Tuesday, July 13, 2010

DVDs: Brooklyn's Greenberg, A Single Man With the Chloe Tattoo

Recent or brand new offerings from the fine land of DVD and Blu Ray including (whaddya know?) a double feature starring god herself. Which will you make me watch?
  • The Bounty Hunter
    In which Gerard Butler allegedly continues his unbroken streak of awful movies. I say allegedly because I have only heard of (most of) the horrors.
  • Brooklyn's Finest
    In which the likes of Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes and Ethan Hawke get caught up in cops & drugs style complications. From the director of Training Day.
  • Chloe
    In which Julianne Moore hires hooker Amanda Seyfried for her husband but gets more than she paid for. Oopsie. From auteur Atom Egoyan.


  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    In which Swedish actors like Michael Nyqvist (yay!), Lena Endre (yay!) and Noomi Rapace (wait, who?) act out the allegedly misogynistic international best seller.
  • The Greatest
    In which Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan are grieving the death of their son when they meet a girl (Carey Mulligan) pregnant with his child. Sounds rather like Moonlight Mile, also starring Susan Sarandon as the grieving mom?
  • Greenberg
    In which Ben Stiller can't deal. From the very talented writer/director Noah Baumbach (Margot at the Wedding, The Squid and the Whale).
  • A Single Man
    In which Colin Firth grieves his dead lover, considers hitting that (that being Nicholas Hoult) and visits boozy potty mouth Juli.
Make your case for what I should write about in the comments and vote.



Previous write ups from this reader request series (my version of DVD on Demand) include Bad Lieutenant, Fantastic Mr Fox, An Education, The Road and Alice in Wonderland. The latter did not actually win a poll but I didn't hold one that week because I knew it would. Doctor Zhivago, The White Ribbon and True Blood Season 2 (which totally tied The Road in its week) still pending. Shut up, they're all really long! We'll take a break from these polls after this one until I get caught up.

27 comments:

Andrew R. said...

I voted for Bounty Hunter.

COME ON, PEOPLE! VOTE FOR THE WORST!!!

Granted, Single Man (the current leader) is pretty bad aside from Firth and Moore, who were great.

Unknown said...

I wonder why people vote for the obvious choices when it would be so much more interesting for you to review something like "Brooklyn's Finest." Come on, folks. Use a little imagination.

NATHANIEL R said...

well the voting is still early. THE ROAD surged very late in the game in its week so maybe things will shift.

Movies with Abe said...

The Greatest was very good! I highly recommend you check it out! (I gave it a B+: http://movieswithabe.com/2010/04/movie-with-abe-greatest.html)

SoSueMe said...

I vote for A Single Man... probably one of the few homocentric films that featured a gay relationship that was genuinely intimate, sexy, and romantic (and much moreso than Brokeback). And Colin Firth and Matthew Goode (and Tom Ford) are so damn sexy!

cal roth said...

Come on, A Single Man? This movie has been discussed here before, it won FB medals, we all know what Nat thinks about it. Obviously things may change, but why not try something new?

NATHANIEL R said...

Yes, i'm discovering in this series that there's an insatiable lust for revisiting past Oscar seasons :)

as stated in the post, i'm taking a break from these poll requests after this one to catch up and maybe i'll retool the system. we'll see but i kind of like knowing which films interest people.

sometimes what interests me -- like SHE (1935) -- doesn't interest anyone else. But rest assured that i'll continue to interest myself too. ;)

Sebastian said...

I voted for "A Single Man." Wonderful film. I want to read about quality films on here, not crap like "The Bounty Hunter." And most of these choices are nothing worth spending time doing reviews for anyway. "Brooklyn's Finest"? "Greenberg"? "The Greatest"? No thanks.

Danielhardy23@gmail.com said...

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Please.

I have been ignoring this phenomenon, and have no intention of reading the books - but I'm slowly becoming swayed by the fact that more and more people recommend it. It's easily the highest worldwide grossing foreign film this year, the sequel has already come out, and the third part is being filmed. Meanwhile, David Fincher is preparing the remake. Since this website that has done more than its share to support foreign films, I feel a void where Nat's opinion should be. (whereas the other films, I have a pretty good idea.)

Come on Nat. Is it good? disappointing? MOR? mysogynistic? post-feminist? subversive? Your word will either cross it off the list for good, or sway me toward a movie theatre to catch up with it.

SoSueMe said...

Yikes...I just started reading this blog religiously just a short while ago...if we've discussed A Single Man already, then I agree, let's move on.

I change my vote now...I'll go with Andrew R. and his choice, The Bounty Hunter.

Namaste said...

I voted for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Last week, I watched the last part of the Millennium Trilogy. I think the first movie was my favourite, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on the movie. Not sure whether you'll like it, though, cause it does feature some violent scenes.

And btw, I think that the original title is much more interesting: Män som hatar kvinnor (which means "Men who hate women").

Nick Duval said...

Really want to hear what you have to say about "Greenberg." That to me is Ben Stiller's best work and deserves awards consideration.

Alexis said...

The Bounty Hunter
Please, can we have one for this too Nat?
I love you the most when you are sarcastic!

Jason Adams said...

Greenberg! I wanna hear Nat talk about Greta Gerwig. He's admitted before to being, as he put it, a "Gerwirgin" (heh) and hasn't said anything since. Have you seen anything of hers yet, Nat? LOVE HER SO MUCH.

Nick M. said...

Didn't you see, and talk about, Greenberg and A Single Man already?

My vote goes to Chloe, since it's not a fine film yet it's so ludicrous and polished and sleazy and fun. Along with Savage Grace, Julianne Moore certainly knows how to tear into the silliest, sleaziest guilty art-house pleasures. As for Egoyan, Chloe has all the hallmarks of his technologically driven view of modern communication: Where the Truth Lies is crudely sleazy while this is amusingly sleazy.

Bill_the_Bear said...

I voted for "A Single Man" because I thought it was the best film of the 2009 season, and you didn't, so I would like you to take another look at it.

Philip said...

I voted for A Single Man. It was between that or Chloe for me. Not only because I'm interested to hear more about them, but because I want Nathaniel to enjoy his time and both films feature God. ;)

But seriously, I wanted to understand more of A Single Man...I haven't seen it yet (I want to!), but people seem to either love it or hate it. I wanna hear more about this 'style' people say it had.

Anonymous said...

Greenberg. You have no idea how much I quote that movie to myself every day.

Michael said...

Definitely The Bounty Hunter. There's not enough Jennifer Aniston talk on here (even if it's negative).

Unknown said...

There needs to be a clause whereby, in one instance, the movie with the fewest votes wins!

RJ said...

Yeah, these polls remind me why democracy doesn't work ... You always end up in the middle ground.

Anonymous said...

F*ck A Single Man. Vote Greenberg! Hurt people hurt people.

Robert Hamer said...

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo gets my vote. It's a relatively popular film based on an even more popular book series, got a surprising D+ from Nick, and I have no idea what it's about.

The other films I either have seen enough analysis of or have no interest in putting Nat through them (Shame on those who voted for The Bounty Hunter! He's already suffered through Alice in Won -excuse me- Underland!).

kin said...

I have voted for the worst in previous polls (like The Squeakquel over An Education or New Moon over Mr. Fox). But Nat potentially reevaluating or at least further examining one of my favorites of last year (A Single Man) is not something I want to pass up. Plus screencaps of Nicholas Hoult, which is welcomed.

I guess in the future, Nat can just includes movies he hasn't watch.

paco. said...

I voted for Chloe since you never really talked about it, and i thought Julianne was particularly good

Would've voted for A Single Man but you've already talked about it and we know how you felt about it so where's the fun in that.

Janice said...

My god, they mostly sound awful - although you are sometimes at your best, Nathaniel, writing about "awful" and the horror it truly is. Still, I voted for Greenberg. Critics are saying nice things about it - is it (and Stiller's performance) really all that much better than Margot at the Wedding, or did the Nicole-hate/antipathy just blind everyone in '06?

Anonymous said...

CHLOE!!!!!