..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Kim
Voynar
..Michael
Wilmington
The Wrap Up ...
..MCN Review - Wilmington ..MCN Review - Klady ..MCN Weekend
The Soloist
If, as threatened, budgetary concerns diminish big-city newspapers to the point of irrelevancy, stories like the one told in The Soloist likewise will become an endangered species. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez didn't have to invest so much effort into the rehabilitation of a bi-polar street musician he discovered playing for pedestrians and pigeons in downtown L.A.
He could simply have written an introductory column on the plight of Nathaniel Ayers and moved on to something else, leaving the cellist's fate in the hands of his readers and institutions. Instead, Lopez couldn't rest until something positive happened in Ayers' life and he was allowed a say, at least, in his own recovery. Lopez' story may not have had a fairytale ending, but it came close to one.
In era when our best journalists are being phased out of the business, and the concerns of poor folks are being ignored, the timing of The Soloist could only have been better if it had been released in time for Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx to be considered for an Oscar.
Why that didn't happen remains a mystery, although academy members with long memories will have an opportunity to rectify the mistake next January. Director Joe Wright (Atonement) could have cut back on the schmaltz and still have had a commercially viable movie, but he deserves a lot of credit for setting his story where it actually happened – in and around L.A.'s skid row – and not taking the bargain-basement route by moving operations to Toronto or Vancouver. An extra layer of verisimilitude was maintained by using real street people, relief workers and the Times' news room in key scenes. The DVD and Blu-ray supplements in the featurette, Unlikely Friendship: Making the Soloist, deleted scenes and Wright's commentary.– Gary Dretzka
Few questions are more intrinsically rhetorical than, Why me? It applies both to battered and bruised survivors of great catastrophes and those who escaped unhurt or somehow missed the bus to work that day. How is it, for example, that one fortunate bystander is spared the impact of a bullet that kills the equally innocent pedestrian standing behind him? In Fragments such fine actors as Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Jackie Earle Haley and Embeth Davidtz share a violent moment in an otherwise ordinary morning in a diner. In a conceit employed liberally in the wake of the success of Paul Haggis' Crash, Fragments (formerly known as Winged Creatures) describes how survivors cope – or don't cope -- in the aftermath of a seemingly random crime. Knowing that the only answer to Why me? is Why not, me? didn't make their ordeal any easier.- Gary Dretzka
Obsessed
Given the choice between staying faithful to a spouse played by Beyonce Knowles and succumbing to the overt advances of an office worker as hot as Ali Larter, which course would most red-blooded American men choose? There's a simple answer to that devilishly complex question: keep the blond on hold until an out-of-town spa weekend can be arranged for the missus. Then, roll the dice. There are limits to fidelity, after all, and Larter definitely qualifies as one of them.
Men old enough to remember what happened to Michael Douglas and the family rabbit in Fatal Attraction might answer differently, but they'd still be tempted. In Obsessed, the center of both women's attraction is a very much married business executive played by Idris Elba (The Wire) and the moment of truth comes when they sharpen their claws for a cat fight. Everyone wins. The featurettes include, Playing Together Nicely, Girl Fight! and Obsessed: Dressed to Kill.- Gary DretzkaIn his previous incarnation as The Rock, Dwayne Johnson wrestled characters that might very well have been dropped into the ring from a flying saucer. In the family adventure, Race to Witch Mountain Johnson plays a cab driver whose teenage passengers insist they're extra-terrestrials in search of their space craft, which crashed at the government's heavily fortified Witch Mountain base. (Sounds like a lost episode fromTaxi in which Latka Gravas' orig ins were traced to the Roswell UFO landing.)
Like its 1975 predecessor, Escape to Witch Mountain, Race was inspired by a novel, Escape by Alexander Key. The super-powerful aliens are played by Anna Sophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig, while the sympathetic scientist – another of the cabbie's former fares – is portrayed by Carla Gugino, the rare American actress as adept at playing G- and PG-rated characters (Spy Kids) as sizzling R-rated hotties (Sin City, The Center of the World). A Blu-ray feature, Which Mountain? uncovers hidden references to the 1975 movie.Besides original songs by the Sherman Brothers, the 10th-anniversary edition of Disney's The Tigger Movie includes a pair of new-to-DVD Tigger stories and an upgraded audio-visual presentation. - Gary Dretzka
Labor Pains
Icons of Screwball Comedy, Volumes 1 and 2
It's become increasingly difficult to remember the time, not so long ago, when Lindsay Lohan displayed flashes of cinematic promise, performing credibly under the direction of Robert Altman in A Prairie Home Companion and opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Fonda and Tina Fey in several decent teen comedies. In the nearly straight-to-DVD Labor Pains Lohan fakes a pregnancy to win sympathy from her mean boss and keep a thankless secretarial job. As the ninth month approaches, though, she's at a loss to come up with a Plan B.
Half-gestated, at best, Labor Pains skipped theaters entirely, debuting, instead, only two weeks ago on the ABC Family Channel. Ouch. Contributions by supporting cast members Cheryl Hines, Janeane Garofalo and Chris Parnell couldn't keep writer-director Lara Shapiro from screwing up what might have been a screwball comedy.It's not difficult to find better examples of the screwball genre, which can trace its origins to Columbia Studios and Frank Capra's 1934 classic comedy, It Happened One Night. The titles in the Icons of Screwball Comedy collection demonstrates how nutty things can get when men and women reverse roles at the office or invent new ways to avoid inevitable romantic liaisons.
Here, the wonderful Jean Arthur plays opposite Herbert Marshall in If You Could Only Cook and Fred MacMurray and Melvin Douglas in Too Many Husbands. Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair share the attentions of eligible bachelors who visit their Greenwich Village pad in My Sister Eileen. (Wait for the cameo by the Three Stooges.) Russell plays an uptight psychiatrist with conflicting impulses toward patient Lee Bowman, an impulsive cartoonist, in She Wouldn't Say Yes. (Look for an uncredited Carl Alfalfa Switzer.) - Gary Dretzka
Dragonball EvolutionDelgoDemon Warriors
Once again, teenage characters from an epic Japanese manga fantasy have been called upon to save the Earth from the forces of darkness. In Dragonball Evolution James Marsters is an ancient lord, who, upon his escape from captivity, returns with a vengeance to capture seven powerful orbs. Bruce Chatwin has learned a thing or two from his own master (Chow Yun-Fat) and gets to display his skills in a fiery tournament. Emmy Rossum and Jamie Chung add a romantic element to the proceedings. Arriving with a PG rating, this is hybrid of Asian and western influences is best left for pre-teens.
In the confused and confusing animated fantasy Delgo, characters voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt stage their own version of Romeo and Juliet while lizard-faced warriors attempt to protect the citizens of Jhamora from the forces of an exiled queen. The voicing talent assembled here is far more impressive than the story or CGI effects. The cast includes Anne Bancroft (in her final role), Malcolm McDowell, Michael Clarke Duncan, Val Kilmer, Burt Reynolds, Eric Idle, Louis Gossett Jr., Kelly Ripa Jr. and Chris Kattan. Besides commentary by the directors, the DVD pack age adds six deleted scenes, the animated short Chroma Chameleon character introductions and a pair of making-of pieces.
In the Thai gore-fest, Demon Warriors a detective decides that the only way to investigate a superior race of ghouls, Opapatikas, is to commit suicide and infiltrate them in the afterlife. (Does that work in real life?) Every time he battles the creatures, however, Detective Techitin loses a power of his own. The blood-letting is profuse, despite the Buddhist psycho-babble. - Gary Dretzka
Shadowheart
Bounty hunter James Connors (Justin Ament) is haunted by memories of the murder of his preacher father and gruesome images from the Civil War. Just as he is about to find some semblance of peace in marriage, however, an evil New Mexico land baron sets him up for a fall. His recovery is hastened by Shadowheart, who introduces him to mystical world in Navajo country. - Gary Dretzka
While most people have, at one time or another, had to deal with proverbial 800-pound gorillas in their rooms, few have attempted to co-habitat with a non-metaphorical hippopotamus or rhino. The Animal Channel series Hippos and Rhinos describes the lessons learned daily by one family after they adopted a hippo named Jessica. Other shows on the DVD focus on Tatenda, a similarly domesticated rhino; wildlife conservationist Saba Douglas Hamilton and her work with black rhinos; and the pregnancy of Busch Gardens Florida's hippo, Cleo.
SciFi Channel's The Mutant Chronicles offered yet another post-apocalyptic scenario in which mutants battle superheroes. This time around, the mutants are spewed hither and yon by mechanized contraption. Monks with a strategy as to eliminate evil in the world direct the mortals in their difficult task. Meanwhile, earthlings attempt to find shelter on Mars. What the monk's posse doesn't take into account is the portability of the machine.
Also new to the TV-to-DVD scene: HBO's surprise hit series, Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Second Season in which a pair of Kiwi folk-rockers continue to invent new ways both to succeed in America and fall flat on their faces, hilariously and stylishly; and 664 minutes of The Love Boat: Season Two, Vol. 2 with such guest stars as Charo, Sonny Bono, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Raymond Burr, Bob Denver, Reggie Jackson, Tina Louise, Roddy McDowall, Anne Meara, Ethel Merman, Hayley Mills, Minnie Pearl and Martha Raye. Isn't it time for some desperate network to resurrect this series, this time with an all-teenage crew?
