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Coming soon to a laptop near you

Added on 13/04/2008

Rebecca Thursten takes her pick of April's DVD releases...

If you're feeling uninspired by the cinematic releases currently on offer (somewhat inevitable in the post-Oscars, pre-blockbuster slump), then take the time to try one of April's DVD releases.

Enchanted

First up is Enchanted, a film so genuinely delightful it should not be dismissed as a guilty pleasure. Amy Adams stars as Giselle, an animated Disney heroine made manifest in 21^st century Manhattan and left to tear through the life of straight-laced lawyer Patrick Dempsey, the whole time teetering endearingly on the edge of full blown histrionic personality disorder. The climax is unfortunately unhinged by a hasty blend of action and schmaltz, but otherwise the film is an exercise in balance as it skewers and embraces its heritage without losing the audience in the kind of lazy self-reflexivity that's now common currency in children's cinema. The casting is similarly shrewd, and while the film is beautifully dominated by Amy Adam's boundless energy, James Marsden still leaves his mark as her bombastic manchild prince – I challenge you not to laugh at any line of his which involves the word 'peasant.' It's not quite The Princess Bride, but it's well worth anyone's time.

Waitress

For an only marginally more realistic depiction of adult relationships, Adrienne Shelley's Waitress also deserves your attention before it disappears entirely. Overshadowed at its cinematic release by Shelley's murder and now by its thematic and tonal similarities to Juno, Waitress is the story of Jenna (Keri Russell), a gifted baker and waitress dealing with becoming pregnant by her abusive husband Earl, played with reptilian intensity by Jeremy Sisto. Cornered, Jenna buries her emotions in her pies (“Pregnant Miserable Self Pitying Loser Pie... Lumpy oatmeal with fruitcake mashed in. Flambé of course,”) and an adulterous relationship with her sympathetic gynaecologist Dr. Pomatter, played by Firefly's Nathan Fillion, who is effortlessly charming in a performance which is essentially Captain Reynolds with forceps. Like Juno it is not nearly as grim or as twee as its synopsis may suggest, crucially because it manages to subvert the audiences' expectations of its characters. Just as Juno is a romance masquerading as a film about teenage pregnancy, Waitress is a moving portrait of motherhood hiding behind the conventions of modern romantic comedies. The ending may be too sweet for some, but in a film that surrounds its darkness in diabetes-inducing pie photography what do you expect?

If those suggestions are leaving you feeling just a little bit too optimistic and life-affirmed, then you can find some solace in 30 Days Of Night, a happily grisly vampire horror based on Steve Niles' comic book series. Director David Slade gets a lot of mileage out of the beautifully simple conceit of taking a small, isolated town at the very north of Alaska (a heavily fictionalised Barrow) during the yearly period of extended polar night and adding a crap load of vampires. Josh Hartnett gives an engaging performance as the town's sheriff, believable in his honest terror and determination to have the town survive its ordeal. The rest of the survivors, including ex-wife Melissa George, are noticeably weaker but are compensated for in Danny Huston's enjoyably ferocious vampire leader (despite the cumulative hilarity of the subtitled vampire tongue, a device which understandably works better in print) and Ben Foster's utterly creepy performance as the human 'Stranger' who enables the attack, his otherness illustrated deftly through Foster's pitch perfect Cajun. Slade's direction is carefully stylish, the atmosphere a worthy continuation of his debut feature Hard Candy's signature claustrophobia. While here the colour pallette is not as bold as Hard Candy, his use of cold, dark filters is effectively moody rather than simply lazy cinematography. Though the pace is occasionally scuppered by perfunctory horror moments, Slade's scares are generally innovative, and he avoids old-hat sudden shocks for wonderful sequences such as the opening onslaught where the townspeople are ruthlessly butchered in a series of long aerial shots. Despite its flaws this is a thoroughly enjoyable horror movie which doesn't deserve the lukewarm critical reception it received upon its initial release.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score

Finally, a quick word to the release of the first straight-to-DVD Futurama movie, Futurama: Bender's Big Score. This isn't an enterprise for newcomers to the TV series as it trades on fan affection for the characters and universe and takes advantage of such familiarity (and its 90 minute running time) to weave a densely plotted time-travelling story you won't have a hope of following without prior knowledge. If you're a fan however, it's a pleasure. It's not perfect – I for one could have done with more Zapp Brannigan and less of the slightly dull Cyril Sneer-a-like villains, and one of the central plot twists is apparent within the first ten minutes – but everything good about Futurama is present and correct: great voice artistry, gorgeously funny visuals enhanced by the shift to widescreen and HD, Christopher Tyng's inevitably fantastic music and gags that tickle brows high and low, brains left and right. Buy it if you're a fan – as always the DVD offers excellent special features including an affably shambolic lecture on the series' mathematics – and if you support them now we might get more than the three currently in the can.

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