With the exception of our illustrious headliner, you can mark this down as the third week in a row we’ve had with just a few notable releases on home video. Maybe Quentin Tarantino’s latest is big enough to render all others negligible, but for what it’s worth, we also have a relationship dramedy starring Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie, as well as an animated film from France and a small nature documentary and our customary Criterion Collection releases. See below for the full list.
Lots of folks were hopeful that Quentin Tarantino would “hurry up and make a Western, already,” and those folks got their wish last year with Django Unchained. Lining up a typically outstanding ensemble cast for the film, Tarantino placed Jamie Foxx in the title role as a slave who’s taken under the wing of a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz)in the pre-Civil War American South. If Django assists Schultz in tracking down a fugitive gang known as the Brittle brothers, he will help Django locate and rescue his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Django Unchained opened on Christmas Day last year (because that makes sense) and earned positive reviews from critics who hailed it as an appropriately incendiary follow-up to Tarantino’s last piece of “historical” fiction, Inglourious Basterds. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, taking home two for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Waltz’s second, after his Oscar-winning performance in Basterds). Certified Fresh at 89%, Django Unchained is a bloody and thematically bold adventure that should prove rousing to both Tarantino fans and those simply looking for an irreverent, explosive western.
Lizzy Caplan has maintained a loyal fanbase, though she continues to fly largely under the Hollywood radar, and anyone who watches Community can attest to Alison Brie’s rising popularity. Unfortunately, putting the two of them together seems to have done little to raise the profile of this indie dramedy about sisters Beth (Brie) and Sarah (Caplan) who are on divergent relationship paths. While Beth is preparing for her wedding to musician Andrew (Martin Starr), Sarah rejects a proposal from Andrew’s bandmate Kevin (Geoffrey Arend) and begins to wonder about her romantic lot in life. Soon, she meets Jonathan (Mark Webber) and struggles to decide how to proceed. Save the Date earned a 44% on the Tomatometer from critics, who mostly enjoyed the acting work by the two likeable female leads but found the script lacked truly incisive wit. In other words, there isn’t much to make this one stand out from the rest, but you’ll know what you’re getting, and if that’s what you want, you’ll probably be satisfied.
