New on DVD for December 29 – Daily Herald
New releases coming Tuesday:
'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 like "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. ("Contagion" drops the names of real-life medical scares such as SARS, swine flu and H1N1 like mad.) Paltrow, whose Beth Emhoff is the first to come down with the new disease, is dead mere minutes into the movie, after lapsing into a scary, mouth-frothing seizure. Hundreds of millions of victims follow, though Beth's husband, Mitch, played by a schlubby-looking Matt Damon, remains immune, both from the bug and from our emotions. As a hero, the film treats him with an oddly clinical detachment. Along with his teenage daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron), Mitch spends most of the movie sensibly holed up inside his house, as the world around him descends into a chaos of looting and Internet-fueled panic. 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. Law's character, a shadowy demagogue called Alan Krumwiede -- whose face appears, throughout the film, plastered on posters labeled "Prophet" -- is funny and seductive. He's almost creepier than MEV-1. DVD extra: "Contagion: How a Virus Changes the World" featurette. Also, on Blu-ray, two other documentary-style medical featurettes.
'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark'
(PG-13, 99 minutes): Augmented by just enough CGI to bring its icky gremlins to life, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" feels retro in all the right ways. Screenwriters Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins adapted the script from a 1973 TV movie of the same name. The changes they made pull the tale further back, though, into the realm of fable -- especially their decision to change the protagonist from an adult to a little girl: Sally (Bailee Madison) has been sent by her preoccupied mother to live with her father and his new girlfriend (Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes) in the grand old mansion they're renovating. Sally doesn't want to be there but can't resist exploring. Soon she discovers a hidden basement whose rusty, bolted-up ash pit speaks to her. Scratchy, faint voices whisper to Sally, offering friendship. When her first encounter is cut short, we hear them whisper among themselves: "She'll come back. They always do ..." Followers of del Toro's work will see reminders of "Pan's Labyrinth" here, but the storyteller is writing for another director, first-timer Troy Nixey, and keeps the action rooted in the real world. Contains mildly gory violence and terror. Extras: Three-part making-of documentary. Also, on Blu-ray, a conceptual art gallery.
'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. American viewers may need subtitles to navigate the thicket of burrs and brogues, but "The Guard" offers a stream of alternately tough and sweet humor, delivered by first-time writer-director John Michael McDonagh. One part "Local Hero" and one part "Pulp Fiction," "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. (And keep a look out for such stellar supporting players as Mark Strong, Fionnula Flanagan and Pat Shortt.) 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.
Also:
"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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