Box-sets, much like anthologies, have somewhat of an unavoidable mixed-bag mentality about them. It’s difficult, near impossible even, to ensure that each film within is of equal merit and quality. Increase the number of films, and the odds of consistency decrease in equal proportion. Which brings us to WB’s latest (but doubtfully last) Clint Eastwood retrospective. Clint Eastwood: 20-Film Collection lives up to my theory above thanks in part to a heavy concentration on Eastwood’s most recent output (which few people would argue in favor of), but it does an otherwise fine job of looking across the years at the man’s output both as an actor and a director. WB has also released a 40-Film set onto DVD.

After years of development, Disney managed to travel back over the rainbow with Oz the Great and Powerful. While it wasn’t the box office juggernaut that Alice in Wonderland was, it did bring a new version of L. Frank Baum’s classic books to the big screen. The colorful fantasy world that Sam Raimi shows in Oz the Great and Powerful is appealing to children of all ages, but more importantly, it looks crazy when you’ve been drinking. If you’re taking a trip back to Oz, have a few drinks of a different color and enjoy the ride.

Why Watch? Today is Kamehameha Day, a Hawaiian public holiday honoring King Kamehameha the Great, who first established the unified Kingdom of Hawai’i in 1810. Those of us on the mainland may not get the day off, but we can certainly take a few minutes to celebrate indigenous Hawaiian culture. Until the Sun Sets takes us back to Ancient Hawai’i, when the islands were ruled by various warring chiefs. It is the first day of Makahiki, the season of peace when all warfare is forbidden. A pair of lovers are sharing a quiet moment up in a tree when they notice the arrival of warriors down below. Yet technically Makahiki will not begin until sundown, and a nearby chief is making a last-minute assault on their village. The young man springs into action, urging the woman to stay hidden while he and his fellow warriors fight to defend their home. Hale Mawae‘s whole script is dedicated to the Hawaiian language, and director Kenji Doughty follows suit in his realization. The weapons and costumes of the warriors, however minimalist, are a particular triumph. This commitment to faithful representation of the past is bolstered by an almost rambunctious ambition in style for such a small film, daring to toss in some bloody combat effects and a tense underwater escape scene. Until the Sun Sets, in succeeding as a sort of “indigenous heritage historical fiction action movie,” shows that well-meaning cultural authenticity and exciting genre filmmaking can coexist, and without any help from Mel Gibson. What

Too hot to leave the house? Need to catch up some docs you missed during the last run of film festivals? Just don’t want to get off the couch? It’s okay, HBO will reward your laziness with their own mini-film festival, one that plays in the comfort of your own home and within the confines of your own television screen. HBO Documentary Films Summer Series returns for another round of hot (forgive the summer puns, please) programming, featuring eleven documentaries that truly run the gamut of available non-fiction cinema. The series kicked off last night with the HBO debut of Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovin’s still shockingly relevant Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer. The Sundance premiere investigates Russia’s most notorious punk band, Pussy Riot, and their ceaseless desire to challenge the status quo (and their very government) that have landed them in jail and turned them into modern day free speech crusaders. Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is far from the only feature plucked from high profile festivals around the world, as the series also includes films that have shown at the Seattle International Film Festival, the upcoming Los Angeles Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival. The subject matters addressed in the series include classic Hollywood starlets, unexpected beauty queens, public defenders, horrific murders, single moms looking for love, and even a couple of already-lauded features like Gasland Part II and The Crash Reel. It may be a cliche, but this series really does offer something for everyone. And – again

I’m not entirely certain, but I think I’m late to the conversation about “vulgar auteurism.” While I’m sure I’ve heard the hundred-dollar phrase at some point before, it wasn’t until this weekend that my Twitter feed became overloaded with musings about it (and the inevitable punnery – i.e., “vulgar aneurism”). As far as I can see, more has been written in an attempt to either define or dismiss the phrase (or both) than actually practice it. After reading some pro and con pieces about attempts to assess supposedly “disreputable” films by the likes of Justin Lin, Paul W.S. Anderson, and Neveldine/Taylor, I found myself at a crossroads. I’m not convinced that the term has much (if anything) valuable to offer serious criticism, or constitutes a significant intervention within good ol’ auteurist readings. At the same time, I can’t align myself with its critics, notably their implicit or explicit dismissals of the possibility that Hollywood’s postmodern modes of address have anything to offer serious assessments of film as an art form. Thus, in lieu of taking a side in the admittedly insular “debate” about “vulgar auteurism” (think of it as the revenge of “cultural vegetables”), that this debate is happening at all evidences several important points about both the state of mainstream cinema and the role of the discerning critic within it.

The first superhero in comic book history and famous instigator of the most profitable movie genre of all time (a.k.a. the one who started it all) is flying back to theaters this Friday in Man of Steel. Few industry analysts seem to agree on a common lockstep to pin down box-office predictions for the one we now like to refer to as the “Man of Steel.” According to most recent reports, distributors expect a $130M opening week-end domestically and a healthy run that could fly as far as late August. There are many arguments against the movie doing great business and many arguments in favor. I personally think the Zack Snyder/Christopher Nolan joint effort will perform exceedingly well, and one reason I consider relevant is the current state of the world and how we could all use a hero in light of recent times. Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie opened in theaters on December 15, 1978 and would have made $455M with today’s 3D ticket prices. Perhaps it was Marlon Brando’s infamous 15 minutes of screen time with his nicely coiffed hairdo that infused enough credibility into the production to seduce audiences at the time. Or perhaps there was more. The movie’s very first frames took us back to June 1938 – showing the original issue of Action Comics featuring Superman – as you can hear a young boy uttering these words: “In the decade of the 1930’s, even the great city of Metropolis was not spared from the ravages

Welcome back to This Week In Discs! As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. House of Cards: The Complete First Season Congressman Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is as ambitious as they come, but his drive to succeed includes more than simply doing the best job for the American people that he can. Instead he uses every opportunity to manipulate those around him towards outcomes favorable to his career. His wife (Robin Wright) shares a similar trait in her dealings. Together and separately the pair use their influence to shape their world, and while many other people are swept into their narrative only one will meet a tragic fate. Netflix officially entered the TV production game with this 13 episode redo of the classic UK series, and the result is a solidly entertaining, wonderfully acted look at our political animals at work. It has far less bite than its UK predecessor, and least in its first season, but the drama remains engaging. Creators David Fincher and Beau Willimon kept the original’s framework (albeit transplanted in time and space to modern day Washington D.C.), but they wisely chose not to mirror the characters instead leaving viewers with new creations and plenty of surprises. It’s a less salacious but smarter Boss for those of you familiar with Kelsey Grammer’s Starz series, and while Spacey and Wright rule the roost it boasts a spectacular supporting cast in Kate Mara, Michael Kelly, Corey Stoll and others. [DVD

Why Watch? An Icelander found a CD, 15 songs by an unknown American musician named Daniel C. The lyrics give plenty of hints. He’s definitely a trucker, and he’s definitely in love with someone named Sherry. Yet beyond that any interpretations to rumor, with some claiming that Sherry was underage, that the trucker was an immigrant from Romania, etc. It’s like Searching for Sugarman but without any of the overbearing sense of historical significance. Director Sara Gunnarsdottir expertly balances her interview subjects and the music itself, choosing to juxtapose black and white footage of speculative Icelanders with deliriously animated interpretations of Daniel C’s songs. The animated sequences are careful to maintain the sense of mystery, never settling on particular visual representation of the singer for too long. His face is reshaped again and again, part of a larger shifting aesthetic that soon reaches an almost psychedelic climax. On May 13th of this year, Gunnarsdottir received a message from a dispatcher at a trucking company in Mississippi. It turns out that Daniel C is one of his drivers, and that “The Pirate of Love” is not his only CD. Determined to bring the whole story to the world, Gunnarsdottir is raising funds for a sequel at KarolinaFund. If you’re curious (which you should be), go support the project! What Will It Cost? Just over 10 minutes.

Bob Benson didn’t need to have a bombshell of a secret. In fact, history dictated that Bob Benson wasn’t going to have a bombshell of a secret. And yet, the Mad Men newcomer, played by James Wolk, raised suspicion from the moment he waltzed onto (the wrong floor, inevitably) of SCD&P (now just the offensive-to-everyone SC&P) in the series’ sixth season. Benson, a new accounts man, could have easily been regulated to a background bit – after all, even perennial accounts man Ken Cosgrove hasn’t gotten much play this season, save for his spectacular tap dancing sequence during the season’s drug-fueled “The Crash” – but the handsome Wolk has popped up in no less than eight episodes of the show’s latest season, and he’s been inscrutable at every turn. Wolk is also not some fresh face that comes without baggage – if you’re familiar with his work on such ambitious shows as the ill-fated Lone Star or the underappreciated Political Animals, you are also familiar with his panache for playing characters with major secrets comes part and parcel with seeing him on television. Wolk isn’t the guy you cast for some small part, he’s the guy you look to for some steadily building, multi-faceted character work. The Bob Benson conspiracy theories have run the gamut (he’s a government spy! he’s a mole from another ad agency! he’s an undercover journalist! he’s just a total lunatic!), and while the real truth (or whatever “real truth” that Mad Men is willing to

1981 was the greatest year ever for fans of werewolf cinema. Bold statement? Possibly. Plain silly in light of Sybil Danning’s 1985 entry into the genre? Most assuredly. But if you were to make a list of the top five werewolf movies of all time it’s a near certainty that two of them were released in 1981. Late summer ’81 saw the August release of John Landis’ classic horror/comedy An American Werewolf in London, and just four months earlier Joe Dante‘s The Howling tore its way onto screens across America. While the two films are often spoken of in the same breath thanks to their chronological proximity and successful mix of laughs and terror, they’re also bonded through their unique but equally mesmerizing werewolf transformation scenes. A very young Rob Bottin handled the effects for Dante’s film, and they’ve never looked better than they do on Scream Factory‘s brand new Blu-ray of the film.

In celebration of the release of Man of Steel, we will be publishing a series of articles that take a look back at Superman’s cinematic roots, analyze his successes and failures and hopefully add some context to your Superman-centric movie week. We begin with another splendid guest editorial from The Bitter Script Reader. If everything had gone to plan, this summer we’d probably be getting the concluding chapter of a Bryan Singer-helmed Superman trilogy. Indeed, for a while, it appeared we might get it. The film opened in Summer 2006 to a bigger 5-day opening than Batman Begins had a year earlier. Its worldwide gross was also about $17 million more than the Nolan Batman prequel as well. It even earned a decent amount of critical acclaim, coming in at 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. So while the film might not have been a Spider-Man-sized hit, it was a promising debut by some of the more superficial standards the industry uses to measure success. The film certainly was far from being an outright bomb. Some time ago, Quentin Tarantino mentioned that he was writing a 20-page review of Superman Returns, explaining why he loved it so much. We’re still waiting on that, and since I’m about one-fourth the filmmaker he is, it seems fitting that my own review is that much shorter.

While it might not be the definitive high school comedy (that’s a discussion for another time), 1998′s Can’t Hardly Wait is a damn good one, and a strangely enduring new classic. Sure, the nineties-set production is dipped in era-appropriate fashion, slang, and cultural nods (X-Files, anyone?) and its cast is positively peppered by awesomely nineties talents (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ethan Embry, Seth Green, Melissa Joan Hart, the list goes on and on), but Can’t Hardly Wait still feels applicable to teens today. Or, at the very least, it still feels like a very good approximation of the high school experience that we remember. The film turns a staggering fifteen years old this week (it was released on June 12, 1998), and in appreciation of the film that gave us a stoned Jason Segel as “Watermelon Guy,” reaffirmed the cultural relevance of Barry Manilow, and saw the wonderful Lauren Ambrose get hit in the face with a pot brownie, we give you five scenes we love from Can’t Hardly Wait.

This is another edition of Short Starts, where we present a weekly short film from the start of a filmmaker or actor’s (or character’s) career. As we get excited about Man of Steel this week, it’s once again worth considering Hollywood’s incessant need to re-tell superhero origin stories every time they begin or reboot a franchise. The new Superman movie does indeed go back to the beginning and tell of Kal-El’s birth on Krypton and travel to Earth, where he grew up with the Kent family. Sure, this one is not as quick a rehash as the Spider-Man or even Batman properties have done. The last time we saw Superman’s start on the big screen was 35 years ago (never mind that there have been TV tellings since). Before that we’d already seen the origin story done perfectly well in the 1948 serial version (his first live-action film appearance). Interestingly enough, though, the character’s earlier debut on the silver screen barely bothered with his origins at all. This short start is an animated film titled Superman (some refer to it as “The Mad Scientist”), which arrived only three years after the superhero made his first appearance in any media, in the pages of “Action Comics” #1 (take that, adaptations in development hell for decades). And after a very, very brief introduction telling of Superman’s backstory, this ten-minute work gets right into an original, isolated adventure in which the character must destroy a mad scientist’s death ray and also save Lois

Movie Houses of Worship is a regular feature spotlighting our favorite movie theaters around the world, those that are like temples of cinema catering to the most religious-like film geeks. If you’d like to suggest or submit a place you regularly worship at the altar of cinema, please email our weekend editor. Arena Grand Theater Location: 175 W Nationwide Blvd Columbus, OH 43215 Opened: 2002 Closed: May 27, 2013 No. of screens: 5 (if memory serves) Current first-run titles: none

Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe it’s something in the alignment of the planets, or maybe someone is actually traveling through time in order to ensure that the latest Fund This Film column spotlights two fortuitously headlined crowdfunding projects. As you’re probably aware, this summer we’re getting a new Superman movie (Man of Steel) and a new Wolverine movie (The Wolverine). What you’re probably not aware of at all, though, is that you also have an opportunity now to help out two new time travel films involving the theme of second chances that have nothing whatsoever to do with those two new superhero blockbusters. So why do I mention them if there’s no real link? Because there is still an interesting connection. One of the crowdfunding projects stars Sarah Douglas (pictured above), who played the villainess Ursa in Superman and Superman II. The other project is by the Swedish duo behind the short “X-Men” fan film Logan, which we shared back in December. Am I reaching again? A little bit, but that’s how you get attention for little works that would otherwise be overlooked. And to be fair, the makers of each project are surely expecting people who enjoy comic book movies to be interested in their new film. That’s why you cast Douglas in something, isn’t it? And why you get your foot in the door with a well-circulated short about Wolverine?

Those who have seen the trailer for The Purge, or the film itself, know this is not your normal brand of horror film. The Purge is certainly ful of jump scares and villains out for blood, but it takes that standard idea of horror one step further by infusing the narrative with bigger questions about society and human nature. This is not your typical story of people being pursued and not knowing why. The characters in The Purge know exactly what is out there, but the fear here is they thought they were armed against it, and what is even more unsettling is the realization that the true terror may exist outside of this single night. Life in The Purge is an almost Pleasantville-like world where crime is down, employment is up, and the general population seems content and happy – and there is a very distinct reason for this. For one night, every year, the entire population is allowed to “purge” themselves and give in to any evil or violent tendencies they may have been suppressing in favor of such a well mannered society. But The Purge gives audiences more than just a series of scares, it presents a variety of different questions, both directly and indirectly, throughout the film, but it does not offer many answers. It is not unusual for a horror film to leave audiences with an open ending, but the questions The Purge leaves open are ripe for discussion long after the credits roll. The following contains spoilers for

This past week has really been all about us recommending movies for you guys. As it should be. Although most of the mainstream releases hitting this weekend suck, we did give high grades to the latest from Joss Whedon and Alain Resnais while also finding places to highlight some additional picks that might be more easily available to you this month than what’s just on the big screen. The latest from Neil LaBute, for instance, as well as David Mackenzie‘s Tonight You’re Mine and a classic from Billy Wilder, which is a great alternative to The Internship. We also referenced Nine Queens as a better alternative to Now You See Me, Death Sentence for being better than Death Wish and anniversary celebrant Big as requiring a fresh look from your 25-year-older self. On top of that, we officially entered super-excited-about-Man of Steel mode here at FSR. There’s only a whole bunch more to come, though, so get ready for a Super special week to come. For now, though…. Start your weekend right after the jump.

Thus far, Platinum Dunes hasn’t made movies for everyone. “Everyone,” of course, meaning a fair chunk of the online film community. Producer Brad Fuller – who started the company with Andrew Form and Michael Bay around 10 years ago — is well aware of the lashings he and his partners have taken. Remaking a horror classic is going to lose certain audience members from the start, but some of Platinum Dunes’ work has been met with downright hate. However, some of that hate comes from an insular community, as proven by the box-office numbers A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Friday the 13th delivered. They were R-rated horror hits that Fuller has been having a difficult time making since Elm Street. This is what led him to teaming up with producer Jason Blum and making the high-concept thriller The Purge. The home invasion pic was made for two million dollars which is a low budget that Fuller and his partners aren’t exactly used to. The Purge represents a new direction for Platinum Dunes. Fuller made the time to tell us about where the company is going and why it had to go there:

Why Watch? Tea is delicious. Granted, you can’t actually taste any of it through your computer screen, but never mind that. Chai is a documentary that ties together the experiences of four people working in tea shops all over India, from Kerala to Mumbai. One is an old man who has been making tea for years, and has watched the rapid and sprawling growth of India’s cities since the beginning. The others are quite young, from a boy of ten working in Mumbai to a girl of 18 who fled her village on the night of her arranged wedding. The last is a young man in Kerala, who came south from Kashmir to escape from the police. All four are selling tea far from the place of their birth, this national beverage becoming a metaphor of sorts for a whirlwind of internal migration. As for the film around these characters, director Gitanjali Rao has woven them together with a handful of interesting cinematic ideas. Tea itself is front and center, of course, but Rao is careful to at least hint at the wide variety of preparation techniques used in India. He also brings in some surprising but perfectly integrated animation to paint the past lives of his subjects, vividly recreating their journeys from the village to the metropolis. Yet their real-life faces are never featured. The intent seems to be a blending of their stories into a single, national cup of chai. Chai is one of the five “India Is” films

Recently added to Netflix Instant, Tonight You’re Mine is director David Mackenzie’s other film from 2011 that’s not the one that involves Ewan McGregor and Eva Green getting down while the world’s population steadily begins to lose each of their five senses. Originally released under the title You Instead, the decidedly lo-fi Tonight You’re Mine was filmed on location over five days at Scotland’s massive T in the Park Festival, sort of a UK version of Coachella (but one that comes off as decidedly more clean and decent). An eighty-minute-long charmer, the film was barely seen when it finally got released in the United States and it made less than six thousand dollars during its very brief and very limited release in May of 2012. Basically, if you didn’t happen to catch it back then, you’re far from the only one. Short on narrative and long on charm, the film mixes scripted scenes and improvised adventures to deliver one hell of a sweet little love story (set to music, naturally). The film centers on Adam, the pretty boy lead singer of the dorky-hip The Make, and Morello, the tough-as-nails leader of punkish girl group The Dirty Pinks (yes, the meaning of their name is addressed swiftly and amusingly). Morello and her girls don’t suffer fools, so we when they spot Adam and his bandmate Tyko filming a spot for a local music show in a tiny car that’s apparently run out of gas, they can’t help but poke fun at