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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:30:00 -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, family-friendly flicks Bee Movie and August Rush are available as well.

No Country for Old Men
If you haven't heard about No Country for Old Men, the staggering, Oscar-winning adaptation of Cormic McCarthy's novel, you might well be living under a rock. Not for those looking for warm fuzzies, this is the Coen Brothers at their best: entertaining, dark, and thought-provoking. Javier Bardem (um, how scary is he on that DVD cover?) won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Anton Chigurh, a demented serial killer whose evilness will haunt you for days. The film also stars Josh Brolin as a man on the run from Chigurh and Tommy Lee Jones a local sheriff on both of their trails.

Though the film's ending is obscure and has left many scratching their heads, I really thought it worked and I was completely entranced by the suspenseful cat-and-mouse plot. If you haven't yet seen this darn-near-perfect flick, now is your chance. Special features include a featurette about the making of the movie and one titled "Diary of A Country Sheriff."

One more release starring a beloved comedian if you read more.

Dan in Real Life
I will be the first to admit this wasn't my favorite movie of all time but like most people, I really love Juliette Binoche and Steve Carell, and I figured you may like to know that this one is out on DVD.

Dan in Real Life is about an advice columnist (Carell) raising three daughters on his own. Yet he could use some advice himself when he meets and develops "eyes" (as they say) for the beautiful Marie (Binoche) - who also happens to be Dan's brother's girlfriend. Much soul-searching over this and other life issues goes down when Marie joins a vacation with the entire extended family. One of the best things about the movie is the great music provided almost entirely by Sondre Lerche.

Dan in Real Life: Real Life Is Boring

BuzzSugar — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:30:42 -0700

My reaction to Dan in Real Life is a big fat "eh." I chuckled a few times, rolled my eyes a little bit, and questioned Dane Cook's sexuality. I also felt some sadness toward Juliette Binoche and Steve Carell, two actors who seem to have been charged with providing the charm for this movie entirely, and who both give up under the pressure. Because I like these actors very much, it depresses me to report that Dan in Real Life is forgettable.

Carell plays Dan, an advice columnist and widower with three daughters. He comes from one of those big, goofy, aw-shucks families you only see in movies. The stupidly flawless kind of family that has crossword competitions! And talent shows! And group aerobics on the front lawn! It's so saccharine my teeth started to ache. Apparently the "humor" of the film is supposed to come from the fact that Dan doles out flecks of wisdom on parenting and life, yet he's illogically overprotective with his own girls and he ends up falling in love with his brother's new girlfriend. Unfortunately, it's not humorous enough to be a comedic success, and not compelling enough to be heartwarming. To see more of what I mean, read more

Here's my main annoyance with the movie: it's supposed to be ironic because he's an advice columnist who can't seem to succeed as a father/brother/son/boyfriend/person? He's human and flawed? Who cares? For one thing, they don't do nearly a good enough job making us see what a "fantastic" advice columnist Dan is. So why should we care when he's attracted to his brother's girlfriend? For another thing, while I love Steve Carell, his attempts to be (I think) a struggling widower who's clumsily entering back into the dating world come off as distracted, slightly ashamed and a little sleepy. Nothing about this movie gets me to care about Dan, in his real life or otherwise.

The best things about the film are Juliette Binoche and the music, provided entirely by Sondre Lerch. Binoche is beautiful, self-assured, funny and warm as The Perfect Woman, Marie. The moments that have any real spark at all are when Binoche has reason to be passionate. When Marie is jealous of Dan's date with another woman, she burns Dan's pancakes the next morning and glares at him while he eats them in front of her, a moment that contains a surprising mix of comedy and sexual tension. These fiery moments are only that, however: momentary, and they are mostly dependent upon Binoche's irresistible charm. Lerche's music adds a relaxing ease to the movie, making otherwise lame scenes tolerable.

The narrative, such as it is, doesn't just trudge along dopily, it meanders and veers woozily from side to side. At no point did I have confidence that this was all leading someplace satisfying. The artful, truthful beauty that director Peter Hedges achieved in Pieces of April is utterly missing. It's like his creativity plodded around in a circle for a while before curling up and going to sleep. I had a kind of naive optimism about this movie but found that real life really is pretty disappointing - even in the movies.

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First Look: Steve Carell in Dan in Real Life

BuzzSugar — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 11:28:11 -0700

There is something about the endearing everyman-ness of Steve Carell that just makes me want to root for the characters he plays, no matter what. In the trailer for his fall movie Dan in Real Life, that feeling is only intensified as he plays a widower raising three daughters. He falls for a woman (Juliette Binoche! Hooray!) who turns out to be his brother's (Dane Cook, booooo) new girlfriend.

The trailer, while not fall-down funny, is very sweet-looking and features some great lines. Dan in Real Life is scheduled to open October 19. To watch the trailer, read more

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