New on DVD: Rabbit Hole, Bergman and oh yes, The King's Speech.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 9:00AM 
Jose here, with a roundup of this week's new DVD releases.
First up we have the Oscar winning The King's Speech which surprisingly hasn't been out on DVD for decades. Doesn't it feel like one of those movies you're used to passing by on video store aisles, next to things like Around the World in 80 Days, Oliver! and all those other Best Picture winners nobody remembers anymore? Maybe I'm alone on this one, since the film was so popular it ended up making $138 million in the North American box office. Will perennial home video popularity follow?
Much less popular, but inarguably more interesting, was Sofia Coppola's Somewhere which also debuts on DVD tomorrow. The Venice Film Festival winner was supposed to reignite Stephen Dorff's career but went by almost undetected by audiences. Give it a try at home, bask in its visual richness and join Nat next week as he features it in "Hit Me With Your Best Shot".
There is also a rerelease of From Dusk Till Dawn, which includes the documentary Full Tilt Boogie: a chronicle of the behind the scenes of the George Clooney vampire fest.
Speaking of things that suck, how crappy was it that Nicole Kidman failed to win any major awards for her moving turn in Rabbit Hole? This tale of grief and sorrow also contained a powerhouse performance by the always underrated Aaron Eckhart and great turns from the reliably good Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh. The Blu-ray includes deleted scenes and audio commentary with director John Cameron Mitchell. I'd love to hear how he found the calm to direct this after his two outrageously "visual" previous movies.
Also out on DVD is Ingrid Bergman in Sweden a boxset that includes some of the legendary actress' most famous Swedish movies. The set includes Intermezzo (which she then remade for her Hollywood debut), A Woman's Face and making its DVD debut is June Night which was Ingrid's last Swedish movie before moving to America.
Other new releases include Jane Campion's Sweetie making its Blu-ray debut courtesy of The Criterion Collection and Peter Weir's The Way Back.
Excited about any of these releases?
DVD, Ingrid Bergman, Nicole Kidman, Sofia Coppola, The King's Speech
Reader Comments (14)
Rabbit Hole is much more interesting and I gotta get it soon.
I also find it’s so sad for Peter Weir’s The Way Back. It performed poorly in the box office. The movie is actually quite good, especially the acting from the cast. They all are terrific.
i'm excited about "The Way Back" as it is the one major movie i wanted to watch so badly last year and i missed.
its release made no noise at least here in toronto and got lost among all the other late year releases.
sight unseen, and only given weir's name behind the camera, i can bet it deserved more than it got.
Completely agree on Rabbit Hole. Miles Teller was another standout from it, as was Tammy Blanchard. And it is a crime that Nicole Kidman did not win a single award. Not one single stinkin critics award or nothing. I guess i should be thrilled she even go nominated at all, but SERIOUSLY!
"Excited about any of these releases?"
No.
I saw The Way Back, Amir, and I have to disagree with Mikhael-- I thought it was really weak. There was some beautiful scenery, of course, and Ed Harris' character was moderately interesting, but it was lacking a charismatic leading man and relateable characters to draw me into its story . This might sound weird considering how little I liked it, but I also thought it should of been longer-- it felt too rushed and it could have used an extra 15-30 minutes of backstory to flush out its characters. And worst of all, Colin Farrell's Russian accent was out of control, a total caricature of an actual person.
I'll be curious to see what others think. I gather from RT that I'm in the minority here.
Nicole Kidman dancing and singing along to Katy Perry should be on The Rabbit Hole DVD special features.
Evan - Ugh, I hate bad accents. They're so distracting. I was hoping for a good performance from Farrell since I've started to really like him since In Bruges.
I'll have to see it (The Way Back) for myself. Kris Tapley from Incontention said Farrell was best in show. As for Kidman's lack of kudos, it's easy...her character was NOT likeable, which is odd considering she played a GRIEVING mother. But yeah, Kidman and the writers seemed to do everything in their power to make me (and apparently many others) not like her in that film.
Watched Rabbit Hole twice now and oh my god, every performance in that movie stands out. I loved Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart & Dianne Wiest in it. But not just the acting I thought the cinematography of the movie was amazing too. I loved the little drawings and the score was outstanding.
Tony Rock - I agree with you. She didn't seem very likeable, because she didn't really know how to cope with her loss. She didn't talk about it to others, she didn't keep up her relationships. Her character seemed maybe unamerican, she wasn't religious, questioned god.
I am going to be the distinct minority here, while I did think Nicole Kidman was great in Rabbit Hole, I did find all the work she has had done on her face to be very distracting. I know I am going to catch flack for this. I thought Becca was not supposed to be likable and she wasn't, but the issue I had when it came to those raw powerful scenes like the one in the car she had to be slightly comical.
I did like Weist, Teller and Blanchard in their supporting roles but what kept me from really feeling that whallop from the movie was the rawness in those scenes with Becca. I did like Kidman in the movie but I couldn't find in me to think she was robbed of any rewards.
I did think she deserved much more reward recognition in Margot at the Wedding, which to me ranks in her top 3 performances. Sad to say I know I shouldn't post here but I know Nicole was laying off on the work she has done on her face but I feel it was too late here for her role as Becca.
There's nothing about Sofia Coppola that can't be argued and debated.
I agree with Evan about adding more backstory. But I don’t find any distractions about the accent. They all are just wonderful. From Sturgess, Ronan, Harris, and Farrell.
If Black Swan didn’t exist last year, the Oscar should go to Nicole Kidman actually. And if the Academy can give recognition to small foreign language like Biutiful, why not also give a nomination to Aaron Eckhart instead of rewarding Jeff Bridges?
She was not likeable in Margot At The Wedding, but in Rabbit Hole, it was better actually to make her not likeable. This movie plays it right without making any character the right one or the bad one because of the difficult situation, you know like not peaching or anything.
Having witnessed someone going through grief before, Kidman's portrayal and the way her character was written was perfectly spot on. Of course, everyone deals with death and its after effects differently, but Becca is not so unlikeable as she is completely lost and holding everyone at arms length because to open herself up to someone would be a betrayal to what she was feeling. That alone made me feel for her. I also thought that Kidman did a good job of letting us see the emotions that Becca so desperatley tried to keep hidden, and they do come out in moments (the basement scene, the big fight with Howie, for example). I'm glad that she was nominated for it.
To call her character simply "unlikeable" really misses the point and isn't really fair, in my opinion.
Matt -- i'd agree. Having lost someone myself, and knowing others who have, Grief is NOT pretty and it certainly doesn't endear you to even the people who love you most because you are surrounded by eggshells as it were. anything can send you spinning. It's very difficult to be around grieving people and the movies so often treat grief like it's a a few good cries and then you're done.
I think she deserved the Oscar. but you all know that already given the film bitch awards. ;)
Aah, Rabbit Hole. The most underrated film of the 2010 award season. Give or take Scott Pilgrim, maybe of the whole year. Straight up, it was Best Picture material. Kidman, Eckhart, Weist, Oh, Teller, Blanchard, Mitchell's amazing direction, the pitch-perfect script, that perfectly realized and deserved ending.
I need to own it on Blu-Ray right now.