May’s DVD reviews, Part II
<b>Last Action Hero, 1993</b> - If you even vaguely remember it, you get the premise: Kid goes into the movie realm. The problem is the meta-movie can’t sufficiently exaggerate the “movieisms” for the audience to feel they’ve moved from the cartoonish version of “real life” to the supposedly unrealistic movie with the movie, much like when Arnold was elected governator.
<b>Lost: Season 3, Discs 1&2</b> - I’d heard bad things about this season, but there was honestly more story development in the first few episodes this time around than the entire last season in its entirety.
<b>24: Season 6, Discs 1&2</b> - They pretty much gloss over a lot of the lingering threads from last season, but who cares since last season sucked worse than any. They’re finally getting the show back on track.
<b>Extras: Season 2, Discs 1&2</b> - There really is nothing else like this series on tv anywhere, and that alone ought to be reason enough to watch, but if you need more, then two words: Ricky Gervais.
<b>Psyche: Season 1, Disc3</b> - Meh. This show isn’t very good, but I don’t hate it. It painted itself in the corner with an annoying premise, but several of the cast have the potential to make it entertaining anyway.
<b>Planet Terror, 2007</b> - Imagine you could melt down the Die Hard series, everything by George Romero and Tarantino and Rodriguez, then distill it into a formulation of Viagra you take with your eyes. If you can do that, you might have about a tenth of this movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, you better show me the receipt for all the porn you’ve been busy watching to the exclusion of all else instead.
<b>Battlestar Galactica: Season 3: Disc 4, 2006</b> - Possibly the only reasonable excuse outside of porn for not watching <i>Planet Terror</i>.
<b>Wild Palms: Disc 1, 1993</b> - Good premise, lots of plot twists (though you can see many of them coming literally hours in advance), but weak acting and really, really bad direction.
<b>Wizards, 1977</b> - A mish-mash of almost every animation style and technique available at the time, but that’s about the only reason it’s worth watching other than the perpetually prominent nipples of the fairy princess throughout.
<b>Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2: Disc 2, 1997</b> - They dole out story developments so slowly in this series that you could honestly watch a given season’s episodes in any order and wouldn’t have any trouble with anything but the lack of acting talent.
<b>Gilmore Girls: Season 7: Disc 2, 2006</b> - More of the same and I’m still not complaining.
<b>Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!: Season 2: Disc 3, 2004</b> - The key distinction is magicians tell you that they’re going to trick you. Everyone who fails to do so is full of bullshit.
<b>Wit, 2001</b> - Cancer makes Emma Thompson look back at her life only she tells the audience about what she sees while Mike Nicols directs. Not as profound as one would think, but intelligently and inventively staged.
<b>Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 9, 1949</b> - By this disc it’s pretty much the end of the series, but there are still a lot of (re)inventive takes on the early pranks. Armchair anthropologists should take notes.
<b>PICKS OF THE LITTER:</b> <i>Battlestar Fracking Galactica</i> is the best fracking show on television, and I’m not just saying that because it’s what Dom spent her honeymoon night watching, but <i>Planet Terror</i> is every other movie on steroids only with balls that haven’t atrophied due to steroids. Also, if you loved the BBC version of <i>The Office</i>, you should check out <i>Extras</i>. And if you haven’t seen <i>The Office</i>, then your life is a pale, lifeless version of Dom’s honeymoon night.
April’s DVD reviews, Part II
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2, Disc 2 - Prognosis: It’s not that bad, but not that good either. Why do I watch? The title character’s affect is as flat as her ass, but guess which I’m paying more attention to? (See the title of the show for clues.)
Threshold: First and (thankfully) only season, Discs 1-4 - This came out around the same time as vaguely rip-off sister-shows Invasion and Surface, but was perhaps the worst of the lot. Simply no clue where to go with a potentially promising premise, it devolves into a cop drama without any awareness of how to spool out enough mystery to string along viewers (see Lost for an example of a successful version of just such an on-going experiment). It’s no surprise it dipped below the Nielsen threshold well before even the first run of shows was finished production and the series was canceled.
An Evening with Kevin Smith, 2002 - I’m not saying he should be in front of the camera, but clearly his talent isn’t so much behind it as telling stories about generally being around cameras and the folks who finance his (often inept) use of them.
Cujo, 1983 - Not as good as I remembered it when I was a kid and we watched it on VHS, but it’s still fairly effective at exploiting a legitimate fear. This was, of course, back when Stephen King still had some not-complete-contrived fears left to write about.
The Ten, 2007 - Dammit, Paul Rudd, you’re capable of better than this. Not that I didn’t like it for what it was… a throwback to the slapstick comedies of the late ’80s that TBS reruns at 4am, only with folks you’d recognize from Comedy Central today.
Nip/Tuck: Season 4, Discs 1&2 - This show is more in need of rejuvenation than the patients on it. To say that the plots have gotten sillier and more soap opera-ish would be to indict the entire series since that’s a good description of what they’ve always been. No, it’s something about the execution so far this season that’s guilty of malpractice.
Tom Green: Inside & Outside the Box: Disc 3, 1997 - They never reveal it, but the premise here was to give an unfunny Canadian a talk show and tell him he has to do anything he can to make teenagers laugh or they’ll shoot him. Clever he isn’t, but he makes a fool of himself the way most folks do when there’s someone off camera giving commands down the barrel of a gun.
I Am Legend, 2007 - Not legendary, sorry. It’s an updated (i.e., CGI this time around) version of The Omega Man (1971), one of the three speculative fiction flicks Charlton Heston made (the others being Planet of the Apes (1968) and Soylent Green (1973)) that really got you thinking about the future the first time you saw them. This doesn’t. It’s about as substantive as the piece of shit War of the Worlds remake we were subjected to a couple years ago that, along with this one makes me welcome an alien invasion or apocalyptic virus.
Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!: Season 2: Disc 2, 2004 - What more can you say about this show other than they call ‘em out and shoot ‘em down. These guys should get funding for this kind of public service, especially when they nail the government itself.
Van Halen: The Van Halen Story: The Early Years, 2003 - Documentary video produced from old interviews with the principals and new interviews with the peripherals (read: roadies and the Pete Best of the band). Boring for most of the world, but great stuff if you’re living in the past and willing to accept anything reminiscent of it not matter how mediocre… much like those folks who bought tickets to the comeback tour this year.
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 6: Disc 2, 2007 - You like this show or you hate it. Either way, it’s probably a good litmus test about how you feel about me, so screw you.
Battlestar Fracking Galactica: Season 3: Disc 2, 2006 - Don’t waste your time watching anything other than this show for the next couple years since everything that follows will be a pale imitation.
David Gilmour: Remember That Night: Live at the Royal Albert Hall: Disc 2, 2007 - Extras, mostly. High-quality home movies, in fact, if you want to know the truth, but if you dig Dave, then you’ll enjoy a lot of this. There’s even a fairly lengthy jam session with him and Rick with a bass player and drummer sitting around in a barn that’s worth the price of admission even if you don’t care for all the behind the scenes stuff.
The L Word: Season 4: Disc 4, 2007 - Nothing memorable. Remarkably less drama than I’ve come to expect from this much estrogen with no men to blame.
Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 8, 1949 - More good stuff. The idea behind the show was always good, but it took until in my lifetime before we got to the perfect storm of the technical sophistication of pinhole cameras and wireless micro mics coupled with clever set-ups that were funny in and of themselves. It could only be better when the Japanese took the idea and ran with it in a society not nearly so litigious.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: Okay, I don’t think The Ten knocks it out of the park, but there’s a lot to like here. An Evening with Kevin Smith gets the same description; fans of his will love it, all three of them who haven’t seen this yet anyway. Similarly, hardcore Floyd fans will love all the extras on Disc 2 of David Gilmour: Remember That Night, all three of them who haven’t whacked off to it yet anyway. And if you haven’t put Battlestar Fracking Galactica in your queue, you must be a fracking toaster.
April’s DVD reviews, Part I
Desperate Housewives: Season 3, Disc 6 - Nice season wrap-up this time around. Decent closure mixed with enough cliff-hangers to string you along much in the way token gifts on anniversaries do for actual housewives.
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2, Disc 1 - Not really all that good. Or great, I suppose if you liked the first season a whole lot. For me, it’s getting old faster than I can watch them in FFwd.
Diggers, 2006 - Not so great, and this is coming from Paul Rudd’s biggest cheerleader who isn’t a fat girl. It’s okay, but I saw potential in the material that the rest of the crew ironically didn’t dig for.
Turk 182!, 1985 - From the director of Porkys and Porkys II, the idea here was a socially conscious take on Porkys. It ends up being an series of improbable and not-terribly-imaginative pranks to no conceivable political effect whatsoever. Oh, and no nudity, so that’s two strikes for a Bob Clark movie with Kim Cattrall.
Umberto D., 1952 - Hailed as one of the greatest movies of the 20th century, it’s one of the most forgettable movies of the 20th century. I saw it about five years ago and blanked on it.
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 4, 2006 - I have almost as many issues with this series as the title character has about, well, everything, but I have to admit that it has a quality to it that rises above most of my criticisms and makes it more engrossing than it should be, possibly because the chick who plays Dex’s sister is hot.
Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!: Season 2: Disc 1, 2004 - Piled higher and deeper. It’s nice to hear them publicly rip on those who most deserve it. (Most of you and Diana in particular will enjoy the bit in here where they go off on the Men Are From Mars guy.)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 3: Disc 1, 2006 - You know how I’m always right? Well, I hadn’t seen this show in a while, so I had some trepidation about whether they still had the momentum to lift off from the emotional dregs of last season. Guess what? They did and I’m still always right. They should just change the name of the show to Battlestar Fucking Galactica to avoid any confusion that it’s COMPLETELY FUCKING AWESOME.
Tom Green: Inside & Outside the Box: Disc 2, 1997 - More of the desperate antics of an unoriginal comic. Truth is, the desperation took him places on stage and on the streets and wherever else there was a camera that few were willing to attempt.
Under the Cherry Moon, 1986 - The much-maligned Prince movie that almost no one ever saw, it’s commercially unviable in that it’s the exact opposite of Purple Rain in every way: It’s in black & white; With only a couple exceptions, the songs are all but buried as background or source music; Instead of being a tragically misunderstood introverted character, he’s an over-the-top blend of every comic film character from the ’20s through the ’50s. And you know what? It’s a pretty damned good movie for all that. The one criticism I have is that the screenplay is a bit all over the place so you can’t see the story arc, but I’m okay with that because I like not knowing where a filmmaker is trying to take me. If nothing else, the cinematography is at least as gorgeous as Prince thinks he is.
Knute Rockne All American, 1940 - Enjoyable enough even if you’re me and don’t like football or Ronald Reagan (who’s only in it for his very famous 5 minutes, don’t worry).
Ultimate Avengers: The Movie, 2006 - Animated film that follows the re-envisioned comic book series so closely that I’d recommend just reading the source material instead unless you’re in that much of a hurry that you’re waiting for the film adaptations instead. Geez.
Cars, 2007 - Remarkably awesome. I’m not much of a Pixar fan, but this is actually good on just about every level.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: I rarely agree with The Office’s Dwight Schrute about anything, but if you aren’t watching Battlestar Fucking Galactica, then you’re a complete idiot. Also Cars rocks and Under the Cherry Moon deserves a chance that you never gave it the first time you passed on watching it.
March’s DVD reviews, Part II
Broken English, 2007 - Normally I don’t give away much in a synopsis so you don’t know what you’re in for (unless you read the mouse-over pop-ups on Netflix instead of blindly adding it to your queue just because I said so), but this is an awesome movie about falling in love. Yeah, every movie has that, but this one is good and it’s real and it’s true and that’s something movies so rarely are. It’s a bit scattered in places, much like Parker Posey who is in it and who I’m in love with, but it’s well-acted the whole cast through, and here’s a side of her even fans who have seen nearly everything by her (read: me) hadn’t seen before. It’s the real thing that you’ll totally get if you’ve ever been in love. No, make that if you’ve ever fallen in love.
28 Weeks Later, 2007 - Unnecessary. Not badly made, but completely pointless and unsatisfying. A waste of good talent that turned into a mob of raging zombies chasing after money.
Ugly Betty: Season 1, Discs 1&2 - It’s basically a live action cartoon that unapologetically rips off The Devil Wears Prada. Surprisingly though, it’s got heart. There’s no substance to the show whatsoever, but you find that you care just the same.
The Hoax, 2007 - Another cartoon, but one I didn’t find especially enjoyable. This is in spite of having a great true story on which to base this failure so that it wouldn’t be just that.
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 1, Discs 1&2 - Third in a series of live-action cartoons. It’s fast-paced enough that you don’t really notice that how little human interaction there is among the principles in the series. It’s all cut together with medical emergencies and faux-witty dialog (i.e., it’s delivered fast and unrealistically) to break up the viewer’s attempt to get a close enough look at what they’d otherwise diagnose as a mediocre show.
David Gilmour: Remember That Night: Live at the Royal Albert Hall: Disc 1, 2007 - Lots of Pink Floyd classics bookend a complete performance of Dave’s latest solo album (though nothing from either prior solo album which tells you how good his solo albums are typically). Pretty good show all around, even if you aren’t a die hard fan (which I’m not so much anymore; sorry, Dave).
The Train, 1964 - Burt Lancaster. They don’t make action heroes like this anymore. Not the best movie he’d ever been in, but you can’t go wrong with most of them anyway.
Catch and Release, 2007 - Wow. Complete crap, and that’s my opinion even after looking at an hour and forty minutes of Jennifer Garner. To answer the question the screenwriter/director was pondering about how to make a romantic comedy about a fiance’s death and sudden appearance of an illegitimate child, my advice is this: Don’t.
Deathproof, 2007 - To draw from the immortal words of web film reviewer Neill Cumpston, “It’s a taquito buffet that you puke up after getting hit with a motorcycle, and it turns into a bikini chick that blows you and kills your boss with a hammer.” If that sounds like a positive review to you, then you’ll love this. If not, enjoy Catch and Release instead, lameass.
The L Word: Season 4: Disc 3, 2007 - Speaking of taquito buffets, while this show has actually been pretty good about avoiding gratuitous lesbian sex scenes (unlike most else Showtime is known for after 11pm), I have to say I especially liked this disc for the fact it that got just a tad little sleazier than usual.
Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 7 - Takes us up through the ’80s when the show was actually more a metaphor for the Regan-era reality we were being pranked into at the time.
Elvis: The Miniseries, 2005 - You’d normally think of Elvis as a role for bad actors (read: impersonators), but Jonathan Rhys Meyers makes him genuinely believable as a tragic character in an otherwise rushed made-for-tv production.
Dune, 1984 - Say what you like here, it’s still David Lynch and Frank Herbert. Granted, it’s something of a disaster in that it’s inaccessible to many viewers, but there’s so much to love for those who make the effort or just naturally wade into the material. Additionally, this release has quite a bit of footage compiled recently and with new interviews from just a couple years ago. Many deleted scenes included that weren’t even in the Alan Smithee version that rabid fans like me sat through repeatedly to savor even the most ill-conceived frames.
Johnny Suede, 1992 - Even the director sees this as a failure, but it isn’t bad exactly, just less than it might have been.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: I rarely watch movies a second time. I watched Broken English more times until it was over due at the library than Mark David Chapman’s read Catcher in the Rye. Either there’s something very, very wrong with me or there’s something very right about this seemingly meandering little independent movie. Both probably. You go see it while I go see a shrink and we’ll compare notes. While you’re loading up your queue, Deathproof kicks ass on four wheels and you have to see Dune if only for the kick in the ass it will give you to read the novel to answer the question most uninitiated first-time viewers have afterward. Namely, “What the fuck was that all about?!”
March’s DVD reviews, Part I
Totally Awesome, 2006 - Not really all that awesome (although I’ve had a crush on the female lead here since the new Battlestar Galactica), but if you grew up in the mid to late ’80s, you’ll appreciate all the pop culture references they crammed into this one. Incidentally, I never thought I’d say this, but Chris Katan is in fact totally awesome here.
Epic Movie, 2007 - I turned this off after 20 minutes (about 10 minutes real time since I was in 2x). I looked it up just to see if I was missing something. Nope. Everyone on the internet agrees with me; it’s in the IMDB Bottom 100.
Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 6, 1949 - You’re only going to make it up to this disc if you love this series already, so I’m probably preaching to the choir here.
The L Word: Season 4: Disc 2, 2007 - I’m surprised that the quality is holding up here when you’d think the series would have gotten stale. It was never great, but somehow I’ve never been able to turn away even when there weren’t gratutous lesbian love scenes.
Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar, 2004 - Unless you’re following along with sheet music they don’t bother to include with the Netflix rental here, you aren’t going to learn jack just watching this.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2007 - Better than the first one, but that’s not saying much. They did at least start to mold the characters according to how they’ve always been written, something so classic in comicdom that it hardly seemed like I was seeing the FF in the first flick. If they get that right next time around and have a decent story, then they’ll really have something.
Miss Potter, 2006 - Meh. Sometimes interesting lives don’t necessarily translate into interesting life stories when they’re put on the screen.
Rome: Season 2, Disc 1 - Picks up where the previous one left off, so it’s more of the same only bolstered by some minor upheavals resulting from the end-of-season cliffhangers, but you know what I’m talking about since your history book is full of spoilers.
Psych: Season 1, Disc 2 - You know that great show Monk? So do the producers here, and they try to capture its magic and fail in most regards. The cast never gels and the premise (he’s really a great detective but pretends to be a psychic because they’d never believe he’s just a really really detective… huh?) is so worn after just a few episodes that you can tell it walks with a limp that it tried to disguise so as not to attract attention when fleeing the scene of the crime.
Desperate Housewives: Season 3, Disc 5 - Still pretty good.
The Office: Season 3: Disc 4, 2006 - End of the season. I loved it. LOVED IT! I’m not going to tell you how it wraps up, but I loved it. LOVED IT!
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 3, 2006 - This lures you in. Be careful. Mace won’t help you either.
The TV Set, 2007 - I only rented it because Judy Greer was in it and I want to marry her. I can’t say this movie was terrible, but it was so far from good that it (unintentionally, I’m sure) resembled the level of quality and cycle of artistic compromise it tried to lampoon so much that it shot itself in the foot.
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 6: Disc 1, 2007 - Pretty good. Pretty pretty good.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: I am amazed that Curb Your Enthusiasm never gets old. It’s such a small, unambitious show, and yet it always works for me in spite of the fact it’s about me. And, seriously, either you’re watching The Office by now or you’re an idiot. Yes, seriously.
February’s DVD reviews, Part II
Titus, 1999 - Remember how cool Baz Lurman’s Romeo & Juliet was in the late ’90s? This was a misguided attempt to replicate it. This film is plenty over the top to the point that it gets just plain ridiculous, but I kind of liked it for that. More interestingly, I was surprised to find that Shakespear was pretty fuckin’ brutal in some of the plays we never got to read in high school!
Time Code, 2000 - Remember how cool Christopher Nolan’s Momento was because it had a gimmick but didn’t let everything ride on it? Well, here’s another time-distorting gimmick only without the substance. Skip it and save your time.
Classic Albums: Judas Priest: British Steel, 2001 - I like the band (but not in a gay way… not that there’s anything wrong with that), but there’s nothing interesting to report here.
Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 5, 1949 - The date is deceptive here as the disc actually goes through the ’70s. Most surprising thing caught on camera here: Allen Funt’s wardrobe. WTF?
Weeds, Season 2, Discs 1&2, 2007 - It’s kind of a cartoon, but no one has thrown these elements together in quite this way, and that makes it interesting even though it really isn’t challenging. It isn’t a sitcom, just something different. I think that’s HBO’s motto or something.
Jaws, 1975 - A lot of people regard this as a classic, but it really is an absolute classic. I hadn’t seen it since I was maybe ten, so another trip to these waters was long overdue. Same goes for you.
G’n'R: Use Your Illusion II, 1992 - This is more embarrassing on so many levels than the fact I’m admitting having watched it. The performance by all is lackluster at best and, frankly, pretty bad in spots. Axl is a parody of himself with his costume changes literally every other song. This is so from removed what good management and therapy should have pulled out of these guys that it’s more tragic than Titus.
Thinner, 2003 - Really bad adaptation of the first Stephen King book I tried to read and never bothered to finish.
Riding the Bullet, 2004 - Really, really bad adaptation of something else I never read by Stephen King.
Black Sabbath: The Dio Years, 2007 - Just a VH1 special that’s all talk and no music.
Baadasssss!, 2003 - The made-for-cable true story of some badass filmmaking.
Disturbia, 2007 - Rear Window meets The Burbs meets American Pie. However, in spite of the obvious sources, the movie itself is surprisingly compelling thanks to a likable performance from that kid in Transformers and a great ass on his next-door neighbor. That is, until it starts to get stupid toward the end.
Jesus Camp, 2006 - You ever have a mentally ill friend or family member and constantly find yourself torn between anger at the situation and pity for the fact they’ll likely never find a way to pull themselves out of it? If you enjoy that kind of rush of conflicting but entirely negative emotions, this is the film for you.
Desperate Housewives: Season 3, Discs 3&4 - Better than the second season, not as good as the first. Felicity Huffman’s still my favorite though, I don’t care what you say.
Twin Peaks definitive edition, Discs 9&10 - I rented it for the extras (having seen the series at least three times through by this point). And the extras are awesome! …at least if you’re a big Peaks-freak like myself. One of the best and most thorough collections of interviews, promos, and other goodies and leftovers (not many deleted scenes though, sadly). Well worth the seemingly interminable wait for Lynch to get his shit together here.
Away from Her, 2006 - Quiet little movie about Alzheimer’s by (unexpectedly) first-time director Sarah Polley. Slow (though appropriately so), but very good.
The Science of Sleep, 2006 - Michel Gondry’s rehash of leftover ideas from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Lots of good stuff here that never gels.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: Titus is such a train wreck in some ways and genius in others that it ought to be rediscovered and Disturbia does a great job of elevating mediocre material through good direction and fun performances. And the last gasp from Twin Peaks is a treat for those imprinted by the series in the ’90s.
