[DVD] TUesdays w.th Mell 7/1/2014 The Lunchbox, Son of God, RoboCop

2013 PG Foreign Drama

Cast

Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui,Denzil Smith, Bharati Achrekar, Nakul Vaid, Yashvi Puneet Nagar, Lillete Dubey

Director

Ritesh Batra

Plot: 

When Mumbai's eerily reliable lunchbox delivery service erroneously sends a meal prepared by a young housewife to a lonely widower on the brink of retirement, the mistake ignites an exchange of notes and mutual fantasy between them.Review: This looks like a very sweet spin on a romance with amazing looking food. I love Indian food. Rating: TBD. Watch with: You've Got Mail & Shop Around the Corner

2014 Faith-based film

Cast

Diogo Morgado, Greg Hicks, Adrian Schiller,Darwin Shaw, Sebastian Knapp, Louise Delamere,Roma Downey, Amber Rose Revah

Director

Christopher Spencer

Plot: A follow-up to the landmark 2013 miniseries The Bible, this feature follows the life of Jesus Christ from his humble birth to his resurrection. Filmed in authentic historical locales, this epic presentation brings new life to the miraculous story. Review: I've heard some not-so-good things about this film, like how it edits too much out, and Christians will be irritated at some things, but I will wait for judgement til I see it. Rating: TBD. Watch with: "Son of God" mini-series 

2014 Scifi

Cast

Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton,Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael K. Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Aimee Garcia, Miguel Ferrer

Director

José Padilha

Plot: When Detroit cop and family man Alex Murphy is critically injured in the line of duty, a robotics firm transforms him into an experimental crime-fighting cyborg, though he remains haunted by his human past in this reboot of the 1980s sci-fi classic. Trailer

Review: I went into this film expecting your basic shoot-em-up action flick, but was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it has action and great FX as to be expected. What I didn't expect was that it turned out to be a smart scifi film that gets the audience to think about things like how far are we willing to go in the name of technology? What are we willing to give up in the name of national security? How much control do we want our government to have over us? Samuel L. Jackson is particularly good here. There are also some very thinly veiled pokes at our current administration and some of the issues lately regarding government over-stepping their bounds in the name of national security: ie drones, reading emails, spying on foreign nationals, NSA, etc. Fun and smart. 

Rating: Noteworthy

Watch with: Equilibrium