For the record, it's English. I was born in Tilbury, Essex, made temporarily 
American citizen?"
After a December hiatus, the
Samsara is thematic; a ninety-nine minute, non-narrative film of stunning photography that takes you around the world and needs to be seen in hi-def. It’s neither a travelogue nor a documentary; it’s a cinematic experience that attempts to immerse your senses with sound and vision. The title is a Sanskrit word that means ‘the ever turning wheel of life.’ Like most things learned from this stunning looking film, in order to know what you’re looking at or where in the world you are you’d do well by either going to the official website or browsing through Wikipedia. Unless you just happen to recognize the locations there’s very little information handed directly to you from the film itself. And that’s the point. I was never bored. Available in both
Originally a 1992 thirty minute short, which in turn was actually a kind of homage to early monster movies, Frankenweenie was remade as an animated, stop-motion feature in the style of Corpse Bride and The Nightmare before Christmas, and it’s a ton of fun, particularly if you’re something of a follower of those Universal monster productions of old. What works so well in Frankenweenie is unlike many Tim Burton films that have great characters and imaginative setups but no story, Frankenweenie has a real beginning, middle and end, which in itself is cause for celebration. The film is funny, attractive to the eye, a little scary for the really young, the movie references are consistently amusing if you get them, and there’s even a moral for children to remember as they leave the theatre. “Sometimes,” Victor’s father tells the young boy, “Adults don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Filmed in 2010 but not released theatrically until last year, the horror/mystery House at the End of the Street may actually benefit from having sat on the shelf for so long. Its leading lady, the luminous Jennifer Lawrence, had not yet filmed The Hunger Games when House began shooting. At the time, she was not a star. Since then, things have changed. The film doesn’t work as well as it should – the director overuses the shaky hand-held camera and has too many unnecessary close-up in-your-face shots when a more conventional approach would have worked better – but there are a few moments of jeopardy that are effectively tense enough, and I’m still at that point where I’ll watch anything with Jennifer Lawrence, even mediocre projects like this. Available in both DVD and Blu-Ray formats.
Look for more new releases next week.
