DVDs for 08/17/10 – Weird is Good, Cemetary Junction isn’t
Not the strongest week for New Releases, unless you have a fondness for Nicholas Sparks tearjerkers or Miley Cyrus vehicles (in which case the Disney drama The Last Song is just for you) or mindless cartoonish slapstick featuring live-action animals with animated facial expressions acting like Looney Tunes characters (that would be Furry Vengeance, from Summit).
The Weird
But if you reach beyond the multiplex, you’ll find The Good, the Bad, the Weird (MPI), which plays like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by way of Peking Opera Blues and Dragon Gate Inn. For a while, Korean action cinema seemed like the heir apparent to the great Hong Kong action cinema of the eighties and pre-reunification nineties, but its mastery of slick, explosive action and creative set pieces was always so deadly serious and humorless. Kim Jee-won’s self-described “Oriental Western,” set in 1930s Manchuria and featuring a cast of Korean thieves and killers and bounty hunters, is a madcap chase for a treasure map filled with double crosses, crazy escapes and lots of black humor.
