This Week: A stacked first week of new releases for 2016 brings the vertigo of The Walk, the surprise of Sicario, and the letdown of True Detective.
► Showing the vicious toll America’s war on drugs is taking, SICARIO came out of nowhere to surprise a lot of folks in September. And there may be an Oscar nomination for Benicio Del Toro waiting. He’s the grim partner in a special task force being sent to take down a Mexican drug cartel, joined by FBI agent Emily Blunt – whose team suffers losses in a horrifying opening scene – and a Defense Department adviser (Josh Brolin) whose intentions aren’t quite clear. Plenty of swerves and gut-churning suspense in this polished thriller from Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, whose ‘Prisoners’ and ‘Enemy’ hinted at greatness. This is it.
► Without the IMAX screens it was made for, some of the wow factor is gone from Robert Zemeckis’ bio flick THE WALK, about French highwire walker Phillippe Petit’s covert set-up and spectacular walk between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a gutsy Petit and even had wire walking training from the man himself. Some clunky moments in the first half are wiped away by the gripping wire walk sequence, where Zemeckis pulls out some of his old magic. It ends up being a loving tribute to both Petit and the World Trade Center.
► We all knew M. Night Shyamalan was too good to keep making such awful movies. And yet, they just…kept…coming. But last year saw the first signs of a comeback with the low-budget horror comedy THE VISIT. The concept is simple and allows Shyamalan to have fun in what feels like forever: Two siblings spend a week with the grandparents they’ve never met, filming the trip for their mother (Kathyrn Han) who hasn’t seen her parents since eloping 15 years ago. The kids arrive and are given two rules: Don’t leave their bedroom past 9:30 p.m., and never, ever go in the basement. Shyamalan draws on classic fairy tales and a sharp, focused script to get his mojo back. With just a $5 million budget, it made $97 million worldwide.
► There were worse shows last year, but I doubt any could be as disappointing as Season 2 of TRUE DETECTIVE. The reasons are plentiful, and the problems apparent after just a couple episodes – in trying for a broader reach and completely different tone, creator Nic Pizzalotto created a plot too cumbersome and confusing to hook viewers like he did so brilliantly in Season 1. By the end, it’s hard to care about the season’s big mystery, and you sure couldn’t say that last time. Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughan, Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch all have their moments, but the unforgivable dialogue and garbled plot – layers upon layers on ‘who cares?’ tangents stemming from the murder of a corrupt city manager – make it an ordeal to get through. Ratings plunged every week until the finale, which strangely enough was more satisfying than the ending of Season 1. Not nearly enough to save what was once must-see TV. HBO still hasn’t committed to a third season.
► Filmed in 2012 and finally released last year, Eli Roth’s THE GREEN INFERNO is his gruesome tribute to Italian cannibal flicks of the ‘70s. A college freshman (Lorenza Izzo) joins a group of student activists heading to the Amazon to protest logging. When their plane crashes, they’re imprisoned by a native tribe who have new dinner plans. Not just that, but the freshman learns the protest was never what it seemed. You know what to expect with Roth: Grotesque violence mixed with gallows humor, this time with a sly swipe at the consequences of ill-informed activism. Roth is joined by much of the cast for commentary.
► Gasper Noe, whose ’Irreversible’ still has the most traumatizing movie scene I’ve ever endured, cranks up the weird again for LOVE – his first feature since the exhilarating ‘Enter the Void’ in 2009. For him, it’s pretty straight-forward: A film school student is contacted by the panicked mother of an ex he had a bad break-up with, who tells him she’s missing. For the rest of the day he recalls his life with her, full of drugs, sex and the ill-advised threesome which sealed their fate. *Editor's Note: LOVE was has been delayed to a January 19th release.
► Season 2 of Comedy Central’s BROAD CITY finds slacker New Yorkers Abbi and Illana avoiding work by hiring interns, Illana doing a piss-poor job nursing Abbi back to health after her wisdom teeth are removed, and the girls trying to return Kelly Ripa’s coat after mistakenly taking it at a charity event. One of TV’s great under-the-radar comedies. Guest stars include Seth Rogan, Janeane Garofalo and Amy Ryan.
► JOE DIRT 2: BEAUTIFUL LOSER isn’t so much a sequel as an ominous sign of where the movie industry is heading. It was made for Sony-owned website Crackle because Sony noticed the 2001 original movie would trend on Twitter whenever it aired on TV. Seriously. So David Spade rounded up the usual suspects, shat out #2, and it was viewed approximately two million times within a month after it debuted July 16, which Sony estimates is equal to $16 million at the box office. For what it’s worth, this follow-up finds happily married Joe sent back in time after a tornado hits town.
Also out this week:
CLICK HERE FOR A FULL LISTING OF ALL THE COOLEST DVD RELEASES OF THIS WEEK!
SO WHAT DVD/BLU-RAYS ARE YOU GUYS STOKED ABOUT THIS WEEK?!