Liam Neeson’s pretty uptight about head-related safety these days.

There’s not a whole lot of really exceptional DVDs this week, but at least there’s some variety.  If Taken 2 isn’t your thing, there’s also the newest Woody Allen movie, the latest horror flick about demonic possession, and even an Oscar-nominated documentary. There’s flicks about porn stars and soldiers, activists and the Outback, lesbian monarchs and rich Italian men just looking for love.  We’ve even got a film co-starring everyone’s favorite Scientologist, Danny Masterson!

The DVDs:
Taken 2
To Rome With Love
Won’t Back Down
The Possession
5 Broken Cameras
About Cherry
Allegiance
The Chicago 8
Branded
Wake In Fright
Farewell, My Queen
30 Nights Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Counterpunch
Runaway Slave
A Secret Promise
Wedding Day

Streaming: Check out your choices here.

Want to know which film is about demonic possession?  Continue reading.  Want to know which film has Danny Masterson, so you can make sure to avoid it?  Continue reading.  Want to know more about 30 Nights Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? Why?  It’s obviously one of those awful pop-culture reference spoof movies.  If you think you’ve seen quite enough of this week’s DVDs, feel free to click the link above for the streaming suggestions, but you’ll never find out which flick is about a porn-star named Cherry.  Read the rest of this entry »

As the Tom Hanks-Sandra Bullock drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close hits theaters today, New Yorkers are voicing their displeasure over the decision by both Warner Bros. and the MTA to air the movie’s commercials in digital subway ads in New York City. Most notably, the commercials are airing on a digital panel at a subway station right next to Ground Zero.

The film is about a young boy whose father (Hanks) dies in the attacks on the World Trade Center and his subsequent search for the answers to life’s questions, and so the ads feature footage of the attacks and smoke billowing from the towers. You know, I could see how that might upset some people in New York City.

“Everybody’s trying to make money off 9/11,” said Bill Doyle, whose son, Joseph, was killed in the north tower.

“A lot of families got upset. Why couldn’t they warn us about this? I don’t think people really realized that these people are really still stressed.”

A Warner Bros. spokesman, Paul McGuire, said the movie company would pull the ads.

“It was never our intention to cause any distress,” McGuire said. “As a result, we will make best efforts to pull the material from pertinent locations.”

(Via the New York Post)

Common sense is a rare treasure these days. I mean, I understand that you want to be able to convey to people that you’ve made a dramatic film that has 9/11 as a backdrop (oh how I miss the Cold War) and you need to show the horrific footage to really hammer home your point.

But I also want to believe that at some point during the video editing process for the TV ads, someone looked up and said, “Hey, I just had a thought – this might upset people.” Then again, I also assume another person just responded, “Nah, people still like Tom Hanks.”

Read the rest of this entry »