Here, it’s Lucy (Emily Browning, Sucker Punch), a college student so strapped for cash that she holds four jobs: working at a café, doing Xerox duties in an office, participating in a medical study that requires a balloon and tube to be fed down her throat, and blowing guys at a bar. A fifth gig […]
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The Hidden Face
Drowning his sorrows in drink soon leads Adrián into the warm embrace of a button-cute waitress, Fabiana (Martina García), and they fall in love. All’s well again, but the police suspect something is up with Belen’s inexplicable vanishing act. Something is up in The Hidden Face, a thriller from Spain new to DVD on the […]
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The Cats / Hate for Hate
Proof is in two 1960s obscurities making their MOD DVD debut from Warner Archive, both from Italy: The Cats, which is not about cats, and Hate for Hate, which I did not. One of the most memorable lines in 1968’s The Cats — aka The Bastard — is delivered by Rita Hayworth, whose hot-mess-of-a-mother character […]
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Night Wolf / Hidden
Werewolves are hot right now, but you wouldn’t know it from Night Wolf, a howlingly average and predictable British entry that sadly marks the final film of Simon MacCorkindale, ’80s star of TV’s Manimal and the misbegotten Jaws 3-D. The plot plops a bunch of slackers in a dark and empty family farmhouse on the […]
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Eagleheart: Season One
For Chris Elliott fans, the Adult Swim series is worth rejoicing over. Unlike other shows of the late-night Cartoon Network showcase, this one enjoys well-crafted scripts filled with jokes that come from decades of edgy, experimental comedy experience, and not bong hits. Ostensibly a parody of Walker, Texas Ranger and perhaps a bit Justified, the […]
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The Killing: The Complete First Season
That’s the question posed by the first season of AMC’s The Killing, and also one famously answered — and then infamously not — by its finale (an extended cut of which is on the three-disc Blu-ray set) that incited the Internet equivalent of a riot. Whereas so many viewers were angry, I was elated: Seriously, […]
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Double R — Dr. Digital
Crazy, but good. It’s totally sporadic and unpredictable, which would be a detriment elsewhere, but works here. It’s like swimming in his id: a sunny, jazz-inspired melody here; a swampy, Gothic hook there. These indulgences are overwhelming and exciting, especially in the darkest of moments. It’s your best, worst nightmare. Double R works as much […]
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All about Eve
Few bands’ horizons looked better than Eve 6’s did back in the late ’90s and early ’00s. The alt-rock outfit enjoyed a major-label record deal, a platinum album and smash singles in “Inside Out” and “Here’s to the Night.” Then, ironically enough, things fell into a “beautiful oblivion.” Sales of its third, heavier release, 2003’s […]
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Beneath the Keith
Memphis blues and soul man John Paul Keith is wiser than most about the music industry. Clocking years in playing affords him a certain perspective. “We were coming back home from Baton Rouge on a Sunday afternoon. I was driving the van, and you think, ‘God, this is a long drive,’” he said. “It occurred […]
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Giving them hell
You’ve heard The All-American Rejects’ mythology before. Talented small-town Stillwater high schoolers’ album gets scooped from the trash by a record label intern: music videos, hit singles, major-label deals, high-grossing worldwide tours and dalliances with celebrities ensue. In short, all the stuff that constitutes the first half of an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music: […]