up with the second season of Homeland, season three of The Walking Dead, or find a new favorite - about a third of the shows we’re bringing in are first seasons of all-new shows. Click on over to the “New TV” section to see when each show will become available.
Don’t forget, you can always check out older seasons from our inventory, too. We really do have something for every taste: prime-time cop dramas, sitcoms, HBO or AMC epics, BBC shows from across the pond, sci-fi from today and yester-year, family-friendly adventure, and cartoons for kids or adults! Older TV shows are only $3, or they can be rented 2-for-1 on our Movie Pass deals.
Good Wife
Season 4
With the firm in crisis, Alicia is still fighting to win her partnership, but winning cases shares time with politics both within Lockheart & Gardner and in the world at large.
Parenthood
Season 4
The Braverman family continues to make their way in the world, dealing with adoptions, cancer scares, adult temptations, and children misbehaving, as they rely on one another to cope with their troubles. Revenge
Season 2
Emily's revenge plan is put on hold when she discovers her mother is alive, but she still has to unravel the mystery of her mother's disappearance and find out who is responsible.
NCIS
Season 10
The NCIS team discovers dangerous connections to Mossad agents working in the US, and have to avenge their fallen comrades.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Week of August 13th

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Under Attack



Eric's Corner

Though it's been a while since I had a recommendation for people asking for comedies in Reckless' New Release section lately, I laughed pretty much non-stop through Olympus Has Fallen. It's not supposed to be a comedy-- it's deadly serious tone is one of its funniest aspects-- and there are no jokes, but the movie plays like someone let Tommy Wiseau direct a Michael Bay movie.

It might not be something I can explain, but scene after scene is packed with so much hilariously over-the-top (but straight faced) ridiculousness that I could barely catch my breath. The bespectacled nebbish revealing himself as the villain by showing he's far too evil to need glasses... The most energetic screaming recitation of The Pledge of Allegiance ever filmed... The symbolic emasculation of one of America's most virile monuments scored by earnest, tragic music... just to name a few.

Not everyone shares my sense of humor, and there are plenty of guns, knives, crashes, punches, and beat-the-clock countdowns to ensure the film will work as the action movie it was intended to be, but the end result made me think Gerard Butler was the second choice to star in Olympus Has Fallen...

Sadly, Leslie Nielsen is no longer with us.

Former Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) used to be best friends with the President (Aaron Eckhart), but finds himself working at the Treasury Department after a tragedy comes between them in Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen. When the White House is attacked, Banning is the only agent who understands the importance of taking cover when automatic weapons are pointed at him, leaving him the last American left in an enemy-controlled White House. The President is trapped in his secure bunker with the terrorist mastermind (Rick Yune) hatching a devious scheme while the Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman) is in charge of the country during the crisis. They have only one hope: let Banning take down the terrorists from the inside, John McClane-style, rescuing the President, saving the country, restoring the flag atop the White House, and healing the rift between Banning and the President. On DVD and Blu Ray.

In the Real World

The story of three brothers from Detroit who began a band that would become a phenomenon decades layer, the documentary A Band Called Death explores the band's formation, dissolution, and eventual resurgence. In a community that expected them to play soul, Bobby, David, and Danis Hackney began playing rock and roll in the early seventies as Death, recording fast, energetic music that pre-dated the punk movement but never found success due to their unwillingness to compromise. Years later, unearthed by record collectors, Death became an underground obsession, leading fans to track down the remaining members and recover their long lost music.

After the success of Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock (Toby Jones) find his new leading lady in The Girl. Hitch and Alma Reville (Imelda Staunton) discover Tippi Hedron (Sienna Miller), a model working in television commercials, and plan to make her the next Grace Kelly. Filming The Birds, Hitch and Hedron's working relationship starts to suffer, as the director constantly wants more than the young actress is willing to give, but she's bound to him by contract, and war with Hitch could end her career.

Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal is a documentary about revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of shooting a police officer in 1981. Including the Manufacturing Guilt documentary, covering the bias surrounding Mumia's conviction, Long Distance Revolutionary focuses on Mumia's upbringing, his relationship to the social climate in Philadelphia in the 1970s, and the journalism career that took him from print to time on NPR, as well as the journalistic and activist work he continues to do from prison.

After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) has to keep the peace in Japan after Emperor Hirohito's surrender in Emperor, but, in the wake of World War II, he must first handle the possibilities of war tribunals. He appoints an officer (Matthew Fox) with a love of Japanese culture and a relationship with a Japanese woman (Eriko Hatsune) to find the Emperor and learn who was responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and if they should be tried as war criminals... but convicting the imperial leadership could cause the Japanese people to rise up against the Americans.

Documentary director Brett Morgen's Crossfire Hurricane explores the early days of The Rolling Stones. Combining new interviews from the band members with archival footage from the beginning of their career, the film follows the Stones from their start in obscure London blues clubs in early 1960s to their rise to stardom.

Dramatic

6-year-old Maisie has to cope with her parents' divorce in What Maisie Knew, and, though she may be too young to understand the particulars of the adult world, she begins to gain an understanding of her parents. Her father (Steve Coogan) is a writer with very little time for her, and her mother (Julianne Moore) is a self-obsessed rock star with no sense of responsibility-- unless they're using Maisie as a tool to wound one another, neither of them are likely to notice she's around. She has a better relationship with Margo, her nanny-turned-young-stepmother, and Lincoln (Alexander SkarsgÄrd), her mother's young husband, and Maisie becomes more aware of when she's being used, when she's being lied to, and who really loves her. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Robert Redford directs and stars in The Company You Keep as Jim Grant, former 1960s radical who lives his life in hiding, wanted for bank robbery and murder over thirty years ago. When a hotshot young reporter (Shia LaBeouf) sees Jim as a fame-making story, his cover is blown, and the FBI starts hunting him again. The path to Jim is paved with his former 60s activist colleagues (including Susan Sarandon, Stephen Root, and Nick Nolte), but if he's racing to find the one person (Julie Christie) who can clear his name before he loses everything. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Comedic

An ensemble romantic comedy, The Big Wedding centers around Don (Robert De Niro) as he prepares for his son's wedding. It's a big event, and his girlfriend (Susan Sarandon) is going to have to deal with Don's ex-wife (Diane Keaton) and mother to their children as their son (Ben Barnes) is about to marry his fiance (Amanda Seyfried). Along with the arrival of Don's other children (Katherine Heigl and Topher Grace), Don has to contend with old feelings for his ex during an already overstuffed event. With Robin Williams. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Beth (Brooke Shields) concocts a plan to save the just-out-of-business mobile mammogram unit in her small Texas town in The Hot Flashes: she starts a basketball team. Gathering a team of middle-aged women, including a tough girl biker (Camryn Manheim), a multiple divorcee socialite (Virginia Madsen), a closeted lesbian car saleswoman (Daryl Hannah), and the town's mayor (Wanda Sykes), Beth plans a fundraising game against the local, champion, high school girls' team. They haven't played basketball in a while, and they have to make it through a lot of comedic training to get ready for them game, but if they can stay ahead of their rivals (Andrea Frankle), the women might be able to raise money and prove their worth to the town.

New this week in our TV New Releases:
Girls
Season 2
Aspiring writer Hannah is still trying to make her way through modern New York, taking care of Adam after the events of season 1, but still exploring other options. Enlightened
Season 2
Amy (Laura Dern) is still relegated to data processing in the company's basement, but her new worldview in the 2nd and final season keeps driving her to rebel against the people upstairs.
Southland
Season 5
In the final season, the Los Angeles police cope with some of the most dangerous streets in the country, closing their last cases and setting out on their final patrols. Once Upon
a Time
Season 2
Emma is still coming to terms with the town of Storybrooke, where an evil queen has banished fairytale characters into the real world, when devious schemer Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) sets his plans in motion.
The Mindy
Project
Season 2
The situation/workplace comedy puts Mindy Kaling in an Ob/Gyn office and sees her through personal and professional misadventures. Parade's End British aristocrat Christopher is serving as a World War I officer while his high society wife squanders their estate, and his attentions are drawn to a suffragette (Judi Dench).
Wild Kratts
Lost at Sea
The Kratt brothers are deep undersea, trying to understand the language of the dolphins and learning the secret of the blowfish's survival.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Week of August 6th

Website is best viewed at RecklessVideo.com.  Pop-up credits links are inactive on Blogger.

Defining Self


Years after the mandatory memory wipe, Tech 49 Jack (Tom Cruise) and his partner Vika (Andrea Riseborough) are a skeleton crew doing maintenance and repairs in Oblivion. Maintaining machinery on Earth after a war with an alien race ravaged the planet, Jack and Vika oversee the reactors that fuel the off-world colonies until their assignment ends, but their steady work is interrupted when Jack retrieves an escape pod housing a human survivor (Olga Kurylenko). Though there aren't supposed to be any other humans on Earth, and Jack and Vika are watchful for alien scavengers, the survivor only leads to questions that could shatter their world and make them targets for rebel uprisings, dogfight aerial chases, and epic plots to save the world. With Morgan Freeman. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Luke (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stunt man traveling with state fairs arrives in Altamont, New York in The Place Beyond the Pines only to discover the woman he met during his last visit, Romina (Eva Mendez), has a young son. Luke quits traveling and gets a job, but his best idea for taking care of his son is to team up with Ben Mendelsohn to rob banks and give the money to Romina. Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), the rookie cop tasked with bringing him down, has a wife (Rose Byrne) and a young son of his own, and is disillusioned by his fellow officers confiscating Luke's money from Romina's home. The film balances the two men's conflict with their sons, fifteen years later, as Luke's son (Dane DeHaan), bristling against his troubled homelife, and Avery's son (Emory Cohen), acting out in defiance of his district attorney father, become friends. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Fourteen-year-old friends Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone find a boat suspended in a tree in Mud, director Jeff Nichols' follow-up to Take Shelter. Their find is quickly tarnished when they learn Mud (Matthew McConaughey) is living in the boat, keeping himself hidden in the Arkansas delta until he can be reunited with Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). Ellis is especially taken with Mud's tales and outlaw status, adopting Mud as a father figure while neglecting his mother and stepfather (Sarah Paulson and Ray McKinnon), where Mud's own father figure (Sam Shepard) has all but disowned him. Mud's tales of star-crossed love and outlaws on the run may inspire Ellis, and they may be wildly exaggerated, but the men after him (Paul Sparks and Joe Don Baker) are certainly real. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Syd (Caleb Landry Jones) works for a clinic that sells viruses taken from celebrities in Antiviral. Set in a dystopian near future so obsessed with fame that any piece of celebrity is a commodity, Syd injects himself with new viruses from his clinic and sells them to a black marketeer (Joe Pingue). When he contracts a disease from starlet Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon) he's immediately too sick to work... and wakes up to find that Geist has died. Syd needs to find a cure for his fatal disease, but he's also infected with the most valuable property in the world: the virus that killed Hannah Geist. With Malcolm McDowell.

Based on the classic Jack Kerouac novel, On the Road tells the story of Sal (Sam Riley), whose sheltered artist's life is driven to new extremes when he meets the wild and uninhibited Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) and his girl-Friday Marylou (Kristen Stewart). Nearly autobiographical, the film tracks Sal across the country as Dean pushes him to abandon convention and push for newer, more unpredictable experiences. With Amy Adams. On DVD and Blu Ray.


Gail (Deborah Mailman) and her sisters don't win when they compete in an Australian talent show in The Sapphires, but they do attract the attention of a talent scout. Set in 1968, the drunken, Irish Dave Lovelace (Chris O'Dowd) sees their potential, but needs to push them away from country ballads and toward something that will draw a crowd: soul. Making the four Aboriginal women into a Motown-style girl group, he manages their music career: playing for American troops stationed in Vietnam. Based on a true story, The Sapphires' time in Viet Nam shows them more of the world, and more about themselves, than they could have imagined. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Terrence Malick's To the Wonder begins with a young couple in love: American Neil (Ben Affleck) who meets single mother Marina (Olga Kurylenko) while traveling in Europe. The two settle down in Neil's Oklahoma hometown, but as the blush of new romance fades, Marina finds comfort in a priest (Javier Bardem) suffering a crisis of faith, while Neil's job on the road allows him to reconnect with an old flame (Rachel McAdams). Malick's traditional naturalism and questions of higher meanings play out as the relationship between Marina and Neil is stretched and explored while they make their way through the world. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Alicia (Juno Temple) travels to Chile to visit her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) in Magic Magic, and they connect with Sarah's friends (including Michael Cera and Catalina Sandino Moreno) before Sarah is called away. In a country she doesn't know, where she doesn't speak the language, Alicia starts to drive herself mad with anxiety and paranoia. Surrounded by strangers that torment, mock, and bully her, her sanity begins to slip, but can't be sure how much of what's happening around her is real.

Aman (Wesley Snipes) is a gunman wandering the old west in Gallowwalkers, but after the guns are fired, he takes his victims' heads. All of the gunfighters Aman stands off against are people he's faced, and killed, before-- they're "gallowwalkers," the undead, taking the skins of the living. He gains a sidekick when he rescues a young outlaw (Riley Smith), and Aman can finish his quest: not just kill the men who wronged him, but make sure they stay dead.

With her mother in jail, Majo grew up taking care of her little sister while her father (Lou Diamond Phillips) worked to support them in Filly Brown. In a last-ditch effort to raise the money that her mother's lawyer (Edward James Olmos) released, Majo begins rapping under the name Filly Brown. Filly Brown's fiery delivery and spunky demeanor make her a quickly rising star, but she also attracts the attention of a producer (Noel Gugliemi) who may not have her best interest at heart.

Young falcon Kai (Jeremy Suarez) runs away from home and finds himself in the bird metropolis of Zambezia in the animated Adventures in Zambezia. Kai meets a lot of colorful characters in the bird city, but he finds his place when he joins the Hurricanes (including Abigail Breslin and led by Leonard Nimoy), Zambezia's defenders. When an evil lizard (Jim Cummings) joins forces with the birds excluded from Zambezia, Kai and the Hurricanes have to fight for their city. On DVD and Blu Ray.

New this week in our TV New Releases:
The Borgias
Season 3
Pope Alexander (Jeremy Irons) fights to recover from the effects of the end of season 2, and the Borgia family tries to realize their ambitions amongst armies and warlords in the show's final season. Community
Season 4
The Greendale Community College study group contends with changing relationships within their ranks, and their first season without series creator Dan Harmon.
Political Animals
Complete
A former first lady and presidential also-ran (Sigourney Weaver) works to keep her family life and political career alive in the USA Network's 6-episode miniseries. The Thick of It
Seasons 1-4
The series that preceded In The Loop satirizes the selfish ambitions of political professionals, power plays, spin doctors (Peter Capaldi), and the continuous begging for public acceptance.
Smash
Season 2
In the final season, Bombshell, the musical about Marilyn Monroe, returns to Broadway as the songwriters, actors, producers, and rest of the crew work to keep the show successful. Wild Kratts
Rainforest
Rescue
The Kratts save animals and help educate viewers about ecology, zoology, and the environment.