STACK #122 Dec 2015

DVD&BD

ED’S DESK

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COLD IN JULY DISC of the month:

I t’s Christmas time, and that means long hot summer days and nights, shopping, presents, tinsel and turkey (roasted and Wild). It also means time to catch up with all the latest new release movies and TV box sets on DVD and Blu-ray, and JB Hi-Fi has your holiday viewing all wrapped up. Advances in performance capture technology led to the Rise of the Planet of the Apes , and now, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been given a photorealistic makeover, bringing the heroes in a half shell to expressive life for a whole new generation of youngsters. Read how ILM’s Visual Effects Supervisor Pablo Helman and his team achieved this new evolution in Turtle Power on page 52. Lucy and The Mule might be total opposites in terms of genre – one’s an insane sci-fi action flick, the other an Aussie crime drama – but both offer cautionary tales on the hazards of being a drug mule. In Lucy ’s case, a gut-full of illicit drugs turns Scarlett Johansson into an omniscient superbeing, while Angus Sampson suffers self-inflicted constipation in The Mule . Watch them back-to-back for one of the craziest double-features you’ll see this summer. Other recommended homegrown offerings this month are Predestination , an ingenious time travel thriller that will truly melt your brain, and These Final Hours , a sobering doomsday drama that asks its protagonist and the viewer the same question: How would you spend your last hours on Earth? For further STACK indulgence over the festive season, download this issue on the STACK App for exclusive extra content, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. And have a great Christmas and NewYear!

I’ve always loved the Southern fried novels of Joe R. Lansdale, but film adaptations of this talented Texan’s books are few and far between. Fortunately, filmmaker Jim Mickle (who gave us Stake Land and We AreWhatWe Are ) is a Lansdale fan and has brought the author’s 1989 novel Cold in July to the screen, and it’s a cracker of a thriller.This is a movie that’s best approached cold – i.e. with no knowledge of the twists and turns ahead. All you need to know is that Dexter ’s Michael C. Hall plays a family man who shoots and kills an intruder in his home one night, and soon thereafter encounters the dead man’s ex-convict father (a menacing Sam Shepard), who’s in the mood for some payback. And Don Johnson delivers a career revival performance worthy of aTarantino film, as a pig farmer turned private eye.The first act might make you feel you’ve stumbled upon a Cape Fear wannabe, but when Lansdale’s story throws a curveball, Mickle and his fine cast knock it right out of the park. Dark, unpredictable and totally gripping, make sure you check out Cold in July when it’s hot in December.

ON MY TO-WATCH STACK So much to view, so little time ... Into the Storm Tornadoes tear through The Maze Runner Fury Hell hath no fury like

Banshee: Season 2 Can’t wait to return to Alan Ball’s lunatic town with an Amish crimelord and an ex-con sheriff.

a small Oklahoma town in this found- footage variation on Twister . It’s special effects time!

Brad Pitt and a Sherman tank taking on the Nazis behind enemy lines in an old school WWII adventure.

Hunger Games , check. Divergent , check. The Giver , check. This one’s next. Hey, I’m a young at heart adult.

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