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Monday, July 14, 2014

This Week’s DVD Releases


Wrinkles **** Directed by Ignacio Ferreras. Set in a nursing home, this animated feature chronicles the friendship between new arrival Emilio (Tacho González), a retired bank manager afflicted with Alzheimer’s, and his chatty Argentine roommate, Miguel (Álvaro Guevara). Unfolding in simple yet wonderfully expressive hand-drawn frames, the film’s unsparingly observant plot depicts the slide into senility with empathy and imagination.

Under the Skin **** Directed by Jonathan Glazer. A seductive alien (Scarlett Johansson) prowls the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, in search of prey. A totally wacky head-trip with midnight movie sensibilities and a daring avant garde spirit, Glazer’s movie is ultimately too aimlessly weird to make its trippy narrative fully satisfying, but owes much to Johansson’s intense commitment to a strangely erotic and unnerving performance unlike anything she has done before.

The Face of Love **½ Directed by Arie Posin. A widow (Annette Bening) falls for a guy (Ed Harris) who bears a striking resemblance to her late husband. A maudlin, superficial exercise in obsession masquerading as a heartfelt romance and study of grief, and character development is sorely lacking. Although well-acted, particularly by Bening, the story feels contrived. With Robin Williams, Amy Brennerman.

Rio 2 **½ Directed by Carlos Saldanha. Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), Jewel (Anne Hathaway) and their three youngsters visit the Amazon, where they find the rain forest in peril and contend with their old nemesis, Nigel the cockatoo (Jemaine Clement). It’s a bright and fun movie, but also repetitive and overloaded with plot. A nice enough diversion, but not a necessary one.

A Night in Old Mexico ** Directed by Emilio Aragón. After losing his longtime home to property developers, rancher Red Bovie (Robert Duvall) decides to take a road trip to Mexico, accompanied by his grandson. But their adventure turns dangerous after the pair unwittingly drives off with a drug dealer’s money. Formulaic and often hard to swallow, the picture offers little beyond the familiar pleasures of Duvall’s old-coot mode.

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