This Week: Building a better bomb with Manhattan, setting sail with Rec 4, and revisiting New York’s sleazy hey day with A Most Violent Year.
► The TV floodgates truly opened last year. Even the obscure networks seemed to have one or two great new shows to offer, and WGN America’s MANHATTAN was among the best. Set in 1943, it follows the secret government efforts in a closed-off New Mexico town to invent a weapon that will end the war. We all know what they came up with, but it’s fascinating to watch John Benjamin Hickey lead his Manhattan Project team to their eventual Fat Man and Little Boy. All the while knowing Werner Heisenberg is trying to beat them to the punch in Germany. Tense and technically fascinating.
► The ‘70s were rough in New York, but things hit rock bottom in 1981, the setting for A MOST VIOLENT YEAR. With his trucks being robbed and the DA investigating him, the owner of a heating oil company (Oscar Isaac) brokers a deal which brings him more money and way more problems with the unions, police and the mob. Jessica Chastain and Albert Brooks add some prestige. Director J.C. Chandor channels some vintage Sidney Lumet here.
► The good news about REC 4 is that the director of the first two is back, and the comedic tone of the wretched third entry is gone. Bad news? The action shifts from the terrifying confines of the apartment building to a government ship, where reporter Angela (Manuela Velasco) is taken along with other survivors of the plague. Not quite as creepy, and by discarding the ‘found footage’ element, the scares aren’t quite as potent. Billed as the last one, but a horror franchise with this pedigree is hard to kill. Note: This is a DVD-R from Amazon, meaning it’s manufactured on demand.
► Comedy Central’s INSIDE AMY SCHUMER has the stand-up comic (and fourth place finisher on Last Comic Standing!) in a variety of raunchy sketches and awkward scenarios. Among other things, she farts when frightened, turns her boyfriend gay and tries out group sex. Collects all 20 episodes of Seasons 1 & 2, with the consensus being 2 was much better. Guest stars include Paul Giamatti, Rachel Dratch and Parker Posey.
► Finally out on blu-ray nearly a year after its U.S. release, James Gray’s THE IMMIGRANT has Marion Cotillard as a Polish woman who leaves with her sister for New York in 1921. After they’re separated, she’s taken in by a lowlife (Joaquin Phoenix) who pushes her into prostitution. Jeremy Renner is the stage magician who gives her some hope of escape. Cotillard won Best Actress among four major awards, but alas, no Oscar nomination.
► So while no one was looking, Ryan Reynolds dropped the terrifically twisted THE VOICES on us, starring as a factory worker who hears voices in his head…mainly from his dog Bisco and his cat Mr. Whiskers. They give him sound advice, like dismembering a hitchhiker he accidentally kills one night. Soon enough, her severed head starts talking to him as well. Pitch black comedy also stars Anna Kendrick and Gemma Arterton. After this, ‘Deadpool’ will seem like a Disney movie for Reynolds.
► Burt Reynolds went through an epic flame-out in the early ‘80s, but not before making one of his all-time best flicks. Based on a tough-as-nails book by William Diehl, SHARKEY’S MACHINE has Reynolds as a narcotics sergeant who gets demoted after botching a job. While working vice, he falls for an escort (a never finer Rachel Ward) who is part of an elaborate prostitution ring he’s surveilling. Bad stuff ensues, including a grueling scene where two of his fingers are cut off. After years of generic action comedies, this was Reynolds at his grittiest.
► FOO FIGHTERS: SONIC HIGHWAYS sees Dave Grohl and the guys travel to legendary studios throughout the country to record their new album, sitting down with Dolly Parton, Nancy Wilson, Rick Nielson, Paul Stanley and others along the way. Each episode ends with the music video of the finished product. Eight-part HBO shows how the Foos have pretty much become modern rock’s standard bearers.
Also out this week:
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SO WHAT DVD/BLU-RAYS ARE YOU GUYS STOKED ABOUT THIS WEEK?!