Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Week of September 24th

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In Need of Rescue

After nearly dying in The Avengers, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is traumatized in Iron Man 3. He's not sleeping, compulsively building and redesigning his Iron Man suits, neglecting his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), and most of the superhero feats are being handled by Colonel Rhodes (Don Cheadle) in shiny, red white and blue "Iron Patriot" armor. When Tony lashes out after attacks by a terrorist called The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), the retaliation hits him harder than he thought possible. Alone, with malfunctioning Iron Man armor and no support, Tony has to improvise his way to find and defeat The Mandarin without any of his standard tricks or weapons. With Guy Pearce. On DVD, Blu Ray, and 3D Blu.

Joey (Jason Statham) is a homeless veteran living on the streets of London in when he lucks into a chance to start over in Redemption. Breaking into a high-class apartment to find the owner out of town for months, Joey has fresh clothes and clean credit cards, and he heads back to the streets to reconnect with the people who were close to him at his lowest point. Though he has everything he needs, Joey still finds himself working as muscle for a gangster (Benedict Wong), and he must choose between the gift of salvation-- one he could easily squander-- and personal vengeance. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Adventuring journalist Adele is on a quest for ancient Egyptian knowledge in Luc Besson's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, traveling from the pyramids to her home in 1910s Paris. Always pursued by her arch-nemesis Professor Dieuleveult (Mathieu Amalric), Adele acquires the mummified remains of an ancient doctor, but needs the help of a telepathic parapsychologist to learn the mummy's secrets. This isn't as simple as it sounds: not only is the telepath in prison, but her planned jailbreak is complicated by a bumbling inspector (Gilles Lellouche), the clueless President, a rogue pterodactyl, and an arrogant big game hunter (Jean-Paul Rouve)... all of which interfere's with Adele's simple mission to gain the cryptic knowledge to revive her comatose sister.

Summer Vacation

Director Olivier Assayas's semi-autobiographical Something in the Air is the story of Gilles, a 17-year-old boy on his way to art school in France in the early 1970s. Gilles and his artist best friend Alain debate politics, reading left-wing literature and arguing the separate values of Mao and Trotsky, but when one of their demonstrations goes awry, they decide to spread the revolution in Italy while avoiding criminal charges in France. Getting involved with an American girl and her slightly older film collective, Gilles and Alain wander through Europe's active art scene but have to question the validity of some of the farther-out practices of the post-60s revolutionaries.

With her brother Matthew leaving for college at the end of the summer, bright, articulate Jackie's world is about to change in The Unspeakable Act. Jackie is still trying to find her place in the world, but her self-analysis is shockingly honest about her incestuous, all-consuming crush of her brother. Though Matthew is aware of her feelings, he doesn't reciprocate them, and Jackie has to face her fixation on him during the crisis of his leaving.

As his freshman year of highschool ends, Joe's frustration with his father (Nick Offerman) inspires him to leave home and build himself a house in the woods in The Kings of Summer. Joining Joe in his adventure are his long-time best friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and oddball outcast Biaggio (Moises Arias)-- together, the boys build their new home, declare themselves grown men, and leave their world (and their parents) behind. Joe's hunting skills aren't quite as good as he claimed, and all of his fresh game resembles store-bought chicken, but they manage to mostly leave the civilized world behind. Though their families are looking for them, the boys' independent paradise faces a larger problem: they still have the insecurities and conflicts of teenagers.

High school sweethearts Brady and McKenzie have to contend with the biggest issue their relationship has ever faced in Disney's Teen Beach Movie: Brady likes musicals, and Mack thinks they're ridiculous. Worse, McKenzie is heading to a private school at the end of the summer, so they may never be able to solve their singing and dancing problems-- in separate schools, Brady meets another girl and McKenzie meets another boy, but their story will work itself through elaborate musical numbers as they have a surfing, biker-laden, kidnapper-defeating summer on the beach.

Creative Drive

Though she has terminal cancer, upbeat and unflappable Marion (Vanessa Redgrave) has no intention of quitting her senior's choir in Unfinished Song, though her crotchety husband Arthur (Terence Stamp) thinks she should quit the trivial singing group and tend to her health with bedrest. When Marion can no longer attend the choir, the chipper young choir director (Gemma Arterton) presses Arthur to take her place. Though Arthur is reluctant to sing, the choir connects him to Marion's joie de vivre, improving every part of his life and bringing him closer to the most important people in his world.

Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is a disengaged high school literature teacher in Francois Ozon's In the House when he develops in interest in the talent of Claude, one of his students. Though Germain hasn't cared about writing or his students in years, lower-class Claude's descriptive diaries about his obsession with the idyllic life of his classmate Rapha. Germain helps Claude in his writing by advising him to be "closer" to his characters, living vicariously through the boy's infiltration of Rapha's family... especially his mother (Emmanuelle Seigner). With Denis Menochet and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Documentary

Spending a full year in a wintry Siberian forest, Werner Herzog's Happy People: A Year in the Taiga details the lives of woodsmen who have lived isolated from modern culture, politics, and technology for hundreds of years. While a few modern tools like chainsaws have been adopted in the Taiga, the villagers are largely self-sufficient. They work primarily as trappers, building the same traps their ancestors did, building log cabins, fishing with nets, and fashioning their own skis. Following the remote culture's spring preparations through fair weather trapping onto the harsh winter, the film provides a glimpse of a lifestyle few will ever see,

One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das is the story of the famed kirtan singer. Born in New Jersey as Jeffery Kagel pursuing rock music in the 1960s, he traveled to India where the Maharajji re-christens him Krishna Das. Though he struggled with drugs and depression, Krishna Das became the American voice of kirtan: chanting the names of God in Sanskrit.

First Person Horror

The second installment in the horror anthology series, V/H/S/2 is framed by private investigators searching for a missing teenager. Finding his house loaded with VHS tapes, they look for clues in the videos of first-person footage, including: a car crash survivor whose artificial eye not only records what he sees, but gives him glimpses of another world; a cyclist who gets bitten by a zombie while wearing a GoPro camera, providing a zombie's-eye-view of the outbreak; a strange cult whose actions become more extreme as they continue; and boys filming a cardboard-and-tinfoil monster movie get a sudden boost in their creature effects.

A World War II Russian advanced reconnaissance team stumbles across a macabre church in the Nazi occupied countryside in Frankenstein's Army. With a battle hardened commander leading the team, the group's exploits are being recorded for the Soviet record by a young filmmaker. Summoned to the church by a Russian distress call, the film captures more than they could have imagined when they're attacked by a variety of half man/half machine monsters. Trapped with horrible Nazi creations, the Russians are too busy fighting for their lives to question why the comrades they were sent to rescue are nowhere to be found. With Karel Roden.

Mores

Based on the true story of 19th century Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot and his star patient, the French Augustine explores the case of a kitchen maid who suffers a violent seizure and is committed to a sanitarium. As she's treated for "hysteria," Augustine becomes Dr. Charcot's star patient in elaborate, public hypnotherapy sessions. Though the doctor's methods and intentions could be suspect, his investigation into the cause of Augustine's condition are still useful, and point to a larger problem.

When Shira's older sister dies on Purim, the tragedy changes everything in her conservative, orthodox Haredi family in the Israeli Fill the Void. 18-year-old Shira's engagement is postponed and she grows closer to her young nephew and her widowed brother-in-law Yochay. Yochay believes that remarrying would provide the most stable environment for his son, and Shira seems like a fine match, but will she consent to marry a man out of family obligation?

New this week in our TV New Releases:
Hannibal
Season 1
Set as a prequel series before Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) helps an unstable FBI profiler investigate gruesome serial killings while protecting his own dark secret. South Park
Season 16
The sleepy mountain town of South Park faces bullying, ziplining adventure trips, viral video pranks, cash for gold schemes, new restrictions from the Toilet Safety Administration, and more.
2 Broke Girls
Season 2
Max and Caroline are still marking time waiting tables as they try to gather the $250,000 they need to get their cupcake business off the ground, but they aren't even close to making any of their goals. Modern Family
Season 4
The branches of the Pritchett family tree continue to contend with their sitcom misadventures as adoptions and pregnancies promise to add more faces to their brood.

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