This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: Looper, Justified, Cosmopolis ...

This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: Looper, Justified, Cosmopolis …

By John Law

January 2nd 2013, 5:10pm

This week: Time to take Looper for another spin. Also: David Cronenberg puts Robert Pattinson to good use; and if it’s January, it’s time for Justified.

► The outstanding LOOPER was one of the best sci-fi brainteasers in years – an action flick submerged in something far more thoughtful and inventive than we’ve seen this side of the first ‘Matrix’ movie. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who had a killer 2012) disposes of mob victims sent from the future, on the understanding he himself will be one of the ones sent back some day. When that day arrives, his future self (Bruce Willis) manages to escape and cause all sorts of repercussions in the continuum. Director Rian Johnson still hasn’t announced his next movie yet – what’s taking so long?

► Season 3 of JUSTIFIED finds a Detroit mob enforcer (Neal McDonough) arriving in Harlan to become the big new baddie. Trouble is, with local pot queen Mags dead, no less than three other lowlifes want to become the county’s new crimelord, including her seedy son Dickie. Marshall Raylan Givens must deal with all of them while trying to salvage his marriage and confront his own corrupt dad. With its shady characters and snappy dialogue, this feels like the closest thing to a Quentin Tarantino TV series we’ll ever see.

► David Cronenberg gets back to his weird ways with COSMOPOLIS, based on Don DeLillo’s surreal novel about a young billionaire (Robert Pattinson) who ventures across town in his limo to get a haircut only to confront one life-altering event after another. Is it about the circle of life? The sanctity of marriage? Reconnecting with family? If you aren’t asking what a Cronenberg movie is about after it’s over, he isn’t doing his job.

► One of SyFy’s biggest hits, BEING HUMAN is based on a BBC series about a ghost, vampire and werewolf sharing a Boston home. While the first season stuck close to the British version’s first campaign, Season 2 branches off on its own. Basically, take every goofy thing about ‘True Blood,’ remove the cussing and nudity, and you’re left with this. Season 3 starts Jan. 14.

► Elgin James’ LITTLE BIRDS is one of those movies parents have nightmares about. Juno Temple and Kay Panabaker are two girls from a decaying suburb who are persuaded by two street kids to follow them back to Los Angeles, where they’re drawn into a life of scams and petty crime. Kate Bosworth and Leslie Mann co-star.

► We all love the zombie mode in Call of Duty games, right? Figure it’s perfect for a movie? WAR OF THE DEAD is way ahead of you. While on a mission to destroy a Nazi bunker, some American soldiers are attacked by the same Germans they just killed. Previously known as ‘Stone’s War,’ which clearly wasn’t zombie enough.

► In THE TROUBLE WITH BLISS, Michael C. Hall is a 35-year-old man sharing an apartment with his widowed dad (Peter Fonda). He has no job, no money, and his mom’s death has left him an emotional wreck (hmm, sounds Dexterish). Which is the perfect time to start a relationship with the sexed-up teenaged daughter (Brie Larson) of a former classmate.

► Because Japanese anime isn’t creepy enough, the first film in the MARDOCK SCRAMBLE trilogy had a bunch of nudity despite its ‘star’ being a 15-year-old prostitute who is killed and brought back as a cyborg. Seriously, owning the director’s cut might get you put on the FBI’s Watch List. For ‘Second Combustion,’ our underage hussy vows to take down the man that killed her.

Also out this week: