The holidays are just around the corner. Gee, I can’t wait. Do you too suffer from a similar case of crippling paralysis that wreaks havoc on one’s central nervous system and turns what should be a pleasant occasion into a stressful affair? I don’t even like shopping for myself, let alone getting ‘creative’ and finding that ‘purrrfect gift’ for a multitude of lucky recipients. But this is the world we were born into, and until a consumer revolution strikes, it’s time to get to it. To help matters, here are some suggestions for your movie-loving friends. They’ll thank you more than if you simply tossed a gift card in their direction:
World’s Greatest Dad (Magnolia) — I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but here comes the home video release of yet another film that deserved to find a wider theatrical audience but didn’t. Bobcat Goldthwait’s sweetly crude high school satire, starring Robin Williams as a high school teacher, father, and aspiring writer who turns tragedy into bass-ackwards triumph, is filled with sharp performances and even sharper writing. Read my full review, as well as my conversation with Goldthwait, then buy it on DVD
Somers Town (Film Movement) — Shane Meadows’ precious follow-up to This Is England is small in scale but large in heart. Thomas Turgoose—aka, The Discovery of the 21st century—has run away from his Midlands home and landed in London, where he befriends a young Polish immigrant. Together, the pair do their best to woo a pretty French waitress. I hate to put it in these terms, but I’ll say it anyway: Somers Town is this year’s Once. Buy it on DVD
Beautiful Losers (Oscilloscope Labs) — Aaron Rose and co-director Joshua Leonard’s portrait of the small community of outsider artists on the Lower East Side who made a name for themselves in the early 1990s is an informative and engaging art history lesson, told by those who lived it. Buy it on DVD
Lion’s Den (Strand Releasing) — Pablo Trapero’s Lion’s Den is not your typical prison drama. Martina Gusman delivers a powerhouse performance as Julia Zarate, a woman who is sent to a Buenos Aires jail after being accused of murder. While there, she realizes she’s pregnant, further complicating her life. The prison conditions are so horrendous that Julia takes matters in her own hands in order to give her baby a better life. Buy it on DVD
AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (Criterion) — There’s really nothing to say about this one. Twenty-five Akira Kurosawa films in one pretty package? Yes, please! In addition to the greatest hits, four rare titles are making their way onto DVD for the very first time. Buy the Boxed Set.
— Michael Tully
