New on DVD. Reader Request Poll

I'm no longer sure how to cover new DVD releases. Just as I'd decided we needed more coverage of them -- acknowledging that this is how most people watch movies -- and just as I'd decided on this biweekly format of "you choose!" Netflix went and signed some month long delay deal on new releases... but only some of them.

So now the subject of when something is or isn't available on DVD is nearly as confusing as whether or not a movie is or isn't available to people theatrically, which is something I don't think any of us ever wanted to see happen. Why can't the movie business learn what all other businesses seem to know in the modern age: if people want something, you agree to sell it to them! Curse you corporate deal-makers.

So I'm no longer going to be remotely completist about covering which DVDs are out which makes my little OCD self really sad but there it is. So since you're only getting a portion of what's available anyway, I will now only list movies I am curious about in some way (sometimes for healthy reasons, other times not). You can choose between the following movies... (If you don't have an immediate preference, let someone convince you to vote for something in the comments.)

• 13 ASSASSINS -Takasi Miike plays with his samurai dolls. Supposedly the 45 minute action sequence which concludes the film is epic epicness.
• BATTLE: LOS ANGELES -Aaron Eckhart, cleft chin champion, battles aliens in Pacific Central Time.
• CEREMONY -Indie romantic comedy in which Michael Angaro falls for Uma Thurman who is already engaged to Lee Pace.
• HAIR (1979) New on Blu-Ray Hippies sing and dance in Central Park in this stage to screen adaptation.
• HALL PASS -overpaid stars pretend to be average suburbanites who are allowed to cheat on wives. We're guessing heteronormative-monogamous values prevail & nobody actually does the extramarital deed and/or realizes it was a mistake to even have the fantasy. There's no place like home!
• NEW YORK NEW YORK (1977) New on Blu-Ray Martin Scorsese's post WWII musical about the on again off again romance of a saxophone player (Robert De Niro) and his chanteuse girl (Liza Minnelli).
• RED RIDING HOOD -Amanda Seyfried is color blind, pairing the famous red cloak with a lavender dress (yuck), as she visits her grandmother with very big teeth.

Previously you forced Nathaniel (c'est moi) to write about The Other Woman, The Rescuers and Biutiful. What will it be this time?

poll by twiigs.com

Biutiful Interrupted

It's not my habit to skip an Oscar nominee. But things happen. So it was that I missed Javier Bardem's Oscar nominated Best Actor turn in Biutiful (2010). This seems to happen to me about once a decade, so I've already used my "get out of jail free" card for the 'teens.... or the ten's... what are we calling this new decade? (In the Aughts the only nominee I missed was Tommy Lee Jones in In The Valley of Elah.) As the movie began with its somber first notes and black screen the words "Alejandro González Iñárritu" struck dread in my heart. I quickly remembered why I hadn't wept when the film had given me the slip before the nominations in January. Iñárritu's insatiable appetite for Miserabilism has been killing my mood since Amores Perros way back in 2000. I will forever be grateful that he introduced me to Gael Garcia Bernal but beyond that he hasn't done me favors.

I was no great fan of Babel and I openly hated 21 Grams. In fact the only Iñárritu I've ever enjoyed was the short film "Powder Keg" which is very typical of his oeuvre despite being a BMW commercial so maybe I can only handle his aggressive Feel Bad omnipotence in short doses?

It's not my preference to balk at a Reader Request. But this happened: as I began to watch the film, I suspected very quickly that I wasn't going to be able to handle it. A shot of Bardem's smiling face framed by wintry whites and cool blues immediately upset me; the saddest smile I've seen onscreen in many a year. Bardem is such a fine actor but more than that he has almost the perfect movie face, it's hugely memorable without being limited by its specificity: Is he handsome? Is he ugly? How can he be so imposingly monolithic in profile yet so human and fleshy head on?

I've always loved Javier Bardem but by the time his "Uxbal" was in a doctor's office getting a prostate exam and being an asshole about the needle for a blood test (is Uxbal a drug addict?) my mood was crashing. The last two funerals I've been to were both cancer related and one of them, very very recently, was for a dear friend's father who happens to be the exact same age as my own father (thankfully still with us).

I wasn't expecting the follow up scene, wherein Uxbal visited a funeral home where three little dead boys lay, one of them (ostensibly) haunting him. Nor was I expecting Uxbal to prey on the boy's family for money (something about his ability to commune with the dead -- fake or real?). By the time his sad looking son (like father like...) was having a bedwetting episode and Uxbal was pissing blood the next morning, I had to turn the damn thing off.

Note to filmmakers: never ever show a closeup of the contents of a toilet bowl. There are some things we see every day in real life that we need never see onscreen.

I looked at the DVD clock and realized I was only 20 minutes in and I had a full 128 minutes to go and opted for self preservation. I have been struggling with a particularly strong stubbornly escalating bout of depression and I didn't want to welcome more of it in. I had heard from the film's naysayers that the movie is relentless about piling on -- to the point of Job-like cruelty. And if cancer, addiction, poverty, ghosts, blood, and preying on grieving parents were just Iñárritu's opening reel gambit, it was going to be beyond my coping abilities in my present state.

I am not one of those sad and limited moviegoers who yearns for all movies to be happy -- a boyfriend of a good friend once complained about the sad movies we were dragging him, too "do you like any happy movies?" he asked in exasperation. And it's true that I do quite love a good tragedy. But I know my limit-testing buttons and Biutiful pushed nearly half of them in its first 20 minutes, including a peculiar uncommon one... toilet bowl closeups. Were I convinced that the world revolved around me, I'd suspect that Iñárritu was created in a lab just to test me. For this test, I have laid down my pencil and admitted defeat.

Have you ever fully intended to watch a movie and bailed from mood crashing?

Previous Reader Requests:
The Other Woman, The Rescuers and Beauty & The Beast

Newish on DVD. Reader's Choice?

Last time we did this you chose The Other Woman -- curse you!!! -- but we'll do this bi-weekly because I aim to please. The following films debuted on DVD yesterday or last week. Which are you planning to watch? Which would you have me watch/write up?

• BIUTIFUL -in which Javier Bardem gives Job a run for his money in the personal misery department. Sounds like a laugh riot.
• BLUE CRUSH 2 -in which... well, surfer girls! Three of them.
• THE COMPANY MEN - in which rich famous-looking guys lose their jobs and must rebuild their lives. It's hard being super rich and then not quite as rich, okay !?!
• DRIVE ANGRY - in which Nicolas Cage and Amber Heard put medal to the pedal and chase after a cult leader in some sort of exploitation movie. 3D only obviously not now that it's for home viewing.
• JUST GO WITH IT -in which Jennifer Aniston pretends to be Adam Sandler's wife for reasons we can't comprehend and Nicole Kidman cameos for reasons currently unknown to us.
• PASSION PLAY -in which musician Mickey Rourke falls for "bird woman" Megan Fox at a travelling circus. Bird women do have their appeal.
• RUBBER - in which a tire menaces people.
• SANCTUM - in which... no, I don't know what happens. I think it's about a watery cave? Produced by James Cameron but not directed by him.
• TRUE GRIT - in which Hailee Steinfeld looks for people who have True Grit, even though she already possesses it. Very Wizard of Oz, that. Also: Pigtails.

I'm not including True Grit in the poll because it got plentiful attention from December through March. (I even interviewed the great cinematographer Roger Deakins.) And I'm not including The Company Men because I tried to sit through it once already and just could not deal.

poll by twiigs.com

If you want to sway undecided votes your way, make a case in the comments.

Team Experience: Queue Confessions

For this week's TFE contributors roundup, I thought I'd force a confession... but alas, I didn't manage to catch anything that embarrassed anyone, damnit! Except myself! My queue is stupid

WHAT'S NEXT ON YOUR DVD QUEUE?

Jose: The Red Shoes and the first four seasons of "Doc Martin" which I have to review for work.

JA: Simon Rumley's terrifically unsettling Red White and Blue which unsettled me, terrifically, last year and Undertow, that Peruvian movie which I think you interviewed the director. [Editor's Note: Yes, yes, I did.]

 Alexa (Curio): I'm really, really going to watch them when I'm not chasing my toddler or passing out: Gloria (John Cassavetes' film, not the one with Sharon Stone! This is a re-watch, I just like it) and Reform School Girls (the one with Wendy O Williams from 1986).

Robert (Distant Relatives): First up is The Circus, the only Chaplin silent comedy I haven't seen. It keeps coming back up and I keep bumping it back down because quite frankly, if I watch it then I'll never have the possibility of new Chaplin comedy in my life.  Then Soylent Green, part of the wife's ongoing attempt to school me in good sci-fi I've been too dismissive of.

Craig (Take Three): Lined up I have Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny And Girly (A wealthy clan kidnap bums and hippies and forces them to participate in an elaborate role-playing game in which they are the perfect family; those who refuse or attempt escape are ritualistically murdered) and pre-Ghostbusting Ivan Reitman's 1973 flick Cannibal Girls (A young couple spend the night in a restaurant, only to find out that it is haunted by three dead women who hunger for human flesh). So it's business as usual in my DVD player!

Michael (Unsung Heroes): First up is Let Me In. I'm caving on my anti-remake indignation and giving it a chance. After that is The Falcon and The Snowman. I've heard good things.

As for me, Nathaniel, I shall also confess. Next up for me is Dark Habits (Almodóvar) and uh... Ron Howard's The Dilemma.

WAIT. WHAT???

I think what happened was I starting this thing a few months ago where I started "saving" new releases thinking I would rent EVERYTHING that came out in 2011 and do some stupid little visual thing with it once they came out on DVD -- even if I didn't watch them -- and now I am realizing this means it is coming to my house, this Ron Howard movie with Kevin James.

NOOOooooOOOooooooo

What's up next in your DVD queues???
No cheating, people. CONFESS!

DVDs. Which Will It Be?

Now that we've caught up with the last Reader Request (Beauty & The Beast) and we're finally done with 2010 movies (Jesus, that took forever!), it's time to really dig into 2011. The earliest releases of 2011 are already on DVD and the summer movie is in full swing. Here is a list of newish movies from either the past couple of weeks or today's DVD batch. It's time to bring back the Reader Request.

• GNOMEO & JULIET -garden gnomes do Shakespeare in this animated film.
• I AM NUMBER FOUR- alex pettyfer shoots stuff from his hands in sci-fi/romance.
• THE MECHANIC - jason statham teaches ben foster how to kill people.
• NO STRINGS ATTACHED - natalie portman and ashton kutcher are f***buddies.
• THE OTHER WOMAN -natalie portman marries another woman's man.
• THE RITE -studying exorcism with scary-eyed anthony hopkins.
• THE ROOMMATE -leighton & minka rip off "single white female" in college thriller.

Which of those 2011 feature releases would you like Nathaniel to write-up about? Your vote is my command.

poll by twiigs.com

"at the ballet-ayyyyyyyyyy"I'll write up the winning choice for next Monday. UPDATE: HERE IS THE WRITE UP ON THE OTHER WOMAN.

There are two documentaries also hitting DVD that I've already written about, the orangutan in captivity meditation known as Nenette (brief thoughts) and the Broadway doc Every Little Step (review) which is worth seeing if you have any emotional investment in "A Chorus Line" or any intellectual curiousity about the casting process on big Broadway shows.