get yr release on

Kelly Lin as one of the many "birds" who flits through one of 2008's must-see films, Johnny To Kei-Fung's Sparrow, now out on DVD.

Your DVD releases for the week of 12/30:

American Carol - While movie comedy can often grow up to be a rugged little beastie with a long and healthy life span, all God's creatures need proper nourishment and plenty of care if they're going to live and thrive and make us laugh; sadly, there is little of that in the bleak media environs of movement conservatism, where every organism is expected to pull itself around by the boot straps, hustle arms contracts, or otherwise make-do on Cheetos, Chuck Norris' smile, and good old white Protestant paranoia. (Dex)

Baby
Battle for Haditha

The Brave Archer - This Cheng Cheh directed, Alexander Fu Sheng starring vehicle might not be as essential as The One-Armed Swordsman, Legendary Weapons of China or The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, but it is one fun kung fu actioner (if slightly lower than first-tier). Based on characters from the book "Legend of the Condor Heroes" (aka The Eagle Shooting Heroes) which was also the basis for Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time, The Brave Archer is in the classic Shaw tradition of garrish color, high drama and rousing kung fu action. (Pike Bishop)

Cats of Mirikitani
Dutch Junkies
The Elizabeth Smart Story
Gamera the Brave
Internet Dating
Neo Ned
Sedona
Towelhead

Sparrow - See the "Best of 2008" lists by Amber and Dex for more on Johnny To's work.

Surfer, Dude
Thug City Chronicles
Train of the Dead

Woman on the Beach - What has been called Korean director Hong Sang-Soo's most accessible film, Woman on the Beach is the story of a film director with writer's block that convinces his production designer to join him at an off-season beach resort to work on the next film. The production designer brings his girlfriend with whom the director, over time, finds himself becoming enamored. The girlfriend soon sleeps with the director only to be shunned afterwards for a minor detail of her past that he finds distasteful. Later, needing to soothe an itch he can't scratch, the director returns to the beach resort to re-enact the scene with another woman. Part Claire's Knee and part Vertigo, Woman on the Beach is a sometimes disquieting look into the nature of human impulse left unrestrained. (Pike Bishop)

Young Warriors
Zion Canyon

the market has spoken

They'll show us! They'll show us all! They'll teach our grandmothers to suck eggs!



An American Carol is teh sux.

world's smallest violin playing for the waitress

How are RNC delegates and that guy up there alike?

one day, we will all eat his tossed salad and scrambled eggs

Above: because I just can't post this picture enough.

Via some special Friends of the Booth (a brainy, roguish pair with some strong movie opinions, living deep in the recesses of Capitol Hill): more on how difficult it is for supporters of an ultra-rich political movement that not only funds it's own mass media but also administers two of the three main branches of government in the world's richest and most powerful nation to make themselves heard.

"a movie that is going to kick your ass so hard that your ass will end up thinking it’s your face"

Above: From left to right, the guy who bit Kramer and the guy who played Beast.


Take that, Dark Knight!

it puts the red dawn remake in the theaters, it does this whenever it's told

Oh, man is it gonna be good! I can't wait!

Guardian Yoo-Kay:

The forthcoming remake of paranoiac Soviet invasion tale Red Dawn now has a director after Dan Bradley, who took charge of the second units on Spider-Man 3 and The Bourne Ultimatum, landed his first headline gig. The original centred on a group of high schoolers who fight back against perfidious Russian troops, and included a young(ish) Patrick Swayze in the cast. No word yet over whether the Russkies will still be the bad-guys, but the following quote from screenwriter Carl Ellsworth suggests otherwise. "The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we're in," he said. "As 'Red Dawn' scared the heck out of people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a lot of paranoia and unease, so why not scare the hell out of people again?" Probably the Iranians then ...

Oh yeah, the original Red Dawn scared a whole lot of people. Me, for example. Because when I saw it, I WAS TEN YEARS OLD.

Since we're obviously talking about outright fantasy here, why not go balls to the wall? Maybe, like the whole third and fourth acts could be the Wolverines teaming up with Iron Man, Optimus Prime, and the re-incarnated Spartans from 300 to fight Mexican Al Qaeda, the Iranians, Hugo Chavez, a cyborg Fidel Castro, the Code Pink protestors who show up at Senate hearings, and Cobra.