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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:30:35 PST

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 selections below, you can also add Kevin Costner's Swing Vote to your queue.

Brideshead Revisited
Here's a movie I never got around to seeing in '08, which makes it my favorite kind of new DVD release! This lavishly costumed period drama starring the wonderful Emma Thompson sort of gives me an Atonement vibe except it didn't get nearly as much critical or box office attention.

Based on the bestselling novel, the movie follows "the memoirs of Captain Charles Ryder who is stationed at Brideshead Castle during WWII and remembers his involvement with the owners of the Brideshead estate: The aristocratic yet Catholic Flyte family and in particular brother and sister Sebastian and Julia."

Special features include deleted scenes, filmmakers' audio commentary, and a segment titled "The World of Brideshead."

Two more up next, so

read more. Appaloosa I enjoy a Western every now and again and Appaloosa, directed by and starring Ed Harris, is a good one. Harris plays Virgil Cole, a man who, along with his partner Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), makes a living off the lawless frontier by helping out towns overrun with criminal activity. Things get complicated when a gal (Renee Zellweger) appears right as they're in the middle of sweeping the bad guys out of town. It's a good-looking, sometimes funny movie with some great acting and, of course, shoot-em-ups. I recommend bringing this one home. Special features include additional scenes and commentary by Harris and screenwriter/producer Robert Knott. Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys This recent Tyler Perry flick has a large and impressive ensemble cast that includes Kathy Bates, Sanaa Lathan, Alfre Woodard, Rockmond Dunbar and Benjamin Button's Taraji P. Henson. Like other Perry movies, The Family That Preys looks to be heavy on the familial melodrama that, according to Netflix, centers on "a pair of friends - wealthy socialite Charlotte (Academy Award winner Kathy Bates) and working-class Alice (Alfre Woodard) - whose families stand to be ripped apart by greed and scandal." DVD extras include special featurettes titled "Two Families, Two Legends," "Preying in the Big Easy," "Casting the Family," and "Delving Into the Diner."

Box Office: Lakeview Terrace Wins So-So Weekend

BuzzSugar — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:00:01 PDT

Lakeview Terrace, a thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson, came in at No. 1 at the box office over the weekend and performed relatively well with an estimated $15.6 million. Second place went to the Coen brothers' comedy Burn After Reading which continues to also do well at the box office, earning an estimated $36.4 million over its first ten days.

Around the No. 3 spot on this weekend's box office report things start to look a little gloomy, starting with the Dane Cook-Kate Hudson comedy My Best Friend's Girl. The movie only earned about $8.3 million, perhaps a result of some harsh reviews (or maybe it was just the poster, as Cook whined, that drove audiences away).

The animated family film, Igor, came in fourth place followed by Righteous Kill in fifth. Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys and The Women rounded out the sixth and seventh place respectively, and a movie I enjoyed, Ghost Town, opened at No. 8.

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Box Office: Burn After Reading Sets Box Office on Fire

BuzzSugar — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 08:15:20 PDT

The Coen Bros. helped give the box office a needed Autumn boost with their comedy Burn After Reading, which debuted at No. 1 with an estimated $19.4 million. It was a lucrative weekend overall, actually, with many of the week's new releases doing better than expected despite a "crowded marketplace for adult-skewing films."

In second place came Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys earning $18 million, followed by the Al Pacino-Robert De Niro reunion, Righteous Kill. And despite unflattering reviews, even The Women did alright over the weekend, coming in at No. 4 with an estimated $10 million followed by The House Bunny in fifth place.

Alan Ball's Towelhead also opened and "nabbed the best per- location average of the weekend." Finally, for those of you keeping track, The Dark Knight is up another $4 million, putting its total domestic gross so far at an estimated $517 million.

Photo courtesy of Focus Features

Movie Preview: The Family That Preys

BuzzSugar — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:30:47 PDT

The first thing that struck me about this trailer for Tyler Perry's new movie The Family That Preys was the stellar cast. First off, Academy darlings Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard on the same screen together is awesome. Plus, after watching Something New, I'm really excited to see more of Sanaa Lathan. Add to that Cole Hauser, Rockmond Dunbar, and Robin Givens, and you've got a darn compelling cast.

The movie looks like an emotionally complicated tale of two families navigating issues of love, marriage, class, race, and history. There's a lot going on and a lot of characters, but I'm interested to see how Perry explores these themes. The plot is described by IMDB thusly:

Wealthy socialite Charlotte Cartwright (Bates) and her dear friend Alice Pratt (Woodard), a working class woman of high ideals, have enjoyed a lasting friendship throughout many years. Suddenly, their lives become mired in turmoil as their adult children's extramarital affairs, unethical business practices and a dark paternity secret threaten to derail family fortunes and unravel the lives of all involved.

Intrigued? The movie opens Sept. 12 and you can check out the trailer, just

Say No to That Free Sample! The Rule of Reciprocity

LearnVest — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:30:56 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!
There are little tricks businesses use to get us to buy.

Some are pretty obvious, like sales and coupons.

Others are more subtle and nefarious, and may prey on the very good spirit of our human nature. A tad dramatic? Maybe not.

Recall those free address labels from the Disabled American Veterans? In the 1970s, they decided to send potential donors personalized labels in the mail, while soliciting donations. Their generous approach? They told people to keep the labels even if they didn't make a donation. After they did this, the number of people who made contributions nearly doubled - jumping from 18 to 35 percent.

Why was this marketing tactic so successful? Because of a little phenomenon called the rule of reciprocity.

It's not the end of the world if you end up donating to a great cause, but chances are you've been suckered into buying some random stuff you don't need because of this really powerful psychological phenomenon.

The Rule of Reciprocity: The Law of Give and Take

Made popular by Robert Cialdini's book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, the rule of reciprocity is the deeply ingrained human instinct to repay a debt.

According to Steve J. Martin, who coauthored the book Yes! 50 Secrets From the Science of Persuasion with Cialdini, the rule of reciprocity is fundamental to human nature. Every culture and ethnicity trains its children to abide by the rule of give and take. If someone gives something to us, we feel obligated to repay that debt. This rule operates not only with people you know, but also with strangers

Read on for more on free samples and reciprocity.

What to TiVo: Sunday

BuzzSugar — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:59:00 PDT

8:00 Once Upon a Time (new)
9:00 Desperate Housewives (new)
10:00 Pan Am (new)

8:00 Amazing Race 19 (new)
9:00 The Good Wife (new)
10:00 CSI: Miami (new)

8:00 The Simpsons (new)
8:30 Allen Gregory (new)
9:00 Family Guy (new)
9:30 American Dad (new)

8:15 Sunday Night Football: Ravens at Steelers

Getting Back on Budget: How to Escape a Downward Spiral

LearnVest — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:15:02 PDT

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

I recently fell off my budget-or, rather, got pushed off by a large, unexpected expense at the dentist’s office.

I negotiated a payment plan so I wouldn’t have to pay more than $1,000 all in one go, but that night, as I was walking home, I became really irritated about the payments I’d have to make for the next few months.

Then, I saw-and was lured into-one of my favorite New York City institutions, the Strand bookstore, whose memorable tagline is “18 Miles of Books.”

That’s 18 miles of used books. Used books are cheap, right? Cheap.

That’s what I told myself as I proceeded to walk out with $75 worth of new reading material.

As I walked home, I thought, “I’m so far down the hole already anyway, what’s another $75?”

It turns out that this is a common way of thinking-about budgets, diets (“I already gorged on that cake last night, so what’s a little cookie?”), exercise (I already missed two workouts, who cares if I miss a third?) and more. But a few easy tricks-and our easy-to-use, goal-setting calculator below-can lift anyone out of a damaging downward spiral. If you want to jump right in to calculating how you can undo any damage you’ve done, scroll down.

First, let’s figure out why so many of us fall prey to downward spirals in the first place.

Why We Dig Ourselves Deeper in a Hole

Carmen Wong Ulrich, personal finance expert and author of “The Real Cost of Living,” says that once people fall off their budgets, they feel helpless. “You’re beyond the point of seeing yourself getting out. The pit is so big, it’s exhausting to look at, and that exhaustion wears down your ability to make a good decision.”

It’s a sad fact: Once one financial defeat saps our energy and willpower, we tend to make yet another bad decision, which makes us feel even worse, engendering yet another budget-busting decision, and so on. (A lot of it comes down to the psychology of sunk costs.)

So, how do you reverse course?

Read on to find out.

8 New Annoying Things Consumers Need to Be Aware Of

Emily Co — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:56:05 PDT

As consumers, frustration is inevitable - it's common to experience bumps along the way. Some of the many hurdles we have to deal with include marketing ploys we fall prey to, rude customer service, instances of fraud, and the list goes on. Each year generally sees a different laundry list of complaints, and here are some of the top new pet peeves of customers in 2010, courtesy of the Consumer Federation of America:

Daily deals. There are a growing number of people who are upset about the misleading expiration date and limitations on the coupons.
Identity theft. Customers are increasingly worried about privacy issues and their data being hacked, given all the high profile news of data breaches in Sony and Citigroup.
Wireless TV services. Apparently, Wireless TV companies are lacking in customer service department. Apple TV and Google TV are relatively new products so they are still fine-tuning their dealings with dissatisfied consumers.
Medical bills. Consumers are saying that medical bills are more confusing than ever because healthcare providers and insurance companies are in conflict about which claims need to be covered. Further, some providers aren't properly submitting the claims.
Timeshare recovery. Companies that assure customers they are going to recover money for people who lost some bucks to timeshare resale firms are apparently charging "hefty" fees to their clients.
"Grandparent scams". People are falling for spam emails from fake friends and family who ask for financial help.
Companies that buy your car. There are more and more complaints on car-buying companies that write bounced checks to customers and don't pay off liens on the cars.
Fraudulent tax companies. A number of firms offering tax help to customers at a low price or for free are apparently scamming people out of their money and are charging heavy fees when customers can actually get the help for free if they look in the right places.

Now that you know about these eight new troubles customers are dealing with, make sure you don't fall for them. Always do your research when money is involved, and enlist the help of consumer agencies to aid you in your fight.

Horrible Bosses: Earns Its Paycheck

Shannon Vestal — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:52:28 PDT

Horrible Bosses highlights a common pain of the gainfully employed: working your butt off for someone you hate. Though the movie may be preying on your plight, it's a laugh-filled escape from an oppressive office. Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day star as three friends who are so unhappy at their respective workplaces that they come to an extreme conclusion: to murder their three bosses. Bateman plays Nick, a financial exec trying to move up in the corporate world, but he's roadblocked by his company's malicious CEO (Kevin Spacey). Sudeikis is content at work until his kindly boss dies, leaving the family business to his drug-addicted loser son (Colin Farrell). Lastly, Day's character Dale is the assistant to a sultry dentist (Jennifer Aniston) who sexually harasses him at all hours of the workday.

The plot may be far-fetched - would three well-adjusted guys really plot to kill their bosses? - but the premise works thanks to clever writing of John Francis Daley (of Freaks and Geeks fame) and Michael Markowitz. And really, the movie is so funny that it's easy to suspend your disbelief.

To find out why Horrible Bosses is the opposite of horrible, just

read more. The casting is just about perfect; the chemistry between the three leading men is outstanding, although Charlie Day wins MVP. Best known for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the combination of Day's energy, high voice, and mannerisms make Bateman and Sudeikis seem bland by comparison. The movie also has a lot of fun with supporting characters playing against type - very far against type. Farrell's role is most noteworthy, and not just because of his balding head; he impressed me by lobbing one-liners like a seasoned comedian. Jamie Foxx also has a memorable part as a "murder consultant," which is one of my favorite bits of the movie. It lets the actor, more prone to drama these days, go back to his goofy comedy roots. Then there's Aniston as the sexually hostile dentist, although the role is more eyebrow raising than funny. The wholesome movie star strips down to lingerie and pretty much only opens her mouth to say something filthy. It's more novelty than proof of Aniston's comedic range, but the shock value is almost worth the price of admission. One of Horrible Bosses's most pleasant surprises is the fact that it doesn't rely on lots of gross jokes. Aside from Aniston's language, the raunch factor is pretty limited. And although the premise itself is dark, it doesn't take that as an opportunity to shift into overly violent territory. Instead, the humor comes from a hilarious script and some capable actors who truly kill - at comedy, anyway.

Morning Links - More Speculation on Rihanna's Love Life Links Her to Ryan Phillippe

PopSugar — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:52:00 PST

Have Rihanna and Ryan Phillippe been hooking up for months? - Us Weekly
Billy Ray Cyrus is working to mend his family - People
Emmy Rossum on how sex scenes are different from pornography - Huffington Post
Dianna Agron's breakup from Alex Pettyfer isn't going very well - Lainey Gossip
See Real Housewife Kim Zolciak pregnant . . . in a bikini! - PopEater
Lindsay Lohan is looking to make a plea but won't agree to do jail time - TMZ
Kim Kardashian falls prey to a Twitter hacker - Wonderwall
Halle Berry's half sister talks about their private business - Celebitchy
Does Kate miss Jon Gosselin? - Fox 411
Amber Rose is still famous in London! - ICYDK
Love for Demi Lovato and Wilmer Valderrama? - I'm Not Obsessed