Adult Reading Material
There were no blockbuster releases – not at the scale of the previous week’s The Woman In Black – for journalists to get their teeth stuck into over the past week, as our regular round-up of DVD and Blu-ray coverage shows.
But a few sizeable releases, notably Young Adult, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and A Dangerous Method all scored well in terms of coverage according to our monitoring of national newspapers and magazines shows.
We’ll start, as ever, with the Metro and its Thursday Home Cinema section, traditionally offering two pages’ worth of feature and review coverage. This week it kicked off with the previous week’s most reviewed title, The Woman In Black (Momentum), which picked up where it left off a week ago, with more praise (“prepare to be afraid, very afraid… Watch at your peril”). Another of last week’s biggies, Carnage (Studiocanal), was also reviewed (“dark and viciously witty,” it said), alongside Grace Is Gone (High Fliers), Wanderlust (Universal), A Better Tomorrow 2012 (Kaleidoscope); best marked title of the week was the five-star Ozu: Three Melodramas (BFI). Another BFI title, Revolution, was featured in the regular Lost Treasure slot, while that same film’s director Hugh Hudson had his selections featured in the Five Films spot (he chose his favourite war films, plumping for Paths Of Glory, The Battle Of Algiers, Ivan’s Childhood, Germany Year Zero and The Raid. The Woman In Black director James Watkins answered Five Questions, the other regular video-friendly slot.
Friday now, and the Evening Standard covered Paramount’s Young Adult, praising Charlize Theron’s “brilliant piss-and-vinegar performance”, as well as Ti West’s “moody horror film… Clerks meets The Shining” The Innkeepers (Metrodome) and Lionsgate’s A Dangerous Method (“like Merchant Ivory with a PhD”). Under a separate Box Sets heading there was a review for Sebastian Bergman Series 1 (eOne).
The Daily Star had a competition offering a Blu-ray player and copies of Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance alongside a review for the eOne release, with further reviews for Young Adult (“a great role for Charlize Theron”), and 10 out of 10 ratings for Pinocchio (Disney) and “classic riveting dark thriller” Double Indemnity (Eureka’s Masters Of Cinema).
The Sun tends to review releases that are already out and been covered the previous week by publications that review titles on the way out and this week was no different, with The Woman In Black (“the plot is routine Hammer Horror-style chills but this traditional ghost story has plenty of spirit”), Universal’s Safe House (“this house is a little too safe”) and Carnage (“living room Armageddon has never been so much fun”).
The DVD Of The Week slot in the Daily Mirror’s The Ticket entertainment supplement was given to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Fox), with plenty of gags about its, ahem, elderly cast (“a super – not to mention superannuated – cast… A goldie – and not just for the oldies” etc), with Young Adult the next best performer (“squirmingly funny”). Also on the same page were The Vow (SPHE) Wanderlust (Universal) and A Dangerous Method (Lionsgate), with, faring worst, Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance (eOne). Elsewhere there was a half page competition for CSI Miami Season 9 on DVD.
The Daily Mail praised Coriolanus, while the Daily Express reviewed the “delightful screen version of These Foolish Things”, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, complete with its “amazing cast”, a less favourably received The Vow, and a five-star review for the “archetypal hardboiled film noir thriller” Double Indemnity.
The Guardian’s G2 Film & Music section featured, as usual, little in the way of DVD-friendly coverage, apart from its regular Your Next Box Set feature at the back of the supplement, which this time around plumped for the latest incarnation of Wallander from Arrow.
Saturday now and the two television magazines that always mention DVD releases (and the ones we always start off with) are the Daily Mail’s Weekend supplement (this week it had Silk from BBC Worldwide as its box set choice) and the Mirror’s We Love TV (ITV Studios Home Entertainment’s latest Lewis release was featured on its competition page).
On to the entertainment and arts supplements of the broadsheet and quality press and The Times Review gave a full five star review to Double Indemnity, with the “deliciously dark film noir” praised as “probably the best movie made about an insurance claim”. Faring almost as well were the “lavish reissue” of King Of New York and A Dangerous Method, which features, it noted, “one of the prettiest casts assembled in recent memory”, as well as “some excellent hysteria from Keira Knightley”. Also reviewed was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Nothing in the Daily Telegraph’s Saturday Review, but three titles appeared in The Independent’s Radar magazine: the “delightful HBO comedy” Bored To Death Season 2, Young Adult (“very nearly a sensational American satire”) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Over in The Guardian’s Guide magazine, The Innkeepers (Metrodome) led the way – in a conversation via our Twitter magazine, its reviewer Phelim O’Neill told us that he tried to take the less travelled path for his main reviews, picking titles other reviewers may have missed and this week was no exception, as he picked Mdetrodome’s excellent The Innkeepers (“Where most horror films fail by showing us stupid people doing stupid things until their much deserved deaths, The Innkeepers gives us nice, intelligent people to follow, earning the more terrifying moments,” he said, it’s so much scarier that way”). Mentioned in brief were A Dangerous Method, Double Indemnity (“one of the earliest and best film noirs”), Studiocanal’s Blu-ray release of Howl’s Moving Castle and Arrow’s King Of New York. Its Catch Up TV Guide made mention of the arrival of Pulling on Netflix.
Sunday and moving through the tabloid newspapers on to the tabloids, the Sunday Mirror featured The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (“a genuinely charming comedy drama”) and Young Adult (“Theron is magnificent in this hilarious and at times deeply sad story”), while Kermit was interviewed in its Celebs On Sunday magazine to support Disney’s The Muppets.
The People covered CSI Miami Season 9 (Momentum) on its TV page and The Vow on its We’re Loving entertainment page.
The Daily Star Sunday reviewed Young Adult (“mixes caustic comedy with exquisitely-staged moments of toe-curling tension”), Wanderlust (“the laughs keep coming”), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance.
Ricky Gervais dominated the Mail On Sunday’s Live magazine, with a cover story and four page feature, all of which was plugging the release of the second season of The Ricky Gervais Show (HBO). Elsewhere its This Week’s Entertainment Releases column flagged The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance, King Of New York and A Dangerous Method.
The weekend edition of the Financial Times featured The Woman In Black, Housemaid, A Dangerous Method and King Of New York.
The Independent On Sunday featured The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (we loved the concluding line, which stated: “Some of our most distinguished actors deliver some sparkling one-liners, but it ends up as a gentle Sunday-evening sitcom: Benidorm for the Saga set”) and A Dangerous Method.
Over in the Sunday Telegraph, there were reviews for Studiocanal’s Madonna-helmed W.E. (somewhat belated, admittedly, but one of its few positive reviews nonetheless: “The real surprise is how well Madonna responds to [the] story as writer-director”), The Turin Horse (Artificial Eye) and Island Of Lost Souls (Eureka’s Masters Of Cinema).
The Observer’s Mark Kermode reviewed A Dangerous Method, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Young Adult and eOne’s Hunky Dory. Its magazine featured a double page interview with Kyle MachLachlan in its regular This Much I Know slot, tying in with the release of Universal’s David Lynch box set.
We’ll end with our two favourite magazines in terms of reviews. The Radio Times featured The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Hunky Dory, A Dangerous Method and, as its TV box set choice, Silk.
Time Out, meanwhile, had Conspirators Of Pleasure (New Wave) as its DVD Of The Week, alongside Double Indemnity, Howl’s Moving Castle and King Of New York as its choices. Oh, and as a bonus, we picked up men’s London freebie Shortlist, which reviewed A Dangerous Method and Young Adult, as well as including competitions for Safe House (Universal), The Woman In Black and A Dangerous Method.
Tags: PR, review