New on DVD this week.
Love is Strange
George and Ben (John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) are finally able to marry after almost 40 years together. But the happy occasion ends up problematic for everyone, after a job layoff forces the couple to split up and stay separately and in close confines with family in New York City. 鈥淪ometimes when you live with people you know them better than you care to,鈥� laments Ben, who shares a bunk-bed with his teenaged great-nephew. As if the indignity of having no employment and nowhere to live isn鈥檛 bad enough, the men are more or less treated like furniture as raucous parties, family crises and knock-down fights go on around them. More than anything the film, co-written and directed by Ira Sachs, shows just how quickly our lives can change, and how closely we should treasure the ones we love. Special features include commentary with Lithgow, Molina and Sachs, a making-of feature (wherein Sachs talks about how cathartic the project was for him, and actors laugh about who hogs the covers in the bedroom scenes) and a Q&A at the L.A. Film Fest.
Get on Up
It鈥檚 a tough gig playing the legendary godfather of soul, a man as colourful as James Brown. But Curtis Boseman (42) rocks it: onstage, in church, in the whorehouse where Brown grew up, and just about everywhere else. From the breakup of the Famous Flames and his relationships with the white devil (Dan Ackroyd, among others) the story of the 鈥渉ardest working man in show business鈥� is told in candid detail. Tons of extras on the Blu-ray: deleted/extended scenes, full and extended performances of the songs in the film, Long Journey to the Screen talks features chats with producers Mick Jagger (who had rights to the music) and Brian Grazer (who had a film percolating already), Meet Mr. James Brown covers the huge challenge of casting someone who could act, look, and dance like Brown, Meet The Get On Up Family focuses on the supporting cast (Nelsan Ellis, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer), commentary with director Tate Taylor, and more.
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Liam Neeson, still kicking butt into his 60s, plays Matt Scudder, a disgraced NYPD cop who moonlights as a private investigator. He gets more than he bargained for when a heroin trafficker (Dan Stevens) whose wife has been gruesomely murdered enlists Scudder鈥檚 help, and our hangdog hero realizes he has a sadistic serial killer on his hands. Based on Lawrence Block鈥檚 bestselling series of mystery novels, Scott Frank creates a film different in tone than Neeson鈥檚 Taken series. Long, ponderous-yet-artful shots of a seedy New York City in the throes of Y2K hysteria, for example, or the fact that our hero would rather avoid violence whereas Bryan Mills always elects to punch it in the throat. The sexualized violence may be hard to watch, but it seems no one can turn away from Neeson in action-hero mode.聽
