DVD Releases June 29 2010 | New DVD Releases
DVD Releases June 29 2010

From New DVD Releases June 29 2010      & Buy Cheap New DVD Movies June 29   2010Movie & TV DVD Releases this week. June 29   2010


The Crazies
From Overture Films/Anchor Bay Entertainment
Average customer review: This 2010 remake of a somewhat obscure 1973 George Romero picture  injects a mysterious virus into the water supply of a small Iowa town,  and the consequences are… well, you didn't expect the consequences to be  positive, did you? The movie is called The Crazies, after all.  So when local folk begin acting a mite peculiar, it just means they've  gone to the well too often--literally. Borrowing the structure of Invasion   of the Body Snatchers, the remake gets off to a clumsy start, but  as the noninfected rally around the sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and his  doctor wife (Radha Mitchell), the action becomes streamlined and  reasonably inventive. Director Breck Eisner has a particular knack for  finding ingenious ways of killing people (a knife through the hand  becomes a useful tool for the sheriff in one turn-the-tables moment),  and he's been wise enough to hire respectable actors for the top-lined  duties; along with Olyphant and Mitchell, there's also Joe Anderson (Across   the Universe) as a loyal, amped-up deputy. If the movie misses the  tart social-context stuff that Romero does so well, it at least fills  the bill when it comes to the chase-and-escape business of a  contemporary horror picture. The spate of such 21st-century remakes of  1970s horror pictures misses the raw, raggedy unease of those low-budget  projects, but if you're going to make a slick new update, The  Crazies is the way to do it.

Hot Tub Time Machine
Directed by Steve Pink
Average customer review: 

Hot Tub Time Machine hits the bull's-eye: it's a rude, crude  comedy with enough smarts and emotional sweetness to make it completely  entertaining. Seeking to bring some youthful optimism back to their  failed, miserable lives, three middle-aged guys--Adam (John Cusack),  Nick (Craig Robinson), and Lou (Rob Corddry)--go to a mountain resort  where they spent some of their wildest days (reluctantly dragging along  Adam's nephew, Jacob, played by newcomer Clark Duke). A drunken accident  in the titular hot tub sends them swirling back to 1986, where each of  them decides to risk changing the future (and possibly erasing Jacob  from existence) by doing things just a little differently. A plot  summary doesn't capture the movie's rambunctious, daffy spirit as much  as…  well, the ridiculous title: this is a movie called Hot Tub Time  Machine! Any expectation you may have will be met and surpassed.  John Cusack delivers another underplayed yet marvelously funny  performance, his best since High Fidelity; Clark Duke, from the  TV show Greek, proves a promising young comic talent. But the  movie really belongs to Robinson and Corddry, who've been floating  around the edges of tons of comedies--some have been good, some have  been bad, but they've both been consistently funny even in crappy  movies. Hot Tub Time Machine gives them center stage and lets  them reveal the comic chaos they can deliver. It helps, but is not  necessary, to have lived through the '80s to find Hot Tub Time  Machine exquisitely silly.

Creation
Directed by Jon Amiel
Average customer review: More than 150 years after its publication, Charles Darwin's On the  Origin of Species and its theory of natural selection remain the  subject of much debate; the divide between those who accept Darwin's  ideas as incontrovertible science and those who consider them  blasphemous may be wider now than ever. Released in 2009, director Jon  Amiel's Creation goes right to the heart of the matter--indeed,  right to the heart of Darwin himself. As portrayed by Paul Bettany, the  Darwin who has returned to England following his voyage aboard HMS Beagle  is a man for whom "deeply conflicted" is a barely adequate description.  Well aware his theory is "perhaps the most powerful idea ever to occur  to a human mind," he is caught between the scientists who insist that he  has "killed God" and the religious conservatives, including his wife  Emma (Jennifer Connelly), who counter that his very soul will be in  peril if he finishes and publishes his book. What's more, he is haunted,  sometimes literally, by the death of his favorite child, Annie (seen in  frequent flashbacks), and its effect on his marriage--in fact, it is  this personal angle that dominates the film. But while the toll his work  has taken on his health, his faith, his family, and his very sanity is  obvious, he also knows that it is far too important to ignore. Creation  is not a documentary; liberties have been taken, and there are multiple  sequences, including Darwin's nightmarish fever dreams, that are  clearly the invention of the filmmakers. But Bettany and Connelly, who  are a real-life couple, are both superb; the cinematography is gorgeous;  and various scenes illustrating the notion of "survival of the fittest"  in nature are riveting (there won't be a dry eye in the house when  Darwin tells his dying daughter about the fate of an orangutan captured  in Borneo). And while the tone of the film would seem to favor science  over religion, the DVD includes numerous bonus features in which both  sides have their say. This one is not to be missed.

Predator
From 20th Century Fox
Average customer review:  Rambo meets Alien in this terrific science-fiction  thriller from 1987, directed by John McTiernan just a year before Die  Hard made him Hollywood's most sought-after director of  action-packed blockbusters. Arnold Schwarzenegger leads an elite squad  of U.S. Army commandos to a remote region of South American jungle,  where they've been assigned to search for South American officials  who've been kidnapped by terrorists. Instead they find a bunch of  skinned corpses hanging from the trees and realize that they're now  facing a mysterious and much deadlier threat. As the squad is picked off  one by one, Arnold finds himself pitted against a hideous alien  creature that's heavily armed and wearing a spacesuit enabling the  creature to render itself invisible. The title says it all in describing  the relentless, escalating action that follows, maintained by McTiernan  with an abundance of visual flair. The film's special effects are still  impressive, and stunning locations in the Mexican jungles create a  combined atmosphere of verdant beauty and imminent danger. The plot  doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, but the movie's so exciting and  tightly paced that its weaknesses seem irrelevant.

The Closer: The Complete Fifth Season
From Warner Home Video
Average customer review: At work, L.A. Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson is a woman in charge. Got a  suspect to grill, a case to crack, a murderer about to walk? Call Brenda  in and watch the fireworks. But at home...well, that’s another story.  Kyra Sedgwick headlines a sizzling 4-disc, 15-episode Season 5 of the  series that combines heart, humor and homicide into a show that’s  equally compelling as a police procedural and a personal drama. As a  cop, Brenda takes on everything from a corpse that comes COD to a serial  killer to Sharon Raydor, an internal affairs officer as tough as she  is. As a civilian, Brenda loses one family member and gains another: her  surly niece Charlie. Brenda can outsmart, outmaneuver and out a killer.  But can she handle a teenager?

Eureka: Season 3.5
From Universal Studios
Average customer review: Take a trip to the far side of reality in Eureka Season 3.5, the  fantastic TV series set in a seemingly quiet small town where innovation  and chaos go hand-in-hand. Carter (Colin Ferguson) is still reeling  from his dismissal as sheriff and looking at the possibilities of a new  job when catastrophic occurrences pull him back to the eccentric hamlet.  Now, he and his neighbors will be faced with strange happenings – from  magnetic disturbances to the birth of a new resident – that go beyond  anything ever imagined

When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors
Directed by Tom DiCillo
Average customer review: Of course that's Johnny Depp narrating When You're Strange, the  2010 documentary about the Doors: who else but Hollywood's biggest fan  of counterculture history? The film's other prominent attraction is the  treasure trove of heretofore unscreened footage from the band's heyday,  including backstage material, film-school stuff, and a curious project  shot by (and starring) Jim Morrison after the group had broken through.  That color footage, which When You're Strange returns to  throughout its running time, has a bearded, zonked Morrison driving  through the Southwest desert, on the road to who knows where. For fans,  this footage is fascinating to watch, although the actual narrative of  the band's rise and flameout will be very familiar if you already know  the story. And even for newbies, the breathless, grandiloquent nature of  writer-director Tom DiCillo's approach will likely be a bit  off-putting. Made with the participation of band members Ray Manzarek,  Robbie Krieger, and John Densmore, the movie adopts a general air of  sadness about Morrison's substance abuse, noting that a band  intervention led to but one week of sobriety for their lead  singer/shaman. It's not all gloom: footage of Morrison wading through a  pre-concert crowd catches some of the giddy promise of his  unpredictability, which seems so in tune with the era. Those fresh  glimpses of an icon make this film worth seeing, even if you've traveled  down this road before.Relate Links:

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