On Demand Weekly

HOMELAND - Starring Claire Danes

By Jean Tait

I’ll admit, I was worried. The premise of a rogue (yes, I hate that word since Sarah Palin ruined it!) CIA agent with mental illness issues determined to bring down a possibly traitorous, newly returned home POW. Include call girl operatives, scene-stealing Mandy Patinkin as her boss, and “V”’s imperious Morena Baccarin as the sweetheart wife back home, and you’ve got a recipe for a potentially typical nighttime soap opera. Not that there is anything terribly wrong with that (I’m quite enjoying “Revenge”), but it’s nothing to get excited about, either.

Wow, was I wrong! Rich in detail and character, “Homeland” is complex and intriguing.

Claire Danes is brilliant—

all hard edges and passionate intensity

with just enough self-doubt to keep her

on the edge of coming unhinged.

She could so easily have played the character as “likable,” but she makes the daring choices that keep Agent Mathison fascinating.

Equally fascinating are Damien Lewis as returning hero (?) Sgt. Brody and Baccarin as his almost mousy wife who was just starting to live again when she found out her presumed-dead husband was really alive. Mandy Patinkin is positively understated as Agent Mathison’s mentor and boss (who knew it was possible!), leaving me intrigued as to how his character will develop.

Media savant T Tara Turk goes deep inside cable TV to reveal Video On Demand's Hidden Gems so even the busiest of our readers can get the most out of On Demand TV. Tell Tara what VOD shows you think deserves her attention.

PARENTHOOD (VOD Hidden Gem)

By T. Tara Turk

I have a thing for ensemble movies about life. THe BIG CHILL. THE BEST MAN (eagerly awaiting THE BEST MAN 2just announced!).THE BREAKFAST CLUB (I know all of the lines - ask my mom). Some of you youngins have no idea what movies I’m talking about but you must know "Parenthood" if only for the simple fact that it has been made into an entertaining television now on NBC.

PARENTHOOD (NBC)

I admit I’m kind of late in the game because, well, I was vehemently against remaking something that was so great before (I mean who couldn’t love a movie with a toddler named Kool, a half head shaved couple played by Keanu Reeves and the great Martha Plimpton, an overachieving mom who stashes candy in her closet and announces her divorce to her crazy husband via cue cards, and...okay the list could go on and I’d be telling you the movie and you’d be mad at me).

So I waited but then I realized Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are the executive producers and they had a little something to do with the movie. At the same time I realized that, there was that opening of time when all the new shows had been viewed and I was wishing some would be cancelled (goodbye, "Playboy Club," we hardly knew ye) and some would hurry up and make more pronto (Zooey Deschanel, what ARE you doing?). So "Parenthood" called out to me.

PARENTHOOD (NBC)

At first glance, it could be considered a Gilmore Girls continuation with Lauren Graham (Sarah Braverman) as mom having trouble letting her teenage daughter (Mae Whitman who rocked in WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN) go. But then there are the siblings - Peter Krause as Adam Braverman (the Steve Martin character), Erika Christensen as Julia Braverman Graham (not nearly neurotic as shoving stored candy down her throat but her baby issues make up for it) and Dax Shepard as Crosby Braverman. With them come a slew of other family members including Craig T. Nelson as the patriarch of the clan and Bonnie Bedelia is the matriarch.

On Demand Weekly's VOD Spotlight highlights stories from the On Demand industry. Chris Claro interviews director Joel Schumacher about TRESPASS (Millennium Entertainment).). Read our review of the film here.

Joel Schumacher Brings His Talents To On Demand
The director talks with On Demand Weekly’s Chris Claro about his home-invasion thriller, TRESPASS starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman

A Hollywood mainstay for almost forty years, Joel Schumacher’s career has been memorable as much for zeitgeist icons like ST. ELMO’S FIRE and FALLING DOWN as for his notorious entry in the Caped Crusader saga, BATMAN AND ROBIN. Throughout his time as a designer, writer, and director, he’s worked with everybody from Corey Feldman to Colin Farrell to Jim Carrey (twice).

Schumacher is back on both VOD and in theaters with his new thriller, TRESPASS. Starring Nicolas Cage, who Schumacher directed in 8MM, and Nicole Kidman, who worked with the director on BATMAN FOREVER, TRESPASS is a tightly-wound home invasion thriller set almost completely in the sleek waterfront domicile of the Millers.

Though the film is limited to almost a single location, Schumacher was determined to make TRESPASS more than just a filmed play. “It has to be very cinematic,” the director says. “You have to make sure that you’re not shooting it like an action movie, rather than a play. But you never know if it’s going to work.”

This isn’t the first time that Schumacher has backed himself – and his characters – into a tight spot. In 2002, the director made PHONE BOOTH, starring Farrell as a man whose survival depends on his staying on the phone. The similarities between that film and TRESPASS were not lost on Schumacher, who considers each a “concept” movie.

“A guy in a phone booth and voice on the other end says ‘if you hang up, I’ll kill you,’” says Schumacher. “What if four people invade your house and you, your wife, and your daughter are in jeopardy? Both good ideas, but then you wonder ‘what’s going to happen for the next 90 minutes?’”

PHONE BOOTH / Courtesy 20th Century Fox

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: TRESPASS (Millennium Entertainment).

Click Here For On Demand Weekly's Exclusive Interview With Director Joel Schumacher

TRESPASS - Starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman Premieres On Demand
By Chris Claro

This thing we call VOD is a strange beast. Populated mostly with smaller-budget independent films of a particular pedigree, video on demand has, in its relatively brief existence, encouraged the discovery of actors, writers, and directors who fly below the radar. It has offered a space to esoteric documentaries and earnest, star-free features shot in the hinterlands on a shoestring.

But every once in a while, it seems, a real live Hollywood-type movie premieres on VOD. Maybe a distribution deal falls through. Maybe there’s no marketing budget. Or maybe the director and his two Oscar-winning stars have holes in their schedules and villa payments to make.

Whatever the reason, TRESPASS, the new film directed by Joel Schumacher (THE LOST BOYS) and starring Nicolas Cage (LEAVING LAS VEGAS) and Nicole Kidman (THE HOURS) appears to be just such a movie. Released by Millennium, TRESPASS will have a day-and-date premiere “in theaters or order it with your remote,” as the breathless promos bark.

So now there are two venues in which to experience this turgid home-invasion thriller that starts at ridiculous, wends its way toward outlandish, and settles, in its third act, into total presposterousness. Cage plays Kyle Miller, a diamond broker whose go-go career has Kidman, the missus, feeling ignored. Aside from their issues, the couple has to contend with a typically self-obsessed and selfish teenage daughter. When a quartet of sadistic villains violates the Miller sleek sanctuary in pursuit of stones, cash, and maybe a kidney, the contrivances run amok, piling atop one another until they can’t do anything but topple over.

The bad guys, led by a genuinely scary Ben Mendelsohn (ANIMAL KINGDOM), have agendas, and the schematic script by Karl Gadjusek gives each member of the foursome his or her big scene to explain why they’re not really that bad, just misunderstood. Whether one is trying to recover his lost drug dough, regain custody of her daughter, or just express his psychopathic love for the ravishing Mrs. Miller, the crooks are each given paint-by-number colors that Gadjusek fills in dutifully.

Leave it to one of cinema's most controversial filmmakers to have a "Director's Statement." Maybe they all should.

MELANCHOLIA: A BEAUTIFUL MOVIE ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD

It was like waking from a dream: my producer showed me a suggestion for a poster. “What is that?” I ask. ”It’s a film you’ve made!” she replies. ”I hope not,” I stammer. Trailers are shown ... stills ... it looks like shit. I’m shaken... more (click here)

- Lars von Trier, Copenhagen, April 13, 2011

Lars Von Trier / MELANCHOLIA (Magnolia Pictures)

Reviews...

MELANCHOLIA - DEMAND IT

BUCK - DEMAND IT

TRUST - RISK IT

HELLO LONESOME - DEMAND IT