New on DVD this week….
The Lunchbox
A lunch made with an extra dose of hope and love goes to the wrong person in the chaos of Mumbai’s amazing lunch-delivery system. The error starts a correspondence between a widower on the verge of retirement (Irrfan Khan) and Ila (Nimrat Kaur), a lonely housewife. Their touching correspondence reveals much in just a few words, proof that “sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station.” A favourite at Cannes, The Lunchbox is guaranteed to have you hoping for a happy ending. Special features on the Blu-ray: commentary with writer-director Ritesh Batra, making his feature-film directorial debut.
Helix, season one
Doctors playing God in the seclusion of the Arctic: what could go wrong? Dr. Allan Farragut (Billy Baldwin) cautions his young doctors at the Center for Disease Control that in the field they will witness “horrors others cannot imagine.” But that doesn’t stop him from investigating a virus outbreak in a secret research facility run by tight-lipped doctor Hiroshi Hatake (Hiroyuki Sanada); Allan has a very personal reason for investigating the mystery virus that turns its victims into pools of black goo. Complicating things are the team he chooses to take along with him: an ex-wife (Kyra Zagorsky) and an adoring newbie doc (Jordan Hayes) make for some interesting drama mixed in with all the science and gore. An impressive amount of special features on the DVD (cast and crew commentary, an extra on Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore, character dissection, outtakes, creepy extras on the effects of isolation and the future of disease, and more) and there are several more featurettes accompanying the Blu-ray.
Bad Words
Jason Bateman’s debut as director focuses on a 40-something man who never completed 8th grade, and is therefore still eligible for a local spelling bee. Guy Trilby takes great pleasure in mowing over the kiddie competition and doesn't censor his frequently foul language, incurring the wrath of parents and the curiosity of a local reporter (Kathryn Hahn). But he finds kinship with awkward, bullied, 10-year-old Chaitanya (Rohan Chand) who gets to the source of all that anger. Alison Janney, Philip Baker Hall also star. Blu-ray includes deleted and extended scenes, commentary with Bateman, and an extra entitled The Minds and Mouths Behind Bad Words.
