On Demand Weekly

Get the latest information about Movies On Demand from On Demand Weekly. Every week we provide the Week’s Top 10 Movies On Demand (MOD).

The Movies On Demand (MOD) September Preview of The Indies has arrived. Highlights of the new release schedule for September, 2011 include Kevin Smith’s RED STATE, which was launched through an unconventional cross-country screening tour in limited theatres. Except for the few who caught those, cable viewers get the first chance to see it when the film makes its nationwide premiere on VOD, Sept. 1 a month before theatres. Other notable indie titles this month include PEARL JAM 20, Cameron Crowe’s documentary about the 20th anniversary of the Seattle rock group; BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK the multiple award-winning film about the noted NY Times photographer who documents the fashions of real people; EVERYTHING MUST GO the comedy starring Will Ferrell and Rebecca Hall and THE TEMPEST, Julie Taymor’s re-imagining of one of Shakespeare’s most enduring plays, starring Helen Mirren and Russell Brand. More info on these and other titles below.

Almost every indie new release listed comes to Movies On Demand either before or the same day as DVD.

Enjoy On Demanding this month!


Indie Titles:

RED STATE – Premieres September 1
John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Michael Parks
R, Thriller

Before theatrical release


EVERYTHING MUST GO – Premieres September 2
Will Ferrell, Rebecca Hall, Michael Pena, Laura Dern
R, Comedy/Drama

Before DVD, before Netflix and Redbox

BLACKTHORN – Premieres September 2
Sam Shepard, Eduardo Noriega, Stephen Rea
NR, Western

Before theatrical release


REBIRTH – Premieres September 6
James Whitaker
PG, Documentary

Same day as DVD


SHAOLIN – Premieres September 9
Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Bingbing Fan
TV-MA, Action/Drama

Same day as theatrical release


CHALET GIRL – Premieres September 9
Felicity Jones, Ed Westwick, Bill Nighy
TV-14, Comedy

Before theatrical release

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: MEEK'S CUTOFF (Oscilloscope Labs).

MEEK’S CUTOFF
A realist’s look at the Oregon Trail
By Cynthia Kane

If you don’t know the name Kelly Reichardt, you should.

She is the most original, artful, thought-provoking filmmaker

now on the American scene.

Her work continues to astound me being both cerebral and cinematic, yet laced with feeling and sentiment. Here again she works with screenwriter, Jonathan Raymond who collaborated with her on WENDY AND LUCY and OLD JOY.

Kelly Reichardt / MEEK'S CUTOFF (Oscilloscope Labs)

Michelle Williams, another national treasure - seriously, possibly the best film actress in this country - has come on board again to lead a stellar cast, including Shirley Henderson, Zoe Kazan, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano, Will Patton, Neal Huff and Rod Rondeaux in this minimalistic tale that honestly takes you to another time, another place, and makes you very glad you live in the here and now.

The film is straightforward and based on a true story: it’s 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail. A mountain guide called Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) is taking three families westward in their Conestoga wagons pulled by oxen to forge new homesteads on the far side of the Cascade Mountains. Bombastic Meek claims to know a shortcut and leads them across unmarked territory where they invariably find themselves lost on the high desert plain, hungry, thirsty, cold and desperate.

Paul Dano / MEEK'S CUTOFF (Oscilloscope Labs)

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: BLACKTHORN (Magnolia).

Sam Shephard Is Butch Cassidy In BLACKTHORN
By Chris Claro

As the author of such challenging and obtuse works as TRUE WEST and BURIED CHILD, Sam Shepard is one of the most studied and performed playwrights of the late 20th century. To support his work as a dramaturge, Shepard works as a film actor, bringing his grizzled charm to everything from weepies like STEEL MAGNOLIAS to war flicks like BLACK HAWK DOWN. With his laconic mien and square-jawed masculinity, Shepard is grit incarnate; as he seemingly rises from the dead out of an inferno in Philip Kaufman’s celebration of American moxie and stick-to-itiveness, THE RIGHT STUFF, a character sees the his hazy visage and asks “sir, is that a man?” to which Levon Helm offers the only apt reply: “you’re damned right it is.”

Sam Shephard (BLACKTHORN)

Having essayed Chuck Yeager in Kaufman’s epic, Shepard tackles another American icon, Butch Cassidy, in BLACKTHORN, directed by Mateo Gil. Employing flashbacks, Gil’s film focuses on both the older Cassidy, living on his own in Bolivia in 1927, and his early life, riding with the Sundance Kid and Etta Place. Throughout, a dogged Pinkerton man, McKinley (Stephen Rea, THE CRYING GAME) pursues the outlaw, determined to bring him to justice.

Mateo Gill (BLACKTHORN)

Gil’s film is daring only in that it he dares to return to a story that has already achieved iconic status on film. George Roy Hill’s study of the 1969 study of the outlaws not only made Redford a star, but shattered the template of western iconography, as it was filled with contemporary music, anachronistic comedy, and a dark ending. For Gil to tread the same ground, one would assume that he has an alternate take on the tale.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: MAKING THE BOYS (Gravitas).

MAKING THE BOYS About THE BOYS IN THE BAND
By Kris Scheifele

MAKING THE BOYS traces the development of the off-Broadway play THE BOYS IN THE BAND and its subsequent transformation into the Hollywood film by the same name. Not such an unusual trajectory except THE BOYS IN THE BAND, written by Mart Crowley, was the first of its kind: it depicted openly gay men. Amidst the oppressive homophobia of the sixties, this was a revelation, a point underscored by the doc's inclusion of clips from anti-gay propaganda films.

This doc also maps the historical framework intimately linked to the artist and his work through interviews with writers, historians, theater folk, actors, and activists. Among these pundits, playwright Edward Albee points out that even The New York Times was unapologetically biased against gays at the time with their chief drama critic, Stanley Kauffmann, accusing gay playwrights of disguising gay characters in their work. In so doing, Kauffmann inadvertently inspired Crowley to "let it all hang out," forgoing straight stand-ins for the real McCoy.

When the play came out in 1968 it was a smash hit. MAKING THE BOYS, however, is a reminder that timing is everything. When the film was released in 1970, the intervening Stonewall Riots had fueled the burgeoning gay rights movement creating the expectation that art mirror life. What was groundbreaking bravery one year, seemed retrograde to some the next. That's a lot of baggage to carry for a story about a birthday party.

Well, there's more to the plot than that. Witty quips become lacerating barbs when a tightly knit group of friends get their interpersonal dysfunction on. It's Drama (with a capital D), but if everyone got along in a magnanimous embrace of gay solidarity, it wouldn't be very interesting. The doc suggests that this sort of modern conversational skirmishing owed something to Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF. This correlation provides the best line in the doc when Carson Kressley, of "Queer Eye" fame, says of THE BOYS, "It makes WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF look like an Olsen Twins' movie." Oh Carson, it hurts so good!