New Releases
The Kind of, Sort of, Pretty OK Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man - Sony - Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD
Release Date: Jul 03, 2012
Director: Marc Webb
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary,Martin Sheen. Full cast + crew
Earlier this year there was a lot of fan frenzy over what superhero ended up having the best movie of the summer, and as much as I enjoy a good, nerdy argument, what's wrong with agreeing they all had their own worthy merits? In the case of The Amazing Spider-Man, it's got a good cast, a good look, and a refreshing change of mood for the wall crawler. Sure, it suffers a bit from covering a lot of the same origin ground as the first Sam Raimi film, and there's some odd editing problems that make it seem like the movie is missing story, but neither problem is large enough to kill the movie entirely.
Special Features: Commentary, Second Screen Experience, a feature-length making-of documentary, deleted scenes, pre-visualization materials and more.
Everything Else
It's an odd week for new releases filled with a small handful of titles that are worth noting, but none that are particularly worth getting ecstatic for. 360 is the latest drama from City of God director Fernando Meirelles, and while it didn't get the best reviews during its small release earlier this year, its ensemble cast will certainly draw some eyes. Arthur Christmas is the latest from Aardman Animation, and it's arriving nearly a year after the film first hit theaters. And then there's Red Dog, an Australian film that seems to have warmed quite a few hearts down under, and Your Sister's Sister, an indie comedy featuring Emily Blunt, Mark Duplass and Mike Birbiglia.
If you like your movies with a bit more blood and adrenaline in them, however, you'll want to turn your attention to any of the following: Rescue 3D (an IMAX documentary about the men and women who save the rest of us during natural disasters); [REC 3], which is a fun, tradition-breaking entry into Spain's influential found-footage franchise; The Pact, which earned quite the reaction at Sundance (and it wasn't all positive); Outpost: Black Sun, the sequel to the cool and underseen Nazi zombie movie Outpost; and the two straight-to-video actioner Maximum Conviction and Fire with Fire.
Catalog Titles
Need to take your mind off of American politics, but still want to show your love for the country? Patton's got you covered. Sure, there's a giant American flag on the cover, but this is the kind of masterful film that cuts right to the core of American patriotism, and the mind-set that fuels it. It features one of the best performances ever captured on film, and is one of the best war movies ever made.
For a complete 180, there's the always, always great Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It's one of the finest, eminently rewatchable comedies ever made. Just thinking about it makes me want to stop writing and pop it in. But if perfect comedies aren't your thing, we can head back to drama territory for both Sunset Boulevard and Rashomon, two very different movies that had very big impacts on several generations of film fans and filmmakers alike. And lastly for this row, we've got The Muppet Christmas Carol, a truly delightful version of the classic Charles Dickens novel.
And to end out the week we've got something for everyone from a variety of great filmmakers. There's the John Carpenter sci-fi flick They Live, Joel Schumacher's courtroom thriller The Client, and Brian DePalma's Bonfire of the Vanities. On the rom-com side we've got Beaches and Sweet Home Alabama, two films that have probably killed off thousands of boxes of tissues over the years.