‘Contagion,’ ‘The Guard’ lead week’s DVD releases – South Bend Tribune
“Contagion”
(PG-13, 106 minutes): This thinking man’s horror movie about a viral pandemic from the writing-directing team of Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns, is stuffed with A-list actors — Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Elliott Gould — running around frowning and spitting out terms such as “pathognomonic” and “R-naught number.” Based on Soderbergh’s shooting style in the film’s first few seconds, which include ominously tight close-ups of a hand on a bus pole and a bowl of cocktail peanuts in a bar, it’s anything and everything that we come in contact with that’s terrifying. What “Psycho” did for showers, “Contagion” aims to do for shaking hands and shared water glasses. The script, reportedly based on solid scientific research about disease and its transmission, treatment and control, is admirably unsensationalistic. And that’s even considering that the virus at the heart of the story — dubbed MEV-1, though what that stands for is never explained — has a shorter and more lethal incubation period than anything we’ve previously seen. One of the film’s cleverest touches involves a secondary sense of the word viral. Using the Web as his pulpit, an unscrupulous blogger (Law) foments government conspiracy theories from the sidelines, touting an untested homeopathic “cure” for the disease called forsythia. DVD extra: “Contagion: How a Virus Changes the World” featurette. Also, on Blu-ray, two other documentary-style medical featurettes.
“The Guard”
(R, 96 minutes): Irish actor Brendan Gleeson delivers a gracefully witty star turn as a Connemara cop who becomes embroiled in a scheme to scuttle a huge cocaine delivery. Gleeson’s Gerry Boyle, while hewing to a strict personal moral code, isn’t averse to dipping into the powdered evidence once in a while, and he has an off-hours penchant for hard partying. His opposite is Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), an American FBI agent who has arrived to orchestrate the drug bust. “The Guard” offers a stream of alternately tough and sweet humor, delivered by first-time writer-director John Michael McDonagh. “The Guard” provides an antic, profanely playful addition to the goofy, hard-boiled genre Quentin Tarantino helped launch. It is easily the best guy-love comedy of 2011, with Cheadle and Gleeson’s riffs and repartee tumbling back and forth as if they’ve been trading lies over Guinness forever. Contains pervasive profanity, some violence, drug material and sexual content. Extras: deleted and extended scenes, outtakes, “The Second Death” short film, making-of featurette, Los Angeles Film Festival Q & A, commentary by McDonagh and co-stars Gleeson and Cheadle.
Other new releases:
“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” “I Don’t Know How She Does It.” “I Am,” “An Idiot Abroad,” “The Last Lions,” “Puncture,” “Mildred Pierce” (HBO miniseries), “Marley & Me: The Puppy Years,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Five” (1959-60, five-disc set), “Pearl Jam 20,” “The Windsors: From George to Kate,” “Justified: The Complete Second Season,” “The Chateau Meroux,” “Dr. Willoughby,” “Ice Quake,” “Nova: Finding Life Beyond Earth” (PBS), “Removal,” “Sekirei 2: Pure Engagement Complete Season,” “A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventure” (animated), “Dragon Ball Z: Movie Pack Collection “SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob Frozen Face-Off” and “Frontline: Lost in Detention: The Hidden World of Immigration Enforcement” (PBS).
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