Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Oscar-winning performance saves ‘Still Alice’
Can a great performance redeem a soso movie? In the case of “Still Alice” (2014, Sony, PG-13, $30), the answer is a resounding yes. Oscar winner Julianne Moore does such a superb job portraying a linguistics professor affected with early-onset Alzheimer’s that you can understand what her character is going through every step of the way. Even though the supporting cast (Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth) is top-notch, only Kristen Stewart as Alice’s rebellious daughter is able to make much of an impression. To the credit of writer/ directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, “Still Alice” doesn’t ask you to pity its heroine but rather marvel at her strength as she continually finds new ways to cope with a terrifying illness. Extras: deleted scenes and featurettes.
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Mortdecai: (2015, Lionsgate, R, $20) Maybe Peter Sellers in his prime could have enlivened this silly spy yarn about a shady art dealer tasked with helping MI-6track down a long, lost Goya masterpiece. But instead of Sellers, we get Johnny Depp hamming it up with a one-note performance that would have seemed tiresome on an “SNL” sketch let alone in a 106-minute movie. Given the lumbering script by Eric Aronson and the clumsy direction by the usually reliable David Koepp (“Ghost Town”), it seems nothing short of a miracle when co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Paul Bettany generate a giggle or two. Extras: featurettes.
The Cobbler:
(2014, Image, PG-13, $30) In this magical realist fable, Adam Sandler stars as a shoe repairman who owns a stitching machine that allows him to transform into any of his customers simply by slipping on their shoes. In no time, he winds up in a messy situation involving a gangster (Method Man) and a shady real estate developer (Ellen Barkin.) The awkwardly-plotted film tries to cover too many bases at once but at least writer/director Thomas McCarthy (“Win Win”) manages some sweet moments along the way, including one in which Sandler comforts his lonely mom (Lynn Cohen) by morphing into his long-missing father (Dustin Hoffman.) Extras: featurette.
Tracers:
(2014, Lionsgate, PG-13, $20) “Twilight’s” Taylor Lautner is not the world’s most expressive actor, to put it mildly, but he turns out to be a good fit for the role of an earnest bike mes-
senger in debt to the Chinese mafia. The early scenes featuring Lautner learning parkour to impress a potential girlfriend (Marie Avgeropoulos) boast not only energy but splashes of wit. But before you can say “Fast and Furious,” the main plot kicks in and “Tracers” turns into a generic action flick long on gun battles and chaotic chases and short on human moments. Extras: featurettes.
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Appropriate Behavior: (2015, Kino, unrated, $30) Still smarting over a break-up with her girlfriend, Shiri (writer/director Desiree Akhavan) struggles to make sense of her life. She can’t come out to her conservative Persian family and , despite affairs with members of both sexes, she can’t find anyone she likes as much as her ex (Rebecca Henderson). Set and shot in Brooklyn, “Appropriate Behavior” finds plenty of hilarity in the modern dating scene. But, thanks to Akhavan, it also carries a bittersweet sting. Think “Annie Hall” meets “Sex And The City” with a lesbian twist. Extras: none.
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Cake: (2014, Fox, R, $30) As a woman caught in the gears of grief and chronic pain, Jennifer Aniston is a revelation. She plays an attorney who, following a horrific car accident and the suicide of an acquaintance (Anna Kendrick), sinks into a dark depression. Her only lifelines are her caring housekeeper (Adriana Barraza) and Kendrick’s husband (Sam Worthington). “Cake” has plenty of flaws. A confrontation scene with William H. Macy, for instance, should have been the emotional highpoint of the film instead of a rushed-through interlude. But watching Aniston pull out all the stops makes this dramedy worthwhile. Extras: featurettes.
••• Boy Meets Girl: (2015, Wolfe, unrated, $25) Written and directed by Eric Schaeffer (“If Lucy Fell”), this tart and tender coming-of-age comedy focuses on three twenty-something pals living in a small town in Kentucky. At the center of the action is Ricky (Michelle Hendley), a transgender young woman whose affair with an about-tobe-married debutante (Alexandra Turshen) impacts Ricky’s friendship with her childhood buddy (Michael Welch). Not only is the film full of surprises but Schaeffer does a fine job eliciting fresh performances from his cast. Extras: none.
••• The Thin Blue Line: (1988, Criterion, unrated, $30) One of the most acclaimed true-crime documentaries of all time, Errol Morris’ inquiry into the 1976 murder of Dallas policeman Robert W. Wood is a spellbinder. Hitchhiker Randall Adams was arrested and convicted of the shooting but, as Morris makes clear, the guilty party was David Harris, the man who fingered Adams for the crime. Now on Blu-ray, “The Thin Blue Line” mesmerizes with its eerie Philip Glass score, spooky re-enactments and strangely matter-offact interviews with key figures from the case. Haunting. Extras: featurettes.
••• Our Mother’s House: (1967, Warner Archive, unrated, $25) British director Jack Clayton’s (“The Innocents”) fourth feature – and his first in color – was a box-office bomb when it was first released. Today, it ranks as one of the best psychological thrillers of the late ‘60s. Pamela Franklin and Mark Lester star as youngsters who bury their mother in the garden after she dies, and go on living in the house as if nothing has happened. After the sudden re-appearance of their no-good father (Dirk Bogarde), things get really interesting. Clayton is a master at reminding you there’s unspeakable evil in the everyday. Extras: none.
••• The Best Things In Life Are Free: (1956, Fox, unrated, $30) Set in the 1920s, this freewheeling songfest chronicles the partnership between composers Buddy DeSylva (Gordon MacRae), Lew Brown (Ernest Borgnine) and Ray Henderson (Dan Dailey). As with “Night and Day” (the Cole Porter biopic) and “Words and Music” (Rodgers and Hart), the movie is not big on accuracy but the musical numbers are brash and lively, particularly “Birth of the Blues,” which is gorgeously staged. Extras: “3Brave Men” also starring Borgnine.
••• Mahogany - The Couture Edition: (1975, Paramount, PG, $15) Following her Oscarnominated turn in “Lady Sings The Blues,” Diana Ross starred in this deliciously over-the-top soap opera about an ambitious Chicago secretary who longs to become a fashion designer. Billy Dee Williams co-stars as her socially-conscious boyfriend and Anthony Perkins plays the wacko photographer who tries to undermine her career. Not a great movie, by any means, but a wildly pleasurable one that scores points with its bittersweet theme song (“Do You Know Where You’re Going To?) and lively chemistry between its leads. Extras: fashion photography cards.
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The Shanghai Story: (1954, Olive, unrated, $30) If “Grand Hotel” was made on the cheap and given a Cold War twist it would resemble this tense thriller about Western expats (Edmund O’Brien, Whit Bissell, Richard Jaeckel) imprisoned in Shanghai by the Communist government. The Chinese commander (Philip Ahn) suspects that one of the captives is a spy so there’s plenty of tension between the prisoners and a slinky, fur-clad prostitute (Ruth Roman) who may or may not be an informant for the bad guys. If you like your spy yarns lean and mean, the new-to-Blu-ray “Shanghai Story” fits the bill. Extras: none.
••• Mr. Selfridge: Season Three: (2015, PBS, unrated, $40) Following the death of his beloved wife Rose (Frances O’Connor), a grief-stricken Harry Selfridge (Jeremy Piven) finds distraction in the opening of a Dublin store and the marriage of his now-adult daughter (Kate Tointon) to a Russian playboy. Set in 1919, the fast-paced costume drama benefits from the arrival of British actress Zoë Wanamaker as a trouble-making Russian princess and the return of Henri Leclair (Grégory Fitoussi) from the trenches of World War I. Extras: featurette.