As is typical, pickings are slim for movie-goers in the first few months of the new year. Fortunately, however, the hiatus of quality gives us an opportunity to catch up on some of the year’s most acclaimed releases on DVD. Here’s One to Rent, One to DVR for the week of 01/19/10 – exclusively at ForReel.net.

RENT

Che (2008)
dir. Steven Soderbergh
Availability: DVD & Blu-ray (1/19/09), NetFlix Instant View

Why?: Soderbergh’s “Che”, the film that earned Benicio Del Toro the Best Actor award at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, is not quite what you’d expect out of a biopic. Those looking to learn about the man behind the icon may be disappointed – the film is incredibly detached, particularly a second half that’s mostly in impersonal long shots. Due to that inaccessibility, in addition to the four and a half hour length, it’s not a film that will ever find the audience of Soderbergh’s mainstream efforts. For what it is, however, it’s a fascinating, albeit not wholly satisfying work.

Those with reservations regarding the length should know that watching each part as it’s own entity is not criminal. The works are very different stylistically, and the only reason to watch them back-to-back would be to fully study how Soderbergh differentiates one half from the other. A casual viewer, however, will likely digest the material easier over two nights.

DVR

The End of the Line (2009)
dir. Rupert Murray
Playing: Monday, January 25th, 5:30 PM (central) on Sundance.

Why?: Although “The Cove” is the ocean documentary that garnered most of the world’s attention last year, “The End of the Line” is perhaps a more threatening look at the exploitation of our waters. The film explores the depleting oceans – displaying clearly that, unless we take efforts in conserving the fish population, the ocean will be a very different, nearly vacant place come 2048.

The filmmaking itself is all over the place. Some of the imagery looks straight out of Planet Earth, other sequences mimic Michael Moore’s techniques. While not as masterfully made as “The Cove”, however, “The End of the Line” is a valid, if excessively alarmist study.