Nicks Pick’s 02/06/13

DVD REVIEWS

FREE DVD GIVEAWAY

We are doing a Free DVD Giveaway! If you are interested in a chance at winning a free copy of Southland, Frontline: Poor Kids, Hollow, Citadel, In our Nature or Side By Side, it is really easy! All you have to do is send me an email at HoustonMovieGuy@gmail.com. The subject line of the email should read DVD GIVEAWAY. In the body of the email, be sure to put your name, full mailing address and which DVD or Blu-ray you would like. Winners will be selected by random drawing. Best of luck!

SOUTHLAND – Warner

The Southland is Los Angeles: sandy beaches Bel-Air mansions gangbangers and drug deals gone wrong. It’s where the rookies and veterans of a stand-up LAPD unit see all the violence and fear a big city can breed and struggle to make a difference. This 6-Disc Set contains all 26 explosive Season Two Three and Four Episodes of the gripping lightning-paced series about the men and women who live their lives on a jagged edge taking on criminals victims and a sprawling city tainted by vice and seething with danger. Sometimes the cops triumph. Sometimes they fail. And sometimes the poison they live with on the job comes home with them. Police action hits hard in Southland.

FRONTLINE: Poor Kids – PBS

These are hard times in the Quad Cities, a great American crossroads along the border of Iowa and Illinois, where the Mississippi River intersects Interstate 80. It’s home to John Deere manufacturing and the nation’s breadbasket. But it’s also an area deeply scarred by the Recession. FRONTLINE spent months following three young girls who are growing up against the backdrop of their families’ struggles against financial ruin. The result is an intimate portrait of the economic crisis as it’s rarely seen, through the eyes of children. At a time when one in five American kids lives below the poverty line, Poor Kids is an unflinching and revealing exploration of what poverty means to children, and to the country’s future.

HOLLOW – New Video

An old monastery in a small, remote village has been haunted by a local legend for centuries. Left in ruin and shrouded by the mystery of a dark spirit that wills young couples to suicide, the property has been avoided for years, marked only by a decrepit old tree with an ominous hollow said to be the home of great evil. When four friends on holiday take local folklore and turn it into an investigation of truth, they realize that belief in a myth can quickly materialize into reality, bringing horror to life for the town.

CITADEL – Flatiron

Tommy Cowley (Aneurin Barnard) lives a quiet life in a decaying apartment complex with his very pregnant wife. The couple is attacked one day by a group of hooded young thugs, and after a shocking act of violence, Tommy is left to raise his newborn daughter alone. So shaken by the events that he s developed extreme agoraphobia, Tommy alternates his days hiding out from imagined threats in his new flat and intense therapy sessions aimed at bringing him back to normalcy. When the same hooded gang seemingly intent on kidnapping his daughter begins terrorizing his life again, he s torn between his paralyzing fear and protective parental instinct. With the help of a vigilante priest who has uncovered the genesis of this ruthless, potentially supernatural gang, Tommy must overcome his fears and venture into the heart of the abandoned tower block known as the Citadel to save his family.

IN OUR NATURE – Flatiron

When Brooklynite Seth (Zach Gilford) takes his girlfriend Andie (Jena Malone) to his family s weekend house in upstate New York for a romantic getaway, they are unexpectedly joined by Seth’s estranged father, Gil (John Slattery), and his new girlfriend, Vicky (Gabrielle Union). The women negotiate emotional minefields to persuade father and son to share the house for the first time since summer vacations of Seth s childhood. Unspoken grudges slowly surface during a weekend of vegan dinners, spilt maple syrup, and encounters with the great outdoors. While relationships old and new are tested, the group discovers that bonds of family come in unexpected forms.

SIDE BY SIDE – New Video

Join Keanu Reeves on a tour of the past and the future of filmmaking in Side by Side. Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters such as James Cameron (Avatar), David Fincher (The Social Network), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive), Martin Scorsese (The Departed), Robert Rodriguez (Sin City), Steven Soderbergh (The Ocean s Trilogy), and many more.

BEN 10 OMNIVERSE: A New Beginning – Cartoon Network

The biggest franchise in Cartoon Network’s history is taking Ben 10 to another level with the DVD release of the Ben 10 Omniverse – A New Beginning (V1) DVD. It’s an all-new series! With an all-new Omnitrix and new alien heroes. A quirky new underground world full with intergalactic life. A new partner named Rook helping Ben save the world and bail him out of trouble. And a new Ben like you’ve never seen him – a little older but not always a little wiser. It’s going to be a wild ride! This DVD includes 10 all-new action packed episodes and more. Complete your Ben 10 DVD collection with the Ben 10 Omniverse – A New Beginning (V1) DVD.

A PERFECT ENDING – Wolfe

This opposites-attract, edge-of-your-seat lesbian romance is a glossy, sexy and fun romantic drama guaranteed to earn a fresh array of fans for veteran writer-director Nicole Conn! She’s elegant, wealthy and proper an upstanding wife and mother with three grown children, a swanky estate and a horrible husband. But when Rebecca confesses to her friends about her unsatisfactory love life, they set her up with an exceptionally talented high-class call girl named Paris and, needless to say, the lives of both Rebecca and Paris are changed forever. Filled to the brink with aching desire, the sexual chemistry is off the charts between 90s TV icon Barbara Niven as the beautiful blond client and actress Jessica Clark as the smokin hot hooker who truly does have a heart of gold. Grappling with a veritable soap opera of family drama at home, Rebecca escapes into the oasis of her encounters with Paris. Meanwhile, outside of her lucrative sex-worker day-job, Paris is a struggling artist with troubles of her own.

SO UNDERCOVER – Millennium

She may be a tough-as-nails, street-smart private investigator, but when Molly is drafted by the FBI to go undercover in a college sorority, she quickly discovers she’s way out of her element amongst a sisterhood of snooty, high maintenance, materialistic college girls. But Molly accepts the top-secret mission in order to protect the daughter of a key witness in a case against the mob.

PETER PAN – Disney

Let your dreams take flight with Walt Disney’s original classic. Peter Pan soars to new heights in the magical 2-disc Platinum Edition DVD with an all-new digital restoration. Fantastic adventures await Wendy and her brothers when Peter Pan, the hero of their stories, whisks them away to the magical world of Never Land. After following Peter and his feisty sidekick Tinker Bell past “the second star to the right and straight on till morning,” they explore the island and Peter’s secret hideout with the rambunctious Lost Boys and leap into high-flying battles with swashbuckling pirates and the infamous Captain Hook! Bursting with fantasy, adventure, and pixie dust, this 2-disc Platinum Edition includes three all-new games in Camp Never Land, deleted scenes, a new discovery — in which Walt Disney reveals why he made Peter Pan — and much more.

HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET – Fox

Terror hits home in the chilling Unrated Cut of House at the End of the Street – with a shocking added twist you didn’t see in theaters! Academy Award Nominees Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue star in this edge-of-your-seat horror hit packed with heart-pounding thrills and gripping suspense. Newly divorced Sarah (Shue) and her teenage daughter Elissa (Lawrence) have just moved to the suburbs for a fresh start. But their hopes quickly shatter as they learn that, years earlier, a grisly murder took place next door when a deranged girl killed her parents and disappeared. The girl’s older brother Ryan (Max Thieriot) still occupies the house, and when he befriends Elissa, his secretive past could become her worst nightmare!

PINK STILL ON FIRE – MVD

That Pink is a wholly unique and unsurpassed talent within the current world of pop music is barely open to debate. Still On Fire is a two DVD set that serves as the most comprehensive insight into the life and times of this American phenomenon. Featuring rare performance and interview footage, and contributions from experts and friends, this set will make for fascinating viewing for any Pink fan.

YELLING TO THE SKY – MPI

17-year old Sweetness O’Hara (Zoe Kravitz), the daughter of mixed race parents, is struggling to find her place in the rough inner city neighborhood she reluctantly calls home. Her father is either absent or abusive, her racial background makes her an outsider in the community, and drugs and violence abound. When she finds herself in a downward spiral of dealing, shoplifting, and fighting, Sweetness learns she must take her life into her own hands in order to create the future she dreams of. Gabourey Sidibe and Tim Blake Nelson round out the cast of this gripping urban drama, which proves that in order to become an adult, you must first survive as a teenager.

HOUSE OF CARDS TRILOGY – BBC

Adapted for the screen by Andrew Davies, House of Cards is a spell-binding dissection of naked ambition greed and rampant hypocrisy in the corridors of power. The series documents in thrilling detail the rise of Tory Chief Whip Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) a man with unwavering contempt for those with “no background no bottom.” With the downfall of Margaret Thatcher a bitter internecine power struggle ensues within the Conservative Party. Urquhart schemes more devilishly than Iago to depose Thatcher’s colorless John Major-style successor. And even Machiavelli would baulk at Urquhart’s methods. Any and every act-including murder-is legitimate and the ends very much justify the means.

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN – Docurama

In profiling Chinese adoptees in contemporary America, this deeply moving documentary from Linda Goldstein Knowlton (The World According to Sesame Street) illustrates that even the most specific of experiences can be universally relatable. Of the roughly 80,000 girls who have been adopted from China since 1989 a decade after China implemented its One Child Policy the film intimately follows four teenagers: Haley, Jenna, Ann and Fang. These four wise-beyond-their-years yet typical American teens reveal a heartbreaking sense of self-awareness as they attempt to answer the uniquely human question, “Who am I?” They meet and bond with other adoptees, some journey back to China to reconnect with the culture, and some reach out to the orphaned girls left behind. In their own ways, all attempt to make sense of their complex identities. Issues of belonging, race and gender are brought to life through these articulate subjects, who approach life with honesty and open hearts.

THE PERKS OF A WALLFLOWER – Summit

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is based on the wildly popular novel by Stephen Chbosky about a freshman named Charlie (Logan Lerman) who is always watching from the sidelines until a pair of charismatic seniors takes him under their wing. Beautiful, free-s pirited Sam (Emma Watson) and her fearless stepbrother Patrick (Ezra Miller) shepherd Charlie through new friendships, first love, burgeoning sexuality, bacchanalian parties, midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the quest for the perfect song.

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Posted by FortBendStar on Feb 6 2013. Filed under Nick's Picks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.