Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of May 31:
“Dark Skies” is a dire, unsettling alien abduction thriller, starring Keri Russell (TV’s “The Americans”) and Josh Hamilton as suburban parents whose younger son has been having nightmares about a mysterious ‘sandman’ apparition by his bedside at night.
Joe Taslim (“Fast & Furious 6”) stars in “Dead Mine,” the legend of Yasmashita’s Gold, as a treasure hunter who gets trapped in an abandoned Japanese bunker deep in the Indonesian Jungle.
Set Suffolk, England, “The Numbers Station” is about a disgraced CIA Agent (John Cusack) given one last chance: guarding a code operator (Malin Akerman) who receives/sends secret, encrypted messages.
“Battle Earth” is an action-packed sci-fi thriller about a young paramedic who enlists to fight for his planet when extraterrestrials invade the Earth’s atmosphere on a crash course into the Atlantic Ocean.
Inspired by a true ghost story/murder mystery, “A Haunting at Silver Falls” follows teenagers who discover the tormented spirits of twin sisters whose father was condemned to death for their murders. And “Picture Day” follows a teenager learning the difference between sex, intimacy and friendship.
“Dorfman in Love,” revolving around Deb Dorfman (Sara Rue), a Valley girl who’s always taken care of others, like her widower father (Elliot Gould) and stingy brother (Jonathan Chase), is an amiable romantic comedy about how she transforms her life and finds true love.
“Of Two Minds” is Doug Blush and Lisa Klein’s award-winning documentary that explores the struggles and successes of a few of the over five million Americans living with bipolar disorder. And “The Loving Story” is the definitive account of the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage: Loving v. Virginia.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Set in the Bavarian countryside just after Germany surrendered in W.W. II, “Lore” is the coming-of-age/survival story of a German teenager (Saskia Rosendhal) who’s left in charge of her younger siblings when her parents are taken into custody for war crimes. As they traipse thru the Black Forest, it becomes a chronicle of the triumph of the human spirit – in a class with Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon.” In German with English subtitles, it’s directed with stunning detachment and restraint by Australian director Cate Shortland.