The Australian drama Blueback is equal parts earnest and frustrating. Everything about director Robert Connolly’s adaptation of a Tim Winston novella is well intentioned, looks nice, and is decently performed, but it’s also flat, lethargic, and exhausting when it should be eye opening, educational, magical, and transformative.
Eric Bana
Arriving this week on Blu-ray and on DVD: James McAvoy is the young and dashing Charles Xavier trying to save the world from evil mutants in X-Men First Class; Saoirse Ronan stars as a 16-year-old reclusive killer in Hanna; and a look at Brian DePalma’s notorious Scarface on Blu-ray.
Opening across Canada at a theatre near you: a teenage girl takes on the CIA in the modern action fairy tale, Hanna; Russell Brand plays a lovable man-child in Arthur; medieval times get a bit dopey in the comedy Your Highness; and a girl gets back on her surf board after a shark attack in Soul Surfer.
New this week, Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana star in the chronologically-challenged romantic drama, The Time Traveler’s Wife; Michael Stuhlbarg leads the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man; plus a look at Bronson, Halo: Legends, and SG-U: Stargate Universe, Season 1.0.
Debuting in theatres this week, Neill Blomkamp delivers one of the best films of the year with his sci-fi alien actioner, District 9. Also in theatres, romance blossoms across the years in The Time Traveler’s Wife, Jeremy Piven sells cars and finds love in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, and Vanessa Hudgens stars in the teen music comedy, Bandslam.