MCN DVD Reviews: August 11, 2009

The Wrap Up ...

	..MCN Review - Wilmington
	..MCN Weekend

17 Again

In the days and weeks before the April 17 launch of 17 Again - clever timing, there -- Zac Efron was a ubiquitous presence on TV talk, infotainment and comedy shows, not only pimping the movie but also his coming of age as a mature actor who only looks like a kid. For all that effort, 17 Again did OK at the box-office, but probably not well enough to cover its staggering marketing nut. In it, Efron and former Friend Matthew Perry play a character who trades places with himself to revisit the glory days of high school years. Mike O'Donnell once was a basketball star, promising enough to be scouted by college teams. Instead of taking the scholarship route, Mike married his pregnant sweetheart and embarked on a road that could only lead to misery. Leslie Mann and Allison Miller play Scarlett O'Donnell at various phases of their development, while Michelle Trachtenberg and Sterling Knight portray their kids and Old Mike's new classmates. If there's enough sexual innuendo to require a PG-13 rating, nothing here would shock a fan of High School Musical. Unlike the barebones DVD edition, the Blu-ray 17 Again adds a trivia track; deleted scenes and outtakes; a glowing Efron profile; cast interviews about their high school experiences; a look at Efron's retro dance moves; and a digital copy. BD Live features are promised, as well. – Gary Dretzka

I Love You Man: Blu-ray

The easy-to-grasp premise of this entertaining bromance comedy demands that a soon-to-be married young professional (Paul Rudd) has been too busy working to develop a friendship that would produce a best-man candidate. Out of narrative necessity, then, he embarks on a series of dates with guys he might feel especially compatible. The credit f or the success of I Love You, Man, belongs mostly to Rudd, an actor who's adept at playing the kinds of socially awkward characters who, 20 years earlier, might have reached puberty under the tutelage of the late John Hughes. Also contributing mightily are Jason Segal, Peter Klaven, Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg, Jon Favreau, Jamie Pressely and, incredibly, Lou Ferrigno. Bonus features include commentary with Rudd, Segel and director John Hamburg; a making-of doc; deleted and elongated scenes; and a gag reel. - Gary Dretzka

The Class

One of the defeated co-favorites in this year's race for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, The Class puts a tight focus on the problems facing one dedicated teacher determined to teach French to a group of thoroughly unmotivated students in an ethnically di verse Paris suburb. It's to director Laurent Cantet's credit that the film more closely resembles The Blackboard Jungle than any one of a thousand Hollywood Stand and Deliver clones. In fact, the hi-def, in-your-face cinematography and naturalistic acting give The Class a distinctly documentary feel. Cantet's conceit, and it's a good one, was to use Francois Begaudeau's best-selling autobiographical novel as a springboard for a down-the-middle study of some of the problems facing French society as it evolves into a multi-cultural democracy. Cantet cast Begaudeau in the Glenn Ford role of naively optimistic teacher, while rounding up a representative group of students, who undergo a year's worth of preparation. At the beginning of The Class, most of Begadeau's time is devoted to gaining an upper hand in the discipline department, if only to reach the small handful of kids who wanted to be there. This tug-of-war continues throughout the school year. The DVD extras include select-scene commentary with Cantet and Begaudeau; a longish making-of featurettes, which extends the process to Cannes, where The Class copped the Palm d'Or; the French trailer; and, for Blu-ray, extended pieces on the audition process and students. - Gary Dretzka

The Tiger's Tail
London to Brighton

In his 1998 gangland biopic The General, John Boorman gave Brendan Gleeson an opportunity to show the world what he could do in a lead role. They would pair again eight years later in the mistaken-identity thriller The Tiger's Tail, in which Gleeson portrays both a wealthy Irish property developer, Liam O'Leary, and the scruffy doppelganger who's stalking him. The audience is in on the ruse, of course, if not its why's and wherefore's. It almost certainly involves a rival developer and an expensive scheme to construct a sports stadium to punctuate the unprecedented economic boom - and inevitable bust -- known locally as the Celtic Tiger. Boorman and Gleeson make a terrific team, maintaining a delicate balance between drama and comedy as fate causes the devious conman to change places with Liam in the bedroom, boardroom and booby-hatch. Despite a spotty Irish brogue, Kim Cattrall does a decent job as the wife who thinks she knows her husband, but clearly has missed some of the nuances … ditto, a son (Briain Gleeson) who spouts Marxist bromides while borrowing money from his dad. Sinead Cusack turns in another excellent performance as the woman who ultimately holds the key to the mystery. Awarded only a limited release in the U.S., The Tiger's Tail deserves to find a far more enthusiastic reception in DVD.

If there's one thing British filmmakers aren't particularly keen on, it's treating criminals with the kind of undue respect typically granted gangsters and gangsta's by Hollywood myth makers. Neither do the working girls tend to resemble Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. In Paul Andrew Williams' bleak, but effective drama, London to Brighton, a punching bag disguised as a prostitute is forced by her pimp - more soccer hooligan, than Iceberg Slim -- into turning out a 12-year-old runaway for the perverted father of a vicious crimelord. Naturally, things go even more horribly wrong than can be expected in these sorts of affairs. Williams appears to have left the witty repartee, choreographed gun fights and colorful Cockney characters for the enjoyment of Guy Ritchie fans. London to Brighton is hard-core drama. The extras include an alternate ending and deleted scenes, both of which amplify the violence not shown on the DVD. There's also some amazing footage of then-15 Georgia Groome's audition. - Gary Dretzka

Apres Lui

Francophiles will find more to like in Apres Lui -- in which Catherine Deneuve delivers a heartbreaking performance as a woman distraught over the unexpected loss of her son -- than most other viewers. That's not a knock on the film, just an observation based on Christophe Honore and Gael Morel's determination to ladle ever-richer dollops of grief over a base layer of depression. Deneuve plays the divorced mother of a handsome 20-year-old college student killed when the car in which he's driving crashes into a tree. His best friend, who was behind the wheel of the vehicle, survives the collision. We already know how close the points of this triangle are because we eavesdropped on the young men preparing for a party that required them to appear in drag. Unfazed, Deneuve helps them complete the look, by applying makeup and straightening their wigs. Instead of blaming and shunning the driver, as might be expected, the mother becomes obsesse d with his care, feeding and intellectual well-being. This alienates her from her former husband and their adult daughter. Eventually, it even freaks out the young man and, by extension, us. Unable to let go of this final link to her son, Deneuve's character demands of viewers that they play psychiatrist and witness to a breakdown. Apres Lui would be nothing without a performance as strong as Denueve's at its center. With it, the pain is almost bearable. Thomas Dumerchez, Guy Marchand and Élodie Bouchez also are very good.- - Gary Dretzka

Gigantic

I can't remember if Zooey Deschanel has ever been accorded flavor-of-the-month status - maybe as Will Farrell's unlikely girlfriend in Elf - but, given the success of (500) Days of Summer, that's the crown she's wearing this month. In Matt Aselton's almost fatally idiosyncratic Gigantic, she plays the sneaky-sexy, kimono-wearing, icy-blue-eyed daughter of a cranky millionaire (John Goodm an) with a bad back. She falls for a deadpan Manhattan salesman (Paul Dano), who's attempting to sell the geezer an expensive horse-hair mattress, after learning of his plan to adopt a Chinese baby … don't ask. Indeed, Deschanel's Harriet Lolly felt so comfortable in his company that she fell asleep on one of the beds in the showroom. Filling out the cast are Ed Asner, Jane Alexander and Zach Galifianakis. Whoever timed the release of the DVD to coincide with the wider rollout (500) Days of Summer - and spectacular reviews -- was either very smart or had a remarkably clear crystal ball. - Gary Dretzka

The Wild Man of the Navidad
Safehouse
The Art of War III: Retribution
Dark Rising
Cravings

The title character in The Wild Man of the Navidad is the stuff of legend in the small south Texas town of Sublime, Texas, along the wooded banks of the Navidad River. If such an organ-meat-grinding fiend actually exists is beside the point of this movie. What matters is that something exceedingly ugly and potentially dangerous might have been sighted by an ancestor of a living resident of Sublime, and, as such, could be used to boost tourism or scare the kiddies over campfires. Duane Meeks and Duane Graves have borrowed the legend to create a horror flick reminiscent of those that played the drive-in circuits of the rural South, complete with scary hillbillies and Bible-fearing rustics. As such, it works pretty well.

The straight-to-video Safehouse resembles hundreds of episodes of television shoot-'em-up series, in which impossibly hot cops battle muscle-bound thugs who might have been recruited from the Bouncers and Bodyguards Benevolent Society … and those are just the women. The men are hybrids of Don Johnson, circa 1985, and G.I. Joe. The plot hardly matters in these pictures. Good looks and cool locations are far more important. It's classic good guys vs. bad guys stuff, with both factions firing toy guns and suffering horrible deaths. Here, a fashionably emaciated and double-earringed ex-FBI agent (Johnny Alonso) takes on a small army of juiced-up punks, all in basic-black outfits. While he's exacting revenge on a diabolical villain, his exceedingly cute and undeniably vapid girlfriend (Kelly Ripa look-alike Carolina Hoyos) shutters in various corners of the local boathouse. Director John Poague's previous effort, which also went straight to video, was Bigfoot at Holler Creek Canyon. That epic benefited from far more sex and nudity.

Anthony Treach Criss took over for the tax-burdened Wesley Snipes in the second video sequel in the Art of War series. Here, special agent Neil Shaw's mission is to keep North Korea from obtaining a nuclear bomb, but wants he really wants to do is save a beautiful facilitator (Playboy model Sung Hi Lee) from a fate worth than death, or something like that. It causes Shaw to be framed for murder. His martial-arts skills help prevent a terrorist cell from using the bomb to disrupt a UN peace conference.

WWE and TNA wrestling star Jason Christian "Cage" Reso can't figure out what hits him in Dark Rising, a supernatural thriller/comedy that aspires to cult status. As such, the cover accentuates the presence of a scantily-clad lesbian wielding a large battle ax. Reso's character hopes to win back the heart of his ex-fiance - who's decided she's more clitly than dickly 9 3 but must do some serious time-travelling before she decides he's worth the effort.

Ray Winstone's daughter, Jaime, plays a deeply disturbed teen with an abnormal taste for blood, in Cravings (a.k.a., Daddy's Girl). The best thing about D.J. Evans' psycho-thriller is the Welsh setting. - Gary Dretzka

90210: The Complete First Season
Super Friends: The Lost Episodes
L ockup: Raw: Season One
Super Why!: Jack and the Beanstalk & Other Story Book Adventures

Of all the television series that weren't crying out for a modern revival, Fox's iconic 1990s hit Beverly Hills, 90210, was right on top of the list. In an industry devoid of new ideas, however, it was inevitable that some desperate executive producer would want to step into the shoes that once fit Aaron Spelling. And, the CW will take ideas wherever it can find them. In 90210, the Wilson family of Kansas moves to Beverly Hills, where dad will work as principal of West Beverly Hills High and two of the Wilson kids will quickly learn that everything they knew, wore and did was wrong. Bringing the series into the 21st Century allowed the producers an opportunity to upgrade the traumas facing teenagers who, otherwise, have been provided the best of everything.

Super Friends replaced Justice League of America as the title for this series of animated adventures of DC Comics superheroes. In addition to such familiar characters as Aquaman, Superman, Batman and Robin, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman and Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman, the show - which was divided into seven-minute segments - introduced Black Vulcan, Samaraui and Apache Chief. Old villains Bizarro and Mr. Mxyztplk would be joined by the Incredible Crude Oil Monster, the Voodoo Vampire, the Outlaws of Orion and Diamond Jack. The Lost Episodes were produced after the show was cancelled by ABC and left unshown until a decade later as part of The Superman/Batman Adventures. The DVD package adds a pair of downloadable Super Friends comic-book adventures.

Lockup: Raw, took non-felonious MSNBC viewers behind the walls of several maximum-security penal institutions, providing a polyps-and-all examination of the American prison system. It's not a pretty picture. Foremost on the minds of convicts and guards is survival … whether it pertains to min d-numbing boredom or shiv-carrying gang-bangers. It's fascinating stuff, but scary to the max.

PBS' Super Why! innovative series is targeted at pre-schoolers with an early proclivity for reading. The Super Readers team employs its literary powers to enter the fairytale worlds of delineated in Jack and the Beanstalk, Princes and the Pea, The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. - Gary Dretzka

Teenage Mutant Ninja20Turtles Film Collection: Blu-ray

Adult fans of the TMNT franchise - and you know who you are -- will be thrilled to learn that the feature-length Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 and 2007), TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze and TMNT III: Turtles in Time are being accorded a collective roll-out on hi-def. Those who only need to add the 1990 TMNT to complete their collection likely will greet the set as a mixed blessing. Neither are the supplemental features all that enticing. Apropos of the tone of the franchise, the set arrives in an oversized box designed to look as if it might once carried an actual pizza, instead of discs that resemble the pies. Inside are eight collectible character cards, a signed Kevin Eastman sketch, a black-and-white graphic novel adaptation of the first film, and a beanie with the TMNT logo. - Gary Dretzka

Ulysses

Few actors can boast of playing such oversized figures as Vincent Van Gogh, Doc Holliday, Spartacus, Gen. George Patton, Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde, and Ulysses, as well as 80-plus other mostly memorable characters. That, though, is the kind of career Kirk Douglas has enjoyed since making an Academy Award-nominated splash in 1950, for Champion. Four years later, Douglas would join Oscar-winner Anthony Quinn and Silvana Mangano in Italy for a spaghetti version of Homer's Odyssey, playing the lead role of Ulysses. As we catch up to him, Ulysses has already sacked Troy and is taking the scenic route home to Greece, where Penelope has long resisted the advances of suitors trying to convince her of Ulysses' death. After washing up on Phaeacia without any knowledge of how he got there, our hero is nursed back to health by by the lovely, Podesta. As Douglas stares out to sea, the audience is made privy to deeply buried memories of engaging Cyclops in battle, resisting the lures of the Sirens and avoiding being turned into a pig by Circe. It's fun, if seriously out of date. - Gary Dretzka

Katyn
The Unwinking Gaze: The Inside Story of the Dalai Lama's Struggle for Tibet

Among the many crimes perpetrated in the run-up to World War II was the slaughter of nearly the entire Polish officer corps by Red Army goons, on the orders of Josef Stalin. Although the there was solid evidence of the true nature of the liquidation, which took place in Katyn Forest, Stalin used doctored intelligence to convince FDR and Winston Churchill that it was the work of the Nazis. Later, when the tide turned against Germany, Stalin ordered Soviet soldiers to assume the identity of Poles and move into villages where questions were being raised about the atrocity, in which 22,000 men were killed. Andrzej Wajda examines the massacre and cover-up through the eyes of four fictional officers and their families.

It's possible to argue that the rape of Tibet by the Chinese military isn't on a par with what happened during World War II, but that sort of academic hair-splitting is best left to academics and diplomats. The reality is that China's absorption of Tibet was one of the great crimes of the 20th Century and it was made even more atrocious by the lack of gumption on the part of other nations to do anything about it. Even today, any display of resistance by the Buddhist theocracy is greeted with stern police and military action. The Chinese even have gone so far as to dictate to the monks still in Tibet which babies are the rightful reincarnates of famous lamas. This would apply, as well, to the next Dalai Lama. Joshua Dugdale's The Unwinking Gaze documents three years in the life of the current Dalai Lama, one of the most iconic figures in the world, as he strove to convince world leaders and concerned citizens, alike, that the issue transcends religious boundaries, going to the very soul of human nature. We see that instead of being a war monger or bullhorn-toting radical, the Dalai Lama is ambassador for peace and justice. In the Cold War, his message might have found a bit more traction, but, today, Chinese capitalism is more powerful a force than Chinese communism ever was, leaving world leaders stammering whenever questions about Tibet arise. - Gary Dretzka

The Beatles: Rare and Unseen

By now, one would think that every shred and morsel of Beatlemania has been mined , catalogued and licensed. Not so, apparently, as documentaries such as Rare and Unseen tend to pop with sufficient regularity to keep PBS pledge months bearable. If memory serves, that's where I first watched Chris Cowey and Paul Clark's film. The archival footage is mostly of the grainy 16mm variety and most of the music is performed by sound-alike bands, but it would be the rare Beatles document that is bereft of entertainment value. Here, a guest appearance by onetime fanboy Phil Collins is the major selling point. - Gary Dretzka

A Life Among Whales

In the last decade or so, save-the-whales activists have been forced to share the spotlig ht with an increasingly media-savvy army of tree-sitters, Earth-warmers, dolphin rescuers and water purifiers. A Life Among Whales profiles marine biologist and natural historian Dr. Roger Payne, who's been in it for the haul. In the early 1970s, Payne turned people on to the unique sounds made by whales while communicating underwater and, today, he's making us care about the impact of pollution on the majestic creatures. After all, if we can't save the largest mammals living among us, what hope can have of saving ourselves from poisons we continue to spew into the environment. - Gary Dretzka