Take a break this month and watch our movie and television suggestions, with highlights of what you can stream on The Roku Channel, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and more.
Daniel Craig
Logan Lucky, director Steven Soderbergh first film after stepping away from the big screen for several years, is an odd duck. Tonally strange, it falls somewhere between a mainstream blockbuster and avant garde restraint. The story is a classic sort of heist caper that could be played up for maximum broad effectiveness (a la Soderbergh’s Ocean’s films), but instead it’s played straight with nary a wink or nod to the audience. It vacillates wildly between outlandish silliness, dry humour, and high drama, speeding up or slowing down whenever it feels like it. As a result of such shifting, Logan Lucky is an uneven movie, but also a thoroughly fascinating and consistently enjoyable one.
Given the age of the James Bond franchise–celebrating 50 years young this year, if you had somehow missed all the stories and events surrounding the anniversary–it’s something of a miracle that Skyfall, the latest film, is nothing short of spectacular.
Between his films In the Name of the Father and Brothers, director Jim Sheridan has shown that he is a director with uncommon skill who knows how to deliver films on difficult topics that also have powerful mood-driven stories. In particular, In The Name of the Father is a classic from the nineties that still carries just as much weight today as when it was released.
Aliens have come to Earth in director Jon Favreau’s western-style action film Cowboys & Aliens, starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde and The GATE is giving movie fans a chance to win one of five copies of the film on Blu-ray, courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Universal Pictures has officially unveiled the first poster for Jon Favreau’s action-thriller, Cowboys & Aliens, which stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach, Paul Dano, and Noah Ringer in a Western mashup about an alien invasion.
Out this week on DVD, Daniel Craig drops the machismo of Britain’s 007 for the bitter cold of Eastern Europe as he plays a man trying to save a group of refugees in Defiance; He’s Just Not That Into You features an all-star cast attempting to bring real life to the pages of a popular self-help book; and we take a quick look at Fanboys, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and Revolutionary Road.
Things quiet down a bit this week, with only two notable releases coming to DVD. On the one hand I take a look at the latest Bond movie, which arrives on Blu-ray this week, with Daniel Craig reprising his role as the iron-skulled 007, who takes on a global evil in Quantum of Solace. Also arriving, Andy Richter‘s short-lived sitcom makes an appearance on DVD.
Get ready to duck and wince at three dimensional gore with this week’s release of the remake My Bloody Valentine 3D. Plus, Kevin James is a good guy with a mission in the comedy, Paul Blart: Mall Cop; Defiance stars Daniel Craig as a Russian fighting the Nazis in World War II; and lots more.
His name is Bond, James Bond, and he’s back in Quantum of Solace with a fight to take down the man who killed the one woman he loved. Also opening this weekend, John Boyne novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas shows the friendship between two boys in the midst of the terrors of the Holocaust. Plus, in select markets, check out Jean-Claude Van Damme as himself in JCVD.