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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:30:32 -0700

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the titles below, you can also pick up Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson's romcom Fool's Gold and the complete Jericho series on DVD.

Be Kind Rewind
Director Michel Gondry is known for a bizarre brand of humor (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Be Kind Rewind delivers just that. It stars Jack Black and Mos Def as friends who have to recreate old movies because Black's character accidentally erases all the videos in Def's video rental store. They tackle classics like Ghostbusters and Driving Miss Daisy using hilarious dumpy props and less-than-special effects. Surprisingly, their remakes are a big hit with customers. I called it a must-see for fans of Gondry, and everyone else might enjoy how endearingly funny Jack Black and Mos Def are as they play off each other.

Extras on the disc include the trailer for the film and a featurette titled "Passaic Mosaic."

A movie and a TV show up next so read more.

Under the Same Moon
I haven't seen this indie flick yet but am adding it to my queue because I've read really good things about it. Centered around a boy's journey across the U.S./Mexico border in search of his mother, Under the Same Moon sounds like a real tearjerker. America Ferrera has a small part in the film, but all the performances are supposedly quite touching. The movie earned a standing ovation at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Special features include a featurette on the making of the film and information about the murals featured in the movie.

Californication: Season 1
This Showtime original series starring X-Files hottie David Duchovny is not suitable viewing for kids or even alongside Mom and Dad. It's daring and often crass, but it's also smart and funny and I'm addicted! I've said before I wish more of my friends watched the show so that we could discuss the next day, and now there is no excuse not to catch up with the release of the debut season on DVD.

Duchovny plays a novelist in L.A. who's had one bestseller but is having a hard time following it up with another success. The love of his life wants nothing to do with him as he tries to balance his own self-destructive behavior with raising his daughter. Evan Handler (Sex and the City) stars as Duchovny's buddy and agent. Time to get started watching now before season two starts up!

Link Time! 2/28

BuzzSugar — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:28:36 -0800

There's a new, full-length trailer out for Get Smart with Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway and the dreamiest of men, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson up on /Film.
Check out Mollygood for new images from The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton.
I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but The TV Addict is challenging NBC's remake-obsessed Ben Silverman to take on The West Wing: The Santos Years.
You Ain't No Picasso loved Be Kind Rewind and tells us so with appropriate mp3s.
According to Cinematical, anyone who calls himself or herself a horror film fan absolutely needs to see The Signal.
TV with MeeVee thinks American Idol's Danny Noriega reminds them of someone a little fiercer.
Popwatch wonders what shows you've been watching out of desperation while waiting for the strike drought to end, like, say, Two and a Half Men.
Vulture decides that if Maxim can review albums without listening to them, they can review lots of things without seeing them.

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Caption It: Which Caption Should Win?

BuzzSugar — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:30:00 -0800

Nice job, everyone who offered up ideas for this week's Caption It contest! The challenge was to provide a caption to go with this goofy image from Michel Gondry's latest release Be Kind Rewind:

And now to choose a winning caption. Here are my finalists:

Beer. Turning perfectly good kitchen items into bike helmets since 1955.
"When I told these fools to use protection this isn't what I meant!"
While Danny Glover is yet to be converted, several A-list Hollywood stars such as Mos Def and Jack Black are opting for the cheaper Scientology Lite.
Mos Def: "Between Mr. Glover and I we've got several Emmy, Golden Globe and NAACP Image Awards, as well as great reviews for our work on Broadway."
Jack Black: "But have you heard 'F*** Her Gently?'"
Scoffing at the local crop circles, Danny Glover looks on with disgust as his friends prepare for total alien domination.

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema

Box Office: Vantage Point Thrills Audiences

BuzzSugar — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:30:00 -0800

The star-studded cast of Vantage Point enjoyed the No. 1 spot at the box office this weekend earning an estimated $24 million. The biggest weekend of the year for Hollywood also helped Academy Award-nominated films, giving movies like No Country For Old Men a significant boost at the box office, Variety reports.

Jumper came in at No. 2, followed by The Spiderwick Chronicles in the third spot. The silly-funny Be Kind Rewind came in at No. 7 followed by Juno, which took in another $4.1 million this weekend. Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins slid in at No. 9 and There Will Be Blood rounded out the top 10.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Rewind: This Week's Buzz

BuzzSugar — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:00:00 -0800

The Oscars are coming! The Oscars are coming! All week I have been previewing foreign films, breaking down the best picture nominees, and sharing pictures from best costume nominees. Oh, and I also made some bold predictions for who would win. Here's hoping you feel fully prepped for Sunday!
I've been sticking with Lipstick Jungle and Cashmere Mafia, mentally willing them to be better, but let's face it: Weeks of those shows still couldn't match what seconds of the trailer for the Sex and the City movie did for my happiness levels.
I had a really fun time watching Be Kind Rewind and found an inspiring picture from the movie that I need you to caption!
American Idol is truly back as the first 12 guys and girls hit the stage. I definitely was not shocked with who was sent packing; were you?
Childhood flashbacks! An odd, maybe fake clip from Where the Wild Things Are leaked to the web, and we also got a peek at the Smurfs movie animation.
America's Next Top Model premiered with a bang, and those more legitimately suited to high fashion gathered on the beloved Project Runway reunion show.
It's the last leg of the Buzz Book Club. Read up so you can join the fun!

Photos courtesy of Miramax and Source

Be Kind Rewind: Just a Silly Good Time

BuzzSugar — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:30:00 -0800

When I first saw the trailer for Be Kind Rewind, it made me feel all happy and giggly. I had relatively high hopes for the movie itself, thinking it would have that bizarre brand of humor I've come to expect from writer/director Michel Gondry and, satisfyingly, I was right. It's not the funniest film ever, and it's not the best use we've seen of Gondry's hyperactive imagination - it's just a goofy, silly good time.

The premise itself is funny: Mike (Mos Def) works for Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) at Be Kind Rewind, the video store Mr. Fletcher opened in an old building where Fats Waller reportedly used to live. Mike's friend Jerry (Jack Black), who's a little touched in the head, manages to become magnetized and ends up erasing all the videos in Mr. Fletcher's store. Thus, the two guys - with the help of their charmingly sweet friend Alma - start to "swede" some of the most popular movies in the store, recreating key plot points using the crudest (and most hilarious) of props and special effects. Eventually the whole community starts to help out and business picks up. Yet trouble arises when Mr. Fletcher's building is condemned and everyone needs to figure out how to save him from moving to the projects. That's just the plot, though, so to see what I think of the movie overall, read more.

While the sweded movies are hilarious, what makes the movie's pulse really beat is the actual feeling between these characters. Mike will defend his weirdo friend Jerry to the death, and he's endearingly loyal to his surrogate father, Mr. Fletcher. The characters in the community seem to care about each other and truly want to be a part of this unique movie-making/video rental experience. Parts of the movie are gimmicky, but the people keep it chugging along nicely.

Of all these people in the movie, Jack Black is a particularly welcome addition. I never thought I'd be so relieved to see Black do his same old overwrought, anxiously energetic, physical comedy thing, but in truth, he sometimes saves the scene. At times, Gondry's humor is too strange or just downright not funny, and Black's easy willingness to play the bumbling fool to the hilt is genuinely refreshing. His slapstick combined with Mos Def's earnestness and Gondry's creativity makes for an hour and a half of goofy fun. The energy of the movie loses much of its steam as it crawls toward the end, but the majority of the film is so engaging, I didn't mind. Bottom line: If you're a fan of Gondry's, it's a must-see, and if not, it's good for some chuckles.

To see a preview for Be Kind Rewind, check out movies.ivillage.com.

Photos courtesy of New Line Cinema

Caption It!

BuzzSugar — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:30:00 -0800

Welcome to Caption It, a new game on BuzzSugar! Every other Wednesday, I'll post a funny TV or movie photo here and challenge you to think of the most hilarious caption possible. I'll announce the finalists the following Tuesday, and you'll get to vote for the best caption; the winner will get a fabulous BuzzSugar T-shirt!

The clear winner of last week's contest for the image from Fool's Gold is halfbakedjake! In the winning caption, Matthew McConaughey says to Kate Hudson, "According to my calculations, if we do a movie with X amount of rom-com cliches and Y number of gratuitous swimsuit shots, we'll end up with a Z profit." Kate: "....is Z good?"

Congrats, halfbakedjake! Now for this week's challenge, taken from the upcoming movie Be Kind Rewind:

Leave your captions in the comment space below before 5 p.m. PST on Monday, Feb. 25 to be considered for a spot in the voting round. Have fun! To see a photo of the BuzzSugar T-shirt, just read more.

The BuzzSugar t-shirt

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema

Film Fanatics Make Be Kind Rewind-Like Videos for Contest

BuzzSugar — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:30:00 -0800

Opening this Friday, Michel Gondry's film Be Kind Rewind follows two video store employees, Mike and Jerry (played by Mos Def and Jack Black) who recreate shortened versions of the movies in their store when all of the videos are erased. Gondry himself spoofed his own trailer for Be Kind Rewind by recreating it by himself, scene for scene, with hilarious results. Now, thanks to a Filmmaking Frenzy contest, people around the country have been doing what Jerry and Mike - making spoofy 5-minute versions of their favorite films - in the hopes of winning a quad-core Dell workstation with a 30-inch monitor.

Presented by AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), contestants had from January 1 to February 8 to submit their videos. The movies "will be screened at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on February 18-20, with a 'best of' screening and awards ceremony on Feb 21."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the target audience for Be Kind Rewind, the majority of videos are for 80s flicks, like The Karate Kid, Back to the Future and Mannequin. Judging by the multiple entries, it looks like Top Gun and Jurassic Park are some of the most popular films to remake for a 5-minute movie. Some of them are seriously funny, and they're all goofy enough to elicit some chuckles. I especially enjoyed the use of an orange housecat to simulate an R.O.U.S. (Rat Of Unusual Size) in The Princess Bride. To see a full listing of the videos, click here.

Michel Gondry Makes a Trailer Within His Trailer

BuzzSugar — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:30:39 -0800

This video of Michel Gondry spoofing his own movie's trailer is funny, and so meta it hurts my brain. Gondry's latest film Be Kind Rewind finds Jack Black and Mos Def working at a video store where all the videos suddenly become erased. Their solution? Recreate the movies themselves.

Now Gondry has made his own version of the trailer as though his trailer were erased, so he recreates it by playing Mos Def and Jack Black playing all the iconic movie roles. Get it?

I've placed the videos side by side for your viewing pleasure. Gondry's version is made even more bizarre and funny by the fact that you would barely understand what he's saying if you hadn't seen the actual trailer first. To check it out read more.

The Release Dates, They Are A-Changin'

BuzzSugar — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:31:13 -0800

Who knows why the studios do what they do? It took me a while to forgive the moving of the U.S. release date for Simon Pegg comedy (directed by David Schwimmer) Run, Fat Boy, Run from October 26, 2007 to March 28, 2008. Then the release for Angelina Jolie-James McAvoy action movie Wanted moved to the summer, and the Tom Cruise-Bryan Singer WWII thriller Valkyrie will be released in October instead of June.

Now there are more releases being pushed back, most notably the one for the heavily promoted 27 Dresses. To check it out, read more.

27 Dresses - Now opening January 18 instead of January 11, the film will compete with Cloverfield and the Katie Holmes-Queen Latifah-Diane Keaton comedy Mad Money. If it had opened as originally scheduled, it would have only really had The Bucket List to contend with, though now this way Dresses will open on a 3-day holiday weekend (Martin Luther King Day). Apparently, the test screenings have gotten such an "overwhelming response" they want to cash in by opening on a 3-day weekend.

Be Kind, Rewind - The Michel Gondry-directed comedy that stars Mos Def and Jack Black will now open February 22 instead of January 25. I'm really stoked to see this one, so I'm bummed to have to wait another month.

Inkheart - Originally scheduled to open March 19, the kids' fantasy movie (based on the books by Cornelia Funke) will now be released on another date, TBA.

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