Philadelphia Tribune - Index

Philadelphia Tribune - Entertainment Now - Friday, March 14, 2008 - Index

Page 4-E
“No Country for Old Men”
February’s Academy
Awards became Coen
country as two of the most
innovative American storytellers
graduated from cinema
oddballs to Hollywood
mainstream. Joel and Ethan
Coen’s crime thriller dominated
with four Oscars: Best
picture, directing, adapted
screenplay and supporting
actor for Javier Bardem.
Adapted from Cormac
McCarthy’s novel, the film
follows the aftermath of a
drug deal gone bloodily bad
in the west Texas desert as
a wily cowboy (Josh Brolin)
makes off with a satchel of
cash and is pursued by both
a relentless killer (Bardem)
and a world-weary sheriff
(Tommy Lee Jones). The
DVD and Blu-ray high-definition
disc come with three
featurettes, including a segment
with cast and crew
singing effusive praises for
SHORT TAKES from Page 3
robbery of a Lloyds Bank in
London. Force-of-nature
Jason Statham, star of the
“Transporter” movies, plays
the vividly named Terry
Leather, a used-car dealer
with a criminal past. He and
some of his amateur thug
pals get roped into robbing
the bank’s vault by seductive
ex-model Martine Love (the
stunning Saffron Burrows), a
friend of theirs from the
neighborhood and a former
flame of Terry’s before he
settled down with a wife and
a couple of kids. Martine
herself has been roped into
organizing the heist by her
married lover (Richard
Lintern), a member of MI5
who wants to retrieve some
potentially scandalous photos
of someone in the royal
family, which are stashed
inside a safe deposit box in
the Coens and another
examining the brothers’ single-minded
collaborative
process. DVD, $29.99; Bluray,
$34.99. (Miramax)
“Bee Movie”
Jerry Seinfeld’s animated
comedy is sweetened with a
huge load of extras. With his
first major project since his
TV sitcom went off the air,
Seinfeld served as writer
and voice star in the tale of
a bee that sues humanity for
profiting off the honey his
species toils to produce.
The movie comes in a single-disc
DVD edition with a
handful of featurettes or
fully packed two-disc DVD
and HD DVD versions
whose extras include alternate
endings and discarded
scenes, commentary with
Seinfeld and his collaborators,
a segment on the vocal
cast that included Renee
Zellweger and Chris Rock
the vault. The requisite collection
of colorful characters
includes a smut peddler, a
part-time porn star, a blackpower
con man and some
seriously hypocritical aristocrats.
R for sexual content,
nudity, violence and language.
115 min. Two and a
half stars out of four.
— Christy Lemire
“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a
Day” — As the title implies,
this fairy tale for adults starring
Frances McDormand as
a frumpy governess and Amy
Adams as the giddy actress
who takes her on as a social
secretary only gradually
learns how to get a life. After
a slow and tiresome start,
the film forges ahead with
true British fortitude and
class, an endearing bond
forming between
McDormand and Adams,
who are ably backed by a
Philadelphia Tribune Friday, March 14, 2008
NEW VIDEO/DVD
and a look at Seinfeld’s promotional
trip to the Cannes
Film Festival, where he put
on a bee costume and
jumped off an eight-story
hotel on a cord. Single-disc
DVD, $29.98; two-disc DVD
and HD DVD sets, $39.99
each. (Paramount)
“Dan in Real Life”
Steve Carell’s a widower
doing his best as an advice
columnist with three daughters
and lousy timing when
romance comes calling:
Attending a family reunion,
he falls for a woman
(Juliette Binoche) who turns
out to be the new girlfriend
of his brother (Dane Cook).
The movie is accompanied
by deleted scenes with
commentary from writerdirector
Peter Hedges, who
also provides commentary
for the full flick. There also
are outtakes, a making-of
featurette and a segment
top-notch supporting cast led
by Ciaran Hinds and Shirley
Henderson. The elegant production
compensate for a
predictable dual-Cinderella
story as a self-righteous
ascetic and a social-climbing
bimbo teach each other how
life might be more satisfying
lived somewhere in between
their respective extremes.
Adapted from Winifred
Watson’s novel, the film stars
McDormand in the title role,
a destitute governess who
bluffs her way into a job
reordering the chaotic life of
her new employer (Adams).
PG-13 for some partial nudity
and innuendo. 92 min.
Two and a half stars out of
four.
— David Germain
“Paranoid Park” —
Paranoid Park is for the
most hardcore skateboarders
only. A severe cluster of
with songwriter Sondre
Lerche, who created the
music. DVD, $29.99; Bluray,
$34.99. (Disney)
“Hitman”
Timothy Olyphant stars in
an action thriller adapted
from the video game, playing
a genetically engineered
assassin hired to
take out criminal masterminds
and ending up on the
run as an Interpol agent
(Dougray Scott) and the
Russian military pursues
him throughout eastern
Europe. The movie is available
in single-disc releases
with the R-rated theatrical
movie or an unrated edition,
or in two-disc DVD and Bluray
sets with the unrated
version. Among the extras
are deleted scenes and an
alternate ending, a gag reel
and segments on the
weaponry used in the
movie. Single-disc DVD,
concrete ramps, rails and
ledges, it was built by and for
kids on the fringe: the runaways,
the druggies, the
ones who hop freight trains
from town to town with no
particular place to go. Gus
Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park”
isn’t for everybody, either,
even though it is a bit more
accessible than the other
similarly ethereal films the
writer-director has offered in
recent years, “Last Days,”
‘‘Elephant” and “Gerry.” It’s
also the best of the bunch.
Perhaps having source
material to work from helps
— Van Sant’s script is based
on a novel by Blake Nelson
— even though he’s taken
that structure, tossed it in the
air and turned it into a nonlinear
narrative. His subtly
gripping story follows the
teenage Alex (Gabe Nevins,
a non-actor Van Sant found
on MySpace), a skateboard-
$29.98; two-disc DVD set,
$34.98; two-disc Blu-ray
set, $39.98. (20th Century
Fox)
“Nancy Drew”
The queen of teen detectives
returns with
Hollywood’s latest adventure
inspired by author
Carolyn Keene’s mysteries
for young readers. Emma
Roberts, daughter of Eric
and niece of Julia, stars as
the old-fashioned, plaidskirted
Nancy, who clashes
with the hip crowd in
Hollywood as she adjusts
from her small-town life
while trying to solve the
death of a legendary screen
starlet. The DVD is available
in widescreen or fullscreen
formats, with the
movie accompanied by a
gag reel, a music video and
a handful of behind-thescenes
segments. DVD,
$28.98. (Warner Bros.)
er involved in the accidental
death of a security guard
near Paranoid Park in
Portland, Ore. It’s a dreamlike
pastiche of mounting
guilt — of the sounds and
sensations that steadily
wear on Alex’s conscience,
despite his perpetually
placid, often disconnected
exterior. Many viewers will
find the film painfully slow,
but if you give it a chance,
you’ll find it’s hypnotic, mesmerizing;
it comes at you in
pieces that initially don’t
make sense, like life so often
does. And while it may not
appear on the surface as if
much is going on, “Paranoid
Park” is at once a murder
mystery, a study of adolescent
angst and a work of art.
R for some disturbing
images, language and sexual
content. 78 min. Three
and a half stars out of four.
— Christy Lemire