This Week in DVD and Instant Watching

Gangster Squad: This just looked like it should have been cool: Gangsters, period setting, Sean Penn hamming it up, Emma Stone vamping it up...I don't know, that all sounds kind of cool, but this one got terrible reviews.

A Haunted House: So let me get this straight, the "Scary Movie" franchise was SO hilarious, it couldn't contain Marlon Wayans, who broke off and started his OWN franchise?

The Impossible: I can't wait to see how they did the special effects for the coil guy in this adaptation of the 1960s Hanna Barbera--Oh, wait, this is a harrowing, inspirational story about a family struggling in the face of a tsunami? Jeez, that's not funny at all.
Promised Land: It turns out movies about controversial topics like fracking aren't really all that controversial if nobody knows they exist.

Jurassic Park 3D: Forget the dinosaurs, I want to know how scary Jeff Goldblum's mannerisms are in 3-D.

Richard III: Criterion may be loading this up with extras, but I'm not impressed if it's not III-D.

The City That Never Sleeps: This Gig Young noir is perhaps the highlight of a new batch of releases from Olive Films, which is glad to put out the good stuff that Paramount can't be bothered with.

China Gate: Olive also releases this Sam Fuller early (as in before we got into it) Vietnam War flick with Angie Dickinson, Gene Barry, and Nat King Cole (!), and it sounded so good I thought I might have to try to see it. Then I found out it's already been on Netflix! O happy day!

Mr. Selfridge: I said it before and I'll say it again: When I first saw a promo for this, I figured, "Ooh, a new Masterpiece," and when I heard, "Jeremy Piven stars..." it was, "Ah, never mind."

Restless Gun Complete Series: Another forgotten Western series hits DVD thanks to the good folks at Timeless. Keep putting them out, Timeless, and I'll keep...uh, thinking maybe I should give them a try sometime but probably not necessarily buy them right away. I guess I'm really not incentivizing them much, am I?

In streaming, the big news this week is the debut of all episodes of the new original Netflix series Hemlock Grove, which features an apparent werewolf and Famke Janssen, and if there is to be any hope of me watching this, the werewolf better not be Famke Janssen.

This is generating buzz but not good critical notice, but if it drives subscriptions, then good...I guess. But personally I'd rather see Netflix spend the dough on acquiring more catalog titles. For example, is there gonna be any effort to replace/renew some of the hundreds of titles expiring in a few weeks?

We also get The Paperboy, and no matter whether Nicole Kidman won an Oscar for it, yet this still would be known as the movie in which she pees on someone. She didn't win an Oscar, as far as I know, though maybe there was a peeing Oscar given out in the technical awards ceremony.