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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:30:11 PDT

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 these three creepy thrillers that join the others on video store shelves today, Wild Hogs also comes out on DVD, as well as David Lynch's Inland Empire.

The Lookout
One of my favorite thrillers of the year so far, The Lookout has Jeff Daniels and Joseph Gordon-Levitt both turning in superb performances as the good-natured blind man Lewis (Daniels) and his mentee Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Chris suffers a severe head injury from a car accident that cut short his promising athletic future. Now working as a janitor at a bank and living with his blind friend, Chris falls in with the smooth talking Gary Spargo and his posse (including the sweet and sexy Luvlee played by Isla Fisher).

Gary lures Chris into his bank heist, preying on Chris' loneliness and desire to feel powerful again. At the last minute, though, Chris has second thoughts. Chilling and suspenseful throughout, The Lookout is a fantastically worthwhile thriller. For more of my take, check out my review.

For two more thrilling titles,

read more Fracture Fracture pits the adorable and arresting Ryan Gosling against the ever-shifty Anthony Hopkins in a capable legal thriller. Gosling plays Willy Beachum, the up-and-coming assistant district attorney tasked with linking Ted Crawford (Hopkins) to the murder of Ted's wife. Hopkins shows nothing new with his performance, relying on his old Silence of the Lambs tricks to once again portray a clever yet disturbed criminal while Gosling does his very best to pick up the slack. It's a decent rental for a spooky night, however, especially if you need a Gosling fix.
Vacancy Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson star in this horror/thriller that takes place at a creepy motel (hence the title). David (Wilson) and Amy Fox (Beckinsale) are forced to stay in the shady Pinewood Motel when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. In the cursed Room 4, they turn on the TV and watch some slasher films... until they realize the low-budget movies were all filmed in their very motel room. Vacancy doesn't break any new ground, but it provides a few good scares if you're in the mood.

Disturbia Wins at the Box Office Yet Again

BuzzSugar — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:05:45 PDT

For the third week in a row, Disturbia has prevailed at the box office, though whether this is something to write home about is debatable since the competition wasn't exactly fierce. Overall, box office sales were way down this weekend, with Disturbia drawing in just $9 million - and that's the No. 1 film.

Coming in second place was the latest thriller The Invisible, while Nicolas Cage and his scraggly hair brought in just $7.2 million for the "action-thriller" Next. Following Next was Fracture, Blades of Glory, Meet the Robinsons and Hot Fuzz, each bringing in unremarkable sales.

Of course, this is just the end of April. Studios should expect to see a huge difference when they break out the summer big guns, which should start this weekend when Spider-Man 3 opens nationwide. Goodbye Shia LaBeouf, hello Spidey and the gang.

Photo courtesy of DreamWorks

Box Office: Disturbia Not Disturbed from Top Spot

BuzzSugar — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 22:11:07 PDT

The many of you who want to see Disturbia are not alone: The teenage thriller held steady at No. 1 at the box office, raking in $13.5 million. With the plethora of thrillers out now, three out of the top five movies this weekend were of the genre, with Fracture claiming the No. 2 spot and Vacancy coming in fourth.

Will Ferrell's Blades of Glory was at No. 3 while the family flick Meet the Robinsons held its own at fifth place. Hilarious British comedy Hot Fuzz straggled in at sixth. As one might have expected, not even Adam Brody's cute face could save In the Land of Women from its pitiful opening weekend, bringing in a paltry $4.9 million and landing in eighth place after Ice Cube's Are We Done Yet?

Disturbia has a chance of keeping its top slot this weekend since there aren't too many good-looking films coming out, but it should prepare to be slaughtered by a certain web-slinger come the weekend of May 4.

Photo courtesy of Dreamworks

Which Current Thriller Are You Most Interested to See?

BuzzSugar — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 14:35:02 PDT

'Tis the season, apparently, for thrillers to pile into the theaters. This weekend, Fracture joins the cinemas where current thrillers Disturbia, Perfect Stranger and The Lookout (among several others) are already clamoring for thrill-seeking viewers. I know I've asked you to tell me all about your favorite thrillers of old, but what about the newest ones? Which of these heart-pounders are you most interested in seeing?

Fracture: Broken In Too Many Places

BuzzSugar — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 04:20:31 PDT

In Fracture, Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) is a cocky but likeable prosecutor on the rise. He’s about to go from being an assistant D.A. to joining a goliath corporate law firm - all chrome, glass and prestige. To top things off, his new beautiful boss Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike) has demonstrated an interest in taking him under her wing, in more ways than one. What could go wrong?

On the eve of his move, he agrees to take on one more case for the D.A.’s office. Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), who we see spying on his cheating wife and then shooting her in the head, has signed a confession admitting to his crime. It should be an open and shut case, but the hotshot prosecutor with a 97 percent conviction rate soon finds himself mired in a trap set by the sociopathic Crawford.

A courtroom revelation renders Crawford’s confession inadmissible, and Beachum soon discovers that they cannot find the gun used in the crime. “If you look closely enough,” Crawford says, taunting Beachum, “you can find that everything has a weak spot where it can break, sooner or later.” Unfortunately, Fracture suffers from too many weak spots, so

In spite of top-notch stars, Fracture abounds in flaws: The film drags, lacks an original story, and derives its main characters all too obviously from The Silence of the Lambs. In addition, moments that are supposed to be suspenseful - like when Beachum races to the hospital with a court-order to keep Crawford from pulling the plug on his comatose wife - are so badly paced that you forget what’s even going on.

The romance between Beachum and his new, seductive boss seems to come out of nowhere, and it doesn’t make sense that someone in as high a position as Nikki would jeopardize her job just to sleep with a new employee, however handsome. The film also stumbles during moments intended as comic relief, since the movie hasn’t done its job in setting the proper tone these moments were meant to disrupt.

But the biggest disappointment of Fracture involves what could have been a promising rapport between Gosling and Hopkins. Gosling is one of the few actors who can smirk and act cocky and still have you rooting for him; he plays it off as youthful exuberance. His elastic face is as expressive as a silent film star’s, and he has a magnetism that almost makes his boss’s seduction make sense.

Gosling deserves a better sparring partner than Hopkins, who seems to have simply walked from The Silence of the Lambs set without leaving character. Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter shtick is getting old. His arsenal of sociopathic tics - the nostril flaring, the reptilian slow-lidded closing of the eyes - isn’t bordering on self-parody; it fully inhabits it.

Although Fracture had promise, you just feel like you’re wandering around in familiar territory, none of it surprising or compelling.

Movie Preview: Fracture

BuzzSugar — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:58:13 PDT

Fracture comes out this Friday April 20 and I'm excited about it for three reasons: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, and David Strathairn. Gosling plays an assistant DA with a gentle drawl who thinks he's got it easy when he's assigned to prosecute Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), who has confessed to killing his wife.

But of course, the case isn't as easy as it looks on first glance. As Crawford tells the lawyer: "If you look closely enough, you'll find everything has a big spot where it can break sooner or later." Director Gregory Hoblit proved with Primal Fear that he can churn out a very unpredictable courtroom drama, so maybe this one will be similar. Check out my review this Friday, and to watch the trailer in the meantime,

Ryan (the Musician?) Prepares to Get Fractured

PopSugar — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:43:24 PDT

Ryan was looking more like a hot rock star than an actor at LAX the other day. Evidently he's an accomplished Jazz guitarist and singer. We love his acting, so hopefully we'll someday get to hear his music, too. Soulful Ryan will be put on hold a bit, though, because the next time we'll see Ryan on the big screen it's in the psychological thriller, Fracture. He costars with Anthony Hopkins in the film, which looks dark and pretty interesting (check out more info and the trailer here). He's got two other movies coming out this year, so hopefully he'll get another shot at that Oscar. From there, maybe someone can convince him to get back on screen with McAdams? So much wishful thinking.

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Bauer-Griffin

We Bought a Zoo: Damon Puts on the Hard Sell

Becky Kirsch — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 03:05:00 PST

The simple premise of We Bought a Zoo is laid out right there in the title, and with no hint of irony. The "we" is Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) and his two children, who are looking to make a fresh start when the death of Benjamin's wife still has them reeling six months later. When Benjamin finds his dream home, he accepts the caveat that the house is built on an old zoo territory, and that he must renovate it to save the animals. It's a story that's hard to swallow at first, but the underlying layers and an impressive performance from Damon make it go down easy.

Damon shows his range as an actor yet again, in a role that's a lot more complex than it seems initially. Though Benjamin is renovating a zoo, the story is really about a man struggling to accept his wife's death and his role as a single father. With another actor in the leading role, the film could be relegated to a tale that's both mawkish and emotionally manipulative, but thanks to Damon, you can't help but love and root for Benjamin. Sure, you care a little about the fate of the animals, but more than anything else, you just want this guy to catch a break.

To see what else I liked about We Bought a Zoo, just

read more. There's a hint of romance between Benjamin and head zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson), but Cameron Crowe is wise to focus more closely on Benjamin's relationships with his kids than his employee. In fact, the movie may have benefited if the romantic subplot was left behind altogether. Johansson seems out of place in Kelly's dowdy duds, and as charming as Benjamin is, it seems unlikely that a 28-year-old would want to jump into a relationship with an older man who makes no attempt to hide the fact that he's not over his recently deceased wife. Child actors are hit or miss in Hollywood, but We Bought a Zoo features an impressive cast of rising stars. I defy you not to fall in love with Maggie Elizabeth Jones as Benjamin's precocious and utterly adorable 7-year-old daughter Rosie, who will make your heart melt as she slaps together PBJ sandwiches and chases the zoo animals. Colin Ford has a heavier burden to carry as Rosie's troubled teenage brother Dylan, who is coping with his mother's death and his fractured relationship toward his father. Though Dylan is obnoxious and frustrating at times, Ford brings a depth to the character that's only annoying in the sense that it's a realistic portrayal of an adolescent. Thomas Haden Church and Elle Fanning are also assets to the cast, as Benjamin's disapproving older brother and Kelly's spacey cousin, respectively. And, of course, there's the menagerie of animals, who shape the story without stealing the show away from the humans that care for them. It's an important feat, as you never question that the heart of this film is in the personal connections, not in the cute creatures that affect their lives. We Bought a Zoo perfectly fits the movie mold for holiday time; there's something for kids, something for adults, and a little bit of magic for everyone.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Know Your Injury: Shin Splints vs. Lower Leg Stress Fracture

FitSugar — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:00:51 PDT

I've officially said goodbye to my treadmill for the season and have been loving bringing my runs outside. My shins, on the other hand, have not been too psyched. I've been experiencing this shooting pain in my right shin when I run on the roads in my neighborhood. I assumed it was shin splints, since I've experienced them before in the Spring, but since I was only feeling it on one leg, a marathoner friend of mine suggested I see a doctor to rule out a stress fracture.

I freaked out a little, worried that I'd have to sideline my runs for a while, so I saw my doctor and learned the difference between the two running injuries. To find out if the pain you're experiencing is shin splints or a more severe injury, a stress fracture,

read more. Both shin splints and stress fractures are considered overuse injuries. Shin splints occur when you get small tears in the area where the lower leg muscle attaches to the tibia, aka the shin bone. You'll experience a shooting, aching pain in the front of your lower leg(s) when running, but the pain goes away when you lower your intensity, stop running, or after your run is over. When you suffer shin splints, you don't feel the pain with other activities like walking, stretching, or climbing stairs. Stress fractures, on the other hand, are caused by actual cracks or breaks in either of the bones in the lower leg, the tibia or fibula. If you suffer from this injury, you'll experience pain that's usually in the lower third part of the shin, tenderness or swelling in the specific injured area, and pain when you press on your shin. The pain doesn't subside when you stop running, and regular activities like climbing stairs or jumping will cause pain, too. If your pain injury sounds more like shin splints, take a gradual approach whenever making changes to your routine. When switching to different running surfaces, run shorter distances. When increasing your pace, try adding in sprint intervals to your regular routine rather than doing the whole run at a faster pace. And when increasing mileage, follow the 10 percent rule. When you do strength and flexibility training, pay special attention to your shins by doing this toe lift move and this gentle stretch. With a more severe stress fracture injury, see your doctor. They'll probably x-ray the area to check your bones. If they don't see a fracture, it doesn't mean there isn't one. The doc will x-ray you again later, and if they see that your bone is healing, they'll know you did indeed suffer a stress fracture. Unfortunately, they'll recommend you stop running and rest the area for six to eight weeks. You can do lower impact exercise like walking, swimming, deep water running, and weight training. If you don't rest your shins enough, the area may never heal properly. Once the pain begins to subside, you can start to work out. Just be sure to gradually build up time, distance, and intensity. Luckily for me, I just have shin splints, but have you ever suffered from stress fracture? How about shin splints? Tell me below.

Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham Call Each Other Before Getting Dressed

Mackenzie Wagoner — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:36:02 PST