Red 2 (Summit, Blu-ray, DVD, On Demand) makes the case that our appetite for senior citizen action movies is big enough to support two franchises. This is the more self-consciously comic take, with Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren as retired covert agents dragged back to action for yet another contrived plot that involves a deadly secret weapon and a conspiracy to frame our heroes. Every intelligence agency on earth is, of course, ready to carry out contracts on them, while civilian girlfriend Mary-Louise Parker gets drafted into the crew, much to the dismay of Willis.
It’s a basically a tongue-in-cheek James Bond movie with globetrotting old pros proving that they aren’t too old for this s**t. They outsmart and out-act their younger counterparts while tracking down a weapon too dangerous to trust to governments (yet okay to for a paranoid nutcase like Malkovich, who carries around a stick of dynamite for emergencies), and for this one they are joined by Catherine Zeta-Jones (as a Soviet agent) and Anthony Hopkins (as the mad scientist who created the bomb). Korean star Byung-hun Lee makes a colorful addition to the cast and Neal McDonough, David Thewlis and Brian Cox co-star.
There’s a lot of big set pieces, crashing cars and explosions propping up a flimsy plot just so we can enjoy the company of these scene-stealing vets playing in the action movie sandbox. Willis tosses off quips with his lopsided grin, Malkovich mugs around like an escaped lunatic with an arsenal of booby traps and Mirren combines a gift for cold-blooded mayhem with regal authority: a class act in a silly, busy, loud comic book action movie. Which should tell you all you need to know about it.
With deleted scenes and a gag reel. The Blu-ray adds the half-hour “The Red 2 Experience” collection of featurettes and an Ultraviolet Digital HD copy. It’s also available via Cable On Demand and Digital HD.
Director Paul Schrader and writer Bret Easton Ellis team up for The Canyons (IFC, Blu-ray, DVD), a production they put together on a shoestring and shot quickly with a cast toplined by notorious celebrity trainwreck Lindsay Lohan and gay porn star James Deen. It’s a dreary take on the vacuous nature of Hollywood culture from once-provocative artists and a rather garish film from a director who once had a grand visual command, and arrives on disc after limited release in theaters and on Cable On Demand. With two short featurettes. The Blu-ray also includes an unrated edition.
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (Magnolia, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital) tells the story of the most influential band that, despite their name, never actually made it big. This loving documentary is more focused on the lives of the artists outside of the band (which was only together for four years), notably Alex Chilton and the mysterious Chris Bell, and on the influence they had so many artists of the eighties. There is a lot more love in this documentary than there is information, but the music is magic and the attention is long overdue. With deleted scenes and bonus sections of Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, and “Big Star in the Studion.”
More New Releases:
Ashton Kutcher is Apple guru Steve Jobs in Jobs (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD, On Demand), a big-screen biopic that failed with both critics and audiences. With commentary by director Joshua Michael Stern, three featurettes and deleted scenes.
Getaway (Warner, Blu-ray, DVD, On Demand) is a high-speed crime thriller built around a race car driver (Ethan Hawke) and an hapless passenger (Selena Gomez) racing through the streets of Bulgaria to save Hawke’s kidnapped wife. With featurettes and a digital copy.
Danish drama Applause (Kino Lorber, DVD) stars Paprika Steen as an alcoholic stage actress trying to rebuild her life as she gets sober. Danish with English subtitles.
VOD / On Demand exclusives:
You can purchase a digital edition of Despicable Me 2 (Universal, Digital HD) two weeks before it debuts on disc, and see Wong Kar-wai’s acclaimed martial arts drama The Grandmaster (Anchor Bay) via VOD and Cable On Demand more than a month in advance of its disc release (which has been delayed to 2014).
The Punk Singer (On Demand), a festival-favorite documentary about riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hann, premieres on Friday, November 29, same day as theaters.
The animated Turbo arrives On Demand two weeks after disc and digital release and The Truth About Emanuel, a thriller starring Jessica Biel, debuts On Demand in advance of theaters.
More releases:
Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish (Nancy Fishman, DVD, Digital)
Return of the Moonwalker (Cinedigm, DVD, Digital)
Pablo (Breaking Glass, DVD)
Battle Ground (Lionsgate, DVD)
Peyote (Breaking Glass, DVD)
JFK Assassination: The Definitive Guide (Lionsgate, DVD)
Bill Cosby: Far From Finished (Paramount, Blu-ray, DVD)
Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Cinema Libre, DVD)
Longing Nights (Breaking Glass, DVD)
Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land (Breaking Glass, DVD)
Calendar of upcoming releases on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and VOD