DVDs This Week June 2

Pick of the Week: No Country for Old Men – The Coens’ fantastic neo-western adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s elegiac thriller which swept the top of the Oscars. It’s a masterful piece of work, beautifully shot and directed but is dominated by Javier Bardem as the Devil incarnate. His performance itself is immense but the character is so well used throughout as to make him fearsomely frightening. It’s certainly among the strongest in their canon and thorough deserves its place in your DVD collection.

Also Out:

National Treasure 2 – Nicolas Cage rips off Indiana Jones and ends up in a sub-par Da Vinci Code. Unfeasibly popular crap.
The Kite Runner – Decent if somewhat flawed exploraton of friendship and roots that does feature two wonderful child performances.
The 11th Hour – Leo DiCaprio tells us all to cut down on emissions to save the planet. Thanks.
I Think I Love My Wife – Horrible looking wannabe-mean spirited comedy with Chris Rock as a happily married man struggling with the possibility of infidelity.
Death of a Salesman – Good attempt to bring Arthur Miller’s masterwork to the screen featuring a strong perfomance from Dustin Hoffman.
King of California – Michael Douglas basically reprising the Wonder Boys character in an interesting little under-the-radar pick.

Region 1

Cloverfield – Pretty good modern monster movie that only really suffers due to the cast looking and acting like participants in a Gap commercial. Otherwise, a thoroughly effective event film.
Semi Pro – Really strange comedy in which Will Ferrell is in Anchorman-with-Basketball and Woody Harrelson is in Cinderella Man. Two totally different films stuck together, after which you’ll want to punch woody for ruining the fun.
Rescue Me: Season 4 – Getting strong as it goes, Rescue Me is now the premiere deconstruction of the alpha male psyche on television following the end of The Sopranos.
The Onion Movie – I’m looking forward to this sketch piece which feature a fake trailer for Steven Seagal in ‘The Cockpuncher’. Likely hit-and-miss but hopefully darn funny in places.
Honeydripper – You can’t go wrong with John Sayles behind the camera and Danny Glover in front. Looking forward to checking this out this week.
Patton: Special Edition – George C Scott in one of the finest male performances in movie history.