Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Fri., July 26:
Set in the Philippines, “Graceland” is an unpredictable, tightly-paced thriller in which a family man (Arnold Reyes), longtime chauffeur to a corrupt Filipino politician (Menggie Cobarrubias), is ambushed while driving both his boss’s 12 year-old girl and his own daughter home from school. Confusion reigns as the ‘wrong’ girl is kidnapped and both families are forced into a downward spiral of deceit and betrayal.
Xan Cassavetes’ (daughter of director John and actress Gena Rowlands) erotic “Kiss of the Damned” revolves around a beautiful vampire (Josephine de La Baume) whose relationship with a handsome, human screenwriter (Milo Ventimiglia) is threatened when her troublemaking sister (Roxane Mesquida) arrives unexpectedly for a visit.
“Welcome to the Punch” is the story of two arch-nemeses: a detective (James McAvoy) and a master criminal (Mark Strong) whose paths cross in London’s rejuvenated East End and the banking center of Canary Wharf.
In French with English subtitles, Ken Scott’s comedy “Starbuck” has nothing to do with coffee and everything to do with redefining the concept of family. David Wozniak (Patrick Huard), who delivers meat for his father’s Montreal butchery, made 693 donations to a sperm bank between 1988 and 1990 that resulted in 533 births. Suddenly, a class-action suit is filed by 142 offspring, demanding to know his identity.
In Korean with English subtitles and winner of the Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Film Festival,
“Pieta” is South Korean director Kim Ki-duk’s brutal, perverse, unnerving revenge film in which a strange woman (Cho Minsoo) stalks a merciless Seoul loan shark (Lee Jung-jin), claiming to be his long-lost mother.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Danny Boyle’s trippy, intriguing “Trance” is a surreal, cleverly ambiguous brain-teaser that begins with a London fine art auctioneer (James McAvoy) explaining the elaborate precautions that galleries practice to protect their multi-million dollar paintings. But when a Goya
masterpiece is stolen, he’s the prime suspect. Problem is: he cannot remember anything – which leads him to a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) who offers to help him try to recover his memory.