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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:30:44 -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 my selections below, you can also add Speed Racer, Made of Honor and a little independent film starring Kate Beckinsale called Snow Angels to your lists.

TV-to-DVD Debuts
Today's a big day for several television series that are now available for the first time on DVD. Whether you love these shows and want to cherish them forever or just need a refresher before the next seasons start up again, here's a guide to what's out this week.

Pushing Daisies: Season One
Special features include the cast and creative team members chatting about the show secrets.
Dirty Sexy Money: Season One
Special features include bloopers, deleted scenes, and creator commentary on the inspiration for the Darling family.

Private Practice: Season One
Special features include a featurette titled, "Practice makes perfect - Journey with Kate through her acting career to see how she landed one of TV's most sought-after roles," behind-the-scenes footage, extended episodes, deleted scenes, and outtakes.
Chuck: Season One
The DVD includes special featurettes like, "Chuck's World: Character development and original casting sessions," "Chuck vs. the Chuckles: Gag reel," and "Chuck on Chuck: Series stars join creators for some point/counterpoint."

Two more movies out on DVD, so read more!

Deception
This thriller boasts an exciting cast, and in my opinion the performances make this a great choice for some at-home entertainment. Of course, this is at-home adult entertainment as the plot of Deception centers on a secret high-class sex club for New York's elite. Ewan McGregor plays Jonathan McQuarry, the quiet and reclusive accountant lured into this world, Michelle Williams is the beautiful member of the club he falls in love with, and Hugh Jackson slithers into the skin of a mysterious evildoer.

Special features include commentary with director Marcel Langenegger, a featurette on the making of the film and something titled "Club Sexy." Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

Young @ Heart
Oh man, elderly folks singing rock songs - is there anything more soul touching? It made me cry, but they were tears of joy, the result of something wonderfully life-affirming pulling at the old heart strings. Young @ Heart is a documentary that follows a group of older folks who learn "young people's" tunes, like those by the Ramones, David Bowie, and Gloria Gaynor. The result? An adorable, funny, inspiring, hopeful little movie about growing old in America.

Special features include 10 deleted scenes and a featurette titled "Young @ Heart Goes to Hollywood."

Box Office: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Win the Weekend

BuzzSugar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:30:38 -0700

It's always exciting when a comedy that's genuinely funny does well with audiences, and that was the case this weekend with the female buddy comedy Baby Mama starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

The ladies won the top spot with an estimated $18.3 million, handily beating out the other comedy opening over the weekend, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. EW reports that while this wasn't the best movie opening for either Fey or Poehler, their film did much better than many box office watchers predicted. In fact, Baby Mama gave Universal Studios its first box office winner of the year.

The Forbidden Kingdom was No. 3 and Forgetting Sarah Marshall was right behind in the fourth spot, with both films earning approximately $11 million their second weekend out - a respectable achievement.

While Fey and company had good reason to pop the champagne, another film didn't post opening-weekend results worthy of celebration. Deception, starring Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, and Michelle Williams, "fared dismally," as Variety put it. The thriller barely beat Street Kings for the No. 10 spot, earning only $2.2 million over the weekend. I thought that the very talented cast did the best they could with poor material, but apparently that wasn't enough of a draw.

So, which movies did you check out this weekend? Did any of you see both Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar?

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Deception: Quality Performances Save A So-So Thriller

BuzzSugar — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:00:29 -0700

Deception is an example of a hyper-talented cast saving - seriously saving - some so-so material. The script isn't bad, per se, it's just sort of generic, sometimes draggy and includes some absurdly trite dialogue. And yet, I bought into it and left feeling like I'd been treated to some great performances. The direction is often striking, though sometimes the strike feels like blunt trauma (we get it, the character feels alienated in New York City, etc. etc.), though it's mainly the actors who make you care about this story.

Ewan McGregor plays Jonathan McQuarry, a quiet and reclusive accountant who lives for the solid security of order and numbers - at the expense of having any kind of social life. I have to say, I appreciate that this is established within the first few minutes, in the way we first find Jonathan in silent isolation, working in a skyscraper with huge glass windows that overlook an exciting city that doesn't include him. Swiftly, we’re introduced to the dashing, gregarious Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) who immediately becomes Jonathan's best buddy, taking him out to strip clubs, playing tennis and eventually involving Jonathan in a high-class sex club. People on "The List" of this club are the most elite of New York’s high-powered executives, people who have no time for dating and just want to get laid. It’s a nice arrangement: no names, no questions asked, no strings - usually. To see what happens with this seemingly ideal situation, read more.

When Jonathan falls in love with one of the members of the club (Michelle Williams), who he knows only as "S", he decides he wants more just as he discovers that S has been kidnapped. Wyatt, too, has disappeared, just when Jonathan's questions are multiplying. Jonathan hunts Wyatt down, only to find himself in a worse position as the time is ticking on S’s life. All of this successfully builds up some great tension until about three-quarters of the way into the movie when there's a climax. But then there's another 20 minutes or so that draaaaag out before the final big twist, by which point we're kind of anxious to go home.

But again, the actors make this film worthwhile. Ewan McGregor manages to be utterly sympathetic while never crossing over into playing some kind of cartoony interpretation of what a bumbling, overly polite accountant with few social skills might look like. McGregor always seems to have such affection and warmth toward the characters he takes on, and this role is no exception. Jackman's character ultimately fizzles down into a two-dimensional, mustache-twisting evildoer, but it's not really Jackman's fault and he puts an admirable amount of energy into the performance.

As for Michelle Williams, I've often thought she's pretty but in this movie she is staggeringly beautiful. The camera loves her, clearly, and though her part is minor in comparison to the other two, it's like there's nobody else onscreen when she’s there. That's the thing about Deception - the people make the movie worth watching, though it’s not the best thing you’ll ever see.

To see the trailer and video clips from Deception, check out movies.ivillage.com.

Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Movie Preview: Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, Michelle Williams in Deception

BuzzSugar — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:30:05 -0700

Man, I love it when Ewan McGregor plays the neatly trimmed, straight-laced dude. And in Deception, his character's stable little life gets shaken to the core when he becomes a member of a high-class sex club which his lawyer friend (Hugh Jackman) calls The List. Then, as the description goes, "in this new world, he soon becomes the prime suspect in a woman's disappearance and a multi-million dollar heist."

Michelle Williams and Maggie Q also star in this thriller that looks way intense. The movie opens April 25. To check out the trailer and tell me what you think, read more.

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