Pick Of The Week: New
The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Bros.)
Now that it’s over, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy seems likely to be remembered as the definitive populist statement of our time. Some may be irritated by the prospect—whether they’re wary of Hollywood’s market blitz of superhero movies and/or they wish Nolan’s movies would lighten up a little—but it still seems miraculous that Nolan could make three films that reflect the fear and anxiety of post-9/11 America while still satisfying audiences as mega-budgeted action spectacles. The Dark Knight Rises has the difficult task of paying off the previous two entries while working as a standalone finale, but Nolan introduces a great villain in Bane (Tom Hardy) and turns the film into a telling Rorschach test for people of every ideological persuasion. Special features include an hour-long documentary on the Batmobile and a “Second Screen app” for smartphone or tablet users who want some background on scenes as they unfold.
Pick Of The Week: Retro
Purple Noon (Criterion)
René Clément’s Purple Noon was destined for inexplicable obscurity before Martin Scorsese backed a restoration and rerelease in 1996 that brought it renewed attention. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, the film stars Alain Delon on the great shapeshifter of the title, a man whose adeptness at shedding identities is equal to the mystery underpinning his desire to seek new ones. Sent to Italy to talk his wealthy friend (Maurice Ronet) into leaving his decadent life and returning to America to take over the family business, Delon instead attaches himself to Ronet and Ronet’s girlfriend (Marie Laforet) and eventually covets his identity for himself. The Criterion edition has an interview with a Clément scholar, and archival interviews with Delon and Highsmith.
Don’t Break The Seal
Butter (Anchor Bay)
From the let’s-make-fun-of-the-yokels school of indie political comedy, Jim Field Smith’s Sundance stinker stars Jennifer Garner as an adult variation on Tracy Flick in Election—a font of relentless positivity and diabolical ambition. Except this film isn’t about the fight for elected office, even of the low-level high-school variety, but a look at the cutthroat world of competitive butter-carving. Says The A.V. Club’s Sam Adams: “Butter is a venue for writer Jason Micallef and director Jim Field Smith to lob spitballs at people about whom they seem to know nothing, and care less. The only consolation is that, like a butter sculpture, their flavorless creation will melt in the heat, leaving behind only a greasy, rancid puddle.”
What else?