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Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyDVDs: Should Charlie Sheen Have
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September 15, 2011
EDITION: U.S.
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Posted: 07/ 4/11 03:52 PM ET
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PLATOON BLURAY ($29.99; MGM) -- With Platoon out on BluRay and looking better than ever, it's a
good time to revisit Charlie Sheen's fine work with Oliver Stone. They did Platoon and Wall Street
together and Sheen told Playboy back in 2001 that Stone promised him the juicy role of Ron Kovic in
Born On The Fourth Of July (still my favorite film by Stone and an excellent performance by Tom
Cruise). Now The Hollywood Reporter flashes an eye-catching headline: "How Tom Cruise Beat CharlieSheen For Born On The Fourth Of July" Role" this weekend. Wow! What did Cruise do? Unfortunately,
we have no idea because this brief item doesn't even begin to describe how Tom Cruise beat Charlie
Sheen out for the role. All it does is quote that ten year old article from Playboy in which Sheen says hewas promised the role by Stone and then Stone didn't even call him back to say the role wasn't Sheen'sanymore. Then The Hollywood Reporter rather randomly quotes author and host of Studio 360 KurtAndersen who says Sheen's career would have "peaked higher" and the movie would have "workedbetter" if Sheen had indeed played the role. That's literally it. Sheen told Playboy that both De NIro and
Pacino wanted the role, according to Stone, but he was gonna give it to Sheen. Never mind that De NIro
and Pacino are about 20 years older than Sheen and Cruise and clearly too old for the part as played in
the film. So his story seems a little fishy, though it's reasonable to assume he was considered. I think
Sheen was already put through the horrors of war in Platoon and so having him do the same in Born
would have had less impact. So Stone was right to cast Cruise; he was still glowing with the All American
promise of Top Gun so seeing him paralyzed and bitter worked far better. Platoon seems a little more
schematic than it did at the time in its tale of good versus evil. But it has an impressive attention to detailand still captures the intensity and confusion of battle as well as any film.
But what do you think? Would Born On The Fourth Of July been better if it had starred Charlie Sheen?
And would his career have gone down a different path if he had?
FORGET THE FILM, WATCH THE TITLES ($27.99; Submarine) -- A good idea is poorly executed
in this DVD that focuses on the title sequences that start off many movies. The first DVD features more
than 30 titles sequences from movies, tv shows, games and more. The second DVD features nine shortdocumentaries focusing on the people behind certain title sequences and how they created them. You canprobably remember some title sequences after a moment's thought. The James Bond films have the mostfamous title sequences of all. In recent years, Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can was an instant
classic of its kind. Like trailers and film scores, the title sequence is a worthy subject for exploration.
Unfortunately, this set doesn't contain the best title sequences in recent years, but apparently any that
they could get the rights to display. How else to explain this grab-bag of mostly unimpressive titlesequences? Instead of James Bond, you get the Bond spoof OSS 117: Cairo, Nest Of Spies (one of the best
featured here and also featured in the making-of section but no substitute for Bond, James Bond). Whyso many little-known European films? They're certainly not great examples of the form. I love the hitmovie Goodbye Lenin! but wasn't wowed by its title sequence either. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is
the only big Hollywood film featured here and it too is a rather dull example. HBO's The Life and Deathof Peter Sellers is a wittier high profile offering. The B movie Splice starring Adrien Brody? Also a dull,
uninteresting title sequence. Obviously, the rights to the best title sequences just weren't available. Butsurely then they should have held off on the DVD or focused on more classic examples from earlierdecades that presumably would have been there for the taking.
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RIZZOLI & ISLES COMPLETE FIRST SEASON ($39.98; Warner Bros.) -- Why do some shows just
click immediately with audiences? In the case of Rizzoli & Isles , it's not the police procedural genre or
the Boston setting or the writing that makes this special. So clearly it's the chemistry between the two
leads. You just buy Angie Harmon as a detective and Sasha Alexander as her medical examiner bestfriend and want to visit them every week as they solve crime after crime in Boston. Now with this a basiccable hit (new episodes begin July 11), isn't it about time they put out the entire Cagney & Lacey on
DVD?
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES ($39.99 BluRay combo pack or $29.99 regular; FOX)
-- Like the graphic novels they're based on, these movies are harmless fun about kids in school trying toget through their days. The secret to their success is that they don't focus on the prettiest, smartest, mostathletic or the most wizardly. Just normal kids. I'd rank this one slightly higher than the first because itfeatures more of our hero's cruel older brother Rodrick (played with glee by Devon Bostick), but they're
essentially interchangeable.
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PEOPLE ON SUNDAY ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- Here's a genuine curio from
Criterion. This 1930 silent movie from Germany is a melange of documentary and fiction, capturing
essentially the weekend dalliances of some working class people in Berlin during the Weimar era. Thetale itself is quite slight -- two female best friends go for a picnic with two male best friends. Both of thegirls fancy the handsome but penniless man yet only one of them will be triumphant while the otherpouts. The film's modest treats come in glimpsing daily life of the time, including people riding thetrolleys, walking the streets, bathing at the beach, playing sports and the like. Some claim a vaulted placefor the film as a precursor to Italian neo-realism. Others compare it to genuine classics like Man With A
Movie Camera. But clearly the film was a notable critical and commercial success at the time, despite
being made for pennies. How do I know? Because everyone involved claimed credit for its achievements.And here's why the film is worth mentioning today: it contains an almost unseemly amount of young
talent. Some movies can boast of great casting, of including a group of actors in front of the camera who
would go on to great heights. So surely People On Sunday is one of the great assemblages of young talent
behind the camera, including Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Fred Zinnemann, cinematographer
Eugen Schufftan (already as established name) and Billy Wilder. The extras include a 2000 documentary
about the making of the film, Schufftan's similar 35 minute short Ins Blaue Hinein , two scores and a
thoughtful essay.
ERASING DAVID ($24.98; FilmBuff) -- I need to give my friend S. this movie. I'm not using my
friend's full name or even his first name because he is concerned about privacy. He hates the idea ofkeeping his info in the "cloud" because then Google or Amazon or Apple or whomever could look at itwhenever they want, he said. (Not true, of course and you can encrypt your information before you put itonline in the cloud.) But I'm not saying my friend is wrong; I'm saying he's not paranoid enough. Thisdocumentary shows filmmaker David Bond trying to go off the grid for just one month while payingprivate detectives to track him down. Not surprisingly, it's a LOT harder to do than he imagined. If you
want to get truly worried about how little privacy we have left thanks to our online footprints and
cameras on the street recording our every movie and Google Maps having a picture of our home at theworld's disposal, then start here.
BARNEY'S VERSION ($38.96 BluRay/DVD combo; Sony Pictures Classics) -- Actor Paul Giamatti
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won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his portrayal of Barney in this film. Unfortunately, it captures all
too well the petty tone of Mordecai Richler's novel about artists sniping at each other for years at a timeover betrayals real and perceived. Banal swipes at bad TV are thrown in for good measure. A fine cast butcouldn't finish the book and couldn't finish the movie.
MARPLE COMPLETE SERIES 5 ($69.99 BluRay or $49.99 regular; Acorn) -- I haven't the foggiest
idea why PBS bothers to show their most popular shows like Miss Marple and good ole Foyle's War in
truncated form. They regularly chop off chunks of the show to fit it into certain timeslots and theninclude filler intros by Alan Cumming and pledge requests. Really? This forces me to NEVER watchBritish TV shows on PBS when trimmed down. I have to wait angrily for the DVDs and PBS loses out onmy viewership and everyone loses. What a crime. So I'm catching up with Julia McKenzie in her secondround of TV movies as Miss Marple. You get four mysteries, all about 88 minutes in length. Extrasinclude an earlier TV movie version of The Pale Horse and a documentary about Agatha Christie'sgarden. If that intrigues you, then you've probably already ordered this set online to arrive at your homeas soon as possible and could tell me at length why McKenzie is terrible/wonderful/miscast/perfect in
her role as Miss Marple. I'll stick to my modest expertise in the various Sherlock Holmes that I've seen
and keep my opinion of McKenzie to myself.
Also out from Acorn is George Gently Series 3 ($39.99; Acorn), a current TV series set in the 1960s
which has a grieving widower at its heart, giving the show an interesting mournful air quite different
from other cop shows. Trust the British to take their time: this season contains just two mysteries, eachabout 90 minutes long, one set on a campus and the other delving into the life of a family. Martin Shawstars as Gently.
I'M DIRTY! & I STINK! ($19.95; Scholastic/New Video) -- It seemed like the epitome of laziness --
DVDs to read picture books to your kids? But in fact, the read-along DVDs don't replace an adult readingto their child. It's an adjunct and a safe, entertaining DVD you can watch together or let them enjoy whenyou're busy doing something else. Of course, when you do sit down to read the story of a garbage truck toyour child, they may challenge you to do as good a job as Andy Richter does here. This two DVD set
Kanye West
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contains 12 stories read by Richter, Steve Buscemi, Forest Whitaker and others.
THE FAR PAVILIONS ($29.99; Acorn) -- It may seem strange now, but once upon a time the idea of
HBO creating original movies and miniseries was a bold, questionable idea. They led with quality,
spending a record $12 million (the most ever for a cable movie) and drawing a cast that included BenCross, Amy Irving, Christopher Lee, John Gielgud, Rupert Everett and Omar Sharif. The result may havebeen a bit stiff and not a patch on the bestselling novel by M.M. Kaye, but it was a notable first step asHBO's first miniseries and the sign of things to come.
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the co-host of Showbiz Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that
reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion
makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and alsoavailable for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and
reviews .
NOTE: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of DVDs to consider for review. He typically does notguarantee coverage and invariably receives far more screeners and DVDs than he can cover eachweek. Also, Michael Giltz freelances as a writer of DVD copy (the text that appears on the back ofDVDs) for some titles released by IFC and other subsidiaries of MPI. It helps pay the rent, but does notobligate him in any way to speak positively about their titles.
Follow Michael Giltz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelgiltz
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ComedyCentral Watch @CharlieSheen enter the #SheenRoast while @Slash
shreds away on the Crazy Train. All aboard Monday at 10/9c! http://t.co/wjyejPTT
4 hours ago from HootSuite
nycnewsnow Is the tiger blood gone? Charlie Sheen's all calmed down
http://t.co/kx1pZsxB #newyork #nyc
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FRONT PAGE POLITICS BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT TECH MEDIA LIFE & STYLE CULTURE COMEDY HEALTHY LIVING WOMEN LOCAL MORE
Michael Giltz
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Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyDVDs: Should Charlie Sheen Have
Made "Born On The Fourth Of July?"
September 15, 2011
EDITION: U.S.
Like 43
Posted: 07/ 4/11 03:52 PM ET
SHARE THIS STORY
Submit this story
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PHOTO GALLERIESCONNECT
FRONT PAGE POLITICS BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT TECH MEDIA LIFE & STYLE CULTURE COMEDY HEALTHY LIVING WOMEN LOCAL MORE
Like 40KTelevision Mad Men Jersey Shore Scarlett Johansson BlackBerry 101 More Log in
PLATOON BLURAY ($29.99; MGM) -- With Platoon out on BluRay and looking better than ever, it's a
good time to revisit Charlie Sheen's fine work with Oliver Stone. They did Platoon and Wall Street
together and Sheen told Playboy back in 2001 that Stone promised him the juicy role of Ron Kovic in
Born On The Fourth Of July (still my favorite film by Stone and an excellent performance by Tom
Cruise). Now The Hollywood Reporter flashes an eye-catching headline: "How Tom Cruise Beat CharlieSheen For Born On The Fourth Of July" Role" this weekend. Wow! What did Cruise do? Unfortunately,
we have no idea because this brief item doesn't even begin to describe how Tom Cruise beat Charlie
Sheen out for the role. All it does is quote that ten year old article from Playboy in which Sheen says hewas promised the role by Stone and then Stone didn't even call him back to say the role wasn't Sheen'sanymore. Then The Hollywood Reporter rather randomly quotes author and host of Studio 360 KurtAndersen who says Sheen's career would have "peaked higher" and the movie would have "workedbetter" if Sheen had indeed played the role. That's literally it. Sheen told Playboy that both De NIro and
Pacino wanted the role, according to Stone, but he was gonna give it to Sheen. Never mind that De NIro
and Pacino are about 20 years older than Sheen and Cruise and clearly too old for the part as played in
the film. So his story seems a little fishy, though it's reasonable to assume he was considered. I think
Sheen was already put through the horrors of war in Platoon and so having him do the same in Born
would have had less impact. So Stone was right to cast Cruise; he was still glowing with the All American
promise of Top Gun so seeing him paralyzed and bitter worked far better. Platoon seems a little more
schematic than it did at the time in its tale of good versus evil. But it has an impressive attention to detailand still captures the intensity and confusion of battle as well as any film.
But what do you think? Would Born On The Fourth Of July been better if it had starred Charlie Sheen?
And would his career have gone down a different path if he had?
FORGET THE FILM, WATCH THE TITLES ($27.99; Submarine) -- A good idea is poorly executed
in this DVD that focuses on the title sequences that start off many movies. The first DVD features more
than 30 titles sequences from movies, tv shows, games and more. The second DVD features nine shortdocumentaries focusing on the people behind certain title sequences and how they created them. You canprobably remember some title sequences after a moment's thought. The James Bond films have the mostfamous title sequences of all. In recent years, Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can was an instant
classic of its kind. Like trailers and film scores, the title sequence is a worthy subject for exploration.
Unfortunately, this set doesn't contain the best title sequences in recent years, but apparently any that
they could get the rights to display. How else to explain this grab-bag of mostly unimpressive titlesequences? Instead of James Bond, you get the Bond spoof OSS 117: Cairo, Nest Of Spies (one of the best
featured here and also featured in the making-of section but no substitute for Bond, James Bond). Whyso many little-known European films? They're certainly not great examples of the form. I love the hitmovie Goodbye Lenin! but wasn't wowed by its title sequence either. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is
the only big Hollywood film featured here and it too is a rather dull example. HBO's The Life and Deathof Peter Sellers is a wittier high profile offering. The B movie Splice starring Adrien Brody? Also a dull,
uninteresting title sequence. Obviously, the rights to the best title sequences just weren't available. Butsurely then they should have held off on the DVD or focused on more classic examples from earlierdecades that presumably would have been there for the taking.
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Dangerous
Like 117K
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Like 64K
Like 2K
Like 453
Like 2K
Like 111
Like 3K
Like 1K
RIZZOLI & ISLES COMPLETE FIRST SEASON ($39.98; Warner Bros.) -- Why do some shows just
click immediately with audiences? In the case of Rizzoli & Isles , it's not the police procedural genre or
the Boston setting or the writing that makes this special. So clearly it's the chemistry between the two
leads. You just buy Angie Harmon as a detective and Sasha Alexander as her medical examiner bestfriend and want to visit them every week as they solve crime after crime in Boston. Now with this a basiccable hit (new episodes begin July 11), isn't it about time they put out the entire Cagney & Lacey on
DVD?
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES ($39.99 BluRay combo pack or $29.99 regular; FOX)
-- Like the graphic novels they're based on, these movies are harmless fun about kids in school trying toget through their days. The secret to their success is that they don't focus on the prettiest, smartest, mostathletic or the most wizardly. Just normal kids. I'd rank this one slightly higher than the first because itfeatures more of our hero's cruel older brother Rodrick (played with glee by Devon Bostick), but they're
essentially interchangeable.
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READ MORE
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Claimed
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Cher Lashes Out On
PEOPLE ON SUNDAY ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- Here's a genuine curio from
Criterion. This 1930 silent movie from Germany is a melange of documentary and fiction, capturing
essentially the weekend dalliances of some working class people in Berlin during the Weimar era. Thetale itself is quite slight -- two female best friends go for a picnic with two male best friends. Both of thegirls fancy the handsome but penniless man yet only one of them will be triumphant while the otherpouts. The film's modest treats come in glimpsing daily life of the time, including people riding thetrolleys, walking the streets, bathing at the beach, playing sports and the like. Some claim a vaulted placefor the film as a precursor to Italian neo-realism. Others compare it to genuine classics like Man With A
Movie Camera. But clearly the film was a notable critical and commercial success at the time, despite
being made for pennies. How do I know? Because everyone involved claimed credit for its achievements.And here's why the film is worth mentioning today: it contains an almost unseemly amount of young
talent. Some movies can boast of great casting, of including a group of actors in front of the camera who
would go on to great heights. So surely People On Sunday is one of the great assemblages of young talent
behind the camera, including Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Fred Zinnemann, cinematographer
Eugen Schufftan (already as established name) and Billy Wilder. The extras include a 2000 documentary
about the making of the film, Schufftan's similar 35 minute short Ins Blaue Hinein , two scores and a
thoughtful essay.
ERASING DAVID ($24.98; FilmBuff) -- I need to give my friend S. this movie. I'm not using my
friend's full name or even his first name because he is concerned about privacy. He hates the idea ofkeeping his info in the "cloud" because then Google or Amazon or Apple or whomever could look at itwhenever they want, he said. (Not true, of course and you can encrypt your information before you put itonline in the cloud.) But I'm not saying my friend is wrong; I'm saying he's not paranoid enough. Thisdocumentary shows filmmaker David Bond trying to go off the grid for just one month while payingprivate detectives to track him down. Not surprisingly, it's a LOT harder to do than he imagined. If you
want to get truly worried about how little privacy we have left thanks to our online footprints and
cameras on the street recording our every movie and Google Maps having a picture of our home at theworld's disposal, then start here.
BARNEY'S VERSION ($38.96 BluRay/DVD combo; Sony Pictures Classics) -- Actor Paul Giamatti
HOT ON FACEBOOK 1 of 3
HOT ON TWITTER 1 of 2
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Weird Animals
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Fashion
Scott Brown Buy a link here Sponsored Links
Hyatt Summerfield Suites®
All Suites Hotel with a Full Kitchen. Free Breakfast &
Wi-Fi. Book Now
Hyatt.com/SummerfieldSuites
What is Scientology
Think For Yourself and Find Out for Yourself.
Scientology.org
#1 Snoring Solution
New solution that allows medical insurance to pay for
remedy.
www.WhyYouNeedtoKnow.com
'Terrified' Chaz Bono
Haters
She's Baaaaaaaack!
J.B Smoove On Larry
David Is A Playboy, The
End Of 'Curb,' And The
Ruckus
Like 2K
PHOTOS: Johnny Depp
Gets Creepy
Like 2K
sarah_ross
RetweetDear Twitter Friends pls check this
out: Have We Overlooked the Most
Effective Way to Prevent Terrorism
& War? http://t.co/YyoQ1EIR
soundcloud
Retweet'Listening for the Sounds ofinnovation.", a great guest post by
our own @Bougie over on
@HuffPostTech http://t.co/aIT65Ox
won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his portrayal of Barney in this film. Unfortunately, it captures all
too well the petty tone of Mordecai Richler's novel about artists sniping at each other for years at a timeover betrayals real and perceived. Banal swipes at bad TV are thrown in for good measure. A fine cast butcouldn't finish the book and couldn't finish the movie.
MARPLE COMPLETE SERIES 5 ($69.99 BluRay or $49.99 regular; Acorn) -- I haven't the foggiest
idea why PBS bothers to show their most popular shows like Miss Marple and good ole Foyle's War in
truncated form. They regularly chop off chunks of the show to fit it into certain timeslots and theninclude filler intros by Alan Cumming and pledge requests. Really? This forces me to NEVER watchBritish TV shows on PBS when trimmed down. I have to wait angrily for the DVDs and PBS loses out onmy viewership and everyone loses. What a crime. So I'm catching up with Julia McKenzie in her secondround of TV movies as Miss Marple. You get four mysteries, all about 88 minutes in length. Extrasinclude an earlier TV movie version of The Pale Horse and a documentary about Agatha Christie'sgarden. If that intrigues you, then you've probably already ordered this set online to arrive at your homeas soon as possible and could tell me at length why McKenzie is terrible/wonderful/miscast/perfect in
her role as Miss Marple. I'll stick to my modest expertise in the various Sherlock Holmes that I've seen
and keep my opinion of McKenzie to myself.
Also out from Acorn is George Gently Series 3 ($39.99; Acorn), a current TV series set in the 1960s
which has a grieving widower at its heart, giving the show an interesting mournful air quite different
from other cop shows. Trust the British to take their time: this season contains just two mysteries, eachabout 90 minutes long, one set on a campus and the other delving into the life of a family. Martin Shawstars as Gently.
I'M DIRTY! & I STINK! ($19.95; Scholastic/New Video) -- It seemed like the epitome of laziness --
DVDs to read picture books to your kids? But in fact, the read-along DVDs don't replace an adult readingto their child. It's an adjunct and a safe, entertaining DVD you can watch together or let them enjoy whenyou're busy doing something else. Of course, when you do sit down to read the story of a garbage truck toyour child, they may challenge you to do as good a job as Andy Richter does here. This two DVD set
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contains 12 stories read by Richter, Steve Buscemi, Forest Whitaker and others.
THE FAR PAVILIONS ($29.99; Acorn) -- It may seem strange now, but once upon a time the idea of
HBO creating original movies and miniseries was a bold, questionable idea. They led with quality,
spending a record $12 million (the most ever for a cable movie) and drawing a cast that included BenCross, Amy Irving, Christopher Lee, John Gielgud, Rupert Everett and Omar Sharif. The result may havebeen a bit stiff and not a patch on the bestselling novel by M.M. Kaye, but it was a notable first step asHBO's first miniseries and the sign of things to come.
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the co-host of Showbiz Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that
reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion
makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and alsoavailable for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and
reviews .
NOTE: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of DVDs to consider for review. He typically does notguarantee coverage and invariably receives far more screeners and DVDs than he can cover eachweek. Also, Michael Giltz freelances as a writer of DVD copy (the text that appears on the back ofDVDs) for some titles released by IFC and other subsidiaries of MPI. It helps pay the rent, but does notobligate him in any way to speak positively about their titles.
Follow Michael Giltz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelgiltz
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