An Adventure in Space and Time (Warner, Blu-ray+DVD Combo) is a TV movie made for the BBC but it is a movie nonetheless, a bit of pop culture celebration that takes on the creation of Doctor Who in 1963 (just in time for the 50th Anniversary!). Scripted by veteran Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss and produced by current Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, it’s sweet, it’s sentimental and it’s nostalgic. It’s also unexpectedly engaging as a piece of light historical drama made with an affectionate passion and more than a hint of the BBC series The Hour in its observations of the inner workings of the broadcaster half a century ago.
David Bradley plays William Hartnell, the aging veteran actor who reluctantly takes on the role in what he sees as just a kid’s show, and Jessica Raine is Verity Lambert, the former production assistant given the assignment of creating a prime time family show by her mentor (Brian Cox), now a ranking executive at the Beeb. She’s the first female producer at BBC and her director, Waris Hussein (Sacha Dhawan), was a rare director of Indian descent, and their stories are a small but important part of this portrait of an institution in transition. Together they overcome budgetary limitations with flights of fantasy and creative special effects and the show recreates iconic events in the first four years of the series, from the series debut getting clobbered when it had the unfortunate luck of showing the night (British time) of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the first appearance of the Daleks to the explosion of Who-mania in Britain.
The Hartnell we’re presented here is a prickly old man who isn’t always easy to deal with but brings a warmth to the role of The Doctor. Bradley has played his share of grumpy old men, notably the caretaker Filch in the “Harry Potter” films, but he’s quite touching here as the frail veteran who, in the last years of his long career, becomes a pop culture sensation. It’s a late reward that takes its toll—he’s old, losing his memory, and exhausted by the demands of the role—and he offers a poignant performance.
For fans of the show, it’s a loving recreation of the original series art design and special effects along with key moments and characters of the show, but it’s more than simply an extended exercise in insider fandom. If all you know is the current incarnation, this is an entertaining, informative, and rather moving introduction to the birth of the phenomenon.
The Blu-ray+DVD Combo includes a featurette, deleted scenes, recreations of original Who scenes using original Marconi camera, and a bonus DVD featuring the first Doctor Who adventure, “An Unearthly Child,” starring William Hartnett at the Doctor and directed by Waris Hussein.
The thrills in Cheap Thrills (Drafthouse, Blu-ray, DVD), title notwithstanding, aren’t cheap, at least in the film’s reality. David Koechner and Sara Paxton are rich, decadent married couple who throw money at a couple of desperate guys (Pat Healy and Ethan Embry) to see how far they would go for a couple of hundred bucks, and then a couple of thousand, and so on. One guy is desperate, the other simply crude and greedy, and the competitive nature turns this not-quite-friends into ferocious rivals. It’s promoted as a sick comedy and while there is a black humor running under it all, this is less an extreme comedy than a bitter psychodrama with the 1% pitting the 99% in the private gladiator pits of humiliation and degradation for their entertainment. It’s not always pleasant and it’s not necessarily played for laughs, and it doesn’t take you anywhere you don’t see coming in the insidious escalation of everything, but it has its perspective on what greed and desperation will drive men to and it makes it case quite effectively.
Blu-ray and DVD with commentary by director E.L. Katz and star Pat Healy, a 45-minute making-of featurette, footage from the Q&A at Fantastic Fest 2013, and a booklet, plus a bonus digital copy.
See the trailer below. Danny Miller interviews the cast for Cinephiled here.
Child’s Pose (IFC, DVD, Digital) is a Romanian drama about the aftermath of a hit-and-run that leaves a boy dead and sends the upper-class mother (Luminita Gheorghiu) of the reckless driver to extreme measures to save her cowardly son from prison, no matter his guilt and culpability. “The point is watching how character, class, and family dynamics twist the aftermath of a tragic event,” writes film critic Robert Horton in Seattle Weekly. “There are no scenes of screeching wheels, because this Romanian movie is a series of scenes of people talking in rooms—a tough sell for a publicist, but a compelling experience when the stakes are high and the portrait of human nature is clear-eyed. As it is here.”
On DVD and digital, in Romanian with English subtitles, with deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes footage.
Also new and notable:
A Birder’s Guide to Everything (Screen Media, DVD, Digital, VOD) stars Kodi Smit-McPhee in a coming-of-age drama set within the world of birding. Ben Kinglsey and Katie Chang co-star.
Gambit (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital), a remake of the 1966 caper comedy, stars Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz and Alan Rickman and features a screenplay by Ethan and Joel Coen, and it still went straight to home video.
Run and Jump (IFC, DVD) is a drama starring Will Forte as an American doctor in Ireland studying the effect of a stroke on a man and his family and 24 Exposures (IFC, DVD) is an indie crime thriller from Joe Swanberg.
VOD / On Demand exclusives:
Lucky Them, starring Toni Collette as a music journalist searching for a legendary Seattle musician who disappeared a decade ago and Thomas Haden Church as her partner and sponsor in the trip, debuts via Cable On Demand on Friday, May 30, the same day it opens in New York City. Megan Griffiths directs the comic drama, an offbeat buddy picture set in the outskirts of the Seattle music scene, and as a fellow Seattle-ite, I appreciate the way Griffiths captures the character and the beauty of the various Seattle neighborhoods in a way out-of-town filmmakers never notice.
The dance drama Grigris (Film Movement, On Demand) from Chad is also available on through Cable on Demand on Friday, months before commercial DVD.
Available for digital purchase in advance of disc release is Non-Stop (Universal, Digital HD), the mid-air terrorist thriller starring Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore.
More releases:
Endless Love (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, On Demand)
The Trials of Cate McCall (Vertical, DVD, VOD)
Buttwhistle (Breaking Glass, DVD)
Eastern Bandits (Well Go, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital)
House in the Alley (Scream Factory, DVD)
Tapped Out (Lionsgate, DVD, Digital HD, VOD, On Demand)
Ride for Lance (Anchor Bay, DVD, VOD)
Saving Grace B. Jones (Arc, DVD)
Independence Daysaster (Anchor Bay, DVD)
Bloodmarsh Krackoon (Independent Entertainment, DVD, Digital)
TV on disc:
The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Series (Shout Factory, DVD)
Pioneers of Television: Season 4 (PBS, DVD)
The Bridge: Season One (Denmark) (MHz, DVD)
Wallendar: Season 3 (Sweden) (MHz, DVD)
Longmire: The Complete First and Second Seasons (Warner, Blu-ray)
Suits: Season Three (Universal, DVD)
Covert Affairs: Season Four (Universal, DVD)
Jack Irish: Set 2 (Acorn, Blu-ray+DVD Combo)
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: Series 2 (Acorn, Blu-ray, DVD)
Cimarron Strip: The Complete Series (eOne, DVD)
The Universe: Season 7 (History, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Kennedys: Triumph and Tragedy (PBS, DVD)
Pioneers of Television: Season 4 (PBS, DVD)
Diagnosis Murder: The Sixth Season (Paramount, DVD)
Diagnosis Murder: The Seventh Season (Paramount, DVD)
Diagnosis Murder: The Eighth Season (Paramount, DVD)
Nature: Touching the Wild (PBS, DVD)
Craft In America: Industry (PBS, DVD)
Hitler and the Nazis (Cinedigm, DVD)
Classics and Cult:
Red River (Criterion, Blu-ray+DVD Combo)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Criterion, Blu-ray)
The Color of Lies (Cohen, Blu-ray, DVD)
Journey to the West (Magnolia, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Man Who Lies (Kino / Redemption, Blu-ray, DVD)
Eden and After (Kino / Redemption, Blu-ray, DVD)
Sleepaway Camp: Collector’s Edition (Shout Factory, Blu-ray+DVD Combo)
The People vs. Paul Crump (Facets, DVD)
The Max Linder Collection (Kino, DVD)
Dracula (1974) (MPI, Blu-ray)
Death Spa (MPI Gorgon, Blu-ray)
Blue Movie (Raro, DVD)
Calendar of upcoming releases on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and VOD