Well, well, well it appears the DVD gods are frowning upon us this week yet again. April continues its slow, boring drip of sub-par movies coming to DVD and Blu-Ray this week. Leading the attack is the movie known across the pond as The Boat That Rocked, but here the yanks know it as the much more catchy yet less “wink-winky” Pirate Radio. The film, devoid of pirates or swashbuckling of any sort, has a very respectable cast (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost) yet it failed to find an audience at theatres. Hopefully it will plunder your hearts with the home release. The theme of the week continues as Woody Harrelson’s critically hailed performance in Defendor comes home after an almost non-release in theatres. Again, the film has a great cast (Sandra Oh, Elias Koteas, Kat Dennings) but was flawed enough to make under $50 thousand in its extremely limited release. If that’s not an epic enough failure for you, hold on to your dinner plate, Broken Lizards’ (Super Troopers, Beefest) The Slammin’ Salmon finally comes home!…Apparently, the film’s trailer has more views on YouTube than dollars grossed in theatres and that number was at 68,167 as of this writing…Moving on! The new release of note this week comes from the Blu-Ray debut of Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. In case you’ve never heard the iconic line, “Houston, we have a problem,” you can not only hear it, but literally* see the words leaving Tom Hanks‘ mouth in futuristic HD.
Full Plot Synopses and Trailers Below:
Plot Summary: ‘Pirate Radio’ is the high-spirited story of how 8 DJs love affair with Rock n Roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s this group of rogue DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing Rock n Roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down. The band of rebels is lead by The Count, played by the Academy Award Winning Philip Seymour Hoffman, Quentin the boss of Radio Rock, Gavin the greatest DJ in Britian, Midnight Mark, Doctor Dave and Young Carl who comes of age amidst the chaos of sex, drugs and rock n roll. The film features an unbelievable selection of music including The Beatles, The Stones, Beach Boys, Dusty Springfield, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, David Bowie, Otis Redding, Cat Stevens just to name a few. The film is laugh out loud funny and speaks to the rock n roll rebel in all of us.
Director: Richard Curtis
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost
Genre: Dramedy
MPAA Rating: R (for language, and some sexual content including brief nudity)
Official Website: http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/pirate_radio/
Pirate Radio Movie Trailer
Plot Summary: Bruised and beaten, arm in a sling, neck in a brace, Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson) sits in front of court-appointed psychologist Ellen Chum (Sandra Oh). After making her swear to secrecy, Poppington begins to tell the story of his secret life as “Defendor” — yes, that’s an “OR” — spelling is not one of his super powers. By day, Poppington directs traffic around road construction sites, but at night he dons a pair of black tights, a black jersey with a crude “D” duct-taped to his chest, and trawls the streets as his alter ago. As Defendor, Poppington engages in what he believes is a super heroic fight against crime in an attempt to fulfill his unrealized dream of capturing his archival, Captain Industry — a gun trafficking crime lord who Poppington mistakenly believes is responsible for the death of his mother.
Defendor’s problems with the law begin with his intervention in a trick gone bad. When coming to the aid of Katerina Debrofkowitz (Kat Dennings), an underage prostitute, Defendor tangles with her pimp, Chuck Dooney (Elias Koteas) — a crooked undercover cop. By doing so, Defendor bumbles his way into a criminal underworld, and the stage is set for a showdown with Captain Industry.
‘Defendor’ is the ultimate underdog story about the unlikeliest of super heroes. While he may be deficient in super powers, he has a surplus of heart and sometimes that’s all you need to make a difference.
Director: Peter Stebbings
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Sandra Oh, Kat Dennings
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: R (for drug use and language throughout, violence and sexual content)
Official Website: http://defendorthemovie.net/
Defendor Movie Trailer
Plot Summary: ‘The Broken Lizard troupe is back with The Slammin’ Salmon, a comedy revolving around a restaurant whose former heavyweight champion owner, Cleon Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan), sets his waitstaff against each other in a competition to see who can win the most tips, with the winner taking home a cash prize and the lowest earner winning a beatdown from the champ. Troupe member Kevin Heffernan makes his directorial debut with the picture, taking over the reigns from Jay Chandrasekhar, who directed all of Lizard’s films up till this point. – Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Director: Kevin Hefferman
Starring: Michael Clarke Duncan, Kevin Hefferman, Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: R (for pervasive language and sexual references)
Official Website: http://www.slamminmovie.com/
The Slammin’ Salmon Movie Trailer
Plot Summary: “Houston, we have a problem.” Those words were immortalized during the tense days of the Apollo 13 lunar mission crisis in 1970, events recreated in this epic historical drama from
Ron Howard. Astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) leads command module pilot Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and lunar module driver Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) on what is slated as NASA’s third lunar landing mission. All goes smoothly until the craft is halfway through its mission, when an exploding oxygen tank threatens the crew’s oxygen and power supplies. As the courageous astronauts face the dilemma of either suffocating or freezing to death, Mattingly and Mission Control leader Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) struggle to find a way to bring the crew back home, all the while knowing that the spacemen face probable death once the battered ship reenters the Earth’s atmosphere. The film received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic critical response and a Best Picture nomination, but lost that Oscar to another (very different) historical epic, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. In 2002, the movie was released in IMAX theaters as Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience, with a pared-down running time of 116 minutes in order to meet the technical requirements of the large-screen format. – Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris
Genre: Historical Drama
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Language and Peril)
Official Website: http://www.apollo13dvd.com/
Apollo 13 Movie Trailer
*Note: You can’t actually see the words leaving Tom Hanks’ mouth. Although that would be a great idea for a comic book movie’s subtitles…just sayin’.
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