Mother's Day comes to DVD rental

Jurassic Park (Blu-ray Trilogy Boxset)
Out to rent on DVD and Blu ray at Blockbuster only

Almost two decades following its original inception, Stephen Spielberg's box-office-devouring dinosaur trilogy comes to rent in its entirety.

While plotlines and the like scarcely need to be mentioned here, it is worth noting that the special effects and action sequences, mindblowing on their original release, are now even better with Blu ray treatment, and the host of extras included will while away a wet weekend on the sofa with ease.

Basically, though, it does the things which all box sets should aspite to do - improve on the original, available versions while making it both essential for the collector and a the best introduction imaginable.

Job done, then.

Note that as this is a victim of the Universal Pictures dispute so it's not available from Lovefilm, Outnow or other sites.

The Housemaid
Out to rent on DVD

In Im Sang-soo's latest directorial offering from South Korea, a man's affair with the vunerable young housemaid tasked with caring for his pregnant wife and their child leads to the creation of a destructive love triangle.

The plot itself never quite manages to elevate itself above the level of soap opera melodrama, and what's really impressive here is the many ways in which the film as a whole is prevented from slipping into artless drudgery.

This is largely achieved by a brilliant cast, set against chillingly graceful cinematography as Hoon, the husband in question, descends furthermore into the wicked web of his own deception.

Add to this several small directorial eccentricities and you have a film which is very much watchable, but which by the end may also leave you thinking that, deep down, it was all a bit of a chore.

Mother's Day
Out to rent on DVD

Starring Rebecca de Mornay, Jamie King and Patrick John Flueger, Saw director Darren Lynn Bousman gives us Mother's Day, an unnecessarily lengthy remake of Lloyd Kaufmman's 1980 film of the same name.

Three predicatably characterised brothers from a criminal family return home to find a well-to-do, middle class family occupying their former family residence, leaving them questioning two things: how has this happened and the what's happened to the money they'd been sending to their dear old ma?

What follows is a poorly scripted and bloody stab at a thriller as the three boys, having called in their mother, systematically hold hostage and terrorise the new occupants of the house in all manner of different and brutal ways.

De Mornay is superb as the mother, even when battling against a leaden script, but what with the buckets of unecessary gore and below average Saw-esque mind games it isn't enough to stop this film being as cheesy as petrol station flowers and a Hallmark card.

Holy Rollers
Out to rent on DVD and Blu ray

Inspired by a true story, Kevin Asch's thought-provoking new film tells the story of Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg), an young Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn whose neighbour, with ties to an Israeli drug cartel, persuades him to become a mule.

As unlikely - even surreal, perhaps - as it all may seem, this is a genuinely serious movie which, despite the odd moment of light relief, probes at the conflict created when the line between the sacred and the profane is approached.

Sam is told he is smuggling 'medicine' from Holland, and although we know it really to be ecstasy, already you begin to see how everything, particularly through the eyes of a young boy with the weight of an unwanted arranged marriage looming over him, is not always as black and white as you'd like.

Eisenberg plays the role of tormented youth with aplomb, supported by an able cast in a film which, while constantly intriguing and pleasingly hip, is never a bore.

The Taqwacores
Out to rent on DVD

An adaptation of the fascinating 2002 book by Michael Muhammad Knight, which documented the split loyalties of Muslims in the fiercly patriotic country that is the United States of America via the fictional punk rock music scene of taqwacore, Eyad Zahra's film comes as something of a disappointment.

Following the real-life music scene which followed Knight's book, Zahra presents us with the fictional Yusef (Bobbi Naderi), a second year university student who ends up rooming with a group of Muslim punk rockers, whose dorm is a place of God during the day and a music venue by night.

Unfortunately, a premise packed with potentially explosive side-alleys is soon turned into a badly acted, predictable and consequently boring tale of one young man questioning his faith.

If you're interested then you'll probably want to pick up the book anyway - in any case, this may well feel like it takes as long to watch as it would to read.

And the rest
more new dvd releases this week:

Out to rent on DVD
White Mischief
Thinner
Vampires

Out to rent on DVD and Blu ray
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Blood Creek

Out to rent on DVD and Blu ray at Blockbuster only
Honey 2
The Conspirator
The Caller

Note that as this is a victim of the Universal Pictures dispute so it's not available from Lovefilm, Outnow or other sites.

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