New on DVD & Blu-ray: 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire', '12 Years a Slave', 'The Grandmaster'

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - One of my top 5 films of 2013, the second installment in The Hunger Games series gets a new director and better storytelling as the odds turn away from Katniss's favor. She and Peeta are once more thrown into the arena, this time against former winners of the previous Hunger Games. President Snow is constantly watching her and there's a rebellion brewing, with Katniss the face of it all. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jenna Malone, Sam Claflin, Woody Harrelson, and Elizabeth Banks. 

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12 Years a Slave - The 2014 Best Picture Winner, and also in my top 5 picks of 2013, 12 Years a Slave follows the true story of Solomon Northrup from freedom to slavery and back again. He is tricked, sold into slavery, and moved to Louisiana where he is forced to endure mistreatment, terrible working conditions, and the harshness and cruelty of slavery. A meaningful and hard film to watch, but nevertheless important and integral to our society. The film stars Chiwetel Ijiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Paul Dano. 

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Oldboy - The Spike Lee remake follows the same story of a man obsessed with getting revenge after he finally leaves his prison to find out why he was kidnapped and put away in solitary confinement for no good reason. The film stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sharlto Copley. 

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The Grandmaster - It begins as the story of Ip Man, the legendary teacher of Bruce Lee and a master of the Wing Chun school of kungfu. It becomes the portrait of a bygone era and a lost world. The film stars Tony Chiu Wai Leung, Wang Qingxiang, Song Hye Kyo, Zhang Jin, and Ziyi Zhang. 

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Hours - The late Paul Walker's final film before his untimely death, Hours tells the story of a man who's wife has just given birth to a premature baby. Needing the ventilator to stay alive, he has to stay by the baby's side when the electricity goes out and he can only use the generator by cranking every few minutes. All of this is happening in the wake of Hurrican Katrina as the man and his child wait to be rescued in a dire situation. The film also stars Genesis Rodriguez, Nancy Nave, and Shane Jacobson. 

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The Last Days on Mars - On the last day of a mission to Mars, something astounding is discovered: evidence of fossilized bacteria. An astronaut disobeys orders in order to gain more samples but when astronauts start disappearing, the crew suspects that there is much more danger involved with the sample they found than they could have imagined. The film stars Liev Shreiber, Elias Koteas, and Olivia Williams. 

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Punch Drunk Podcast Ep. 30- Remembering Paul Walker

Unfortunately we've had to edit the content on this episode at the last minute, we were planning on covering the new releases as usual but, much to our shock and dismay, Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker was killed in a car wreck yesterday afternoon. While we will still be covering this week's releases we thought it better to remember the career of yet another actor that we've lost far too young.

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Box Office: 'Catching Fire' and 'Frozen' Break Thanksgiving Records; 'Oldboy' Flops Hard

1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire- $74.5M/$296.5M
In what is generally a fairly soft holiday weekend, 'Catching Fire' set the box office alight with a whopping $74.5M, which grows to $110M if expanded to include Wednesday. That breaks the record previously held by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which hit the $82M mark in its second weekend twelve years ago. Worldwide the film has amassed $573M in a mere 10 days.
2. Frozen- $66.7M/$93.M
 As Catching Fire burns, Frozen is putting all of Disney's box office records on ice with a $93M five-day haul that ranks it as the studio's highest-grossing debut of all-time. The total more than trumps the $68M total for Tangled, which opened on the same weekend a couple of years ago and went on to earn more than $600M worldwide. The interesting thing to note is that Disney had planned for Tangled to be their final "princess" movie until it performed so well, and now they're on the verge of Frozen possibly becoming their top-grossing animated movie ever.
3. Thor: The Dark World- $15.4M/$186.7M
4. The Best Man Holiday- $8.4M/$63.4M
5. Homefront- $6.97M/$9.7M
Not even Jason Statham could best the might of this week's top two flicks, as Homefront opened to a dismal $9.7M, which admittedly is average for his solo films of late.
6. Delivery Man- $6.93M/$19.4M
7. The Book Thief- $4.8M/$7.8M
8. Black Nativity- $3.8M/$5M
Not even an obvious holiday family musical like Black Nativity, with an absolutely glowing cast, had any room to manuever this week. The Kasi Lemmons' adaptation of Langston Hughes' play earned $5M over the five days, but it may stick around for awhile as we inch closer to Christmas. 
9. Philomena- $3.7M/$4.7M
Bumping up more than 800 theaters and riding Oscar buzz for star Judi Dench, the real-life dramedy Philomena should stick around for the long haul as awards season rolls along.
10. 12 Years A Slave- $3M/$33.1M

It's hard to figure out exactly what FilmDistrict was thinking in their treatment of Spike Lee's Oldboy. After a brilliant, extremely creative art campaign emphasizing the film's more twisted aspects, they go and dump it in only 583 theaters with little in the way of TV promotion. The results are to be expected, $1.25M earned over the five-day holiday, making it unlikely the $30M feature will recoup its budget.

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Review: 'Oldboy' Directed by Spike Lee

There are no shortages of great foreign films that eventually end up getting the remake treatment, but few whipped cinephiles into frenzy quite like remaking Park Chan-Wook's 2003 revenge tale, Oldboy. The original film can rightly be considered a classic, part of Chan-Wook's revered "Vengeance Trilogy", and is a dark, twisted, deeply unsettling look at the incredible lengths disturbed men will go for retribution. It remains known just as much for its loopy plotting as for its hammer 'n razor violence, and while few American filmmakers could hope to match the fervor of Chan-Wook's cinematic vision, Spike Lee is one of the few who can do Oldboy the justice it deserves.

Lee has always been one to walk to the beat of his own drum, and his version of Oldboy stands on its own while matching the intensity of the original. Breaking out all of his usual camera tricks, including his gliding "dolly shot", Lee adds a palpable grit to the sordid Kafka-esque mystery, a reminder that he is one of the great visual directors working today. It's to our benefit that he refrained from making this a shot-by-shot remake like so many others would have done to avoid controversy.

Not a straight retelling of Chan-Wook's film, nor a direct adaptation of Garon Tsuchiya's manga, Mark Protosevich's script maintains the dizzying aspects while presenting a uniquely American protagonist. Josh Brolin is Joe Doucett, a shady businessman, alcoholic, and narcissist who blows a major deal by hitting on his client's sexy wife. To dull the pain of his major screw-up, he indulges in a wild night of binge drinking, only to wake up the next day in a strange hotel room. He soon comes to realize that it's actually a prison cell, one where he only has a television for company and a daily meal of steamed dumplings. He has no idea who his captors are, how long he'll be held, or why he was kidnapped. Not knowing begins to drive him insane, and it only gets worse when he sees on the TV that his ex-wife has been murdered, and he is the only suspect. Solace and anguish make for a powerful mixture as Joe realizes his daughter escaped unharmed, and he sees her grow up on screen over the course of twenty agonizing years.

Brolin is a tougher, rough 'n tumble actor than Choi Min-Sik, the South Korean actor who played the protagonist in the prior film. Min-Sik's interpretation was more sympathetic, while Brolin's is grim and a little detached from reality. But as Joe gradually descends into madness, Brolin captures the true depths of his despair, and then his resolve to turn things around for the sake of his daughter....and sweet sweet revenge. Bulking up and refraining from alcohol, Joe finds himself suddenly released, left in a trunk in a field, and sets off for vengeance. Who should he aim his righteous anger at, though? That's just one of a myriad of puzzling mysteries at the heart of Oldboy, mysteries best left unspoiled.

The expertly stylized violence remains just as brutal as ever, and those with a squeamish side may want to go in on an empty stomach. Samuel L. Jackson, all bad hair and flashy outfits, plays a bad guy who ends up on the business end of Brolin's box cutter, while the famous hammer brawl is shot differently but is as ludicrously over-the-top as the original. Lee has truly embraced the story's more outlandish aspects and given the film a colorful, offbeat flourish to match. That extends to the casting of Sharlto Copley as Adrian Pryce, a mysterious figure whose spiffy dress and strangely effeminate cadence mark him as someone to be mocked, not feared. Chan-Wook's villain was a cold and fairly normal businessman, which made him more real and thus more terrifying.  Elizabeth Olsen has one of the film's toughest roles as Marie, a warm-hearted but troubled woman who comes to help Joe out in his cause. The less said about her the better, but the nuance she brings to the character is crucial to keeping the story's grand reveal intact.

The film hits on most of the key points those familiar would come to expect, while also making a few key changes, some working better than others. The beginning is almost entirely new, and the decision to take us deeper into Joe's personality is a smart one, even if presenting him as a total jerk is curious. Learning about his background will pay dividends later, but making him look like a bad guy takes away from the impact of his vengeful transformation. And that conclusion, the one that shocked (and continues to shock) so many years ago is more demented and depraved, but telegraphed in a way it wasn't before. This is the unfortunate side effect of a story that takes everything to the extreme, that it forces us to imagine the most bizarre twist imaginable. And this film, if anything at all, is bizarre.

Fans of Spike Lee may be taken aback by him doing a movie like this, he hasn't been this bold and enthused for a project in a long time, and it's obvious in the energy he brings to every frame. The greatest twist ending of all is that Lee has delivered an Oldboy fans and newcomers can appreciate.

 Trav's Tip: The other two chapters of the Vengeance Trilogy are also getting American remakes. Lady Vengeance is to star Charlize Theron, while Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance has Paradise Now director, Hany Abu-Assad. 

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20 Years of Captivity Captured in New 'Oldboy' Posters; Plus First Look at Sharlto Copley

The best marketing of the year has undoubtedly been FilmDistrict's twisted hype for Spike Lee's Oldboy remake, a film that probably deserves that sort of campaign more than any other. In fact, they're having the sort of fun that should have been had with Park Chan-Wook's Stoker earlier this year, but oh well. Still a month away, the push is taken to a whole new level with twenty extremely clever posters, plus a handful of images.

So what separates these one-sheets from what we've seen before? Each poster offers a historical snapshot of the twenty years in solitary confinement experienced by the kidnapped Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) in the film. For instance, the first year of imprisonment was 1993 when John Wayne Bobbitt had his "bobbitt" snipped by his wife; then we see the formation of Google; the opening of The Facebook; the 9/11 attacks; and other key moments in time.  Pretty damn cool. A handful of photos have also revealed our first official look at a badly scarred Sharlto Copley, and Samuel L. Jackson in a nasty predicament. I'm guessing the trash can isn't to shoot hoops with?

Oldboy opens on November 27th, so we've got a few weeks of awesome promos to go. [RCM]

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First Clip from Spike Lee's 'Oldboy', Plus New Posters and Footage

It's safe to say that Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy has reached "controversial" status, at least amongst fans of Park Chan-Wook's original. But there does seem to be general consensus that the marketing campaign, which up to this point has emphasized a handful of weird and offbeat images, has been great. As the film rolls into NYCC, the promotional hype kicks into another gear with the release of the first clip, two one-sheets, and a new contest about steamed dumplings. Really.

Josh Brolin stars as a man who is mysteriously kidnapped and held captive for twenty years by unknown captors, only to be released and set on a bloody course for revenge. The scene shows him interacting with a beautiful woman (Elizabeth Olsen) who wants to help, and those familiar with the story know there's a lot more to it than that which is best left unspoiled.

There's also some new footage in a promo for a special contest held by FilmDistrict, offering contestants the chance to win the hammer used by Brolin's character in the film. Does it come with actual blood splatter? Anyway, it offers us the chance to watch Brolin stuff his face with lots of steamed dumplings, which is odd and kind of awesome. Here are the full details for those interested:

"For a chance to win the actual hammer used by Josh Brolin's character in the film, tweet us (@FilmDistrict) a photo of a dumpling at your favorite local dumpling spot with the hashtag #eattheclues. The contest ends on October 20th and a randomly chosen winner will be selected the following day on October 21st."

 Oldboy hits theaters on November 27th.

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New Posters for 'Oldboy', 'Sweetwater', and 'Ender's Game'

Josh Brolin brings the hammer down in the latest poster for Spike Lee's Oldboy. Opening on November 27th, the film is a remake of Park Chan-Wook's surreal and hyper-violent classic about a man imprisoned in a hotel for twenty years, only to be released and set on a course for revenge. It's just the first of Chan-Wook's revered "Vengeance Trilogy" getting a fresh coat of paint as remakes of Lady Vengeance and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance are in the works.

Scathing reviews and a poorly-received trailer haven't stopped the January Jones-led western Sweetwater from finally gaining distribution. Saddling into town on October 11th, Jones play a widow in 1886 New Mexico packin' heat as she seeks revenge for the murder of her husband by a rancher. Jones has a solid cast of Ed Harris, Jason Isaacs, and Stephen Root working alongside her, but the response out of Sundance was pretty brutal. Honestly I'm a little bit intrigued, though, if only because it will be a nice change of pace to see a twist on the usual western formula.

They've been phoning it in on most of these Ender's Game one-sheets, producing fairly generic Photoshopped images and tweaking them for different regions. Here's the latest boring poster for the adaptation of Orson Scott Card's sci-fi classic, which seemed to have a great deal of hype a few months ago. Now it seems to be getting lumped in with all of the failed YA films, and perhaps that was inevitable considering the cast and premise. Asa Butterfield is Ender Wiggin, a young boy recruited into Battle School where he and others his age are trained to become humanity's greatest military leaders in order to fight off an alien threat. Starring Hailee Steinfeld, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, Moises Arias, and Abigail Breslin, Ender's Game opens November 1st.

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First Look at Samuel L. Jackson in Spike Lee's 'Oldboy'

Spike Lee's got a lot on his plate right now, and it's not going to get any lighter as the Kickstarter campaign for his next film wraps up. Soon he'll be making the press rounds to hype his remake of Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy, a film few wanted to ever see happen and will probably be one of the most scrutinized of his career, which is really saying something. It doesn't hit theaters for a few weeks yet, but a handful of images have emerged for the revenge thriller, including the first of Samuel L. Jackson's crazy new look.

Sporting a yellow mohawk and a Satan-red shirt that makes him look like a Street Fighter character, Jackson will have a major role that, like the finer details of the story, is best left unspoiled. Josh Brolin plays a man who is kidnapped and held captive for twenty years before being released. That's when he goes off looking for cold vengeance, and a violent, twisty tale unfolds from there. Those who have seen Chan-Wook's film or read the original manga know how crucial Jackson's role is, and it's good to see him back and working with Lee for the first time in twenty years.

Oldboy hits theaters on November 27th.

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New Images from 'Oldboy', 'Anchorman: The Legend Continues', 'Prisoners', and 'Grudge Match'

Yesterday we saw a number of images released for the upcoming TIFF slate, and practically all of them looked very promising in one way or another. Out of today's batch of photos, only one film is getting any festival love, but they all come varying degrees of expectations.

The first up is Spike Lee's Oldboy remake, which has the misfortune of trying to follow-up Park Chan-Wook's unquestioned classic. The red band trailer showed that Lee is trying to make a film to call his own and not necessarily aping Chan-Wook's, which is probably the wisest course of action. The latest images don't give away much, other than a glimpse at a very haggard Josh Brolin, who plays a man held captive for twenty years for unknown reasons. We also see him after he's mysteriously released, looking quite pissed off, and a shot of a very nervous Elizabeth Olsen. Oldboy opens on October 25th.

So beyond the hot new threads being sported by Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) in Anchorman: The Legend Continues,  the fictional news anchor is also coming out with a "classy" tell-all book, LET ME OFF AT THE TOP!: My Classy Life and Other Musings. No, seriously. It's being published on November 19th, so pre-order it now, America! As for these photos, they show Burgundy making the most of his move to NYC, at least in the fashion department, and reuniting with Brick (Steve Carell), Brian (Paul Rudd), and Champ (David Koechner) in their new home at GNN. Anchorman: The Legend Continues goes on-air December 20th.

One of two TIFF pairings between Jake Gyllenhaal and director Denis Villeneuve (the other is Enemy), Prisoners has the actor as a hot shot cop stuck in the middle of a case involving two missing kids, with Hugh Jackman as a parent who takes the law into his own hands with tragic consequences. Co-starring Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Viola Davis and Maria Bello, Prisoners opens on September 20th and I think it's going to be a sleeper this awards season.

And finally there's Grudge Match, which has Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro channeling their iconic boxing characters Rocky and Jake LaMotta, as aging fighters who agree to one last match. Peter Segal is directing, and the cast includes Alan Arkin and Kevin Hart, so it should at least be decent fun to watch these old guys slug it out one more time. And who knows? Perhaps when all is said and done Stallone can invite De Niro in for The Expendables 4? Grudge Match hits the ring on Christmas Day.

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