DVD Roundup - All Is Lost, The Spectacular Now, The Hunt

ALL IS LOST (★★★)
Starring Robert Redford. Directed by J.C. Chandor.

This bare-bones tale of survival never gets dull, even with very little dialogue and only one actor. Redford could be playing himself, but in this stripped down atmosphere, he's good enough. He's a man at sea when his boat springs a leak. For the next 80 minutes, it's just him trying to survive, trying to find a way to get another boat's attention before his own sinks.

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THE SPECTACULAR NOW (★★★½)
Starring Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyle Chandler and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Directed by James Ponsoldt.

It's one of those high school movies that actually has a brain and heart behind what it's doing. It's about a popular but listless bad boy named Sutter (Miles Teller), who falls for an unconventional nice girl (Shailene Woodley) who starts to be the better influence on him than he is a bad influence on her.

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THE HUNT (★★½)
Starring Mads Mikkelsen. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg.

This was a difficult movie to sit through, to the point that my wife quit watching and when I told her the rest of the movie, she said she has no regrets. This Danish film is about a good guy who volunteers at the kindergarten who is then accused of molesting one of the kids. We know right off the bat he is innocent, and so the increased tension from his home-town who start to view him as a monster... well, it's excruciating. Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, NBC's Hannibal) is very good as the wronged man, and it seems intended to remind of the cases of the McMartins, Friedmans, or West Memphis Three, where a Salem-esque hysteria surrounded the accused. It gets a little too manipulative in this vein, but Mikkelsen saves it.

The Conspirator - DVD Review

ll 1/2

Starring James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Tom Wilkinson, Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Huston, Justin Long, Colm Meaney, Alexis Bledel, James Badge Dale, Toby Kebbell, Norman Reedus and Stephen Root. Directed by Robert Redford.

As a portrayal of historical events, this film is a valuable document. As its own entertainment, it never really comes to life.

The Civil War is finally over, and Pres. Abraham Lincoln has cause to celebrate, but before the nation can even exhale, he is shot in the back of the head. Quickly, John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators are chased down. Booth was killed, but the rest are on trial.

Only one on trial is Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), and as her reluctant lawyer Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) quickly learns, she may be innocent after all. The movie is seen through Aiken's eyes, and the more convinced he becomes of Mary's innocence, the more the chips are frighteningly stacked against her.

If The Crucible was a response to the McCarthy hearings, then The Conspirator is a response to Guantanamo Bay. The parallels are too juicy. The nation is in fear, prisoners' right are ignored, a military tribunal judges instead of a civilian court, and the movie all but argues that Dick Cheney was War Secretary Edwin Stanton in a previous life.

One choice I wish Redford hadn't made: all the interior shots are done with realistic lighting, so that beams of light coming through the windows puts half of any room in shadow. Another is to keep Mary Surratt a cypher. Oh, Robin Wright makes you think more will be revealed about Mary, but it's never allowed to surface. It's all about the lawyer.

I support this being shown in high-school classrooms, but it is about at the level of your average Masterpiece Theater.

Random Entertainment News 7/19/11

- Tom Cruise will play Jack Reacher in One Shot, based on Lee Child's best-selling book series. In the books, Jack is 6'5" and 250 lbs. Christopher McQuarrie will direct. Afterwards, Cruise will star in the sci-fi actioner Oblivion for director Joseph Kosinski (Tron Legacy).

- Sean Bean (Game of Thrones) is in talks to play the King to Julia Roberts's Queen in Tarsem Singh's Snow White, starring Lily Collins.

- Kevin Costner will play Leonardo DiCaprio's villainous right-hand man in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, a spaghetti western about a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) seeking revenge and to free his family.

- Dennis Quaid is the latest to join the cast of What to Expect When You're Expecting, an ensemble rom-com about pregnancy. It stars Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick, Chace Crawford, Brooklyn Decker (Just Go with It) and Matthew Morrison (Glee).

- Producer Don Murphy (Transformers 3) is planning a live-action Captain Planet movie.

- Robert Redford will play a Vietnam-Era radical still on the run in The Company You Keep, co-starring Shia LaBeouf as a reporter who finds him.

- Bill Moseley (The Devil's Rejects), Alexandra Daddario (Percy Jackson), Scott Eastwood (Gran Torino) and Richard Riehle (Office Space) are among those cast in the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D movie. Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, will make a cameo appearance.

- Stephen Dillane (The Hours) and Carice van Houten (Valkyrie) have been cast as Stannis Baratheon and his witch-priestess Melisandre in the second season of HBO's Game of Thrones. Stannis is the younger brother of the late King Robert and rightful heir to the throne (if you ignore Daenerys's claim).