If you’re the kind of person who just has to own a little piece of plastic with a movie on it, here’s what you can get. Tuesday is new DVD and Blu-Ray day, and this week’s releases include an Oscar favorite and some serious stinkers. Let’s get to it.
Silver Linings Playbook
Easily the pick hit of this week’s releases, David O. Russell’s romantic comedy-drama made all the ladies fall just a little bit more in love with Bradley Cooper as a bipolar dude who moves back in with his parents and enters a dance competition with sex addict Jennifer Lawrence. There’s absolutely nothing bad about any movie that involves the phrase “sex addict Jennifer Lawrence.” This flick was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, so I recommend it.
Broken City
Mark Wahlberg gets serious in this neo-noir directed by Allen Hughes. I thought it was a little contrived in places, but the atmosphere is good and the plot twists are solid. Wahlberg plays a former NYC police detective who kills a suspect and has to leave the force, only to be hired by the mayor to investigate his wife, whom he suspects is cheating on him. Of course, it gets more complicated from there. Worth a rental.
Not Fade Away
David “The Sopranos” Chase makes his directorial debut on the big screen with another New Jersey tale, this one a semi-autobiographical tale about friends who start a garage band and try to make it big. I thought this was perfectly charming, with some great performances by Bella Heathcoate and James Gandolfini, doing an old friend a favor. It’s not must-see TV, but it’s worth a Redbox.
The Guilt Trip
I’m not going to tell you to watch a comedy with Barbra Streisand in it in the 2013. I’m not that cruel. I didn’t see this one, where Seth Rogen and Barbra take a cross-country trip through America and learn about each other, and I don’t particularly want to.
The Details
I don’t think this ever hit theaters, but it looks interesting. Tobey Maguire stars as a suburban obstetrician who finds the comfortable facade of his life crumbling around him as a result of his own moral laxity. It’s got a ton of good reviews and Elizabeth Banks is in it, so I’ll pick this one up.
30 Rock Season 7
Sure, this NBC sitcom isn’t quite at the heights it once was, but the final season brought plenty of laughs as the sour tale of Liz Lemon came to a close. The overarching plot of the last season saw Jack Donaghy trying to purposefully drive the network into bankruptcy, but it was overshadowed a bit by about a million cameos from just about everybody who’s ever been on 30 Rock.