Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Friday, October 10th:
M. Night Shayamalan’s “The Happening” wants to be a cautionary eco-thriller based on an apocalyptic premise. Early one morning in Central Park, everyone suddenly becomes disoriented and suicidal. Panic spreads, so a Philadelphia science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) flees into the countryside with his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and friend (John Leguizamo). They’re on the run – but from what?
Stephen Rea stars in “The Devil’s Mercy,” a suspenseful, psychological thriller about a couple who move into a beautifully renovated apartment in an old, suburban Connecticut house, only to discover that evil can lie hidden behind a white picket fence.
TV writer Peter Tolan (“The Larry Sanders Show,” “Rescue Me”) strikes out with “Finding Amanda,” featuring Matthew Broderick as a once-successful writer whose marriage is floundering when he’s dispatched by his wife to Vegas to ‘rescue’ his 20 year-old niece (Brittany Snow).
Kids can travel without passports, spending time with “Families of Costa Rica,” the latest title in the award-winning “Families of the World” series, exploring the lives and cultures of children around the world. And “You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown,” a Peanuts classic about running for student body president, is now packaged with a bonus episode, “He’s a Bully, Charlie Brown.”
PICKS OF THE WEEK: “The Visitor” is Tom McCarthy’s sophisticated, compelling drama revolving around a 62 year-old Connecticut widower (Richard Jenkins) who finds a young couple has moved into his seldom-used Manhattan apartment; surprisingly, he allows them to stay and his consciousness is changed by this chance encounter. In a lighter vein, Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is a subversively silly political satire about a legendary Israeli commando who flees to the United States with an old Paul Mitchell stylebook under his arm, hoping to become a hairdresser.