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Insights from home entertainment industry experts. Home Media blogs give you the inside scoop on entertainment news, DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases, and the happenings at key studios and entertainment retailers. TK's Take analyzes and comments on home entertainment industry news and trends, Agent DVD Insider talks comic adaptations, and IndieFile delivers independent film news.

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November 18, 2009
Magnolia to Bow ‘Chevolution,’ ‘Outrage,’ ‘The Burning Plain’

The Burning Plain

Magnolia Home Entertainment in January is releasing one great film I have seen and two that I need to.

The Burning Plain

Genre: Drama
Studio: Magnolia
Street date: 1/12
Prebook: 12/15
Price/Format: $26.98 DVD, $29.98 BD
Reserve for purchase (DVD or Blu-ray)
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Charlize Theron and Kim Bassinger star in the latest from Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros). Theron stars as a restaurant hostess with a secret sex life; Bassinger is a desperate housewife; and Jennifer Lawrence stars as a young woman who falls in love with a man her father hates. In typical Arriaga fashion, the stories intertwine, and, I’m guessing, in typical Arriaga fashion, you won’t want to miss it.

Outrage

Genre: Documentary
Studio: Magnolia
Street date: 1/19
Prebook: 12/22
Price/Format: $26.98 DVD
Reserve for purchase
Reserve on Netflix

Kirby Dick’s searing documentary opens the closet holding allegedly gay and definitely anti-gay rights politicians such as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) and retired Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.). Dick, the firebrand behind This Film is Not Yet Rated, another great doc that explored hypocrisy (in that film with the MPAA), interviews blogger Michael Rogers, who outs closeted politicians who vote against gay rights, as well as Rep. Barney Frank, the openly gay Massachusetts Democrat who’s always good for dropping sardonic bits of wisdom into a stew of bull droppings. You might feel conflicted about both Dick’s and Rogers’ tactics with regard to the right to privacy (I sure do), but it’s hard to ignore the film’s point about why such hypocrisy shouldn’t be allowed to continue without exposure when the end result is so damaging to a group of people.


Chevolution

Genre: Documentary
Studio: Magnolia
Street date: 1/19
Prebook: 12/22
Price/Format: $26.98 DVD
Reserve for purchase
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Features interviews with various commentators on the socialist revolutionary, including actor Gael Garcia Bernal, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and artist Shepard Fairey.

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October 22, 2009
Pattinson’s ‘Little Ashes’ Comes to DVD

Beltrán and Pattinson in Little Ashes

Genre: Drama
Studio: E1 Entertainment
Street date: 1/26
Prebook: 12/29
Price/Format: $26.98 DVD
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Robert Pattinson ditches his vampire cape — and his clothes, in at least one talked-about scene — for a cheesy moustache to play surrealist artist Salvador Dalí in Little Ashes. The film follows a young Dali at university, where he meets fellow luminaries in writer Federico García Lorca (Javier Beltrán) and filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Matthew McNulty). Lorca becomes infatuated with Dalí and their friendship turns into something more.

So what’s the story with this movie — is it an excuse to get Pattinson out of his clothes and into some gay mess, or is it actually a good movie that he just happens to star in? The reviews have been all over the place. But Marina Gatell’s performance as a fellow writer enamored with Lorca has gotten praise all around.

E1 Entertainment must have sold their souls or something to get a hold of two Pattinson movies in one year (the other, The Haunted Airman, came out last week).

NOTE: This isn’t the official trailer, but I like this one because the girl says “ready your drool bibs.”
 

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October 06, 2009
‘NY Times’ Fave ‘Lake Tahoe’ Comes to DVD

Genre: Drama
Studio: Film Movement
Street date: 11/10
Price/Format: $24.95 DVD
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Lake Tahoe is a Spanish-language coming-of-age comedy/drama (I will not say dramedy; I hate this word) about a 16-year-old boy who crashes his car and encounters strange characters while looking for a car part, such as a young mother who sings for a punk band and a young mechanic obsessed with martial arts. The film was the New York Times critics pick and won best film, supporting actor and director (Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke) at the Ariels. A short film is included with the DVD, as they are with all Film Movement releases: Noodles, by French director Jordan Feldman.

 

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October 05, 2009
Anchor Bay Opens ‘Paper Heart’

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Documentary
Studio: Anchor Bay
Street date: 12/8
Prebook: 10/29
Price/Format: $29.98 DVD $39.98 Blu-ray
Reserve for purchase (DVD or Blu-ray)
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Dec. 1 Anchor Bay is releasing pseudo-doc cuddlefest Paper Heart on DVD and Blu-ray. Charlene Yi, the funny Asian girl from Knocked Up, co-wrote and stars in the film, which weaves interviews with ministers, children, lawyers and plenty of others about love together with a sort of fantastical love story between her and actor Michael Cera. I don’t think it really matters which parts of it are real. No one cares that “The Hills” isn’t real. It’s original and Yi and Cera are irresistible geeks for the ages.

 

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September 23, 2009
Lionsgate Explores ‘The Cove’

Genre: Documentary
Studio: Lionsgate
Street date: 12/8
Prebook: 11/11
Price/Format: $27.98 DVD
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The Cove is a controversial film by nature — it follows animal activist and formal dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry and a dive team as they explore the killing of dolphins in a lagoon in Taiji, Japan. The crew uses hidden microphones and cameras to show how fishermen of Taiji hunt thousands of dolphins for purposes of the dolphin entertainment industry and the black market for dolphin meat.

The film’s pedigree speaks for itself: It has won the Audience Awards at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, 2009 Silver Docs Film Festival, 2009 HotDocs Film Festival, 2009 Sydney Film Festival and 2009 Maui Film Festival, as well as Golden Space Needle at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival, Best Feature Film and Best Storytelling at the 2009 Nantucket Film Festival, Best in Festival and Best Theatrical from the 2009 Blue Ocean Film Festival.

Personally, I just keep hearing about this film and its disturbing subject matter — the aura around this documentary reminds me of Zoo two years ago. And young actress and animal activist Hayden Panettiere appears in the film, which it pretty cool of her.

The DVD has a commentary, a documentary on the dangers of mercury, behind-the-scenes footage and deleted and extended scenes. 

 

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