BuzzSugar

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:30:16 -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 take home the fourth season of Entourage, as well as season five of One Tree Hill (you know, the one where they leap ahead in time and everyone owns a business or is a famous writer or something). Also, Morgan Spurlock's documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? is out on DVD along with another great indie film, Son of Rambow.

What Happens in Vegas
This comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz didn't do so hot with critics when it first came out, but I found myself charmed by it, despite how staggeringly absurd it is at times.

Two opposites (Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher) are forced to live together in matrimony so they can collect a large sum of money they accidentally won together in Las Vegas. Not only do the leads have a surprising amount of chemistry (well, I didn't expect any,
so. . .) but two supporting actors, the droll Lake Bell and The Daily Show's Rob Corddry, anchor the ridiculous moments with superb comic timing. All in all, it's a decent choice for your at-home enjoyment.

Special features include commentary from the director and a featurette titled "Sitting Down With Cameron and Ashton."

Two more up next so read more.

Heroes: Season Two
It's no secret that season two of NBC's Heroes isn't my favorite, due mostly to its slow pacing, cluttered plots, and overabundance of random new superheroes. But as we round the corner toward the long-awaited premiere of season three, you might just find yourself needing a little refresher (also, this season ended ages ago). So here it is, in all its perplexing, sometimes frustrating glory: season two!

I live for the special features that come with my favorite TV-on-DVD selections, and this one is no different. There's an alternate ending to the season (cool!), followed by an "inside the alternate ending" feature (even cooler!) titled "What If Peter Didn't Catch the Vial?," a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the third season premiere episode (yes!) and of course audio commentaries with cast and crew. Can you tell I'm excited?

Redbelt
I had to go see this film when I attended the Tribeca Film Festival this year because it boasts the insane combination of one of my favorite actors ever (Chiwetel Ejiofor) with one of my favorite actresses (Emily Mortimer) and a writer/director who I think of as a visionary (David Mamet). And for the most part, I was not disappointed.

In Redbelt, Ejiofor plays the powerful and controlled mixed-martial arts instructor Mike Terry who vows to stay far away from the competitive circuit. But when a series of coincidences occur and Terry finds himself in financial peril, he returns to the ring for one last time. Alice Braga (I Am Legend) beautifully plays Terry's wife, Sondra, and Mortimer plays an anxious stranger who learns important lessons of her own from Terry's MMA instruction. I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this movie, which is to say, I loved it - up until the end, when I kinda hated it. I still think it's a worthwhile rental, especially for any Mamet fan.

Sundance Review: Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?

BuzzSugar — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:32:19 -0800

Morgan Spurlock may be a documentary-maker searching for truth in this crazy mixed-up world, but he’s also largely an entertainer. His work, especially his latest doc Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?, falls into the category of "infotainment" - with an emphasis on the "tainment."

The movie starts with Spurlock describing his awakening from a blissful life to the reality that his wife is pregnant. Suddenly he's tortured by all the horrors in the world that his unborn child might face - including the still-at-large Osama Bin Laden. During a hokey animated intro, he explores these awful things and decides to go on a personal manhunt for Osama Bin Laden - during his wife's pregnacy - because he wants to make the world safer for his baby. The movie then follows this timeline of nine months or so: He has to find Bin Laden and make it back to the U.S. in time for the baby’s delivery. This timing strikes me as ridiculously foolish, and it makes every scene in which Spurlock bemoans the fact that he’s missing his wife’s pregnancy ring empty and false, as this timing was completely his choice.

The timing thing aside, he does go on an exhausting journey to find Bin Laden. He explores the places and institutions that shaped Bin Laden and talks to people who knew him. He also spends a lot of time polling Middle Eastern people on what they think of America, which, you may imagine, is not often favorable. Spurlock actually takes this part somewhat seriously, and it becomes a focus of the film, proving that Bin Laden is from a particular culture that contributed to his perception of America. As one interviewee says to Spurlock, Bin Laden is part of a much larger problem; finding this one man will do nothing to eradicate the root issues.

More of my thoughts on Spurlock's doc if you read more.

The general tone of the movie is one of humor and frivolity. Spurlock tries to make the content more palatable by presenting his quest for Bin Laden as a video game. He also utilizes cartoons and goofy music to fill us in on some of the history that influenced these modern-day opinions of American foreign policy. Even when he’s chatting with real people who are making impassioned statements about politics and religion, truly matters of life and death in many of these societies, Spurlock makes jokes, edits the film to make it funnier, and seems to be smirking. I'm all for comedies, and certainly for humorous documentaries because life is often funny. But there is something about Spurlock’s frequent "wink" in this particular film that makes me uneasy.

In the Q&A session with Spurlock following the Sundance premiere, one person said she thought the cartoons and graphics were a bit too much, that more information races by during these segments than we can possibly digest. Spurlock responded that his goal was just to get information out there to people who might not ordinarily hear any of it. He wanted to open up a discussion amongst ordinary theatergoers, and simply presenting a bunch of talking heads isn’t going to do it. I agree with this, but what if we can’t see the info for the tainment? What if, as happened with me, people watch the movie and enjoy it enough but two days later forget entirely what the point was?

Bottom line: The movie is certainly funny, and never boring. I applaud Spurlock’s effort, and I think he’s an inventive filmmaker who gets stuff seen that probably wouldn't have been explored otherwise.

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Live From Sundance, Part II

BuzzSugar — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:30:45 -0800

I've already shared some initial thoughts about my Sundance experience so far, and Monday was another day of indie film, chilled hands, and long ticket lines. I had the good fortune to catch the Luke Wilson drama Henry Poole Is Here, along with the premiere of Morgan Spurlock's documentary Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? which was followed by a pretty fascinating Q&A session. I'm determined to see more great stuff today; for now, more thoughts:

Best movie line I've heard in a long time comes from Henry Poole Is Here, in a scene featuring Henry (Luke Wilson) walking with his neighbor Esperanza (Adriana Barraza). Esperanza gives him some advice and Henry says, "You sound like a fortune cookie." Esperanza chuckles and replies, "Cookies can't talk." Cookies can't talk! It's so true.
Speaking of Luke Wilson, he was at the premiere screening of the movie, and he is rather dreamy, to say the least. He sat next to George Lopez, who is also in the film. They make quite the pair.
Sticking around for the Q&A session with Morgan Spurlock was a good idea, as it managed to improve my perception of his film. The movie made it seem like he decided to go off on this high-risk quest to find Osama Bin Laden because his wife got pregnant and he wanted to make a safer world for his unborn child, which just seemed outrageously foolish to me. Turns out he was already in preproduction when they found out about the baby and his wife Alex just barely let him continue with it. When an audience member asked what his next death-defying project would be, he responded, "Fatherhood," which I think is sweet.