CliqueClack

Silver Linings Playbook and more on DVD and Blu-ray

What do Silver Linings Playbook and Funny Girl have in common? They’re both coming to DVD and Blu-ray April 30th and both films feature Oscar winning performances by their lead actresses, Jennifer Lawrence and Barbra Streisand respectively. Streisand also has a second film coming to home video this week, The Guilt Trip with Seth Rogan (and I seem to be in the minority of people who liked it). Mark Wahlberg, who is heating up movie screens this week with Pain & Gain, heats up TV screens with Broken City, and as the world awaits Baz Luhrmann’s latest epic, The Great Gatsby, his first, much more intimate feature Strictly Ballroom brings its considerable charm to Blu-ray. Add to these some smaller films, more classics and an “odd” collection of Star Trek movies, and April 30th looks like a pretty good day for movie fans. To see what else is coming, have a look at our shopper’s guide and click on a link to get more information or to make a purchase.

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Arthur Newman paints an empty picture of sadness and growth

It’s an odd thing about names and identity — the name is everything that symbolizes who we are at that point in time. Nicknames are introduced and discarded, and often people take new names when they get married. But names aren’t everything; even if you change your name, that doesn’t mean you’ve changed yourself. That’s not the only way to escape who you are; sometimes it seems easier to run away than confront your problems. Sometimes it’s even the right choice. But usually it isn’t.

Arthur Newman is immediately reminiscent of every other indie quasi-romance movie you’ve ever seen, with its muted colors, long stretches of no dialogue, frequent closeups of actors’ faces, and supremely high-minded dialogue. Colin Firth plays a man changing his identity to Arthur Newman to escape problems in past, taking a road trip to find some sort of success after a lifetime of failures. In doing so, he abandons his girlfriend Mina (Anne Heche) and his mostly estranged son Grant (Sterling Beaumon), who lives with his mother and is very bitter. While stopped at a random motel somewhere on the eastern US seaboard, Arthur saves the life of troubled waif Mike (Emily Blunt), who has her own complicated and sad back story. After the classic set of expected back and forths, the two head off on their little adventure. Then the question becomes: Who’s really the damaged one here? Can they help each heal or just make things worse? And what about Mina and Grant, who aren’t sure what happened?

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The Big Wedding is muddled, off-putting, and not nearly as bad as you’re expecting

As society changes, perspectives change. Customs and expectations shift as cultural changes occur; the idea of divorce may have been considered beyond the pale decades ago, but is now commonplace. The most virulent racists and bigots used to be free to spout their hatred and were never reprimanded; they still exist, but their hatred tends to be more subtle and more insidious. But some things haven’t changed that much. A wedding between two young people is still an important milestone for any family, theoretically a time for celebration, but when everyone gets together … sometimes they can’t hide the secret resentments hiding beneath.

The Big Wedding is an odd sort of movie. We immediately begin with Ellie (Diane Keaton) accidentally seeing her ex-husband Don (Robert De Niro) in flagrante with Bebe (Susan Sarandon), Don’s longtime girlfriend and the one he cheated on his wife with. So it now seems like a silly, screwball comedy of errors right? This is backed up by meeting Ellie and Don’s biological children Jared (Topher Grace) and Lyla (Katherine Heigl) as we discover that he’s a twenty-nine old doctor who’s still a virgin because he’s … wait for it … holding out for love! Their adopted brother Alejandro (Ben Barnes, who isn’t technically Hispanic at all) is getting married to Missy (Amanda Seyfried). And uh oh! In order to convince his biological mother and sister to come from Colombia, Alejandro lied to her that his parents were still married. Sounds like a screwball comedy so far. Not so fast. Because this movie is about to change its mind. And then again. And again.

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Be prepared for a morality check with Pain & Gain

Michael Bay is pretty much the quintessential director when it comes to action films. His name and his films are synonymous with fast cars, scantily clad exotic women, raunchy humor, slow motion shots and explosions. Lots and lots of explosions. So it was to my surprise when I heard Bay was tapped to helm and direct Pain & Gain, a movie based on the Sun Gym Gang’s kidnapping, extortion and murder spree that took place in Miami during the mid-nineties – a far cry from the Transformers film trilogy he just completed.

Thinking that Bay’s movie-making values and philosophy had reached a level of maturity after learning about the subject matter of his post-Transformers film I went into Pain & Gain expecting Bay to show me something new. Something fresh. Something I hadn’t seen from him before.

Well … let’s just say some things change and some things stay the same. Here’s the breakdown.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race is serving the best competition on TV

The television landscape has been littered with reality competition shows since the debut of Survivor way back in the summer of 2000, garnering astronomical ratings for its season finale and becoming a cultural icon for future competition shows to emulate. Since then we’ve seen the good (The Amazing Race, Project Runway, American Idol [at least in its first couple of seasons], So You Think You Can Dance) and the bad (Paris Hilton’s My New BFF, Rock of Love), the guilty pleasures (Big Brother, The Bachelor, Dancing With the Stars, Splash, Beauty and the Geek), and even the spoofs (the awesome Burning Love).

But there has been one reality competition show that debuted quietly in 2009 on a small, specialty cable channel (Logo) that has become one of the top competition shows on television: RuPaul’s Drag Race. Seriously! The show follows the formula set forth by Survivor and American Idol – contestants compete against each other to win fame and fortune – but it went from being a very cheaply produced show with a niche audience (at best) to being a slightly less cheaply produced show with a growing audience each season (we’re up to season five with a bonus All-Star season thrown in to the mix). The show has even spawned a spin-off of sorts, RuPaul’s Drag U which brings back former contestants to help real women with self-image issues embrace themselves. Like Ru says at the end of each episode of Drag Race, “How in the hell you gonna love somebody else if you can’t love yourself?”

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A look at Game of Thrones’ third season so far

A common refrain in the second half of the last season of Game of Thrones was Daenerys Targaryen shouting — to anyone that would listen — “Where are my dragons?!?” (Ironically, it was a question fans had been asking most of the season, even prior to their abduction.) In this week’s episode, Drogon in particular, showed up and answered Dany’s — and fans’ — question with ash and fire.

But the attack on the slave masters of Astapor was really just the exclamation mark at the end of a phenomenal episode, representative of an incredibly good season overall. As the “first act” of this third season comes to a close, this week’s Beyond the Wall will take a look back at the season so far.

But first, a spoiler warning: For those who are new to these parts, please be warned that Beyond the Wall is meant for those who have read the A Song of Ice and Fire series of books that Game of Thrones is based on. So, if you don’t know why the Tower of Joy is anything but joyful, you should probably skip this post.

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Syfy Upfronts 2013 – Adam Copeland talks Haven’s fourth season

Everytime I interview a member of the Haven cast/production staff, I leave with a massive crush. In season one, it was Charles Ardai. Season two, it was Emily Rose. In season three, Eric Balfour. And, now, verging on season four, I’m on the edge of coping with crushing on Adam “The Edge” Copeland (see what I did there?). I can’t wait to interview the Teagues brothers. In our interview he came across as incredibly genial, gentle and charming. I’m going to have to watch old WWE footage, because it’s hard to remember he’s a former wrestler for the most performative league known to man. Although I’ve seen an “edge” in past conference calls/interviews, for the most part he comes across as incredibly interior and cogitative in his Haven press tours. However, the true reason I enjoyed talking to Adam during the SyFy upfronts is because he’s clearly a fan of the show.

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Get a free pass to The Reluctant Fundamentalist in Washington, D.C.

This offer has expired.

CliqueClack has partnered with IFC Films and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer our readers in Washington, D.C. a chance to attend the advance screening of the new drama The Reluctant Fundamentalist before anyone else. The film stars Riz Ahmed, Liev Schreiber, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland and Martin Donovan.

At an outdoor café in 2011, a Pakistani man named Changez (Ahmed) tells Bobby (Schreiber), an American journalist, about his experiences in the United States. Roll back ten years, and we find a younger Changez fresh from Princeton, seeking fortune and glory on Wall Street. The American Dream seems well within his grasp, complete with a smart and gorgeous artist girlfriend, Erica (Hudson). But when the Twin Towers are attacked, a cultural divide slowly begins to crack open between Changez and Erica. Changez’s dream soon begins to slip into nightmare: profiled, wrongfully arrested, strip-searched and interrogated, he is transformed from a well-educated, upwardly mobile businessman to a scapegoat and perceived enemy. With time, he begins to hear the call of his own homeland. Taking us through the culturally rich and beguiling worlds of New York, Lahore and Istanbul, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story about conflicting ideologies where perception and suspicion have the power to determine life or death.

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Syfy Upfronts 2013 – Jaime Murray talks Warehouse 13 and Defiance

I’ve liked Jaime Murray’s H.G. Wells portrayal since day one. So, upon discovering that she would join the Defiance cast I both cheered and booed. With evil Artie rearing his head, I secretly hoped they’d increase her time on Warehouse 13. So, I asked her what would happen with H.G. Wells for the remainder of Warehouse 13‘s current season and her thoughts on her Defiance character.

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Vampire Diaries – Where do we go from here?

Like Debbie, I’m another big fan of The Vampire Diaries who’s disappointed by the direction the series has taken since Elena has turned off her humanity.

The whole episode, “Pictures of You” seemed forced.  Why does Elena need to torment her friends?  We get she shut off her emotions but why does that turn her into a harassing bitch? A sort of strange and kind of random prom, how many dances does this school have per year? Caroline going to Klaus for a dress, the boys trying to make Elena have memories that bring her out of her trance, a very quick cameo by Tyler – he came back for 10 minutes?  All sort of disjointed and poorly written.

This felt like a filler episode, and I could think of better filler than this. And, I am a little afraid for next week. Seeing the real face of Silas … is this a jumping the shark moment?  Is the make-up going to be awful and just make this take a turn into hokey land?  I would have been happy to NEVER see his face.  Did we learn nothing from Alfred Hitchcock?

Where do we go from here? I couldn’t care less about Rebekah and her teenage turmoil. At this point I kind of hope Elena dies or is tortured. Put us all out of our misery. It is sad when the character I liked most in the episode is Bonnie. Enough already. Let’s speed this up and get back to a story line that is actually fun to watch.

Julie Plec — where have you gone? Did you use up all your creative juices on the Jeremy death episode (which was AWESOME)? Please come back and bring me back the show I used to love. The Vampire Diaries needs to figure out what it wants to be and get there — fast. Is it going to be the well-written show full of characters we love coming to terms with the supernatural pieces of their human lives, or the sensationalist, teen bullying show that it’s turning into?

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