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DVDs released today:
The Taking of Pelham 123
R, 106 minutes
Director Tony Scott's remake of the gritty and darkly comic 1974 film starring Walter Matthau is about the controlled chaos of a city that barely works.
As the lead hijacker of a subway train that left the Pelham station at 1:23 p.m., John Travolta is in high manic mode, seething and unpredictable, violent and charismatic. The best moments of the film are his conversations with Denzel Washington, who plays the Matthau role, as disgraced subway official Walter Garber, who is accidentally thrust into a leading role.
If the film stayed there and focused on the psychology of an ordinary guy with a blot on his record and a crazy man who sees his own darkness in everyone, it might have been a good film. But this is a Scott film, animated by an absurd need for excess, and manic, dizzying camera work. Contains violence and pervasive language.
Aliens in the Attic
PG, 86 minutes
An extended family gathers in a big Victorian rental home in the country. They stumble across four diminutive aliens (animated) who have landed in the attic at the vanguard of a Zirconian invasion force. It's up to the kids, who can resist the alien mind-and-body control ray that turns adults into zombie puppets, to save the Earth. Stupid, right? But kid-friendly, as the children work out ways to fend off the beasties. Contains action violence, some suggestive humor and language.
Food, Inc.
PG, 94 minutes
This absorbing look behind the curtain of the cynical and often sickening workings of the modern industrial food system does a superb job of making its case that our current food ways are drastically out of whack. Contains thematic material and disturbing images.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
PG-13, 118 minutes
Stephen Sommers' film, based on the toy line, is loud, flashy, silly and too long. Mixed in with such hard bodies as Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller are terrific actors such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Christopher Eccleston. Contains strong sequences of action, violence and mayhem throughout.
I Love You, Beth Cooper
PG-13, 101 minutes
The story begins on graduation day at Buffalo Grove High School, where one nerdtastic Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) is delivering the valedictory address. After Denis declares his long-harbored love for blond it-girl Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere), he returns home with his token gay-ish friend (Jack T. Carpenter) for a post-grad soiree. The boys' night of raucous adventuring kicks off when Beth and her two girlfriends show up. Contains crude and sexual content and language, teen drinking and brief violence.
Also out today
"The Claudette Colbert Collection," "The Dead," "North by Northwest: 50th Anniversary Edition," "Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Complete Season One," "Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut" and "Wings of Desire: Criterion Collection."
