A great many thanks to all those who voted for us as the Best Place to Rent a Movie inside Chittenden County! This is our ninth out of nine Daysies Awards, and we sincerely appreciate the loyalty of all our customers who have been so supportive of us and who have continued renting local over the past 15 years. We hope to continue providing movies of all stripes and serving the community for a long time to come!

And now on to movie news...
An interesting development in the distribution of classic and obscure films on DVD include the rise of the MOD (manufactured-on-demand) model that has been adopted by many major studios. This means that they are making titles available on a "made-to-order" basis -- basically, putting them out as limited DVD-R editions. As of now, Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster, and other major rental outlets are not carrying these titles. However, Waterfront Video is! So stop by and pick up some long unavailable gems & curios, including:

Park Row
Sam Fuller's newspaper classic may be didactic at times, but it's fiery and obviously from the heart. As usual with Fuller, there is plenty of grit, piss & vinegar -- as well as an expected dose of soapboxing. The few moments of crowd mayhem are staged excellently and it's no surprise why Scorsese cites the picture as influential. Gene Evans is great in the gruff lead -- he and Fuller were made for each other.

Mickey One
One of Arthur Penn's early features, this feisty, eccentric flick tells the grim tale of a comic (Warren Beatty) caught up in danger he doesn't understand. The narrative is fractured and at times messy (deliberately and otherwise), but the energy of the filmmaking is impressive start to finish. Penn borrows generously from the European cinematic sensibilities of the sixties (Godard, Fellini, Bergman, Bunuel, etc) but filters it all through a distinctly American, noir-tinged lens. The surrealistic moments and oddball bit characters add to the underlying sense of paranoia and disorientation.

Crackers
Louis Malle's 1984 heist comedy, featuring Sean Penn, Donald Sutherland, Wallace Shawn, and Jack Warden.

2 Weeks in Another Town
Vincente Minnelli's somewhat follow-up to his classic insider Hollywood tale, The Bad & The Beautiful. This one also stars Kirk Douglas.

The Search & The Defector
Two Montgomery Clift films - his first and last! The Search, from 1948, stars an Oscar-nominated Clift as a soldier in occupied Germany (filmed on location) who befriends a young boy separated from his mother. The Defector, from 1966, is a cold war thriller that, although low on actual thrills, does contain one great hallucinatory sequence that presaged the psychedelic movement around the corner.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt & While the City Sleeps
Two Fritz Lang thrillers from 1956 -- the first a courtroom drama with a great twist, the second a serial killer tale that seems to have set the template for many a suspense film to follow.

The Secret War of Harry Frigg & Sometimes a Great Notion
Two Paul Newman films -- the first a WWII set comedy, the second a drama about a family logging business struggling in a changing economy, directed by Newman.


Other recent releases of note:

Life During Wartime

Source Code

Peep World

Heartbeats

Potiche

Rango

My Dog Tulip

Winter in Wartime

Of Gods and Men

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune

Hey, Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird

Stephen Fry in America & Last Chance to See



And, as always, for more movie news & notes -- as well occasional exclusive deals -- please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

ch-ch-ch-changes, & coming distractions

After 13 years of films and good times, Waterfront Video Middlebury will rent its last movie on April 30th. Though the end of things are always sad, the good news is there will be a giant liquidation sale at the Middlebury location at 259 Maple St. in Marbleworks. Go to our website for a map. The sale will run from the beginning to the middle of May, but store hours will be limited so check the website often for an updated schedule. We hope to see you there!

We will continue to rent our vast selection from the Burlington location. Plus, we have some exciting deals in the works for the summer time. The suspense!

Movies to be released May 3rd, 2011:

Green Hornet - Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz, & Christoph Waltz in Michel Gondry's (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Science of Sleep) take on the superhero genre. We also have a new superhero section! See store for more details. Also: a new fantasy section.


The Dilemma


A Somewhat Gentle Man


A small sampling of titles out since we last spoke (I've been gone so long! I'm sorry, long-distance relationships have always been hard for me - but I promise I've been thinking about you every day):

The King's Speech

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows pt. 1

Somewhere

Rabbit Hole

Gulliver's Travels

Coming Distractions & MORE

Congratulations to Gary Lambert for winning our Oscar Contest with 17 out of 24 correct predictions!


And thanks to everyone who entered! I was far more entertained grading all your ballots than I would have been just watching the awards...



New to our shelves:

The Fighter - Congratulations to Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for sweeping up supporting actor awards.

Hereafter - Matt Damon in a Clint Eastwood picture about death.


Waste Land - Oscar nominated documentary about turning garbage into art.

The Switch - Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Jeff Goldblum, & Patrick Wilson. You know what else has Jeff Goldblum (and Michelle Pfeiffer with great hair, & David Bowie acting like Ricky Gervais, & more directors acting than you can shake a stick at)?

...


But back to the new movies:

The Next Three Days: Paul Haggis (Crash) remake of Pour Elle (we don't have it, je suis désolé). Haggis is one of the few ex-Scientologists to speak out about the collective, you can check it out in a recent New Yorker... if you dare...


Fish Tank - Watch it! Trust this semi-anonymous voice from across the internet!

Get Low - Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, & Bill Murray in the acclaimed film about a pre-mortem funeral.

Four Lions - An English comedy about a group of inept terrorists.

Plus many more, stop in the store to check out the rest!

Just a few days left to enter our Oscar contest!
Stop by the store, fill out a ballot, and whoever predicts/guesses the highest number of correct winners, gets 20 free rentals!!
(Oscar broadcast is this Sunday evening on ABC.)

This week Due Date, the latest from director Todd Phillips (Old School, The Hangover), gets its DVD release. The mismatched buddy road trip comedy stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. But it's Galifianakis who steals our blog's spotlight for this post...

Galifianakis has recently become an unlikely Hollywood star, being featured in high grossing comedies as well as indie films. In addition to Due Date, the last year has seen the DVD releases of It's Kind of a Funny Story, Dinner For Schmucks, Operation: Endgame, Frenemy, Youth in Revolt, Visioneers, Up in the Air, and the HBO series Bored to Death. (He's also managed to appear regularly on The Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! as well as guest star on American Dad and Funny or Die Presents... during that time.) Busy guy!

Here, for your amusement and bewilderment, are a few random clips of other Galifianakis appearances, beginning with an episode of his own "talkshow," Between Two Ferns:

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Michael Cera from Between Two Ferns

This is an honest-to-goodness real ad (albeit for Swedish television) that Zach made with his frequent cohorts, Tim & Eric:




Here's a video he made with Will Oldham for Kayne West's Can't Tell Me Nothing:




And finally, here's one of my favorite clips from one of his stand-up acts:




Also new to our shelves this week:
(click on the titles for more information)

Fish Tank

Director Andrea Arnold follows up her unconventional, unsettling thriller – the excellent Red Road – with an equally blistering and captivating character portrait. Newcomer Katie Jarvis impresses as the brash and impulsive 15 year old Mia, struggling to find balance and make sense of her inchoate rage, fly-girl aspirations, and burgeoning sexuality. Mired in the trappings of her low class environs, she attempts to navigate (not always successfully) the tensions and conflicts of life in general and teenager-dom in particular. Many scenes/sequences are difficult to watch, unnervingly fraught with potential disaster, but there is an assured restraint to the direction (as well as writing and performances) that consistently keep the proceedings from descending into unremitting bleakness or generic formula. The result is powerful and highly recommended.

Get Low

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Nurse Jackie - 2nd Season

Weeds - 6th Season

Doc Martin - 2nd Season

The Bird Can't Fly

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Sword of War

Summer Wars

Leaving

Room in Rome

Change of Plans

Purple Sea

Carmo: Hit the Road

Red Mercury

The Good Earth

Red Dwarf - Season 2


New Docs:

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
Check out our THEME shelf for other documentaries, films, and cinematic experiments starring or inspired by the complicated and influential Beat/Punk icon.

Mugabe and the White African

Last Train Home

Two in the Wave

Kings of Pastry and
Pressure Cooker
Be sure to check out our FOOD shelf for other culinary-inspired films and documentaries. Mmmmmm.....

Until the Light Takes Us


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Is Our Children Learning?

This week sees the release of Davis Guggenheim's recent documentary, Waiting for "Superman" - an exploration into some of the issues surrounding America's failing educational system and a look at some possible solutions. We thought we'd offer a few other films dealing with the trials and tribulations of teachers and schools...

The First Year
A 2001 documentary, also by Guggenheim, that follows 5 teachers through-out their first years.

The Lottery
Another 2010 documentary about our educational crisis, this one focusing on the high stakes lottery system that allows a small number of children to enter Charter Schools.

The Wire - 4th Season
One of television's most acclaimed series turned its attention on Baltimore schools in their excellent fourth season.

The Ron Clark Story
Matthew Perry stars in this factually-based story of a smalltown teacher who relocates to the big city and faces the challenges of urban education. See also: Blackboard Jungle, Stand and Deliver, Lean On Me, Dangerous Minds, Teachers, & Half Nelson.

The Class, Skirt Day, & Games of Love and Chance
Three French films showing that these issues aren't endemic to America...

What are some of your favorite films about teachers and teaching?


In honor of Arcade Fire's recent Grammy win, here's a Spike Jonze directed video for a track off their latest:





New to our shelves:
(click on the title for more information)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Life As We Know It

You Again

Tamara Drewe

The Romantics

For Colored Girls

Middle Men

Paranormal Activity 2

I Spit On Your Grave (2010)

My Soul to Take

Unstoppable

Glorious 39

Wild Target

Hideaway

Still Walking

Unmade Beds

A French Gigolo

Welcome

High Lane

Ong Bak 3

Kites (The Remix)

The Storm Warriors

A Time for Drunken Horses

Against the Current

See You in September

Animal Collective: Oddsac

Project Runway - 8th Season

Top Chef: New York - 5th Season

MI-5 - 6th Season

Other recent arrivals:

Santa Sangre

WUSA

Riot

Chicago Cab

Defense of the Realm

In Old Chicago

The Black Swan (1942)

For more news, updates, and exclusive deals,
find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Oscar Contest!
Now that the Oscar nominations have been announced, we've begun our annual Oscar contest. Stop by the store to fill out a ballot, and the customer with the most correct predictions (guesses?) will win 20 free rentals!


In local performance news, The Vermont Stage Company's production of Oliver Twist is currently up and running - it continues through this week and next. Heavily stylized and drawing upon a great many Victorian-era theatrical traditions and conventions, the show also features a cast of mostly local actors and excellent music by Burlington's David Symons. (You can read the Free Press review here.)

In honor of the show, we've put up a shelf of Twist adaptations in the store -- turns out we've got a few! In addition to David Lean's classic take from 1948 featuring Alec Guinness as Fagin, the Oscar-winning musical version Oliver! from 1968, and Roman Polanski's recent 2005 version, we also have adaptations from 1922, 1933, 1985, 1997, and 2007, as well as several films that offer looser takes on the story such as Disney's Oliver & Company, the queer-oriented Twisted, and the contemporized urban take, A Boy Called Twist.





New to our shelves:

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
The third and final film in the series based on Stieg Larsson's wildly popular books. Now you can see all the original Swedish adaptations before the upcoming, David Fincher directed American versions are released.

Let Me In
Speaking of American versions, this Hollywood remake of the Swedish vampire thriller Let the Right One In has garnered almost as much acclaim as the original.

Red
Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich lead the charge in this cheeky action film. Also featuring Brian Cox, Mary Louise-Parker, and Richard Dreyfuss.

Dogtooth
Topping John Waters' best of list for 2010, this "perfectly perverse" Greek film about an overly sheltered family was also just nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Secretariat
Diane Lane and John Malkovich star in this horse biopic (equinopic?) about the famed racer.

Nowhere Boy
A portrait of a young John Lennon in the formative pre-Beatles years.

Enter the Void
Gaspar Noe (I Stand Alone; Irreversible) latest offering is a drug-frenzied night out.

Never Let Me Go
Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) adaptation of the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day; The Saddest Music in the World) stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, and Charlotte Rampling.

Welcome to the Rileys
James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo play a couple who develop a surrogate paternal relationship with a young stripper, played by Kristen Stewart.

A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop
Zhang Yimou (Hero; Not One Less; To Live) remakes the Coen Brothers' debut film Blood Simple.

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
Alex Gibney (Enron: Smartest Men in the Room; Taxi to the Dark Side; Gonzo; Casino Jack & the United States of Money; Freakonomics) continues his hot doc streak with this look into the scandal and political shenanigans surrounding the former New York governor.

The Tillman Story
A compelling story of a family's quest to reveal the truth behind their son's death in Afghanistan and the subsequent military and government cover-up.

The Lottery
A documentary about charter schools and a good companion piece to Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for "Superman."

Conviction
Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell star in the fact-based story of a sibling's struggle to overturn a false conviction.

Skin
Set during the Apartheid era, this film follows the story of a young black woman (Sophie Okonedo from Hotel Rwanda) born of two white parents.

Night Catches Us
Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington star in this 70's-set story of a couple struggling to find their place and identity in a racially and politically fractured society.

An Englishman in New York
John Hurt reprises the role of gay icon and activitst Quentin Crisp (having portrayed him 35 years earlier in the adaptation of Crisp's autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant).

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Saw: The Final Chapter
We'll see.

Chain Letter

Monsters

Mean Girls 2

Adventures of Power

Gary Wilson: You Think You Really Know Me

Open Season 3

Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2

Shaun the Sheep: Spring Shen-a-anigans

Glee - 2.1st Season



For more news, updates, and exclusive deals,
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First, dear readers, a giant mea culpa for the delinquency with these blog entries...
and a resolution to return to our regular frequency.

So while tardy, this does happen to be the first posting of the new year. And what better time to talk about annual "best of..." lists. Personally, I've always found it difficult to participate in the compiling and sharing of those types of lists because it always seems to take well into the following year (at least!) to actually get around to seeing all the buzzed-about films -- not to mention the hidden gems and off-the-radar wonders. This is due in part to pure logistics: many films (especially year-end award favorites) often take a while to reach our local theaters; and many films never do arrive, leaving us waiting for the eventual DVD releases. And of course, it's also due in part to time... and the lack of it. Who among us has actually got the time to watch all of the movies we wish we could?

That being said, we'd still like to hear what everyone's favorite films of last year were. Everyone reading this is cordially invited and strongly encouraged to share their lists in the comments section of this blog post. However, we here at Waterfront aren't really sticklers for restrictions, so the parameters of your list are entirely up to you... Perhaps it's a list of the best films of 2010 you've seen so far; or maybe it's the best new DVD releases of 2010; or maybe it's simply the best films you happened to see last year (or even the best films of a certain genre or ilk)... the options are open!

To get the ball rolling, I'll humbly offer my list. (A list of new "Seth Suggests" movies.) These are 21 of the most rewarding films I saw during the course of 2010, very loosely ranked:

The Devil's Playground: American Surrealism (Unseen Cinema, Vol. 4, 1894-1941)
Next Floor (Denis Velleneuve, 2008)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Bansky, 2010)
Citizen Dog (Wisit Sasanatieng, 2004)
Last Holiday (Henry Cass, 1950)
Roma (Federico Fellini, 1972)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009)
Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)
Mary and Max (Adam Elliot, 2009)
The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii, 2004)
Dementia (John J. Parker, 1953)
I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2009)
Theater of War (John Walter, 2008)
Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque (Jacques Richard, 2004)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
When the Wind Blows (Jimmy T. Murakami, 1986)
Boy A (John Crowley, 2007)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
Look Both Ways (Sarah Watt, 2005)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Los Olvidados (Luis Bunuel, 1950)

Well, that's me. How about you?




New to our shelves this month:

The Social Network
The film that has landed on nearly every single major critic's year end list and is currently sweeping through the awards season comes to DVD in a special 2-disc release with nearly 8 hours of extras. Aaron Sorkin's "facebook movie," directed by David Fincher, scored (excellently) by Trent Reznor, and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake, may not be quite the revolutionary masterpiece it is being hyperbolically hailed as, but it's an engaging, highly enjoyable film that is well worth seeing.

Howl
James Franco plays Allen Ginsburg in this dramatization of the censorship struggle the poet faced concerning the titular work. Jon Hamm, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Bob Balaban, Treat Williams, and Alessandro Nivola also star; Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (the duo behind The Times of Harvey Milk and The Celluloid Closet) direct.

Jack Goes Boating
Philip Seymour Hoffmann's directorial debut, starring himself and Amy Ryan, centers around two working class New York couples.

Stone
Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton square off in this prison-set drama.

Dinner For Schmucks
Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd star in this remake of the 1998 French comedy, Le Diner de Cons (euphemistically translated as The Dinner Game). The remake also features Jermaine Clement, Zach Galifianakis, and Kristen Schaal.

Paper Man
A down on his luck writer and a teenager form an unlikely friendship in this indie comedy starring Jeff Daniels, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Kieran Culkin, and Lisa Kudrow.

Animal Kingdom
A tense Australian offering about dangerous familial bonds and the grip of violence.

Machete
Robert Rodriguez turns his Grindhouse trailer into a feature-length revenge flick, starring Danny Trejo, Robert DeNiro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Don Johnson, Cheech Marin, and even Lindsay Lohan.

Catfish
Intriguing documentary that caused a splash at Sundance last year, raising questions about truth, ethics, new media, and gullibility.

Piranha
Alexandre Aja (High Tension; The Hills Have Eyes) directs this remake of the 1978 Roger Corman/Joe Dante flick about mutated killer fish. A highly enjoyable B-movie that truly delivers in the gore department.

Case 39
Renee Zellweger plays a social worker who realizes she's in a more dangerous situation than she expected in this horror thriller that also features Ian McShane and Bradley Cooper.

The Last Exorcism

And Soon the Darkness

The Army of Crime

Lebanon

Eichmann

The Lena Baker Story

$5 a Day

Louis C.K.: Hilarious

Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart

The Ricky Gervais Show - 1st Season

Glee - 2.1st Season

The Closer - 4th Season

Big Love - 4th Season