NEW TO DVD MARCH 03, 2008

NEW TO DVD TUESDAY, MARCH 06, 2008

ALL HAT-R for language and some sexual content-starring Luke Kirby Keith Carradine, Lisa Ray, Ernie Hudson, and Rachel Leigh Cook. WESTERN “He crossed the wrong people.” I always get a kick out of the tag lines—so easy to poke fun at. To be fair, however, it really is hard to cram everything into a one-liner without being cheesey. This is based on a novel by Brad Smith. This is more of a modern day western involving thoroughbred racing.

EVIL WOODS, THE-R-for pervasive language, some violence, nudity, and drug use-Starring Tamara Czartoryski, William Van Noland, Brad Smith (no, not the author from above), Ivory Dortch, and Dedan Donovan. HORROR. This appears to be the typical horror movie with all the horror elements. Stop me if you’ve seen this one— 1) a group of kids go camping in the woods (2) a stranger comes along and tells them of a legend about a ghost haunting the forest where they are camping (3) scary things start to happen like the tires of their car get slashed, preventing them from leaving (4) they lose cell phone reception, which cuts them off from the outside world (5) as dusk approaches, the kids start to go missing, one by one. You’ve seen it, right? It’s not that it looks bad, it looks….. tired.

EYE, THE-PG13-Starring Jessica Alba Alessandra Nivola, and Parker Posey. HORROR. This is a remake of the 2002 Jian Gui (Gin Gwai-literally “seeing ghosts”). The original was nominated and won awards, was reportedly super creepy. This one, however, didn’t get nearly the same feedback. In fact, most called this an unnecessary remake. The ending of the remake has also been changed. Sydney (Alba) has been blind since she was a child due to an accident as a child. Thanks to an anonymous eye donor, she undergoes surgery in hopes of restoring her sight. Soon after the surgery, as her vision begins to return, she is plagued with shadowy images (and are they disturbing?). Soon, these images evolve into seeing the doomed being dragged away from the living world into another. Not knowing if the images were part of the recovery process, if she is becoming mentally unstable, or if they were real, she begins to think that her suspect donor has seen secret things that now only she can see.

FLAWLESS-PG13 for brief strong language-starring Demi Moore, Michael Cane, Lambert Wilson, and Joss Ackland. THRILLER/HEIST. Set in the 60s, this is filled with a strong cast (obviously). Laura (Moore) is the typical competent executive at the London Diamond Corporation, who finds herself bitter and frustrated when male colleague after male colleague is promoted ahead, in front of, around, and through her despite her efforts, experience, and ability. Cane’s character is the janitor who is equally as bitter for being overlooked in his position, who happens to know the security system inside and out. He accurately assesses Laura’s disgruntled attitude with the company, and ropes her into a ingenious heist, targeting the hand that feeds them. The plan, however, may be a bit more extensive than he originally let on.

MEET THE SPARTANS-UR PIT OF DEATH VERSION-Starring Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra, Ken Davitian, and Kevin Sorbo. COMEDY. Yeah… this looks really far from good. This is clearly a spoof on 300. Leonidas leads only 13 people to war against the Persians. His small and dysfunctional army consists of Ghost Rider, Rocky, Transfromers, and yes, Paris Hilton, who happens to be hunchbacked. Shrek, Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell, and Paula Abdul are in there somewhere too. Includes a gag reel and a trivia game.

ONION MOVIE, THE-UR-Starring Len Cariou and everyone. This movie sat for about five years after failing to wow test audiences. This is SATIRE. Wahoo! It also looks raunchy as heck. Boohoo. Of course, this is based on the newspaper of the same name.

SEMI-PRO-Starring Wil Ferrell-COMEDY. I saw this screening, and if you know me at all, you probably know I wouldn’t have gone had it not been a free ride. I would never have paid to see a slapstick comedy in the theatre. One redeeming quality, however, was the setting—near and dear to me—Flint, Michigan. Wahoo! Even before GM bailed, Flint was not winning any city of the year awards, but post-oil crisis, and pre-GM bail out was the setting for the film, and depicted the pit Flint was at the time. After the bailing out of GM, partially due to the oil crisis, unionization, tax disadvantages (oh, shut up, if it were your company, you would relocate to wherever it was cheaper to run it, too), along with Flint’s inability or unwillingness to make accommodations to attract other types of businesses, Flint simply TANKED into the absolute wretched waste of space it is today. Roger and Me (Roger Moore—ugh) shows a pretty vivid picture of what it looked like post-GM bail out, although offers a fairly skewed version as to the whys, which is not surprising given Moore’s anti-big business, anti-democracy, and anti-US sentiment. [hey, if you think another country’s health care system is so superior, get on the boat…] Back to Semi-Pro… Will Ferrell is funny, yes—he usually is, but also predictable. The story is fairly amusing, and overall the movie was redeemed by Woody Harrelson, who made the movie tolerable to watch. I still can’t figure out why he was in such a production, but for my sake, I was glad he was there. Of course, the whole concept of the famous basketball term, which was, per the movie, purportedly “invented” for a particular move was complete hogwash, and I won’t go into great detail about the origin of the word other than to say it has ties to the circus world, and originally had nothing to do with basketball. The basketball world stole the term “alley-oop” from this circus world after it had already been well established, and then they assigned it to this famous move. Word origins is kind of my thing, because I’m geeky that way, and so during the movie, that kind of threw me. As if you care. Just don’t go around after the movie telling people that the word alley-oop was something a basketball person came up with, because it wasn’t. Thieves! Overall, the movie was semi-funny, and Harrelson saved the day. There were some intermittent funny one-liners that elicited a giggle or two from me. Mike, on the other hand, laughed hysterically through the entire thing. Then again, he thought Talladega Nights was terribly funny as well, which I thought was absolutely worthless, and drove me away from the TV after the first 10 minutes.

NEW TO DVD TUESDAY FEB 10, 2008

NEW TO DVD TUEDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2008

Becoming Jane – PG for brief nudity and mild language- starring Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy. Biography/Drama/Romance. This is a British film, essentially a biography of Jane Austen. This won the People’s Choice Awards for Favorite Independent Movie. And no, you couldn't make me watch it if you tried. CHICK FLICK.

Gone Baby Gone – R for violence, drug content, and pervasive language – starring… hey, wait a minute.. weren’t we just talking about Casey Affleck? Also starring Michelle Monahan and Morgan Freeman. Co-written, co-produced, and directed by… hey, wait another minute—big brother Ben Affleck. Nepotism at its finest. Crime/Drama/Mystery. Well, Ben didn’t actually write the story, he wrote the screenplay, which was based on the novel by Dennis Lehane. This is the story about two inexperienced private detectives who investigate the kidnapping of a little girl set in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Boston. The film was nominated for an Oscar (for Amy Ryan’s performance as best supporting actress), and won 15 other various film awards. Ben Affleck took home at least one, and guess who took home the other, oh, say 12? Yep, Amy Ryan. Who is Amy Ryan, you ask? Well, most recently you’ve seen her in The Wire. She’s also appeared in a few episodes of Law & Order, E.R., Chicago Hope, and was in the movie Capote and is the new movie Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. But back to Gone Baby Gone. The reviews were great for this movie. It did well in the theatre. Although Amy Ryan took home a plethora of awards, and deserved each one of them, Casey Affleck's performance was not to be overlooked. LeHane's story was great, to be sure, and Affleck's character was truely interesting, and Affleck gave it all he had, which was more than enough. In retrospect, I couldn't imagine anyone else playing this role. Monahan, on the other hand, was so-so, and could have been replaced by just about anyone. Not bad, just ho-hum. The movie is a contender for one of the best of the year, and my ONLY exception with it is that they used the f-word in sentences as much as I use articles such as a, and, and the.

Martian Child-PG for thematic elements and mild language-starring John Cusack, Bobby Coleman, and Amanda Peet. Oh, and wherever you see John Cusack, yes, you see Joan Cusack, so sis is in this one too. Nepotism again. Drama. This is the movie that was trailered forever, it seemed. The cute little 6-yr old boy who thinks he’s from Mars, and has been abandoned while a science fiction writer decides whether to take him in. Similar to Gone Baby Gone, this is not an original story, rather it is based on the novel by the same name by David Gerrold. Normally this would not be the type of movie I would sit down and watch. No one dies. Nothing explodes. There are no hitmen. No car chases. No wars. BUT it is a true story. That gets me somtimes. Joan Cusack is great, and she would likely be the main reason I would watch it. John Cusack is usually pretty good as well. We should call this nepotism week. The other reason I watched this was that it was about foster parenting. And of course, being a foster parent myself, I couldn't pass this up. Aside from some factual descrepancies regarding the fostercare system, the movie was good. And no, I wasn't crying about the dog thing, I just had the sniffles or something. Gosh. Yes, it was sappy and cute, which is far from my typical genre, but I must admit that I just liked it anyway. Cute kid, and you just couldn't help but like both him and the movie. And for those of you foster parents, yeah... you will relate with some of the ... joyful.. yeah.. joyful... obstacles that we sometimes face as foster parents. And for those of you who aren't foster parents, perhaps it may spark an interest in doing so. All my kids enjoyed it as well. A great family film.

Primal – Didn't see.

We Own the Night –R for strong violence, drug material, language, some sexual content, and brief nudity- starring Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, and Oleg Taktarov/Crime/Drama/I about fell out of my chair (ok, it was a couch) when I saw Oleg Taktarov’s name. He was one of the first UFC guys when UFC was more Kumate/less WWF. (Of course it’s all hokey now and you can disagree but deep down you know it’s true. Oleg was from back in the Grace Jujitsu days.) Taktarov wasn’t top billed in We Own the Night, but he was worth mentioning all the same. This is a Crime/Drama/Thriller, and the subject matter revolves around New York nightclubs, cops, and the Russian mafia (enter Oleg). Привет ! Yes, there are a few instances of Russian dialogue with English subtitles. It may look and sound like it might be bordering on an action movie—it isn’t. It’s a drama. Expect a crime drama and you will not be disappointed. Nominated for some awards but didn’t come home with any. Was still well received at the box office and in many critic’s reviews. Pitting this against Gone Baby Gone, and I'd have to say Gone Baby Gone was my favorite, but only by a slight margin. We Own the Night was fabulous, but in this case, Phoenix and Wahlberg made the movie. The story itself wouldn't have stood on its own without the duo (at least not as well), unlike Gone Baby Gone, which was a self-sufficient story as well as properly cast. Phoenix and Wahlberg were astounding, and therefore made the movie that way. And similar to Gone Baby Gone, I hear f-this or f-you more times that I could count. I'm not insinuating that We Own the Night was a bad story line. It was actually quite good. But it was not of the same calibur as that of Gone Baby Gone. Both are definitely must sees. And I can't stand Eva Mendes.