Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Fri., March 30:
Those popular, squeaky-voiced, computer-generated rodents scramble through their third adventure, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked,” stranded on an uncharted volcanic island with the appearance-obsessed Chipettes and a UPS cargo pilot-turned-treasure hunter.
And from the makers of “Secret of Kells” comes the fable-like “Mia and the Migoo,” a gorgeously hand-painted feature by renowned French animator Jacques-Remy Girerd, revolving around a young girl who must overcome her fears on a quest to find her father and save the world from destruction.
Curiously cerebral, “A Dangerous Method” is David Cronenberg’s low-key, psycho-sexual melodrama about the complex relationship between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and the wily woman (Keira Knightley) who came between them.
As a humanitarian activist, Angelina Jolie wrote and directed “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” a controversial, cross-cultural love story set amid ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s, chronicling in grim, grisly, graphic detail the horrors committed by the Serbs against Muslims.
“Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel” is a star-studded tribute to Roger Corman, Hollywood’s most prolific independent writer/director/producer of B movies, detailing his influence on contemporary filmmaking over the last 60 years.
Starring Tomer Sisley and Kristin Scott Thomas and based on the popular Belgian graphic novel series, “The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch” follows a sexy, jet-setting adventurer, martial arts expert and inheritor of a multi-national conglomerate.
A treat for foodies, Gereon Wetzel’s “El Bulli: Cooking in Progress” documents a year in the creative life of esteemed, avant-garde Spanish chef Ferran Andria, making culinary magic in the kitchen.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Packing a wrenching emotional wallop, Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” delves into how the 9/11 terrorist attack affected a curious, sensitive 11 year-old (Thomas Horn) who lost his beloved father (Tom Hanks). Withdrawn from his anxious, grieving mother (Sandra Bullock), he discovers a mysterious key and is determined to find the lock it fits – with the help of both family and strangers (Max von Sydow, Zoe Caldwell, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, John Goodman).