We’ve got a whole lot of really cool stuff going up on the shelves today, some of it unopened and brand new (old titles, new copies)! Titles like A Beautiful Mind, The Clearing, Cradle 2 The Grave, Michael Clayton, The Craft, A Mighty Heart, Zodiac, Titan A. E., Uncle Buck, Trading Places and a ton more. Lots of not-new stuff going out too, like The Ninth Gate, Great Expectations, The James Bond Collection Volume 1 (seven titles: Dr. No; Goldfinger; The Man With The Golden Gun; The Spy Who Loved Me; License To Kill; Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies), The Trip To Bountiful, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and lots lots more!

Over the weekend I watched a few movies and realized at the end of it that they were all docudramas, movies based on real people and events. Not a huge surprise, as it’s one of my favorite genres.  I watched Bonnie And Clyde, Amelia and Monster. The only one I hadn’t seen before was Amelia, starring Hilary Swank as Amelia Erhart, one of the world’s favorite missing persons. It’s a fascinating story and I thought the movie was well done, without attempting to explain or speculate about her disappearance. See it if you get the chance.

We’ve got a shelf on the Wall O’Cool right now dedicated to stories about real people and events:

Breach tells the story of Robert Hanssen, played to creepy perfection by Chris Cooper, who sold secrets to the Russians during his 25-year tenure with the FBI.

In Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts plays the woman who helped bring down a power company accused of polluting a small town’s water supply.

Party Monster stars Macauley Culkin and Seth Green in very different roles for both of them, as flamboyant “club kids” Michael Alig and James St. James respectively. In the late 80s and early 90s, they hosted insane parties in clubs around New York City, did lots of drugs and ultimately killed one of their roommates.

Frost/Nixon is a fascinating look at the drama around and behind the scenes of David Frost’s post-Watergate interviews with Richard Nixon.

W. is another political biopic that’s fascinating to watch, no matter what your politics are. Chronicling the rise and downward slide of George W. Bush, it’s well worth your time.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic as Truman Capote in Capote. In 1959, two small-time criminals kill an entire family during a break-in. After their arrest, Truman Capote plans to write a New Yorker article about the crime, but ultimately decides to write the book In Cold Blood instead (a book I read when I was 12 or so and which fueled a life-long interest in true crime novels and movies). It’s interesting to see this movie alongside the film version of the book if you get the chance.

Shattered Glass tells the amazing story of journalist Stephen Glass, a writer for the prestigious The New Republic in the mid-90s.  By the end of his time there, it was found that 27 of the 41 articles he’d written for them were partially or completely fabricated. Hayden Christensen is whiny and annoying throughout most of the movie, but this is offset by the story and the rest of the cast, including Chloe Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria, Steve Zahn, Rosario Dawson and the adorable Melanie Lynskey.

Bringing up the rear (pun slightly intended) of this collection is The Notorious Bettie Page, the story the number one pin-up girl of the 1950s. Told in flashback style as Bettie waits to testify before a Senate sub-committee investigating the effects of pornographic material on American adolescents and juveniles, it’s equal parts sexy, sad and funny.

Plenty of stuff to see here, folks. And if you get this coupon, it’s all 20% off for a couple more days!

Rendition starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Alan Arkin and Meryl Streep in this thrilling CIA cover up story.

Two action flicks; The Line (Andy Garcia and Ray Liotta) and Felon (Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer) dealing with Mexican cartels and the brutal life inside a state prison respectively.

From the writer of American Psycho and Less Than Zero we have The Informers; a story of greed, sex, drugs, and power in 1980’s Los Angeles. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, and Winona Ryder.

French Kiss, starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline as an unlikely couple getting into mischief in France.

Two foreign (and I think hilarious looking) flicks as well!

Star Wreck, a Finnish parody of both Star Trek and Babylon 5 made with love by some major fans.

And while this last one is not technically a comedy, the concept just kills me and the guy who traded it in said it was more funny than serious. Eighteen Methods of Capture, Chinese training video that teaches you how to control someone by “capturing” one part of the body. I don’t know why this one intrigues me….there is no accounting for taste!

Hope you stop on by today and peruse our Wall O’ Cool to see what’s goin’ on today!

Here’s a sample of what people are saying:

“I am so glad that I wandered into your shop a couple of weeks ago. I love movies, it’s my crack. Using your request option on your site has already paid off for me and I hope for continued success in finding other titles. Thank you for having such an organized and well run business.”

- Greg R.

We encourage all kinds of feedback, whether it’s telling us how much you love us or if you’re complaining that we’re not doing something right. We really want to hear from you.

We also have all four seasons of the highly-rated Mr. Show, featuring the incredibly funny David Cross and Bob Odenkirk.

Other interesting titles headed straight for the Wall O’Cool: Japanese action/horror/comedies Battle Royale and Battle Royale II; the John Woo action classic Hard Boiled in a two disc special edition; Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall heat up the screen in The Big Sleep; classic horror in Wes Craven’s original 1977 The Hills Have Eyes and the 1980 people-who-can-make-your-head-explode-with-their-minds chiller Scanners from David Cronenberg!

Cate Blanchett of course!

She can handle the meaty dramatic roles, dry comedic ones and can even pass for an ethereal, yet creepy elf.  So I grabbed a selection of Cate’s film’s from the shelves to share with our customers.

In her most recent role Cate plays Daisy, the love of Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Cate’s Daisy must deal with loving Benjamin as he ages backwards through his adventurous life.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Cate plays Irina Spalko, a Soviet psychic hell bent on taking a crystal skull from Dr. Jones and gaining power that could endanger the Western world. Not my favorite Indy movie, but Blanchett is a great bad girl!

Cate did the best at embodying the spirit of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. She plays Jude, a character so Dylan like it is positively eerie. Also starring Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and Christian Bale as other incarnations of Dylan.

In Notes on a Scandal, Blanchett plays Sheba Hart, a free-spirited art teacher who catches the attention of the nearly retired battle-ax of a teacher, Barbara Covett (an always brilliant Judi Dench). Covett soon discovers Hart’s sexual indiscretion with a student and feeling betrayed, plots revenge on Hart.

Cate plays Susan Jones in Babel. The wife of Richard Jones (played by Brad Pitt), the couple is struck with tragedy as they are vacationing in Morocco. This touches off an interconnecting story of four groups of people who, while divided by distance and cultural differences, will discover a shared destiny.

In Charlotte Gray, Blanchett plays a young Scottish woman who joins the French Resistance during World War II to rescue her Royal Air Force boyfriend who is lost in France.

Her ethereal turn as Galadriel, the elfin princess/witch in Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring as well as all the other Rings movies, gives me the willies every time I see her. Spooky and beautiful, that’s Cate!

Finally, we have one of the films that helped propel Cate to A list actress. She plays the title role in Elizabeth, the story of Queen Elizabeth I. In this role Cate handles war, romance and the possibility of losing her head if she does not please her country and those running it.

All in all a good selection. While I wish we currently had copies of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or The Missing, two of my more favored Blanchett roles, I think there is always plenty to choose from in her repertoire!

Enjoy!!