![]() Leave it to the wildly inventive Coen brothers (Joel directs, Ethan produces, they both write) to concoct a fiendishly clever kidnap caper that's simultaneously a comedy of errors, a Midwestern satire, a taut suspense thriller, and a violent tale of criminal misfortune. It all begins when a hapless car salesman (played to perfection by William H. Macy) ineptly orchestrates the kidnapping of his own wife. The plan goes horribly awry in the hands of bumbling bad guys Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare (one of them being described by a local girl as "kinda funny lookin'" and "not circumcised"), and the pregnant sheriff of Brainerd, Minnesota (played exquisitely by Frances McDormand in an Oscar-winning role) is suddenly faced with a case of multiple murders. Her investigation is laced with offbeat observations about life in the rural hinterland of Minnesota and North Dakota, and Fargo embraces its local yokels with affectionate humor. At times shocking and hilarious, Fargo is utterly unique and distinctly American, bearing the unmistakable stamp of its inspired creators. —Jeff Shannon ![]() From the moment Jamie Foxx throws off a filthy, tattered blanket to reveal a richly muscled back crisscrossed with long scars, it's obvious that Django Unchained will be both true to its exploitation roots but also clear-eyed about the misery that's being exploited. Django (Foxx), a slave set free in the years before the Civil War, joins with a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter (the marvelous Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds), who has promised to help Django rescue his wife (Kerry Washington), who's still enslaved to a gleeful and grandiose plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio, plainly relishing the opportunity to play an out-and-out villain). What follows is a wild and woolly ride, crammed with all the pleasures one expects from a revenge fantasy written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Plot-wise, some things happen a little too easily (for example, Django instantly becomes a master gunslinger), but the moral perspective is not glib. For all its lurid violence and jazzy dialogue, this is a still-rare movie that paints slavery for what it was: a brutal, dehumanizing practice that allowed a privileged few to profit from the suffering of many, a practice guaranteed by the gun and the whip. Think of it as the antidote to Gone with the Wind. Tarantino is more heartfelt in Django Unchained than in any of his previous movies—without sacrificing any of the pell-mell action, tension, and delicious language that made Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, and Pulp Fiction so very enjoyable. —Bret Fetzer ![]() Muppet domination continues with a hilarious new movie from Walt Disney Studios. Jason Segel, Academy Award(R) nominee Amy Adams (Best Performance By An Actress In a Supporting Role, Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter) and Academy Award winner Chris Cooper (Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role, Adaptation) join everyone's favorite Muppets and an all-star celebrity cast in a comic adventure for the whole family. While on vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world's biggest Muppet fan, his brother Gary, and friend Mary uncover the diabolical plot of a greedy oil millionaire to destroy the Muppet Theater. Now, the Muppet-loving trio must reunite Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and their friends to stage the greatest Muppet telethon ever and save their beloved theater. The gang is back together again in a must-own movie full of irresistible music and family fun. Bring home the biggest Muppet adventure ever on Disney Blu-ray(TM) and DVD! ![]() • Feature Commentary w/Writer/Director Michael J. Bassett and James Purefoy ![]() Metal Wall Art Decor Movie Lights Home Movie Theater Decor, \nMade Of High Quality Steel, Painted Black, In New Condition.\n\nMeasures 16 1/2\" Tall By 14\" Wide. \n\nView our entire catalog at: http://jnj-metalworks.hostedbyamazon.com/ | ![]() Artist-writer Katsuhiro Ôtomo began telling the story of Akira as a comic book series in 1982 but took a break from 1986 to 1988 to write, direct, supervise, and design this animated film version. Set in 2019, the film richly imagines the new metropolis of Neo-Tokyo, which is designed from huge buildings down to the smallest details of passing vehicles or police uniforms. Two disaffected orphan teenagers—slight, resentful Tetsuo and confident, breezy Kanada—run with a biker gang, but trouble grows when Tetsuo start to resent the way Kanada always has to rescue him. Meanwhile, a group of scientists, military men, and politicians wonder what to do with a collection of withered children who possess enormous psychic powers, especially the mysterious, rarely seen Akira, whose awakening might well have caused the end of the old world. Tetsuo is visited by the children, who trigger the growth of psychic and physical powers that might make him a superman or a supermonster. As befits a distillation of 1,318 pages of the story so far, Akira is overstuffed with character, incident, and detail. However, it piles up astonishing set pieces: the chases and shootouts (amazingly kinetic, amazingly bloody) benefit from minute cartoon detail that extends to the surprised or shocked faces of the tiniest extra; the Tetsuo monster alternately looks like a billion-gallon scrotal sac or a Tex Avery mutation of the monster from The Quatermass Experiment; and the finale—which combines flashbacks to more innocent days with a destruction of Neo City and the creation of a new universe—is one of the most mind-bending in all sci-fi cinema. —Kim Newman ![]() "Redline" is about the biggest and most deadly racing tournament in the universe. Only held once every five years, everyone wants to stake their claim to fame, including JP, a reckless dare-devil driver oblivious to speed limits with his ultra-customized car - all the while, organized crime and militaristic governments want to leverage the race to their own ends. Amongst the other elite rival drivers in the tournament, JP falls for the alluring Sonoshee - but will she prove his undoing, or can a high speed romance survive a mass destruction race? ![]() A murder mystery rife with suspense, scandal, sexual abuse, and some supremely intriguing characters, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an excellently crafted film adaptation of Stieg Larsson's equally fascinating book of the same name. Larsson's book was also the basis of a 2009 Swedish film (also with the same title), and while the Swedish film was good, this American version is far superior, thanks to fantastic cinematography and livelier pacing that results in a constant, electric tension that drives every second of the movie. The breathtaking footage of a snowy, remote island in Sweden thoroughly exudes bitter cold, and the attention to the smallest details, like the whistling of the wind through a door left ajar, makes the hairs on the back of viewers' necks absolutely prickle. Like the book, the film is long (158 minutes), there's an abundance of dialogue that is never awkward and always efficient, and there are plenty of false endings. The suspense and the intricacy of the mystery are stellar, and even viewers who know the story well will find themselves sucked into the riddle being investigated by journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). The casting is great, as are the performances of all the key actors, but by far the best thing about this film is Rooney Mara, who is utterly believable as the incredibly strong, extremely disturbed Lisbeth Salander, Blomkvist's unlikely assistant. Mara's performance is chillingly real and completely riveting. Yorick van Wageningen is perfectly despicable as Nils Bjurman (though his scene with Salander is sure to prove highly disturbing to some viewers), Christopher Plummer is an effective Henrik Vanger, and Stellen Skarsgård is eerily frightening as Martin Vanger. Viewers can only hope that director David Fincher, screenplay writer Steven Zaillian, and actors Craig and Mara will continue their collaboration to produce films based on the final two books of Larsson's Millennium trilogy. —Tami Horiuchi |