Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Fri., July 27:
Considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef, 85 year-old Jiro Ono is the focus of David Gelb’s savory documentary, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” And concentrating on New Mexico’s iconic chile pepper, “Genetic Chile” is Chris Dudley’s in-depth look at the dangers of genetically modified food and the corporate takeover of the world’s food supply, causing increases in hunger and poverty, while “Patriocracy” is Brian Malone’s non-partisan examination of Congress’s dysfunctional polarization.
Adapted from Mark Ethridge’s novel “Grievances,” the whodunit “Deadline” details the true story of an investigative journalist (Steve Talley) who uncovers the murder of a young African-American boy in rural Alabama that has gone uninvestigated, unsolved and unpunished for almost 20 years.
Elizabeth Olsen stars in the frightfully forced, single-take horror thriller “Silent House” as a troubled young woman whose visit to her father’s isolated lake house is haunted by memories. And in the action-thriller “Deserter,” an Englishman in the French Foreign Legion learns that you can desert everything and everyone but yourself.
Rick Faugano from the hit musical “The Jersey Boys” stars in the comedy “Virgin Alexander,” playing an aimless 26 year-old scrap hauler who has 10 days to come up with $125,000 to save a house left to him by his grandfather and decides to operate it as a brothel, even though he’s still a virgin.
Joseph Cedar’s Israeli film “Footnote” – in Hebrew with English subtitles – centers on a curmudgeonly Talmudic scholar who is erroneously announced as winner of the Israel Prize, the country’s highest honor for academics, while Paul Van der Oest’s “Black Butterflies” is the story of South African poet Ingrid Jonker.
Collectors will enjoy three new, affordably priced editions to TCM’s “Classic Legends” collection: Joan Crawford and Humphrey Bogart, along with “Greatest Gangster Films” with Humphrey Bogart.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Adapted from Terence Rattigan’s play, Terence Davies’ “The Deep Blue Sea” stars Rachel Weisz as an unhappily married, upper class British woman whose obsessive, passionate affair with a Royal Air Force pilot (Tom Hiddleston) may be her undoing.