Susan’s DVD Update for week of Friday, Feb. 18:
Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” ruminates on the supernatural concept of love and the meaning of life, as the plot revolves around the wish-fulfillment fantasies of two couples with Anthony Hopkins serving as Woody’s angst-riddled surrogate, an older man who falls for a much younger woman.
Described as “Boogie Nights”-meets- “Goodfellas,” George Gallo’s fact-inspired “Middle Men” stars Luke Wilson as a Houston businessmen who, back in 1995, decides to invest in Internet pornography and finds himself enmeshed in a decadent world.
In the same vein, Alex Gibney’s “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” focuses on the 2008 sex scandal that derailed the then-New York Governor’s career. As his powerful enemies gloated, Spitzer’s supporters questioned the timing because as the Sheriff of Wall Street fell, so did the financial markets. With unique access to the escort world, this documentary explores the hidden contours of hubris, sex and power.
Based on the graphic novel by British writer/cartoonist Posy Simmonds, Stephen Frears’ “Tamara Drewe” stars Gemma Arterton as the naughty-but-nice title character in this picturesque comedy dealing with writers and their egos.
“Kites” is an extravagant Bollywood-meets-Hollywood fantasy, featuring Hindi star Hrithik Roshan as a larcenous Indian-American who meets a Mexican spitfire (Barbara Mori) who is on a parallel track to seduce a wealthy sister and brother in Las Vegas.
Featuring never-before-seen archival footage “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within” is an intimate look at the writer whose novel “Naked Lunch” broke the boundaries of homosexual and drug culture in the 1950s.
Foreign film fans will undoubtedly enjoy Claude Chabrol’s final thriller “Inspector Bellamy,” starring Gerard Depardieu as a vacationing Parisian detective.
PICKS OF THE WEEK: Deserving of an Oscar nomination but passed over, “Waiting for Superman” is a controversial documentary tracing the fates of five eager, young children hoping for a good education. Based on a true incident, the action-packed “Unstoppable” pairs a veteran engineer (Denzel Washington) with a rookie conductor (Chris Pine) as they try to stop a runaway freight train loaded with toxic chemicals.