Punch Drunk DVDs: 2/16/10

Law Abiding Citizen
F. Gary Gray's surprisingly well made thriller features Gerard Butler as a revenge seeking father, exacting brutal justice after his wife and daughter are murdered during a home invasion. Jamie Foxx plays the slick, career minded attorney who becomes the target of Butler's rage. A fun, cat 'n mouse game between two actors that are clearly having a good time. Just don't take it too seriously.








Coco Before Chanel
Audrey Tautou(Amelie, The Da Vinci Code) stars in this biopic of the famous fashion mogul, Gabrielle Chanel. The film chronicles her humble beginnings starting as a seamstress, who worked her way up through the fashion ladder to become a global icon.









Black Dynamite
Right to the top of my netflix queue goes this riff on the blaxploitation genre of films from the 1970's. Michael Jai White stars as the ass kickin' ex-CIA operative who seeks to get revenge on the drug dealers who killed his brother. Don't expect a spoof on the level of I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Black Dynamite plays it straight, even with cameos by Arsenio Hall, John Salley, and Tommy Davidson.








Good Hair
My contention is that every African-American male on the planet needs to watch Chris Rock's hilarious, insightful documentary. Why? So we can truly see where we stand in relation to a black woman and her hair. We are a distant 2nd, my friends. Actually, we're at least 3rd. Her hair, then her hair dresser...and then maybe us.









Revanche
Gotz Spiellman's tragic drama tells the tale of forbidden love, vengeance, and the dark corners of the human soul. It's the story of a love between an ex-con, now working as a guard in a whorehouse, who falls head over heels for one of it's prostitutes. If their relationship is ever discovered, it would mean death at the hands of their boss, and so the two stoop to desperate measures in order to be free to live their own lives.








Hunger
Before Michael Fassbender exploded onto American big screens in Inglorious Basterds, he had already made international waves and earned awards for his performance here. Hunger features him as Bobby Sands, IRA leader and prisoner at Belfast's Maze Prison in 1981. He and his brothers begin a brutal, agonizing hunger strike to protest their lack of political prisoner status according to the British government. A stirring, star making performance that simply cannot be missed.







Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever
It's never a good sign when the director petitions to have his name removed from the credits, but that's what Ti West tried to do. I'm a big fan of the original Cabin Fever, for whatever reason, and am intrigued that they are continuing with the story with the same lead character(Rider Strong is back!?), but I have the worst feeling this one is going to be a mess.