Entertainment / Get Reel Digital: December

Get Reel Digital: December

Entertainment Dec 07, 2014

by Matthew Currie

This Month’s Top Blu-Rays Include Startlingly Real CGI Simians, Outer-Space Comic Book Adventure And One Of Hollywood’s Most Distinguished Actors In A Papier Mache Head

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Now available, Fox)

Pic Credit: Wikimedia

Ten years have passed since Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and the simian virus has all but wiped out humanity. A small band of survivors live in a ruined city, scavenging for supplies, until one day, they stumble across super-intelligent chimp Caesar (once again played in motion-capture by Andy Serkis) and his ape colony in the wilderness.

Zero Dark Thirty’s Jason Clarke step in for James Franco as the human lead, but once again, it’s all about the apes.

The digital effects team coupled with another soulful performance from Serkis manage the unlikely feat of making a CGI monkey relatable and emotionally complex, as Caesar and the more sympathetic humans forge a fragile bond that’s destined to crumble, unleashing all-out interspecies war.

Broad City (Now available, Paramount)

Pic Credit: DVD Release Dates

With Key & Peele, Inside Amy Schumer and other Comedy Central gems, we’re living in a Golden Age for edgy cult comedy. Another show that entered those esteemed ranks in 2014 is Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer’s Broad City.

Produced by Amy Poehler, the series is a part-sitcom, part-sketch-show romp that follows Jacobson and Glazer on a host of madcap Big Apple-set adventures involving online dating, apartment fumigation and the terrifying lengths one woman will go to for Lil Wayne tickets.

Like fellow gritty cable comedy Girls, Broad City has some genuine truths to relate about female friendship and growing up; but it’s also infused with an off-the-wall comic energy that’s impossible to resist.

Guardians of the Galaxy (December 9, Marvel)

Pic Credit: Wikimedia

Marvel was taking a big risk when it adapted this truly bizarre adventure, but against the odds, this story of a philandering space adventurer (Chris Pratt), a green-skinned assassin (Zoe Saldana) and a machine-gun-toting racoon (Bradley Cooper) coming together to save the universe — mostly through the power of dance — was one of its most profitable flicks yet.

An action-packed, hilarious and unexpectedly poignant space opera set to a weirdly appropriate 1980s soundtrack.

Frank (December 9, Video Service Corp)

Pic Credit: Moviereviewworld

Michael Fassbender (Prometheus) is quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces. But this low-budget Irish flick finds him hiding it beneath a giant plaster head as the title character — a brilliant but fragile musician that catches the eye of a wannabe keyboardist (Domnhall Gleeson), who seeks to join his band and use the mask gimmick to turn them into a social-media sensation.

A must-watch for indie music fans, Frank is a low-key but pleasingly off-beat exploration of art vs. commerce and a testament to its star’s unmaskable charisma.

Stonehearst Asylum (December 16, Millenium)

Pic Credit: Wikimedia

Thriller savant Brad Anderson (The Machinist) returns with this mind-bending adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe story. It centres on early-20^th century med student Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess), who arrives at the gates of Stonehearst Asylum in search of an internship. Warmly welcomed by head physician Dr. Lamb (Ben Kingsley) and the alluring Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale), Newgate is intrigued by Lamb’s progressive approach to treating insanity; but soon enough, he realizes that neither the doctors nor their patients are who they seem to be.

_{Feature Image Source: Wikimedia}

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: December

by Matthew Currie

This Month’s Top Blu-Rays Include Startlingly Real CGI Simians, Outer-Space Comic Book Adventure And One Of Hollywood’s Most Distinguished Actors In A Papier Mache Head Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Now available, Fox)

Broad City (Now available, Paramount)

Guardians of the Galaxy (December 9, Marvel)

Frank (December 9, Video Service Corp)

Stonehearst Asylum (December 16, Millenium)

Matthew Currie

COMMENTS

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This Month’s Top Blu-Rays Include Startlingly Real CGI Simians, Outer-Space Comic Book Adventure And One Of Hollywood’s Most Distinguished Actors In A Papier Mache Head

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Now available, Fox)