AMANDA SEYFRIED as Valerie, BILLY BURKE as Cesaire and VIRGINIA MADSEN as Suzette in Warner Bros. Pictures' fantasy thriller "RED RIDING HOOD," a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (Kimberly French)
(L-r) JASON SUDEIKIS as Fred and OWEN WILSON as Rick in New Line Cinema� s comedy � HALL PASS,� a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
DVDS OUT TUESDAY
New films
Battle: Los Angeles $28.95/ Blu-ray $34.95
Red Riding Hood $28.98/ Blu-ray $35.99
Hall Pass $28.98/ Blu-ray $35.99
Kill the Irishman $29.98/ Blu-ray $34.98
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen Blu-ray $29.98
Big Mommas: Like Father Like Son $29.99
Jackass 3.5: The Unrated Movie $22.99
Vanishing of the Bees $19.98
Kingdom of War, Part 1 and Part 2 $26.98/ Blu-ray $29.98
Adrift $29.98
Television
Haven: The Complete First Season $44.98/ Blu-ray $49.98
The Glades: Season 1 $27.99
The Best of The Dean Martin Variety Show: Collector's Edition $59.95
Supernatural: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray $59.95
Black in Latin America $29.99/ Blu-ray $34.99
Older films
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Ultimate Edition Blu-ray $49.99
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Ultimate Edition Blu-ray $49.99
Insignificance: The Criterion Collection $29.95/ Blu-ray $39.95
The Makioka Sisters: The Criterion Collection $19.95/ Blu-ray $29.95
The Cincinnati Kid Blu-ray $19.98
Heavy Metal Blu-ray $19.95
Music
Mahler: Keeping Score Blu-ray $63.98
Foo Fighters: Back and Forth $18.98
As we know, the camera likes certain actors. It's certainly likes Amanda Seyfried - who has penetrating eyes and ethereal beauty.
No doubt, director Catherine Hardwicke knows that because of the way she's appealingly filmed the young actress in "Red Riding Hood."
Don't get me wrong. Seyfried certainly has the chops as an actress, but she isn't overly challenged in this reimagining of the classic fairy tale.
Hardwicke, the director of "Thirteen" and the first "Twilight" movie, has for the most part given us a movie for throbbing teens rather than one with bite, which is something you would have hoped for with a big bad wolf involved.
True to new feminist retellings of the story, Hardwicke's version - from a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson - has Seyfried's Valerie as much less prey and more predator than the original folk tale. But the director seems a bit timid in exploring darker themes - afraid, perhaps, in turning off her core (think "Twilight") audience or, worse, going over their heads.
Even the gore is on the tame side, with a PG-13 rating.
Gary Oldman as a villain and Julie Christie as a bohemian grandma are brought in to give the proceedings some British credibility, but most of the time in "Red Riding Hood" you feel like you have been thrust into a medieval mall.
L.A. under attack
I thought "Battle: Los Angeles" might be about a Dodgers-Angels World Series or UCLA and USC football in the
BCS Bowl, but, no, it's the same old, same old. It's about aliens wiping out the City of Angels.Starring Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez, "Battle: Los Angeles" is told through the eyes of one Marine platoon assigned to rescue civilians in Santa Monica. So while there are special effects, it's done more in a gritty faux-war-documentary style than the rousing, silly gusto of "Independence Day," one of the jillion other films that have gleefully destroyed the city.
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, "Battle: Los Angeles" manages to keep tensions amped without the audience having to use any brain cells. And by the way, Santa Monica is its own city. "We've got a defensive line at Lincoln Boulevard," shouts one soldier, just so we know who's important to save.
Men behaving badly
In the Farrelly brothers' "Hall Pass" Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) play guys approaching middle age who aren't really grown up yet though they hold respectable jobs and have wives. They ogle young women, etc., etc. When a relationship guru (Joy Behar) suggests that the wives give their leering husbands a week off from marriage, it gives the fellows a chance to revert to their adolescent selves.
What ensues is a rather hit-and-miss sordid affair, as the Farrellys do love their gross-out moments.
Keep in mind
Criterion is releasing Nicolas Roeg's amusingly offbeat "Insignificance," a 1985 adaptation of Terry Johnson's play. It's about four unnamed people who look and sound a lot like Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio and Joseph McCarthy in a story that reflects the eerie Cold War mentality of the 1950s.
Based on the real-life exploits of a Cleveland gangster in the 1960s and '70s, "Kill the Irishman" is a passable crime movie with a good cast, led by Ray Stevens ("Rome").
Source: http://www.dailynews.com/lifestyle/ci_18253902?source=rss
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