Entertainment / Get Reel Digital: January’s Top DVDs

Get Reel Digital: January’s Top DVDs

Entertainment Jan 15, 2014

by Matthew Currie

Less than thrilled with your Christmas flick haul? Here are five DVDs to start the new year off right.

An Adventure in Space and Time (Now available, BBC)

Video Courtesy of You Tube/B BC

Game of Thrones baddie David Bradley gives a heartbreaking turn as William Hartnell, the first man to portray Doctor Who back in 1963. The film features plenty of juicy details for obsessive fans (the design of the first TARDIS, Cybermen taking a smoke break between takes), as it delves into the unlikely rise of one of television’s most lasting properties at the hands of the BBC’s first female producer (Call the Midwife’s Jessica Raine) and first Indian director (Sacha Dahwan).

But even if you’re not an acolyte of the Doctor, director Terry McDonough and writer Mark Gatiss weave a superb drama about the joy of finding your purpose in life and that harrowing moment when you have to leave it behind.

We Are What We Are (Now available, Entertainment One)

Video Courtesy of You Tube/H orror Addict

Indie horror director Jim Mickle (Stakeland) offers up another under-the-radar gem with this slow-burning chiller. It tells the unnerving tale of the Parkers, a seemingly wholesome (albeit standoffish) family living in upstate New York. But when mother Emma (Kassie DePaiva) dies under mysterious circumstances as torrential rains sweep through their idyllic small town, local authorities gradually come to understand the truth of life in the Parker home, where father Frank (Bill Sage) lords over his family with strict adherence to arcane rituals, and, since mom’s unfortunate demise, forces his two daughters to aid him in carrying out some truly stomach-churning chores.

Fruitvale Station (January 14, The Weinstein Company)

Video Courtesy of You Tube/Viso Trailers

Up-and-comer Michael B. Jordan (The Wire) stars in the true story of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Oakland man who, on the day of New Year’s Eve 2008, resolved to drop his life of crime and be a better father to his young daughter. Alas, his resolution was never realized, as that evening Bay Area transit authorities shot and killed him at the titular subway station. A cellphone video of an already-subdued Grant being shot as he lay on the ground went viral at the time. This film tracks the young man’s final day, as he moves about the city, and touches the lives of friends, foes and family alike leading up to his now-infamous death.

In a World . . . (January 21, Roadside Attractions)

Video Courtesy of You Tube/Viso Trailers

Carol Solomon (Lake Bell) is a woman trying to make it in a man’s world . . . more specifically, the world of film preview voiceovers. Her arrogant father (Fred Melamed) is the world’s preeminent “Mr. Movie Voice,” and he’s groomed Gustav Warner (Ken Marino) to take over his throne. But when Carol makes a play to land the next big trailer gig, it triggers bad blood and a voice-off for the ages. The film marks Bell’s big-screen directorial debut, and for the occasion she managed to snag an enviable roster of comedy’s top talents, including Rob Corddry, Nick Offerman, Tig Notaro and Michaela Watkins.

Metallica Through the Never (January 28, Picturehouse)

Video Courtesy of You Tube/Metallica TV

B-movie director extraordinaire Nimród Antal (Vacancy, Predators) pays tribute to rock gods Metallica with this innovative cinematic experiment. In part, it tells the tale of a young roadie (Chronicle’s Dane Dehaan), who is tasked him with delivering an oil can to the band’s broken-down entourage bus across the city. He leaves the concert to find that a (thoroughly surreal) city-wide riot has broken out, led by a hammer-wielding masked rider. As he makes his way through the carnage, Antal weaves in actual footage of a Metallica concert he shot for use in the film. A singular experience for film and metal fanatics alike.

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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