Sharing DVD Collection Pics

Ivy over at do you have a flag? recently posted pics of her impressive 337 DVD collection which in turn inspired others to follow along. I like sharing, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share mine collection as well.

Although I have only have around 140 films in my collection I've already gone of the allotted bookshelf (thanks to DIY Club) which landed me with the lil alphabetical pile on the left. Oh, yes - I go alphabetical, unless it's a sequel that has a different title than the first one, then it would go after the first film (oh my, I totally lied after looking at my collection. Can you spot the flubb? I've fixed it on the shelf). I also put number titles under what they would be if spelled out (300 and 3:10 to Yuma are under 'T'), but this is not how I organize my reviews which has numbers first and from smallest to biggest. TV DVDs are kept seperately from film DVDs - because they are totally different.

There are times when I've organized my collection by genre and I've pondered doing that again but for now with 140 titles it's not too many and alphabetically is working. I've included detail pics for those who want to have a peek at the titles.

And Ivy, you have one up on me. Sadly missing from my collection is The Covenant.

TV DVD, Film A-ID


Film IN-Z


TV on DVD & Film, Recent purchases that don't fit on shelf.


What does your collection look like?

Film Fan Fridays for Friday June 5, 2009!

Hello Film Fans and Fanatics!

Welcome to Film Fan Fridays for Friday June 5, 2009! We have so many films to choose from this week and although May was blockbuster'o'rama month, June starts off with a fantastic selection of festival circuit films dropping into our laps!

In limited release this week we have a few festival award winners in our midst with the Czech Republic/UK co-pro Empties as well as O'Horten which has that odd-but-funny-but-really-it-looks-touching tone to it, you know? We also have the triptych Tokyo! hot off the heels of its spot at the Over the Top Festival and I for one am looking forward to seeing it - just the idea of a film with contributions from both Bong Jo-Hoon (The Host / Gwoemul) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) is enough to get me in a seat! If you are looking for documentaries, we have two sections this week: aptly named The English Surgeon and Waterlife which takes a look at the beauty as well as environmental state of the Great Lakes. As a special treat, Waterlife will have a Q&A with director Kevin McMahon at the Friday June 5, 2009 screening at 6:50pm at Varsity Cinemas.

In wide release this week is all comedies. Starting with My Life in Ruins and then we have two films that seem to be pitching to the same audience: Land of the Lost (goofy sci-fi)and The Hangover (goofy-oops-we-got-drunk). I was *this* close to given Land of the Lost a chance but then saw the preview where the female character gets 'grabbed' for comedic effect. No laugh from me, and certainly won't be seeing that - especially with so much more to choose from.

Have a great weekend!

Shannon

Festival Watch

Silver Screens Arts Festival
Festival showcasing seniors voice in the arts
Continues until June 7, 2009, at various location in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Special Screening

Woodstock
In celebration of the 40th Anniversary, the 3h53 min directors cut will be shown at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto on Monday June 8, 2009 at 7pm. More info here.

Friday June 5, 2009 Releases

Empties / Vratné lahve
Dir: Jan Sverák (Kolya / Kolja)
Cast: Zdenek Sverák, Tatiana Vilhelmová, Daniela Kolárová, Alena Vránová, Jirí Machácek, Miroslav Táborský, Martin Pechlát
Czech Republic/UK
Limited Release
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

The English Surgeon
Dir: Geoffrey Smith - feature film directorial debut
Documentary on English surgeon Henry Marsh
UK
Limited Release
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

The Hangover
Dir: Todd Phillips (Old School, Road Trip, Starsky & Hutch)
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Zach Galifianakis, Sasha Barrese, Mike Tyson, Heather Graham, Jeffrey Tambor
USA
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

Land of the Lost
Dir: Brad Silberling (Moonlight Mile, Lemony Snicket's A Series on Unfortunate Events)
Cast: Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Anna Friel
USA
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

My Life in Ruins
Dir: Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality, Grumpy Old Men)
Cast: Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, Alex Georgoulis, Alistair McGowan
USA/Spain
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

O'Horten
Writer/Dir: Bent Hamer (Factotum)
Cast: Bård Owe, Espen Skjønberg, Ghita Nørby
Norway/Germany/France
Limited Release
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

TOKYO!
Dirs: Leos Carax (Pola X), Bong Jo-Hoon (The Host / Gwoemul), Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Triptych film including the following segments: Interior Design, Merde and Shaking Tokyo
France/Japan/Germany/South Korea
Limited Release
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

Waterlife
Dir: Kevin McMahon
Environmental documentary on the Great Lakes
Canada
Limited Release
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

**please note this list of releases reflects first run film released in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as of June 5, 2009**

David Carradine: 1936-2009

David Carradine, iconic star of the cult TV favorite Kung Fu, was found dead Thursday in a Bangkok hotel room; findings from an investigation into his death are forthcoming. The 72-year-old actor was in Thailand shooting the action film Stretch.

Son of actor John Carradine, David is best known for his Emmy Award nominated performance as Kwai Chang Caine, a.k.a. "Grasshopper", on the 1972-75 television hit Kung Fu. He would go on to play variations of this soft-spoken, ass-kickin' character in subsequent film and television appearances, including the sequel series, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

In addition to a slew of low budget B-movies (including the Roger Corman classic Death Race 2000), his film appearances included Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha, the Woody Guthrie biopic Bound for Glory (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe), Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg and the Walter Hill western The Long Riders (co-starring his half-brothers Keith and Robert). More recently, he found renewed fame (and another Globe nomination) for playing the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part Kill Bill saga.

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2009: All Access Pass Now On Sale

Festival season is in the air and we are quickly coming up to 2009 dates for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival which this year will be hitting the Bloor Cinema August 14-21/09. It is only a little over 2 months away which means it's time to start gearing up for it. Today their All Access Pass has gone on sale, at an early bird price of $99 ($89 for students), after July 22/09 price is $119 ($109 for students) and there are only a limited number of passes which sell out every year. The pass are an amazing deal and include admission to all 18 screenings, priority entrance to screenings and much more (click here for full details and to purchase passes).

Toronto After Dark Film Festival is one of the highlights of the festival circuit in Toronto. They have fantastic, lively (and zombie-friendly) audiences and have brought us powerhouse genre films over the years including Swedish vampires Let the Right One In / Låt den rätte komma in, Chilean martial arts flick Mirageman, cult sensation Repo! The Genetic Opera, and the one and only Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. What will the this horror, sci-fi, action and cult film festival bring us this year? Your guess is as good as mine, we will wait in anticipation until July 8, 2009 when the first wave of films will be announced.

The Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2009 runs from August 14-21/09 at the Bloor Cinema, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Reverend’s Reviews: Passing for Straight?

School may be out for summer in many places, but The Country Teacher is just going to work. This Czech film about a sexually conflicted educator is scheduled for limited release on June 5 from Film Movement.

It doesn’t take long for viewers to realize that new teacher Peter (a good performance by Pavel Liska) is a mysterious and possibly troubled man. We learn he was on the faculty of a prestigious academy in Prague before suddenly resigning and relocating to a remote village. Given his credentials, he is quickly hired by the local principal, who doesn’t ask many questions about Peter’s past.

A natural sciences teacher, Peter imparts to his pupils such lessons as “When we understand nature, we can better understand ourselves” and “Diversity is sometimes a trap, and sometimes a gift; it depends on what we do with it.” More privately, he questions the existence of God.


Peter takes a room on a farm owned by Marie (the interesting actress Zuzana Bydzovska), where she lives with her rebellious teenaged son (Ladislav Sedivy). At Marie’s encouragement, Peter takes her son under his wing as a tutor. Peter gradually develops an interest in her son that isn’t exactly professional.

While the basic storyline of The Country Teacher is sometimes predictable, it also takes a number of surprising turns. Of note is Peter’s relationship with his parents, and how his openness with them differs from his openness with contemporaries. He is also more out to his father initially than to his mother, which is fairly unique in the annals of gay cinema. Peter goes through a lot as he strives toward greater integrity, and he puts Marie and her son through a lot too. The film’s final scene is a nice moment of reconciliation and rebirth between the three of them.

The Country Teacher is written and directed by Bohdan Slama, an accomplished filmmaker but not well-known outside of Europe. Slama has a good eye for both lyrical settings and the emotional damage wrought by repressed sexuality. (Click here to watch the trailer for The Country Teacher.)


Also scheduled for theatrical release on June 5 is The Art of Being Straight, from Regent Releasing/here! The movie will also be available for viewing starting that day on here! Networks. It is the debut feature of young writer-director Jesse Rosen, who also plays the film’s confused protagonist, Jon.

Having recently broken up with his girlfriend for undisclosed reasons, Jon moves from Boston to Los Angeles in search of a fresh start. Jon moves in with an old college buddy and finds work as an administrative assistant at an advertising agency.

Jon says he’s straight and his behavior seems to support this, but things get complicated when his gay boss, Paul (Johnny Ray Rodriguez), takes an interest in him. At the same time, Jon’s ex-girlfriend-turned-lesbian, Maddy (the funny Rachel Castillo), finds herself falling in love with the new guy next door. Are these young adults trying to define themselves truly gay? Truly straight? Bisexual? None of the above?


Rosen’s inexperience as a film director shows at times, especially during the movie’s murkily-shot and/or confusingly-edited sex scenes, but his writing and acting are fine. Indeed, everyone in the cast is quite good.

In the press notes for The Art of Being Straight, Rosen says “I made this film because there wasn’t a movie that I could relate to in terms of my own experiences and the experiences of many others in my generation; Discovering your sexuality is not supposed to be about trying to decide into which box to fit despite what we tend to learn.”

While being straight or gay might not be an art, both of these films show that trying to figure ourselves out as human, sexual beings certainly remains a dramatic and — at times — entertaining endeavor. (Click here to watch the trailer for The Art of Being Straight.)

UPDATE: The Country Teacher and The Art of Being Straight are now available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Women We Love: Glenn Close

Object of our affection: Glenn Close, actress.

- For her film debut in The World According to Garp, she received her first of three consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress, followed by nods for The Big Chill and The Natural. She "graduated" to the Best Actress category with her iconic villainesses in Fatal Attraction (making its Blu-ray debutnext Tuesday) and Dangerous Liaisons.

- In addition to another beloved bad girl, Cruella De Vil in the 101 Dalmatians live action movies, her other notable films include Jagged Edge, Reversal of Fortune, Hamlet, The Paper, Mars Attacks!, Air Force One, Tarzan, The Stepford Wives and Evening.

- Prior to making it big on the silver screen, she had an illustrious career as a stage actress, including a Tony Award nomination for the musical Barnum. Since, she has won three Tonys, for the plays The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden and the Broadway version of Sunset Boulevard, in which she recreated the legendary role of Norma Desmond originated by Gloria Swanson in the classic film.

- On television, she won an Emmy for playing lesbian activist Margarethe Cammermeyer in the made-for-TV biopic Serving in Silence, as well as a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for her Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter. She has also starred in such other popular TV movies as Something About Amelia, the Sarah, Plain and Tall series, In the Gloaming and small screen adaptations of the stage productions The Elephant Man and South Pacific.

- As well as memorable guest spots on The Simpsons and Will & Grace, she received critical acclaim and Emmy and Globe nominations for her one season stint on The Shield. That led to her current series, Damages, which has earned her more acclaim, as well as her second Emmy and Globe awards.

District 9 Poster: For Humans Only

I'm not usually a fan of viral marketing (who like a virus, really?) but this was funny. But, if unaware of the upcoming docu-, I mean sci-fi film District 9 it might be unsettling - and that is more likely the point. Uh oh, I'm back to not liking the idea. Whelp, while I two-face that convo in my head, why don't you have a look at the trailer and decide for yourself!

More District 9 Info: Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page, Release Date Source (August 14, 2009)