Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Fri., Aug. 17:
Connecticut lithographer Ann Chernow is one of four artists explaining the link between print art and political protest in Manfred Kirscheimer’s documentary “Art Is…the Permanent Revolution,” joining etcher Sigmund Abeles, woodcut artist Paul Marcus and master printer James Reed.
Jane Seymour stars as the mother in “Lake Effects,” a heartwarming family story about two sisters from a small lakeside town whose lives have drifted apart until their father’s death reunites them – and two young women help a third cope with single motherhood in “Life Happens,” a female slacker comedy.
If you like brutal, bloody horror films, Ben Wheatley’s “Kill List” follows a hitman (Neil Maskell) who reluctantly takes on an three-part assignment with no idea of the horror that awaits not only his targets but himself. And “Assassin’s Bullet” stars Christian Slater as a former FBI field agent who’s summoned by the US Ambassador (Donald Sutherland) in Bulgaria to find an unknown vigilante who’s killing high-priority Muslim terrorists from America’s Most Wanted list in Europe.
In Gareth Evans’s action-packed “The Raid: Redemption,” a rookie member of a Special Forces unit goes after a notorious drug lord in a rundown tenement that’s a sanctuary for gangs, killers, rapists and thieves; in Indonesian with English subtitles, the English remake is already in development.
In their first-ever British tour, “Jay and Silent Bob Tea Bag the U.K.,” Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith from “Clerks” perform live on-stage in front of sold-out crowds in London, Manchester and Edinburgh.
In Portuguese with English subtitles, Fabio Barreto’s “Lula, Son of Brazil” chronicles the early years of Brazil’s beloved leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who rose from poverty to govern the largest nation in Latin America.
For pre-schoolers, there’s “Fireman Sam: Heroic Rescue Adventures,” “Chugginton’s Traintastic Adventures” and “Elmo’s Alphabet Challenge.”
PICK OF THE WEEK: With Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, “The Hunger Games” cinematically adapts the first of Suzanne Collins’s young adult novels, set in a dystopian future. It’s an acerbic indictment of our voyeuristic obsession with reality television, delivering a pulse-pounding, pop culture message of female empowerment.