October 23, 2007 – New Releases

• MR. BROOKS
• FIDO
• MEET THE ROBINSONS
• ALIVE DAY MEMORIES
• BREATHLESS

Plus, keep reading for info on how you can contribute to our “Films for the Troops” program!

It’s your chance to pick the winning logo. VOTE for your favorite and get *1 Free Catalog Movie Rental, as a thanks for helping us pick our new look!  Voting ends November 2nd so don’t miss your chance!


And tell your friends to vote, too! Then invite yourself over to watch their free rental!

Click the image to go to a slide show of the 10 Finalists! (on Flickr)

And a special thank you to everyone who submitted, you made our job of choosing very hard!

Meet The Robinsons – Reviewed by David

 

Animation/Family

 

Rated G

 

Kids will definitely dig this latest 3-D delight from Disney. It invokes the Mouse House’s oft-used no-parent clause yet proves to be one of the studio’s odder productions. That’s a good thing. It’s got personality. It’s also got flying hats, a talking T-Rex, Tom Selleck and a tagline inspired by the late Walt Disney himself.

It revolves around a 12-year-old orphan name Lewis, left at his orphanage’s doorstep when just a baby. That the four-eyed, spike-haired kid likes to invent things at all hours of the day and night comes much to the dismay of his roommate and the 124 couples that have passed on parenting him. Before he knows it, and because of the Bowler Hat Guy, Lewis finds himself in the future, befriended by one fairly odd futuristic family.

That young ones will enjoy the colorful visuals is a no-brainer. The beautifully rendered scenes may not seem as awe-inspiring as they might have been, say, 10 years ago, but they are constantly clever.

For me, though, what made Lewis’ adventure all the more enjoyable was the voice cast. Adam West, Angela Bassett, Laurie Metcalf and MAD TV’s Nicole Sullivan, among others, contribute lively line readings that made me laugh. Selleck’s amusing appearance is hilariously foreshadowed when Lewis gets the 411 on the future family’s family tree.

And yet the best work comes from director Steven Anderson himself as the Bowler Hat Guy. He creates a character who’s a little dim, somewhat sad and, once you find out who he really is, not necessarily evil.

It’ll leave you filled with warm fuzzies and tears of joy. If it doesn’t, well, you must live in an igloo at the North Pole and have had your tear ducts sealed shut. That or you just don’t have a heart.

Alive Day Memories – Reviewed by Casey

Documentary

Not Rated

This HBO special documents ten veterans of the Iraq war struggling with physical disabilities and post traumatic stress. “Alive Day” refers to the day they escaped death, the day their lives were forever and irrevocably altered.

The footage of soldiers interacting with producer and interviewer James Gandolfini (a.ka. Tony Soprano) was, for me, an unnecessary & distracting interruption to the powerful and poignant recounts of their experiences in the war (and their speculation on their futures) intercut with the soldiers’ home movies, footage from military hospitals, and archival insurgent videos of attacks on Americans. This film really puts in perspective the sacrifice war demands and the courage our troops are forced to summon to survive.

Join all of us at The Video Station in supporting this worthy cause!

Breathless (Criterion Special Edition)- Reviewed by J.D.

Crime / Drama / Romance

Not Rated

The importance of director Jean-Luc Godard‘s cinematic debut Breathless, now nearly fifty years on since it first appeared seemingly out of the blue, has never waned; in many ways, for a number of reasons, its importance has increased, albeit in increasingly subtle shades. As is true with much of the Nouvelle Vague, what is presented on the screen is not as important as the energies and ideas behind it. More so than any of his colleagues, conspirators and fellow Cahiers critics, Godard’s imprint on cinema – visually, lyrically, and ideologically — instilled a sense of play with both an encyclopedic appreciation and a fervent disregard for all cinema which had come before him. In the decades since his initial forays, Godard’s methods have changed, and his early optimism has developed into a sense of disquiet with the state of the world, but his filmmaking genius has remained at a level few can touch. His most recent film, Notre Musique, is nearly unparalleled in its beauty and stands out as one of the finest of the decade so far.

So what is Breathless about, exactly? Well, it’s hard to say. Essentially designed as a genre exercise, in thrall to American gangster films of the 1940′s, we are introduced to a petty thief on the lam for murder played by the iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo. The flashpoint of French cool of the 1960s, Belmondo cemented his status with this performance which channels both Humphrey Bogart and Jack Kerouac‘s ‘On The Road’ hero Neil Cassady. He soon meets up with American ex-pat Jean Seberg who is living in Paris and hoping to become a journalist, and the odd mating dance commences, sound-tracked by the sort of music that only they could hear. That, in sum, is the essence of the film; but, as was true of so much of the Nouvelle Vague, it is not the story but how the story is told.

Belmondo is a gangster, but it’s not a gangster film. It’s a love story, but not really. It’s the energy of the film that sustains it, the combination of intellectualism and the emerging strains of what would become known as ‘pop culture’, the mantra of ‘out of the studios and into the streets’ lingering in the Paris air, and the kind-hearted anarchy on display which elevates Breathless above all other films of the Nouvelle Vague.

Breathless is not Godard’s best film but, after all this time, it remains his signature. Importantly, in many ways it is also his most accessible. While it’s true that as the 1960′s went on his films grew increasingly abstract, several of his early films including Band of Outsiders, Masculin Feminin, Contempt, A Woman Is A Woman, Pierrot le Fou and Alphaville are wonderful examples of cinema at its most purely pleasurable. Adventurous and smart, they also have the added bonus of often featuring the beautiful Anna Karina, his then-wife and a charming actress more than capable of bringing his whims to fruition.

The influence of this film, and the Nouvelle Vague in general, has found its way into nearly every country in the world. There seems to be a New Wave every few years; the current movements are in Mexico and, remarkably, Romania. These are the things that sustain cinema, and allow fresh ideas and new voices to thrive just when things get too boring. It would be ridiculous to give all of the credit for this to Breathless or Godard, of course, but I would guess that somewhere, sitting on a shelf in a young film student’s home studio in Pittsburgh or Zurich or even Fredonia, is a copy of this very movie … and now in a remastered, double-disc edition! (Plug paid for by the Criterion Collection)