SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE (Blu-Ray and DVD)

Despite my immediate instincts to avoid this shallow-looking comedy at all costs, I was surprised at the positive reception it received from (some) critics. The trailers certainly bespoke of the fratty and vulgar nature of much of the comedy, so it was odd to hear that the Jay Baruchel starring teen sex romp presents an insight into the casual objectification and classism of the current generation that might be speaking to exactly the audience that should receive it. Or then again, maybe it’s just another dumb sex comedy. Jay plays Kirk, a slacker nerd who stumbles unintentionally into a relationship with a seriously hawt girl (Alice Eve) considerably out of his league. Since she’s so very much hotter than he or anyone around him thinks he deserves, Kirk’s bitchy ex-girlfriend (Lindsay Sloane) suddenly regains interest in him and blah, blah, blah. “Can he turn from a zero to a hero”, as I'm sure a tag-line somewhere in some media whore's paid promotional review asks? This BETTER have a seriously impressive subtext to it because so far I’m not impressed. It didn’t help that it was the only film brave enough to brazenly steal one of the main gags from “American Pie” AND put it in the trailer. *sigh* I’ll be checking this out later so expect a full review down the road.
EXTRAS: Commentary by director; deleted scenes; extended ending; blooper reel; “Dating Guide for Guys”
CLICK HERE TO BUY She's Out of My League [Blu-ray]

RIVERWORLD (Blu-Ray and DVD)

Even though this adaptation of the perennially popular Philip Jose Farmer series of books was adapted once before in 2003, it was for the SyFy Channel, and we know how those things tend to go. Now THIS one is...ok, it’s for the SyFy Channel again and the odds are clearly not in it’s favor. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to call the angle that director Stuart Gillard chose to tell this variation on the story to be baffling. He invented a new protagonist, played by Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett (their weakest acting link, if you ask me). He plays Matt Ellman, a famous war reporter who dies from a terrorist bomb at the beginning. He, and everyone else who was at the party where the bomb went off, along with every human who ever lived, wake up on the shores of a giant snaking river on a new planet called Riverworld. The aliens who built the thing are in the middle of choosing sides on whether or not the thing is an abomination and Matt gets caught up in their machinations being, apparently, the predestined key to the whole thing. Teaming up with Mark Twain (Mark Deklin) and others to team up against the bad guys, Matt rushes through a series of unsatisfying encounters with historical characters and blue alien dudes who apparently are confused on the definition of the term, ‘non-interference’. This is an intensely silly and poorly thought out retelling of the fantastic book series, going so far into blasphemy as to make one of the primary protagonists of the books, Sir Richard Francis Burton, into the main bad guy in the miniseries. There’s hardly anything to recommend, unfortunately, about this new misguided translation except the hope that maybe some folks will get just enough entertainment out of them to seek out the original novels.
EXTRAS: “Behind the Scenes with Alan Cumming” - He plays the ‘evil’ blue alien; Trailer
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TIMER (DVD)

Poor Emma Caulfield. Even on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” she was a third wheel at times, playing the ex-demon fish out of water, desperately trying to make her relationship with the all-too-human Xander work, usually only resulting in being a comic sideline. Not much has happened for her career since, which is a shame since she is a legitimately talented and very funny lady with much more charisma and likability than her post-Buffy projects would seem to indicate. The latest and largely ignored effort with her, is the little bit sci-fi, a lot romantic dramedy “Timer”. Caulfield plays Oona, a likable-enough almost-30 year old (yeah, right) who lives in a world where a company has provided the Timer, a device implanted on the wrist which counts down to the day you meet your soul mate and then gives a special beep when you’re in their presence. Oona passionately believes in the Timer and depends on it to show her the way to her one true love. Sadly, her Timer remains blank, indicating her true love has yet to purchase one for himself. Forgetting for a moment that the concept falls under pure fantasy, nothing being scientific or plausible about it in the least, “Timer” does take advantage of its conceit to deliver some moderately funny scenes, some interesting and cynical ponderings on the ‘one true love’ idea, and decent performances mostly all around. I was less than impressed, however, with the young John Patrick Amedori who played the primary love interest for the considerably older Caulfield, but not so much because of any lack of effort on his part so much as that he just doesn’t possess that oomf, that indefinable know-it-when-you-see-it star quality that separates them from the hoi polloi. Oddly, despite a generally interesting, if applicably useless story, the ending throws it all away as if it was trying to sell us on fate the entire time. Don’t know what went wrong there. Make no mistake, this ain’t no “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, but, fans of that movie might want to take a look anyway.
EXTRAS: Commentary from director Jac Schaeffer; Two behind the scenes featurettes; deleted scenes; bloopers; trailer
CLICK HERE TO BUY Timer

A STAR IS BORN (Blu-Ray)

I’m not afraid to say that a lot of the classic movie musicals go on ENTIRELY too long. Even though this pristine re-release of the George Cukor directed remake from 1954 is a reconstruction of Cukor’s original cut, bringing the running time up to an intimidating 176 minutes, I would have been happy with more, even though the 'restored' cut sometimes means still photos in place of missing film stock. Judy Garland plays a singer named Esther Blodgett who is discovered by a once-major star in decline, a completely drunken Norman Maine (James Mason). The film follows her career as Maine helps her to get the attention she deserves while Maine’s own career dwindles. This sucka' is filled with some of the best song and dance numbers you’re probably ever gonna see and a variation on the rise and fall story that may have no peer. This is fantastic entertainment and for you HD fans, it’s one of the sharpest transfers seen yet, although it does seem to suffer from some rather drastic focus differential at times. And now my shameful reveal: this is the only other Garland film I've seen other than "The Wizard of Oz". Somewhere, I can hear hundreds of gay men slamming their lapbooks closed in disgust. Come back, guys, I loved it, I swear! I'll go rent "Easter Parade" if I have to.
EXTRAS: This is one of those sweet hard back book style releases from Warner Brothers that I’ve come to love, which means it comes with a nice full-color 44-page book built right into the case. The blu-ray is about as data-rich as you can get and has no extras, but there’s a SD dvd included with: Alternate takes of five scenes; Deleted scenes including three very different versions of “The Man Who Got Away” musical number; Film Effects Reel; “A Report by Jack L Warner”; Documentary and Newsreel footage about the premiere; “A Star is Bored” Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoon; Audio vault with various outtakes; Trailers for the original 1937 version, this version and the 1976 version of the film
CLICK HERE TO BUY A Star Is Born (Blu-ray Book)

REMEMBER ME (Blu-Ray and DVD)


Really, do I have to? I had put some actual and serious effort into forgetting you and I discovered I actually had because when I saw this on the release list, I drew a complete blank. But then it all came rushing back. Unfortunately. I can’t remember the details anymore of the time I scored with two women at the same party, but “Remember Me” just won’t dislodge. I’m sure, given another year, it’ll dissipate as there’s really nothing worth holding onto in this Robert Pattinson starring romantic drama. The P-man plays an angsty hipster (aren’t they all?) in NYC named Tyler who gets in trouble with a cop played by Chris Cooper for being tertiarily involved with a street fight. Deciding a good way to get back at him would be to date his daughter, Tyler, being the charming and scrupulous fellow he is, hooks up with Ally (Emilie de Ravin) and things go quickly from ‘meh’ to even more ‘meh’. It’s not that this is bad, other than the trademarked sulky performance by Pattinson; there’s just nothing special or unpredictable or charming about it whatsoever. Until the end. Oh my, the end. I would have mentioned Pierce Brosnan being in this before now as Tyler's rich and aloof Dad if he served a purpose other than getting us to this heinous case of what-the-ever-living-fuck-were-they-thinking. I’m almost tempted to tell you to rent this just to see for yourself how offensive this ending really is. But don’t. If you ask me in a message, I’ll just tell you. “Remember Me” is best forgotten. There, I’m sure no critic has used THAT line yet.
EXTRAS: Two commentaries, one with the director and one with the cast; “The Making of...” - 14 and a half minutes of interviews such things
CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL SPILL.COM REVIEW
CLICK HERE TO BUY Remember Me [Blu-ray]

WOLF MOON (DVD)

I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. I almost didn’t even watch this. But, it was one of those lazy days. One of those days where I didn’t really want to get off the couch, didn’t want to think, but wanted to eat chips and watch a crappy horror movie. If you don’t understand this urge, you probably never will, but trust me, it’s a very real and pitiable thing. So, I grabbed “Wolf Moon” and threw it in the player. Which I’m surprised didn’t immediately explode. My DVD played usually is too snobby to play something this spectacularly useless. At over two hours running time, I finally had to cut it off at about the hour twenty minute mark and by that time, still nothing of interest had happened. The tale follows a drifter in a sweet car who makes the panties of wet of the sweet small-town girl whose father is a disapproving local redneck (Chris Mulkey). Of course, it turns out that Dad’s not entirely wrong about his automatic mistrust of Dan the Drifter, because,as it turns out, Dan’s a werewolf. Of course. he’s the GOOD werewolf who doesn’t eat humans, as opposed to his evil father, who’s just shown up in nowheresville to chow down on the peeps just for fun. There’s some sort of business going on with Billy Drago who plays a werewolf hunter and almost certainly will end up a bad guy by the end, as is his wont, and Maria Conchita Alonso is here as the local sheriff who’s purpose here seems mainly to distract the redneck Dad who drools along behind her while we wait for the script to finally give him something relevant to do. Merely saying I couldn’t finish watching this isn’t strong enough of a condemnation. This is amateurish garbage at its worst and most boring. So why did I even bother bringing it up here? Did you SEE that cover? What in the hell? It’s even worse than the movie itself. Who was in charge of the marketing of this thing. It deserves special mention just for that alone. I suspect somebody involved had a relative at the distribution company. I certainly can’t think of any other reason this ever saw the light of day.
EXTRAS: None. Not a whit.
CLICK HERE TO...you know what? Just forget it. Don’t even.

Click Here to go to Part One