Fancy a new flick to relax to? Here’s a selection of brand new DVDs you can borrow from LRC WISE:
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (dir. Ana Lily Amirpour, Iran 2014, Farsi with English subtitles)
Stylishly gothic and shot in stark black and white, this ‘Vampire Western’ brings something fresh to the horror movie table.
“A seductively stylised, boldly directed and alluringly performed film, a work of languorous cool and dreamy soulfulness” (The Big Issue)
“Like an Iranian film noir by way of a crime drama with supernatural edges” (seanax.com)
Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, USA 2013)
Michael Keaton (Inventing The Abbotts, Clean and Sober) stars as a washed-up Hollywood actor caught between the mire of diminishing fame and the increasing possibility of fantasy becoming reality.
“Keaton’s performance is one to relish and might just put him back on top” (NY1-TV)
“The ease with which Iñárritu blends comedy and tragedy is elegant and smooth, and the power with which he drives the film never ruins that flow” (International Business Times)
Bowling For Columbine (dir. Michael Moore, USA 1999)
The classic documentary about gun crime and America, as prescient now as it was on release 17 years ago.
“Perhaps a world as outrageous as ours deserves a filmmaker as blunt as Michael Moore” (about.com)
“A thoroughly enjoyable, thought provoking film” (Film Scouts)
Only Lovers Left Alive (dir. Jim Jarmusch, 2014)
Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play a married couple separated by the different continents they chose to claim as their individual domains, and separated by the ancient, endless searching of what it means to have a soul. They’re also vampires.
“If Jamrusch’s comedy is snobby and misty is precisely because vampires should be that way” (Cinegarage)
“If you are able to tolerate the quiet and smooth tempo of Jarmusch , this is a great story” (chilango.com)
Rachel Getting Married (dir. Jonathan Demme, USA 2008)
Anne Hathaway gives a superbly (if unexpectedly) gritty performance in this intensely-shot family drama.
“If your image of Anne Hathaway is still that of a cute ingénue, then you’ll be shocked by her blistering performance as a wayward junkie emerging from rehab to attend her sister’s wedding in Jonathan Demme’s documentary-style family drama” (Movietalk)
“Like a family reunion with its share of embarrassing moments, it may be worth attending all the same” (Time Out Chicago)
The Secret of Kells (dir. Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey, France/Belgium 2015, Eng subtitles/dubbed)
A gentle, classically-produced animated epic, proudly recalling a golden age of the feature length cartoon adventure.
“Very few animated films have had such a mesmerizing, puzzle-like quality” (LarsenOnFilm)
“Steeped in both magic and mythology, The Secret Of Kells offers a refreshing alternative to Hollywood fare” (Daily Express)
Still Alice (dir. Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, USA 2014)
The powerful drama based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 novel. Julianne Moore gives a resolutely stunning performance as a linguistics professor diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“A rich, multi-layered screenplay that works equally well as family melodrama and as a meditation on language, identity and mortality” (Independent)
“This is one of Moore’s defining performances, and it is a brave one” (TulsaWorld)
The Martian (dir. Ridley Scott, USA 2015)
Director Ridley Scott (White Squall) brings the bestselling novel by Andy Weir (The Martian) to the big screen in epic style, starring Matt Damon (School Ties), Jeff Daniels (Radio Days), Chiwetelu Ejiofor (Kinky Boots) and Kate Mara (Urban Legends: Bloody Mary).
Although my mother-in-law thought it was a true story. Genuinely.
“Damon has never seemed more at home than he does here, millions of miles adrift. Would any other actor have shouldered the weight of the role with such diligent grace?” (New Yorker)
“Charming and exciting without ever losing sight of its tale of humanity, and science” (Cinema Crazed)
The Theory of Everything (dir. James Marsh, UK 2014)
Marsh’s biopic of Stephen Hawking is powerful and uplifting in equal measures, and does for physics what Bugsy Malone did for child actors.
“Redmayne’s astonishing physical transformation is the film’s showiest feature, but the subtler emotional transformations he and Jones display over the course of their characters’ embattled marriage are just as impressive” (Movie Talk)
“A well-written, well-directed movie an average person like myself can grasp. If I want a more complicated explanation of the universe, then I can refer to Hawking’s book, ‘A Brief History of Time’” (Movie Chambers)
There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA 2007)
Another film where Daniel-Day Lewis gives up a day of making shoes for children to go and win an Oscar.
“One of the most wholly original American movies ever made” (TIME Magazine)
“It is the work of masters perfecting their craft, setting off together towards a horizon of shining prowess to discover, quite literally, the pinnacle of their cinematic potential” (cinemaphile.org)
Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle, USA 2014)
Miles Teller and J. K. Simmons plays two thoroughly dislikeable but completely hypnotic obsessives in this Rocky-but-with-a-snare-drum tale. Music fan or not, this is definitely one to watch.
“It’s a musical, a sports movie and an ‘inspirational teacher’ movie rolled into one — and it subverts the clichés of all those genres” (Junkee)
“Awash with buckets of blood, sweat and tears, Whiplash is a visceral vision of the quest for artistic perfection” (Rip It Up)
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