Entertainment / Get Reel Digital: April’s Top DVD Releases

Get Reel Digital: April’s Top DVD Releases

Entertainment Apr 05, 2014

by Matthew Currie

Your monthly Blu-ray roundup includes the return of Ricky Gervais, a deeply day-dreamin’ Ben Stiller and LARPing gone terribly wrong.

Knights of Badassdom (Now Available, eOne)
After Joe (True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten) is dumped by his girlfriend, his two geeky pals (Steven Zahn and Peter Dinklage) try to cheer him up with a weekend of Live-Action Role Playing — think Dungeons & Dragons meets community theatre. As it turns out, however, the spell book that one of them found online isn’t just a prop, leading to the accidental conjuring of a real (and quite deadly) succubus, who just happens to take the form of Joe’s ex.

Look out for geek icons Summer Glau (Firefly) and Community’s Danny Pudi as two fellow LARPers who also get caught up in the comedic terror.

Knights Of Badassdom Movie Still/ screencrave

Philomena (April 15, Alliance)
The poignant true story of Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), an elderly Irish woman who teams with a reporter (Steve Coogan) and travels to America to find the now-middle-aged son that her strict Catholic community forced her to give up for adoption as a young unwed mother.

Expertly balancing a harrowing exploration of sorrow and regret with charming moments of odd-couple comedy, this Oscar-nominee makes for a thoroughly engaging road-trip drama.

Philomena Movie Still/ i.dailymail.co.uk

Derek: Season One (April 15, eOne)
Ricky Gervais’s latest foray into TV land didn’t receive as much attention as The Office or Extras. And while it’s not as creatively successful as either of those pitch-perfect cringe comedies, Derek is certainly worth a peak.

It finds the funnyman starring as a kind-hearted simpleton working in a retirement community, espousing his one-of-a-kind, no-frills worldview via a documentary crew who follow him around as he sweetly tends to the retirees.

It’s chuckle-worthy material that, like all of Gervais’s work, also engages with the mundane tragedies endured by its characters.

Derek TV Still/ metro.us

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (April 15, Fox)
It was DOA at the box office, but this passion project from director/star Ben Stiller is worth another look.

Based on the short story by James Thurber, Stiller plays an awkward Life Magazine photo editor who gets through his workday existence by imagining himself a daring adventurer (played out in striking CGI-enhanced daydream sequences). But when the encroaching digital age threatens layoffs, he must climb out of his imagination and embark on a real-live globetrotting journey to save his job and, just maybe, win the heart of his office crush (Kristen Wiig).

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty Movie Still/ img.ksl

Big Bad Wolves (April 22, Video Service Corp.)
This gory Israeli revenge thriller centres on rogue cop Miki (Lior Ashkenazi) and his pursuit a shy teacher (Rotem Keinan) he suspects of killing a young girl. Kicked off the force for his, shall we say, “non-regulation” interrogation techniques, Miki teams with the victim’s father (Tzahi Grad) to find out the truth — by any means necessary.

It’s a film that would be easy to dismiss as “torture porn” were it not so expertly concocted by directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, whom critics have lauded for injecting a healthy dose of satire into the ugly proceedings, subverting audience expectations and the genre’s myriad clichés as it deconstructs traditional notions of morality, violence and masculinity.

Big Bad Wolves Movie Still/ cdn.images.express.co

Featured Image: entertainmentpeakly

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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Get Reel Digital: April’s Top DVD Releases

by Matthew Currie

Your monthly Blu-ray roundup includes the return of Ricky Gervais, a deeply day-dreamin’ Ben Stiller and LARPing gone terribly wrong.

Matthew Currie

COMMENTS

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