Pick of the week:  No Country For Old Men / Gone Baby Gone double feature – Two of the absolute best movies of the past ten years together on one bargain-priced disc from Alliance Films.

  Blu-Ray pick of the week:  The Kids Are Alright – Maybe the greatest rock movie documentary of all time, The Who destroy drums and eardrums and prove they are the greatest rock and roll act of all time. 

  Matlock Season Four - Andy Griffith was awesome.  So was Matlock!  Maaaaaaaatlock!

  All Hell Broke Loose - David Carradine is, for some reason, involved in this movie which I think might have been made as a high school film project.

  Good Will Hunting / Rounders double feature – bargain priced DVD with two great Matt Damon movies.

  Milk / Brokeback Mountain double feature – Two good movies – Milk is great, Brokeback Mountain is over-rated.

  Also out on DVD this week: 

2012
Where The Wild Things Are
Gentlemen Broncos
Ponyo
Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey
Welcome
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Mr. Right
Strawberry Shortcake: The Berryfest Princess Movie

  On Blu-Ray this week:

2012
Ponyo
Where The Wild Things Are
Clash of the Titans
The Neverending Story
Alice
Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight Young Lovers
Gentlemen Broncos
The Who: The Kids Are Alright
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Kurokami: The Animation Vol. 1
Wild Australia IMAX

  On DVD next week:

Up In The Air
Old Dogs
Precious
Planet 51
Capitalism: A Love Story
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
Hachi: A dog`s Tale
Hurricane Season
Barbie In A Mermaid Tale
Good Intentions
Magic Man
Service
Hannah Montana: Miley Says GoodbyeÉ
Nine Dead
The Stoning of Soraya M.

  On Blu-Ray next week:

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
Up In The Air
Precious
Old Dogs
Planet 51
Ninja
The Fourth Kind
Super Bowl Champions: New Orleans Saints
Hachi: A Dog`s Tale
Capitalism: A Love Story
The Stoning of Soraya M.
UFC: The Best of 2009
Glacier National Park
JCVD / Exit Speed
The Last Shangri-La
Creatures of the Thaw
Midnight Movie / Killer Movie

Year:  1989, 1990
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Andy Griffith, Clarence Gilyard Jr., Nancy Stafford, Don Knotts, Julie Sommars
Creator:  Dean Hargrove
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I remember watching Matlock in the 80s with my mom, who watched the show evern though she was not yet in her 90s.  I remember thinking that Michelle (Nancy Stafford) was crazy hot, and that Andy Griffith had an effortless and entertaining Southern charm, and that in Season Four, and that Conrad (Clarence Gilyard, Jr.) was an improvement as an investigator over Tyler (Kene Holliday).  Upon revisiting the show, I now think that Nancy Stafford was indeed hot, but in an 80s sort of retro way.

     I still think that Gilyard was a mild upgrade over Holliday.  Tyler was far more badass, and obviously tougher and grittier and more resourceful, but Conrad is far more charming and likeable.  I still think that Matlock (Andy Griffith, of course) has effortless and entertaining southern charm.  He likes his hot dogs, you see.  And his gittar pickin’, and his…I dunno…cornbread.  Or whatever else people like in the South.

     The first episode of Season four, “The Hunting Party”, is all about a guy who wants to avenge the murder of his brother during a “hunting accident”.  It introduces us to Conrad, who will become Matlock’s assistant and investigator later in the same episode.  It isn’t nearly as good as the movie The Hunting Party, but then, it’s a Matlock episode.

     On the other hand, the episode entitled “The Ex” is far better than the movie The Ex starring Zach Braff.  Cause that movie sucked, and this episode is all about Matlock being jealous of the ex-husband of his sort-of girlfriend-maybe Julie (Julie Sommars).  Also included in Season Four are “The Fugitive” (movie’s better), “The Prisoner” (TV series is better), and “The Cookie Monster” (the muppet is better).  There are many things that are better than Matlock.  But I’ll watch every episode of this totally entertaining show anyway.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Action, Western
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  David Carradine, Jerry Chesser, Jim Hilton
Director:  Christopher Forbes
Run time:  94 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     I’m almost at a loss for words when it comes to All Hell Broke Loose.  The movie is…virtually indescribable.  It looks like it was shot with a camcorder from 1994.  I suspect that this was a movie some guy decided to make, and then he grabbed a nine dollar camcorder, asked a bunch of his friends to be in his movie, (preference being given to those friends he had who owned their own cowboy hats), then he hammered out a script in a couple of hours and just started shooting.  When the shooting was done, he ran back to his computer and spent four hours editing, then quickly put the movie on DVD, if only because it was too long for youtube.

     Somehow, director Christopher Forbes managed to acquire a legitimate actor – David Carradine – to appear in the film.  Carradine, as the only name actor, gets top billing and gets his picture on the cover of the DVD, even though he spends about ninety seconds, total, on screen.  I can only assume that it was his involvement alone that got this movie distributed (by Alliance Films, out March 2nd).  And I can only assume that shortly before his untimely demise, Carradine managed somehow to get himself deeply indebted to Christopher Forbes.

     This movie reminds me a lot of another DVD I once purchased, called Need To Feed.  It was a horror movie some high school kids in Ottawa made as their final school project, and it was sold on consignment at a few local record stores as a favour to those kids.  In watching that movie, I noticed a few things that really separate first-time efforts with a camcorder from the rest of the movie world.  It’s mostly editing.  In movies like Need To Feed and All Hell Broke Loose, characters don’t really have dialogue.  They speak one at a time.  The camera sits on one face as he says a line, then there is a little gap and the camera jumps to the face of the other guy as he says his line.

     It’s that kind of thing that makes movies like this one unwatchable for most people.  Oh, there are other problems with this film – many, many, many, many other problems.  The star of the film, Jim Hilton, is actually a pretty interesting actor who might be good.  In a halfway competent movie.  Hilton reminds me a lot of Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie.  He plays Will Drayton, a former sharpshooter in the Civil War who gets hired by some bad guys to do some bad things.  I think.

     The problem is that although Hilton is clearly the best actor in the movie, and he has a pretty ideal deep voice and tough-guy look for a western, he is given some truly awful lines.  “I probably couldn’t hit the blue side of a red barn now” and so forth.  He does strange, inexplicable things, like warning the elderly proprietor of a trading post that he is about to get robbed.  How does he know that?  Why would he say that?  We never know, nor do we ever care.

     I realize that naming Hilton the best actor in this movie is a little odd.  After all, there is a name actor in the cast, Carradine.  But he is simply awful in this movie, saddled with the same silly lines as Hilton “I remember when you shot a man down in the street.  For nothing more.  Than a pocketful.  Of silver.”  It’s just terrible.  The women who are supposed to be hot are just middle-aged regular women.  Nothing against having regular, middle-aged women in a movie.  But don’t pretend they’re uber-babes.

     Anyone who is familiar with the works of Ed Wood, or with the movie Ed Wood, will remember that bizarrely, Wood managed to get Bela Lugosi to appear in his no-budget, awful films.  Lugosi was a drug addict and a mess, and he would take any work offered him because of his many problems.  That’s all I could think of as I watched Carradine in this youtube-calibre home movie.  What was going on with him that he agreed to do this?

     Since his career resurrection in Tarantino’s Kill Bill in 2004, Carradine has appeared in 38 movies.  Almost without exception, they have been absolutely awful.  Epic Movie, Big Stan, the list goes on and on.  At least eleven of those movies have come out on DVD since his untimely death.  I’m not saying the man had a legacy that would be up there with Brando and Dean.  Or even that of Bela Lugosi.  But surely he deserves better than this to stand as his last work.

     Oh, one more thing – the director’s commentary, which is a special feature on the disc, indicates that there will be a sequel to this movie.  It’s alluded to during a really bizarre scene where a long story gets told about a missing daughter who may still be alive and even though Will himself couldn’t find her after an obsessive search, the bad guys surely would find her, now that they have it in for him for some reason, and they would kill her.  Somehow.  Just putting this out there – a sequel to this movie?  Not a good idea.  OK?

Year:  2007
Genre:  Drama, Thriller
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald, Garret Dillahunt, Stephen Root
Director:  Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Coen Brothers
Run time:  122 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The Coen Brothers had collaborated on twelve films in their illustrious career before No Country For Old Men.  There had been some interesting misses, like The Ladykillers, and some terrific movies like The Big Lebowski.  And there have been three absolute classics.  They are Miller’s Crossing, Fargo, and now No Country For Old Men.  This is an absolutely brilliant film, taken very literally from Cormac McCarthy’s absolutely brilliant novel.  This may well be the best movie the Coens have done, and that’s saying a lot – Fargo was the best film of the 1990s

     Tommy Lee Jones plays sheriff Ed Tom Bell, at the centre of the film, who is long on wisdom but short on solutions.  Javier Bardem gives one of the creepiest performances in recent memory as a maniacal killer named Anton Chigurh.  His performance in this movie is as scary as any turned in by the other masters of the creepy of this generation – the Christopher Walkens and John Malkoviches of the world.  Josh Brolin is Llewellyn Moss, the “main character” in the movie.  You know, if one could consider any character in this movie a “main” one.  He’s just a man who stumbles across the aftermath of a bloody shootout in the desert.  He finds massive amounts of heroin, which he leaves there, dozens of guns, some of which he takes, and two million dollars.  He takes all of that. 

     This is what sets off the chain of events that are the plot of the movie.  But this film is not really about any of those characters.  This movie is about No Country For Old Men.  That is, it is about the country.  The end of the country and world that we all know, and the presentation to us of a world that is completely alien to us.  You could call the film a western, in that it takes place in the west.  You could call it a thriller, a black comedy, or even a horror movie.  But it can’t be pigeonholed into a genre.

     No Country For Old Men is bleak, entertaining, and virtually flawless.  Cormac McCarthy wrote a tremendous novel, which was translated into a brilliant screenplay, which was then transformed into an absolute genius movie.  To say something is as good as Fargo is something I might have considered ridiculous five years ago.  No Country For Old Men is as good as Fargo.  And therefore it is better than any other movie of the past ten years.  Rent it, buy it, whatever.  Just do it now.

Year:  2007
Genre:  Drama, Thriller
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Ryan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Titus Welliver
Director:  Ben Affleck
Run time:  115 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Until now, I was convinced that Ben Affleck wouldn’t know a good script if it walked up to him and kicked him in the stones. Now, I am not so sure. Either he just doesn’t care, as long as he’s acting, or he is such a bad actor that he will ruin any script by himself. But there is a third option. Perhaps the script to Gone Baby Gone not only walked up to him and kicked him in the stones, it also bit him in the face, chewed off part of his nose, ripped out his nipple ring, stabbed him twice and then gave him the people’s elbow.

     Or maybe it’s a combination, because Ben Affleck’s wisest decision as a director in Gone Baby Gone was not to cast Ben Affleck in any role in his movie. How many directors can competently direct themselves? Clint Eastwood and…yeah. Maybe just Clint. So that was good decision number one. A questionable decision was to cast his younger brother Casey in the starring role. Casey Affleck, as far as I was aware, existed only in movies that starred Ben, and even then he played some minor throw-away role. How good could he actually be?

     Well, the answer, it turns out, is VERY good. Casey Affleck plays a private investigator who looks as though he is thirteen. This is great casting, because Casey Affleck does indeed look as though he is thirteen. And when the situation calls for him to act the tough guy, it somehow really works. Not only do we not expect it, neither do the bad guys. And it’s pretty convincing intimidation when this young, babyfaced guy all of a sudden gets Dirty Harry tough. Everyone is taken aback, realistically so. It’s a great job by Affleck of handling the character.

     Somehow, with that Good Will Hunting Boston accent, you get the sense that this guy is a lot tougher than he looks. His wife is played admirably by Michelle Monaghan, an actress who is rising to the top of the heap of late with roles in movies like this one and North Country. The best performance in the movie, however, is turned in by Amy Ryan, who plays the mother of an abducted little girl. She is a coke-head, a drug mule, a drunk, in short, one of the worst mothers imaginable for a sweet young child.

     Affleck and Monaghan are hired by the little girl’s aunt to help find her. They are joined in their pursuit by a pair of cops, played by the excellent Ed Harris and John Ashton, and their search takes them through the seedy underbelly of Boston, dealing with drug dealers (some good and some bad) and general thugs who cause problems at every turn. Every time the movie seems to be reaching a certain conclusion, the script throws a twist into the plot, and all of a sudden Affleck and Monaghan are careening toward a different outcome. By the end of the film, the whole story becomes clear, and there is a final “showdown” that presents a Sophie’s Choice kind of ending, although not nearly so dramatic. This is the only minor quibble I have with the ending.

     The decision reached by the characters, the course of action they choose to take, seems like a massive moral decision that would cause most of us to really wonder what we would do in that situation. But a closer examination of that choice makes it seem obvious that there is really only one choice that could be made there, the choice Affleck eventually does make. I won’t tell you the details, I haven’t really revealed anything here, but you’ll have to watch the movie yourself. It is being released, again, in a bargain package with No Country For Old Men by Alliance Films on Tuesday, and really needs to be watched to be understood. Watch this movie.

  Good Will Hunting (**********10/10)

Year:  1997
Genre:  Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Robin Williams, Stellan Skarsgard, Minnie Driver, Cole Hauser, George Plimpton
Director:  Gus Van Sant
Run time:  127 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Good Will Hunting remains one of my favourite films of all time.  It achieves a stunning balance between drama, romance, comedy and genuine badass intellectualism.  Has there ever been a more badass intellectual scene than the one on the video included in this review?  The writing in this film is remarkable – maybe the best written scene in the whole movie is one between Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgard at a pub, a scene all about Ted Kaczinski.

     It’s really two things that make this film great.  The writing and the acting.  Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won an Oscar for their screenplay, and there’s no question it was well deserved.  And Damon is flawless in the film as Will Hunting, a young man with incredible intellectual gifts who just doesn’t want to live the life of a professional Brain.  He hangs out with his friends, gets into fights, boozes it up and works menial jobs, partly because that’s all he has ever wanted to do, and also because he is scared to do realize his full potential.

     Soon, he is discovered by a math professor (Skarsgard), who sees in this boy an untapped genius who could change the world.  But he needs, somehow, to get through to the troubled Will.  Enter the other sensational actor in this film, Robin Williams.  He plays a psychiatrist who is entrusted with Hunting, and he’s expected to bring the full potential out of the rebellious kid.  It isn’t an easy task.  But it sure is a fun one to watch.

     Also terrific is Minnie Driver, as the Harvard student love interest who, in her own way, helps Will change his perspective on his gift and on the world.  Good Will Hunting is simply a fabulous movie, and a magnificent addition to any DVD collection.

  Rounders (*******7/10)

Year:  1998
Genre:  Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, Gretchen Mol, John Turturro, Famke Janssen, Lenny Clarke, Martin Landau
Director:  John Dahl
Run time:  125 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Coming right on the heels of Good Will Hunting was Rounders, which traded off Matt Damon’s sudden popularity and the fantastic teaming of two incredible young actors – Damon and Norton – to elevate what could have been a rather silly and cheesy B-movie to one that was more than worthwhile.  Yes, there are some silly scenes.  For example, the oreos – anyone think that wasn’t going to factor in the end somehow?

     But Norton and Damon are so good as the compulsive troubled gambler and his poker prodigy buddy that I forget the silliness.  And although John Malkovich, the Ultimate Bad Guy Poker Player, is a bit of a cartoon, he’s such a fun cartoon that it doesn’t matter.  I’ll still enjoy The Cincinnati Kid more as the ultimate poker movie, but I will always hold a soft spot in my heart for Rounders.  As the second-best movie in this double feature, out March 2nd from Alliance Films, Rounders makes this single-disc bargain purchase that much better.  It’s a must.

Year:  2005
Genre:  Drama, Romance
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid, Kate Mara, Anna Faris, Linda Cardellini
Eye candy:  Hathaway, Williams, Mara, Faris
Director:  Ang Lee
Run time:  134 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The first half of Brokeback Mountain is excellent. The camerawork is sensational, and is reminiscent of some of the best work done by Terrence Malick in films like Days of Heaven and Badlands. Brokeback Mountain itself actually becomes a character in the movie, and Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are almost irrelevant.  Ledger, however, gives a terrific performance as a man who is simply struggling to communicate with everyone, including his gay lover Gyllenhaal.

     Then the gay sex happens. It’s rather shockingly aggressive, and that sets the tone for the second half of the movie, which is NOT very good. It’s about an hour too long, and we sort of know what will happen before it does. Jake Gyllenhall comes off as more of a sexual predator than a lover, and Heath Ledger spends the last two hours of the film just trying to escape from this man with whom he has had an ill-advised fling.

     Brokeback Mountain is much like Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. It starts off great, but by the two minute mark, we get it. No need to make the song seventeen minutes long, just jump to the end and save us some time. 

     Milk (*********9/10)

Year:  2008
Genre:  Drama, Biopic
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, James Franco
Director:  Gus Van Sant
Run time:  127 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

  “If it were true that children emulate their teachers, we’d have a lot more nuns running around.”

     Milk is the true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man ever to win an election for public office in the state of California.  He was shot and killed, along with the mayor of San Francisco, by a rival politician in 1978.  We know all of this information going into the film, which focuses mostly on 1977 and 78, and the controversial statewide initiative that sought to ban gays, and their “supporters”, from teaching at public schools. 

     Through a taped statement that Milk (Sean Penn) reads just before his death, we see the movie mostly through flashbacks related to this tape.  We also get to see archival footage – Walter Cronkite with the news, Anita Bryant and her crazed crusade against homosexuality – that creates a really great late-70s feel in the film. 

     The only bone I have to pick with Milk, really, is that it spends too much time introducing us to Harvey Milk.  We get to see him hook up with a new boyfriend, move to San Francisco, open a camera shop, and begin to become politically active.  But we’re not really getting to know him through all this.  The real Harvey Milk shows up when he decides to take on certain local issues, and begins to become a voice for the gay community.  I would have been just as happy had the movie started here. 

     But that’s a small issue when compared to the big picture, which is a very good movie featuring some very, very good performances.  Emile Hirsch (Into The Wild) is a former street hustler who joins Milk’s campaign for city supervisor, adn he is almost unrecognizable.  He’s also fantastic.  James Franco (Spiderman) is terrific as Milk’s steady boyfriend Scott, and I really liked Alison Pill as Milk’s lesbian campaign manager when Scott left.

     One actor I found unnecessary and distracting was Diego Luna, who played Milk’s new boyfriend, Jack.  A crazy, possessive, lunatic boyfriend, he’s one of those characters who makes you cringe every time he shows up on screen, and makes me want to fast forward through his scenes so I don’t have to share in the embarassment he’s causing himself.  But you can’t fast-forward at the theatre, can you? 

     The best performances in the film, however, are by Josh Brolin and Sean Penn.  Of course, the Academy has already acknowledged this themselves, having nominated both for acting Oscars.  Brolin is nominated for Supporting Actor for his role as Dan White, the rival politician whose bitter feud with Milk ends with the murder.  A brooding, seething presence, Brolin still manages to remain reasonably likeable and utterly convincing.  And Penn as Harvey Milk has done some of the best work of his already remarkable career.

     Milk serves well as a terrific snapshot of the late 70s in San Francisco.  The clothes, the characters, and the actors are all able to create a very convincing 70s gay Castro district scene.  The movie also serves as an inspiration for a civil rights movement that still has gigantic challenges in front of it, and it functions as a pretty solid biopic of a very interesting man.  I don’t think it deserved to be the Best Picture of the Year at the Oscars, but I do think it deserves to be watched by as many people as possible.  It comes out on the double feature with Brokeback Mountain March 2nd from Alliance Films.

  Pick of the week:  Five Corners – It has taken many, many years for this film to come to DVD, but it was worth the wait.  Tim Robbins, Jodie Foster and John Turturro are great in a funny, shocking slice-of-life movie from the 80s.

  Blu-Ray of the week:  Dirty Harry / Magnum Force double feature – It’s Clint Eastwood in the first two Dirty Harry movies.  What more could one want?

  Janky Promoters - Dreadful movie about promoters who can’t do anything right.  Maybe it’s meant to be artistic that the movie can’t do anything right either.

  Motherhood – Painful movie where Uma Thurman is frazzled and bothered because she’s a mother.  Ugh.  Written like a bad episode of Sex And The City.

  Ghost Month – Another awful movie, this one about ghosts and the month where the Chinese believe the gates of hell are open.  For ghosts to emerge and take on the form of Michael Jackson.

  Degrassi: The Next Generation Season 8 – Eye candy abounds, but most of it is minor eye candy.  Minor, like, not yet legal.

  My Three Sons Season Two Volume One – It was a good show, but it can’t help but feel dated.  The thing is, it feels really dated.

  Sinbad: Where U Been? – I don’t care where Sinbad has been.  Judging by this stand-up routine, it’s time he goes back wherever that was.

  Hostage / The Lookout double feature – Bargain-priced double feature with a decent Bruce Willis action movie and a truly underappreciated gem.  The Lookout is magnificent.

  Sin City / The Crow double feature – Sin City remains a classic, amazing movie.  The Crow may still claim cult status, but it simply isn’t great.

  Also out on DVD this week:

The Informant!
The Box
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
Sorority Row
XIII: The Conspiracy
The September Issue
The House of the Devil
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
$9.99: the Meaning of Life
Alexander The Last
The Adventures of Clutch Powers
Big River Man
Love & Savagery
Swedish Auto
Wrong Side of Town
Flashforward: Season One, Part One
Nurse Jackie: Season One
The Vicious Kind

  On Blu-Ray this week:

The Universe: Complete Season Four
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
The Informant!
The Box
Neil Diamond: Live from NYC Hot August Night
The Crazies
Grumpy Old Men / Grumpier Old Men
Dead Snow
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
Presumed Innocent / Frantic
Analyze This / Analyze That
Miss Congeniality / Miss Congeniality 2
Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day
Nurse Jackie: Season One
Sorority Row
The Damned United
Ichi the Killer
Dirty Harry / Magnum Force
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
Motherhood
Wrong Side of Town
Google Me
Funny Farm / Spies Like Us

  On DVD next week:

2012
Where The Wild Things Are
Gentlemen Broncos
Ponyo
Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey
Welcome
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Mr. Right
Strawberry Shortcake: The Berryfest Princess Movie

  On Blu-Ray next week:

2012
Ponyo
Where The Wild Things Are
Clash of the Titans
The Neverending Story
Alice
Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight Young Lovers
Gentlemen Broncos
The Who: The Kids Are Alright
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Kurokami: The Animation Vol. 1
Wild Australia IMAX

Years:  2008, 2009
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  Canada
Language:  English
Starring:  Melinda Shankar, Samantha Munro, Jajube Mandiela, Shenae Grimes, Marc Donato, Stacey Farber, Miriam McDonald, Charlotte Arnold, Paula Brancati, Judy Jiao
Creators:  Yan Moore, Linda Schuyler
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     You get what you expect with Degrassi: The Next Generation Season 8, out February 23rd from Alliance Films.  Melodrama, teen issues, viriginities lost and friendships forged and backs stabbed.  And a hostage drama that ends in a shooting.  And unrequited love and eye candy (minus Shenae Grimes, among others, who had left by this time) and that gorgeous woman who went on to The Vampire Diaries after this.  But mostly, you get a solid, bizarrely addictive TV series from Canada. 

     I think that Degrassu: The Next Generation is actually better than the original Degrassi.  The actors are better.  The writing is better, and the production values are miles ahead of the old show.  But somehow it doesn’t quite capture the charm of Joey and Snake and Wheels and Spike and Caitlin and the rest.  It’s still solid, and it’s still addictive, and Season 8 includes that painful Degrassi Goes Hollywood movie with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes.  But I miss the old one.  I really do.  Bring me Wheels and Caitlin and I’d be much happier.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards, Minnie Driver, Matthew Schallipp, David Schallipp
Director:  Katherine Dieckmann
Run time:  90 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Movies have a hard time with motherhood, in general.  And it’s pretty fitting that a movie called Motherhood would take all the irritating, silly cliches that movies use to depict mothers and cram them all into one horrible movie.  Uma Thurman plays a MOTHER.  And that means she is harried and stressed out and overwhelmed and oh-my-how-can-she-survive-another-day and blah blah blah.

     At just about every moment in the film, she has her arms full.  She has to carry a baby and a sippy cup and a bunch of bags for a birthday party and the keys to the car and the groceries and the replacement pipe for the kitchen sink and the dog’s new leash and the TV guide and the insect repellant and the bottles and diapers and formula and the other MOTHER stuff that all moms obviously have crammed into their arms at all times.  How will she ever manage?

     She meets all kinds of other MOTHERS too, each of whom fit into neat little categories.  The one-up MOTHER, whose kid does everything better and who makes more money and who is more composed and wears makeup and has her hair done and doesn’t look like a stupid mess all the time.  And the overprotective MOTHER.  And the child-as-a-helpful-tool MOTHER. 

     The worst thing about the movie though, is that it’s written like a bad Sex And The City episode.  Thurman is, ostensibly, a writer.  And she writes about being a MOTHER.  And so every time she sits down to type, we get to hear the unpalatable, quasi-clever drivel that comes out of her brain and onto the page.  She makes up painful, unclever words for things.  Like the mom who snaps cell phone shots of Jodie Foster and her kid is the MOM-erazzi.  Thurman is wrting her MOM-oirs.

     That’s painful, but not as annoying as watching Thurman flounce around and get flustered while her husband (the terribly underused Anthony Edwards) does regular, every-day guy stuff which apparently is the straw that breaks this MOTHER’s back.  It’s a dreadful hour and a half.  Motherhood comes out February 23rd from Alliance Films.

Year:  2007
Genre:  Horror
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Marina Resa, Shirley To, Akiko Shima, Rick Irvin
Director:  Danny Draven
Run time:  90 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     There are many things that make Ghost Month awful.  One is the acting, which is somewhere between hardcore porn and softcore porn thespianism.  Without the boobs.  The two main stars, Marina Resa and Shirley To, are OK.  But every time another character is introduced, they appear to have been discovered at the casting for a Cash For Gold commercial.  Like, they are the ones who didn’t make it as the crazy guy who goes gaga gor gold.

     There are also some irritating special effects.  Two ghosts are haunting the stars of the film, and they occasionally appear out of a mist that exists for some reason.  One looks a lot like that painting The Scream, and the other looks very much like Michael Jackson.  Not saying Michael Jackson didn’t look scary, but if I’m laughing every time the ghost shows up, it leaves precious little reason for me to be frightened.

     There are virtually no scares at all in Ghost Month.  The basic premise is that one month of every year is the “ghost month”, and the Chinese believe that the gates of hell have been opened and the ghosts will come and get you if you don’t follow certain rules and observe certain customs (almost all of them apparently involve burning stuff).  Marina Resa has been hired as a housekeeper for a home run by Shirley To, a home that observes these rituals strictly.  Obviously something bad has happened there before, and the ghosts are angry…obviously.

     That’s the biggest problem with Ghost Month, I think.  It’s so obvious.  Many of the characters, especially Resa, have their own internal running monologues where they act as their own narrators.  On discovering a box, she will say “I wonder what’s in this” to herself.  Because we need to know exactly what’s going on in her head?  Or, she discovers blood on her hands and says “there’s blood on my hands”.  Thanks.  Without narration, how would we know what was going on?

     Any of these things, on their own, would make Ghost Month a bad movie.  All together, they make it an awful one.  This awful movie comes out February 23rd from Alliance Films.

Year:  1987
Genre:  Comedy, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins, John Turturro, Todd Graff, Elizabeth Berridge, Rose Gregorio, Gregory Rozakis, John Seitz, Kathleen Chalfant, Eriq La Salle
Directors:  Tony Bill
Run time:  92 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     I thought, when I first saw Five Corners was being releasede by Alliance Films on February 23rd, that it would likely be a rather poor effort.  After all, this is a movie that stars three pretty big names – Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins and John Turturro.  I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that the reason it hadn’t been released on DVD for 23 years, was that it wasn’t all that good.  I figured that three stars like that in a movie that was even halfway decent would have led to a release soon after DVDs came to be.

     It was a pleasant surprise for me, then, when I really enjoyed this quirky, strange movie.  It’s one of those slice-of-life movies where a bunch of different characters do a bunch of different things during one particular night in one particular neighbourhood.  A type of movie that tends to be hit and miss.  There are a couple of pill-popping, irritating girls who hooke up with a bunch of guys to play around on elevators and at a bowling alley.  There are shop owners and parents and cops who show up from time to time.

     There is a murder comitted with a bow and arrow which seems to be a random, unrelated incident thrown in for no obvious reason.  But the real story centers around Foster, Robbins, Turturro and Todd Graff.  Turturro is the neighbourhood psychopath, who has just been released from prison.  It seems that he went to prison after attempting to rape Foster, an attack that was stopped and her life saved only by the intervention of the neighbourhood Good Tough Guy, Robbins.

     Now Graff and Foster are dating.  When Turturro gets released from prison, Foster is afraid again, and turns to Robbins for help, leading to a breakup between her and Graff.  But Robbins is no longer willing to be of assistance, having renounced violence completely in favour of a peaceful lifestyle that includes a comittment to civil rights.  He is trying to join the civil rights movement, and dealing with a suspicious civil rights leader played by a very young Eriq La Salle.

     The thing I like most about Five Corners is that it’s funny throughout.  Not belly-laugh funny, but amusing and it makes me smile.  Stupid kids doing stupid things, some great exchanges between Robbins and his mother, and even the psychopath Turturro is, in a way, mildly humourous.  The humour sets up some seriously shocking scenes, three of them, all courtesy of Turturro.  At the same time, even those shocking scenes (including a horrific act against a family member toward the end of the film) are kind of funny.  I don’t know if that was the intent, but it works.

     Finally, the one reason, above all others, that makes Five Corners worth watching.  This is the only movie I have seen, ever, where an actual penguin is the victim of a bludgeoning, a murderous assault.  On, of all things, a penguin.  Never seen that before, have you?  Well, it’s taken 23 years, but you can now see that vicious act on DVD.

Year:  1961
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Fred MacMurray, William Frawley
Producer:  Don Fedderson
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I like the cast of My Three Sons.  I like William Frawley and Fred Mac Murray and the boys.  And they did sitcom scenarios better than most casts have since.  That being said, they are still doing sitcom scenarios.  And in the years since My Three Sons was on the air, those scenarios have been done to death.  When Fred MacMurray has to explain the birds and the bees to his youngest son, he plays the scene well.  So does the old man.  And the boy.  But it’s so familiar that I have a hard time being interested.

     I don’t know much about the TV of the 50s and 60s.  I have no idea if My Three Sons was groundbreaking in its day, or if it was just another run-of-the-mill sitcom even then.  All I know is that now, it IS a run-of-the-mill sitcom.  And I’ve seen it all before.  Just because it’s done better than most doesn’t mean I want to keep watching.  Season Two Volume One of My Three Sons comes to DVD February 23rd from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Young Jeezy
Director:  Marcus Raboy
Run time:  85 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The DVD cover for Janky Promoters, out February 23rd from Alliance Films, touts the reunion of Ice Cube and Mike Epps!  Remember, they were together in Friday!  Umm…not really.  I don’t really remember Mike Epps in Friday at all.  You want a Friday reunion, how about Ice Cube and Chris Tucker?  Or even Ice Cube and Nia Long?  That would make a little more sense.  This is like advertising Jackie Brown by touting the reunion of Robert DeNiro and Samuel L. Jackson, last together in Goodfellas!

     It just doesn’t work.  Neither does the movie.  You see, Cube and Epps are these promoters, who have somehow managed to book a big rap star for a show in their neighbourhood.  That star is played by real-life rap superstar Young Jeezy, who is alarmingly the most convincing character in the movie.  Cube and Epps are inept losers who can’t do anything but hustle – they manage to convince Jeezy and his entourage to stay in a cheap, run-down motel.  And to accept their rented beater van in lieu of a limo.  But that is about the only thing they do right.

     The rest of the movie sees the pair running around trying to scam other people, trying to get the money together that they need to book the hall for the performance, convince people to attend, and pump up the opening act, a terrible rapper who has never performed in front of people and just happens to be Cube’s son.

     Meanwhile, they run afoul of the obligatory angry husbands, gangsters and nagging fiancees, while enraging drug dealers and the hall owner and a bunch of other people.  And they try to scam their own women.  And they take money from the gangsters.  And they spend all kinds of money that isn’t theirs.  And they wring their hands and fret and worry and keep on failing, time and time again.  And none of it is unexpected, and none of it is interesting, and none of it goes anywhere.

     For example, Cube spends the money he has been saving for his honeymoon with his fiancee.  Of course she’s going to find out and lose her mind and make his life miserable, right?  Nope.  Apparently not – nothing ever seems to come of it.  And it isn’t like the movie is doing it on purpose.  It feels more like they forgot that plot line even existed.  Many of these plot lines suffer a similar fate, getting forgotten entirely in favour of yet another grift or gag or unnecessary secondary character.

     Cube and Epps are reasonbly charming, and they are both decent actors, but the script is simply awful, and gives them absolutely nothing to work with.  Janky Promoters ends up being a decidedly uncomfortable 85 minutes, and each new con or scam raises the level of irritation considerably.  Top that off with a stunningly silly and unsatisfactory ending, which explains almost nothing and really wraps nothing up at all, and you’ve got a lousy, lousy movie.  Janky Promoters is a lousy movie.

Years:  2009
Genre:  Comedy, Stand-up
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Sinbad
Run time:   90 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     My first thought, on reading the title of Sinbad’s new stand-up DVD, Where U Been, was NOT “oh yeah – Sinbad!  Where’s he been?”  But rather, “do I really care where Sinbad has been?”  I never understood the appeal of Sinbad.  Like, he kinda seems funny.  But if you examine his stuff for even a few seconds, there is precious little humour there, and precious little material that makes me laugh.

     I was hoping, when I put the DVD in, that where Sinbad had been was somewhere very funny.  You know, a place where he could refine his material and develop some genuinely funny stuff that he could say into a microphone.  He quickly put that to rest, saying he had not been anywhere.  He had been working.  To pay off a tax problem of some sort.  He seemed to think that I would be aware of his tax and marital problems.  Maybe I don’t pay enough attention to TMZ, or maybe I should have had “Sinbad – the comedian” as one of my google alerts.

     The audience at the stand-up special appear to be very familiar with these woes of his, however.  That stands to reason – after all, they paid good money to go watch Sinbad be funny, they are likely big fans.  For whatever reason.  You can tell that the audience is comprised of Sinbad’s Big Fans, because often exchanges go like this:

  Sinbad:  “It’s great to be here tonight!”

  Audience:  “Hahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa!”

  Sinbad:  “People say, Sinbad where you been, dude?  I been working!”

  Audience:  “Hahahahahaaaaaaaa, oh mercy hahahahagasp, whoowhoo!”

     Remarkably, despite this constant and powerful laugh track that let me know which bits were funny, which were hilarious, and which were worthy of hyperventilation, I found it remarkably easy not to get caught up in the atmosphere.  I did laugh a couple of times.  There were maybe two or three lines that I found to be reasonably humorous.  But I watched this DVD two days ago, and I can no longer remember what they were.  That’s not a good sign.

     One positive thing I can say about Where U Been, out February 23rd from Paramount Home Entertainment, is that it’s a lot longer than most stand-up specials.  Sinbad gives a 90-minute performance here, touching on being married, having a wife, living with a spouse, maintaining a marriage, matrimony, and tax problems.  With such a wealth of subjects, it’s amazing that the DVD gets boring so quickly.  Another nice thing I can say is that Sinbad continually makes reference to his age, which is apparently close to 50 now.  But he still looks to be about 35.

     I didn’t care where Sinbad had been, because I never found him funny to begin with.  Now that I see him again, and realize that wherever he was, it didn’t make him any funnier, I am comfortable not thinking about him again for another ten years.  What really puzzles me is this – when is Carrot Top going to come out with the long-awaited sequel to Chairman Of The Board?

  Hostage (*******7/10)

Year:  2005
Genre:  Action
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker, Marshall Allman, Kim Coates, Rumer Willis, Michelle Horn
Director:  Florent Emilio Siri
Run time:  113 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films 

     Hostage is a pretty regular, pretty average Bruce Willis action movie.  Which means that it’s goddamn awesome.  It’s kinda silly.  Hostage negotiation movies usually are.  But it isn’t quite as silly as The Negotiator, for example.  It’s kinda fun, as Bruce Willis  action movies tend to be, but it’s not quite as fun as Die Hard With A Vengeance.  It’s just Bruce Willis being conflicted and tortured and badass for 108 minutes (plus credits).  And that works for me.

  The Lookout (*********9/10)

Year:  2007
Genre:  Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, Bruce McGill, Alberta Watson, Alex Borstein, Sergio Di Zio, David Huband, Isla Fisher, Carla Gugino
Eye candy:  Isla Fisher, Carla Gugino
Director:  Scott Frank
Run time:  102 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The real gem in this double feature, out February 23rd from Alliance Films, is The Lookout.  This film was terribly overlooked when it was released in 2007, and I really hope it gets watched now.  This should have been the star-making performance for Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  He should be the hottest young star in Hollywood right now, on the strength of this movie alone.  Supporting roles in movies like Stop-Loss haven’t hurt (although movies like Killshot might have).

     In The Lookout Gordon-Levitt gives a tour-de-force performance as a former high school hockey star whose dreams of glory were dashed by a car accident.  The crash left him with a condition where he has no way of ordering things in his head.  He has to keep notes with him to remember everyday, mundane things that most of us take for granted.  His only close friend is an older blind man (Jeff Bridges).  Their respective disabilities make them close, and their relationship is an interesting, compelling one.

     Gordon-Levitt has a job as a custodian at a bank.  That means he is in a position to help some bad guys rob the place, if only they can get to him.  It proves to be relatively easy, as a femme fatale walks into his life and turns it upside down.  Soon he is hanging out with her friends, who need only to reference his former glory to make him a willing accomplice.  The scene where one of the creeps tells him that he was a few years older in high school, and he looked up to him is perfect. 

     It’s Gordon-Levitt’s reaction to praise such as this that makes his performance so flawless.  You can see in his face that he would do anything to be looked upon the way he once was.  He has mostly resigned himself to the fact that this will never be the case, but a small part of him will not let the dream die.  And it’s that small part that is played upon by the bad guys, who know just what buttons to push.

     The Lookout loses a little steam toward the end, with a climax that is a little bit contrived and overly clever, but it does little to detract from the rest of the movie, which rests almost entirely on the performances by Gordon-Levitt and Bridges.  And The Lookout is an absolutely fabulous movie on the strength of those performances alone.  Look for this bargain-priced double feature.  The Lookout alone is a must for movie lovers.