As far as mockumentaries go, Desperately Seeking Paul McCartney has a great set-up, or hook — one that would in theory allow for an exploration of the navel-gazing boomer generation, and how a kissed, chance moment of celebrity interaction can turn one’s world into a hermetically sealed diorama. Unfortunately, however, it never really coalesces in a meaningful way that elevates the movie into something more than a fleeting curio for Beatles-obsessed completists.

The background here is rooted in fact. Ruth Anson, a fresh-faced reporter for ABC television covering teen issues and the entertainment beat in the 1960s, got a chance in August of 1965 to stick a microphone in the face of Beatle Paul McCartney, who jokingly responded to her question about marriage plans by saying he intended to wed only if she would get hitched with him, “right now.” The film replays footage of this moment over and over (and over), but uses it as a launching point for the sunny Anson’s journey of self-discovery. Claiming she’s looking for “closure,” Anson attends a Hollywood pitch session where she talks up a possible film project built around her suddenly awakened desire to track down McCartney and ask him whether or not he was serious — a quixotic quest flick loosely in the vein of Brian Herzlinger’s My Date with Drew, in other words. Director Marc Cushman (who also appears onscreen, playing himself) takes to Anson’s idea, but finds that he and his production team keep hitting brick walls as they try to track McCartney down. Desperate to keep moving forward, he re-contextualizes Anson’s yearning, positioning her at the center of a reality show in which even her friends and family start to think maybe she’s a bit of a nutter.

There’s potential here, and by Desperately Seeking Paul McCartney by and large plays things fairly dry and tongue-in-cheek. Gratefully, it doesn’t tip over into histrionics (even though Anson gets all teary when she’s goaded into visiting a therapist, at Cushman’s insistence), but instead just follows around Cushman’s production team as they try to go about constructing embarrassing and/or air-quote dramatic scenarios for their unaware star. The chief problem is that the viewer gets out in front of the movie. It’s too slow-moving; its conflicts and jokes take too long to develop and then tend to drag on, and certain bits (like a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy-style makeover for Anson, as she preps to try to crash the Grammys with a set of phony IDs cooked up by Cushman) fall flat entirely. There isn’t enough rangy shock value or psychological insight to match the topic, so when the whole thing ends with an interview with porn star Ron Jeremy (since he was putatively able to gain access to the Grammys, and Anson wasn’t), well… one just has to shrug.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Desperately Seeking Paul McCartney comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full frame, with English language 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio mixes. Bonus features consist of some touted “Beatles-type songs,” which is almost precisely as painful as that sounds. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

Based on the bestselling children’s book by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is one of those movies that leaves you wanting to break out the thesaurus, because the phrase “sheer, unadulterated pleasure” has been sullied by the likes of Joel Siegel’s overuse. Yet that’s what it is, simply and most directly — an engaging, funny and warmly designed animated flick that doesn’t pander to kids or pull a muscle trying to unnecessarily reach up and out to older audiences.

Co-directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film tells the story of an affable outcast inventor who creates a machine that rains down food on his hungry island town. Ever since he was a kid, Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) has felt out of step and out of sorts with the world around him, and the inability of his emotionally withholding father (voiced by James Caan), a taciturn bait-and-tackle shop owner, to connect has only served to heighten his isolation. Every invention that seems like a breakthrough eventually — and sooner rather than later — comes crashing down around Flint, so when his latest contraption accidentally destroys the town square and rockets up into the clouds, he thinks his inventing career is over.

Then something amazing happens: delicious cheeseburgers start raining from the sky — a godsend to the populace of Swallow Falls, who have subsisted for years on nothing but sardines, and various (unsavory) iterations thereof. With visiting cable weather intern Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) on hand to report Flint’s triumph, the town’s ambitious, appetite-driven mayor (voiced by Bruce Campbell) both sees and seizes on a once-in-a-lifetime tourism opportunity, re-branding his island “Chews and Swallows,” a sort of foodie paradise getaway. When greed gets the best of people, though, the machine starts to run amok, unleashing spaghetti tornadoes and giant meatballs that threaten the world. Flint and Sam must swing into action, to try to find some way to shut down the machine before the world is overrun by giant food raining from the sky.

Hader gives a solid vocal turn as Flint, laced with his characteristic dryness, but also infused with heart. Faris, a delightful comedienne most recently seen to winning effect in The House Bunny, is also pitch-perfect; there’s fun had as well with the character of “Baby Brent” (voiced by Andy Samberg), a now-grown air-quote celebrity from Swallow Falls’ sardine days who’s wrecked by his sudden obsolescence. The writing here is all smart but not showy (there’s a joke that employs “amuse-bouche,” while also acknowledging its throwaway status), and a good bit of delight can be found in keeping an ear pricked for sotto voce or off-camera asides. In the broadest strokes, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs holds allegorical value as a cautionary tale against unchecked rapaciousness. Mostly, though, this is just a well-made movie, with plenty of heart, energy and fun characters.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs comes to DVD in a two-disc version housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a snap-in tray, and an accompanying cardboard slipcover. In addition to a feature-length audio commentary track with the
co-directors and Hader, there’s also a pair of making-of featurettes
detailing the animation, voiceover work and other behind-the-scenes
aspects of production, plus a clutch of interesting progression reels/deleted scenes with
introductions by visual effects supervisor Rob Bredow. Also included
are a music video and interactive sing-a-long for Miranda Cosgrove’s “Raining Sunshine,” and an amusing “Food
Fight” game where players can help Flint battle against rogue edibles by
navigating his spaceship and avoiding hits from flying pizzas, gummy
bears, ice cream scoops and the like. All in all, a winning film with a great collection of supplemental material. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) B+ (Disc)

A campy, sci-fi, gleefully gross-out adventure loosely in the vein of fellow budget-challenged romps like Feast or Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Infestation is written and directed by Kyle Rankin, one of the co-directors behind The Battle of Shaker Heights — the final Project Greenlight flick, which whiffed commercially but helped put Shia LaBeouf on the path toward big screen domination on which he now seems to be. It’s not a movie that reinvents the wheel (or in any way, shape or form really desires to), but it is fun, and well done, benefiting from the jocular presence of Christopher Marquette. Genre fans will assuredly dig it.

A mundane office workday takes a sudden turn for the worse when twentysomething chronic underachiever Cooper is rendered unconscious by an earsplitting noise. He wakes up several days later, in a massive cocoon spun by mutant, flesh-eating insects. Upon hooking up with Sara (Brooke Nevin), the daughter of his deceased boss, Cooper unwraps a couple more coworkers at the downtown office park around him, forming a team of strangers to eventually strike out into the great unknown, and fight off the infestation. In addition to gruff, tough-talking Sara, there’s Cindy (Kinsey Packard), plus Al (Wesley Thompson) and his deaf son, a hulking man-child named Hugo (Quincy Sloan). A plan is forged to check on a select handful of loved ones and then work toward safety; Cooper eventually crosses paths with emotionally withholding dad Ethan (Ray Wise), who can’t even sincerely compliment his son for making it across the city, and back to his house.

In movies like Fanboys and the underrated The Girl Next Door, Marquette has provided solid comic relief, but here he anchors the entire film, in winning fashion. Rankin also plays with audience expectation and genre convention in fresh, slightly amusing ways. Sometimes the manner in which he leapfrogs story hurdles is funny right through the fog of shrugs (a character, playing a massage therapy student, uses a home pregnancy test to determine the venomous nature of a captured spider), but a couple times Rankin requires characters to nakedly intuit things that don’t entirely make sense. Efram Potelle, Rankin’s Shaker Heights co-director, scores a visual effects supervisor credit here (a big part of the duo’s short film work, for those who remember), and it’s undeniably true that Infestation‘s giant bugs — a smart, seamless mixture of practical and CGI effects — go a long way toward making one believe enough in the conceit of the film to lie back and just have a good time.

Infestation arrives on DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks, as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles. Apart from trailers for other releases, the only supplemental extra is a feature-length audio commentary track from Rankin that is fairly low-key, to the point it could be legitimately described as enervated. Rankin talks some about Wise’s penchant for improvisation, and cops to the fact that the movie’s abortive ending is a naked ploy to set up a potential sequel. In fact, he says, he has a two-film arc sketched out, if Infestation catches on as a viral DVD smash. Hey… far worse things could happen. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C (Disc)

As micro-brews continue to surge in popularity, and Americans of a certain age start to become at least a bit more invested in their ale quaffing habits (if not quite to the same degree that they typically are with wine), entertaining and informative glimpses behind the sociocultural curtain like this new-to-DVD documentary will continue to find welcome reception. Clocking in at only an hour, The American Brew doesn’t quite have the contemporary pop of Anat Baron’s Beer Wars, which examined in fascinating fashion how the three (now two) major brewer-bottlers look to trick consumers and put the squeeze on upstart competitors. Still, in exploring the rich and surprising history of beer making from colonial settlers through the present day, this movie offers up sudsy intrigue.

Writer Jesse Sweet and director Roger Sherman share the unique history of America’s favorite beverage (sorry, Coke), charting a history from the Prohibition era right on through the unending success of national breweries. The American Brew explores the evolution of beer throughout the centuries, interweaving compelling personal tales and interviews with industry experts to provide an inside look at brewing innovations, and how those changes have impacted the national palette.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The American Brew comes to DVD in widescreen, with an English language 5.1 surround sound audio track that more than adequately handles the meager aural demands of the title. Hearteningly, the DVD also features over 45 minutes of bonus footage, including conversations with restaurateur Danny Meyer, premier beer critic Michael Jackson (no, not that guy), and the editors of All About Beer. There’s also a look inside the hidden cellar of New York City’s Prohibition-era 21 Club, Paul Brady’s breweriana collection, and a cheeky short, “Cheese Wars,” which pits wine and beer against one another in an effort to determine cheese’s perfect match. To order a copy of The American Brew directly from PBS, call (800) PLAY-PBS or click here; to purchase the DVD via Amazon, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Remember being taught origami in school when you were a child? You were pretty crappy at it, weren’t you? Marvel, then, at those who are far more at home at the intersection of art and math; with this compelling, new-to-DVD, hour-long documentary, PBS gives audiences an amazing look at artists who have abandoned their ordinary, mundane jobs in favor of turning paper-folding into not only art, but also their new life’s work.

Directed by Vanessa Gould, Between the Folds chronicles the stories of 10 fine artists and intrepid scientists who have alternately abandoned their careers and scoffed at hard-earned graduate degrees — all to forge unconventional lives as modern day paper-folders. As these offbeat and provocative characters converge on the unusual medium of origami, they reinvent an ancient art and demonstrate the innumerable ways that ingenuity and expression come to bear.

Delving into the math involved in some of the intricate work, but not to an unpleasant degree, the documentary paints an arresting portrait of the remarkable artistic
and scientific creativity that fuels this ever-changing art form —
fusing science and sculpture, form and function, the old and the new. The creations on display are of course arresting; perhaps most so is MIT mechanical engineering student Brian Chan’s single-sheet mock-up of his school’s seal, complete with blacksmith and hammer on one side, and scholar and open book on the other. Also interesting is a discussion of the so-called “bug wars” that defined public origami showcases of the 1990s, when one competitor’s six-legged beetle was later trumped by spiders (eight legs!) and scorpions (eight legs, plus pinchers). These aren’t tossed-off creations, obviously; the most complex efforts take weeks to design, and sometimes up to 100 working hours to fold into shape.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Between the Folds comes to DVD presented in anamorphic widescreen. Unlike many PBS titles, there’s also a nice smattering of supplemental content, in the form of the program’s two-minute trailer, and a collection of seven deleted scenes. In these, Erik Demaine talks about the future influence of computer programming on the art, and Paul Jackson lays into an analysis of, well, what’s wrong with paper as a medium. There’s also an eight-minute short film, Origametria, which centers around Miri Golan and the Israeli Origami Center, where paper-folding is used as a tool to teach kids geometry’s more abstract principles. American charter schools take note. To purchase the DVD, call (800) PLAY-PBS. Or to purchase via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Possibly no actor working in movies today looks better in rumpled cotton than Clive Owen. George Clooney gives him a run for his money, but from Closer, Derailed and his series of BMW shorts all the way through to Children of Men, The International and Duplicity, the sheer volume of screen material featuring Owen looking fashionably weary and rundown helps make this slice of cut-rate domestic fatigue seem a bore by comparison. Owen’s trademark tousled charm carries stretches of The Boys Are Back, a too-loose widower’s tale, but otherwise overly familiar dramatic plotting elicits lukewarm positive feelings at best.

Owen plays sportswriter Joe Warr, who, in the wake of the tragic death of his wife Katy (Laura Fraser), finds himself suddenly thrust into single parenthood. Baffled and overwhelmed, Joe embraces instinctual exuberance, trying to chase down some sort of a return to normalcy by simply saying yes to everything. This works for a while with six year-old Artie (Nicholas McAnulty). But when Joe invites Harry (George MacKay), his teenage son from a previous marriage, to fly in from England and stay with them, the household’s slovenly masculine vibe and unabashed lack of rules prove problematic for all involved, including a young single mother (Emma Booth, sort of an Aussie Gretchen Mol) whom Joe is circling, seemingly as much for free childcare as romance.

Australian director Scott Hicks, who burst onto the scene with 1996’s Oscar-winning Shine, returns to film his homeland for the first time since that movie, but can’t achieve satisfying emotional liftoff. It’s both a bit of a surprise and somehow not shocking at all to learn that the film is based on a 2001 memoir by Simon Carr, since The Boys Are Back feels rigidly constructed to hit every potential beat of conflict, from general emotional withdrawal and friction with the in-laws to a poor decision to leave the kids home alone. The story meanders to and fro, and could have used much more connective tissue between the two boys, which would have made the come-stay-with-us connection that the movie eventually sells on the back of Joe’s younger son’s burgeoning feelings for Harry that much more believable. The stunning South Australian countryside, as captured by Hicks and cinematographer Greig Fraser, gives The Boys Are Back an achingly convincing sense of place, and the acting is OK, certainly. But the film’s small moments of acutely sketched heartbreak arrive with such infrequency as to leave one mostly daydreaming of a Vegemite sandwich.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Boys Are Back comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 widescreen, preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. English and Spanish language audio tracks are presented in Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound, and optional English and Spanish subtitles are also included. Supplemental features are fairly spare, with a photographic slideshow of material that includes an optional overlaid commentary track from Hicks, and a brief making-of featurette that includes on-set footage and EPK-style interviews with cast and crew. No word from the costume designer on Owen’s devastatingly handsome dishevelment, though. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C- (Disc)

Michael Jackson’s This Is It, the hagiographic concert documentary hastily cobbled together from behind-the-scenes footage of the late pop star’s planned series of 50 London concerts that of course never came to fruition, arrives on DVD with no actual, concrete mention of his passing on the cover box. This is slightly strange but, in its own way, also makes perfect sense. After all, for his diehard fans, Jackson the entertainer was always someone who existed outside of and apart from the tabloid frenzy that engulfed his personal life. He was simply a showman, and therefore his corporeal death — while grievous in that it robs them of new material — is almost of little note or consequence in relation to the creative celebration that this glimpse behind the curtain provides.

On a personal level, I think it’s never really a good sign if your film’s title is an anagram of Shit, It Is, but This Is It recovers from this unfortunate fact to provide a somewhat humanizing portrait of its legendary star. A box office smash for distributor Sony upon its rushed release late last fall — the movie bowed to $23 million en route to $72 million domestically, and raked in another $187 million worldwide, where Jackson’s, umm, offbeat personal life hadn’t dented his commercial viability in quite the manner it had Stateside — This Is It works, on a very simple level, because you get to see Jackson doing what he truly loves, and almost inarguably was born to do. Stripped free from his garish, almost willfully bizarre public persona, you’re able to just fall in love with the man’s music all over again, or at least appreciate his talents and work ethic.

Directed by Kenny Ortega, who was also spearheading the rehearsals for the aforementioned concerts, This Is It offers hardcore Jackson fans and noobs alike a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for shows that would have taken place in London’s new O2 Arena, beginning in July 2009 and continuing through March 2010. Chronicling the months from April through June of last year, the film is culled together from more than 100 hours of private footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing a number of his songs for the show.

The results are almost always interesting, and in a couple instances fantastic. Celebrating the singer’s love of Old Hollywood, “Smooth Criminal” found Jackson seamlessly sharing the screen with some of the greatest movie stars of all-time in a new black and white vignette that was a nod to its original music video. “Thriller” was getting a thrilling new 3-D treatment, with video featuring a whole new cast of zombies, ghosts and ghouls falling prey to Jackson’s dance moves. There were plenty of live, on-stage theatrics and pyrotechnics planned, as well. “Beat It” was to feature Jackson on a cherry-picker, extended out over the crowd, and end with him setting a jacket on fire, in a seeming homage to Jimi Hendrix. And, based on the pre-visualization animation, the heal-the-planet message of “They Don’t Care About Us” was apparently to end with Jackson facing down a bulldozer on stage.

For all this sizzle, though, one of the more interesting segments in This Is It is just a fairly straightforward run-through and presentation of “Billie Jean,” in which Jackson dusts off some old dance moves, without the benefit of a choreographed dance troupe behind him. This run-through, and “Man In the Mirror,” which closes the 111-minute movie, are among the strongest impressions made. There’s not really a sense of whether the material presented here represents the concert’s actual run order, and a bit more commentary or explication of some of the attendant creative decision-making going on would be of value. That said, the editorial imperative is clearly to get as much footage of Jackson shoehorned into the film proper as possible; a lot of that other stuff about which I was wondering ends up in the supplemental material.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, This Is It comes presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English and French subtitles. Two solid documentaries, “Staging The Return: Beyond The Show” and “Staging The Return: The Adventure Begins,” anchor the bonus material, which shows Jackson developing and overseeing technical elements and music mixes, in addition to actually rehearsing. If his on-stage perfectionist nature — even only half-assing it on vocals, in order to conserve his voice — didn’t clue you in, watching these featurettes will give you a sense of Jackson’s unerring attention to detail with regards to his professional presentation. While on a purely physical level it seems hard to believe his body could have withstood the challenges he was laying out for himself with this series of concerts, This Is It leaves no doubt that he was swinging for the fences.

Another featurette illuminates more specifically some of the concert’s specially designed costumes, while “Memories of
Michael” collects cast and crew tributes, many of the teary-eyed variety. There’s also a segment which spotlights the search for the show’s 11 incredibly talented back-up
dancers (from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants), as well as the film’s theatrical
trailer, which did a crackerjack job of not only selling the movie to
its hardcore fan base, but also making it seem both exciting and like
more than a chintzy cash-grab. Oh, and according to press material, additional features exclusive to the
movie’s Blu-ray release include the complete and uncut versions of “Smooth Criminal” and “Thriller,” along with a special making-of featurette on the accompanying video content for “Smooth Criminal,” and a BD-Live enabled “movieIQ function,” which lets viewers
add their favorite songs from the film to an emailable playlist. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; to purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) A- (Disc)

Based on the 1956 film noir of the same name directed by Fritz Lang, Peter Hyams’ Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
tells the story of an indefatigable, wildcard journalist’s
out-of-the-box plan to expose a corrupt district attorney, and how his
scheme takes an unexpected turn. The problem is that the movie is defined by stock characters, and totally caught up in pedestrian notions of thrills rather than the sort of intellectual chess moves that would make this sort of story robust and satisfying.

Relatively new to the area, ambitious television news reporter C.J. Nicholas (Jesse Metcalfe, who could surely star in a hypothetical Matt Leinart biopic if you just surrounded him with a couple bikini-clad girls) begins investigating hotshot district attorney Mark Hunter (Michael Douglas), convinced that his string of murder case victories can’t be a coincidence, or the result of, you know, hard work and guilt defendants. Hunter seems professionally pointed toward politics, in the form of an upcoming gubernatorial election, but C.J. thinks he’s tampering with evidence to
secure his convictions. In an effort to bolster his suspicions, C.J. turns to assistant district attorney Ella Crystal (Amber Tamblyn), for whom he also has the hots, and somehow convinces her to slip him a copy of the interrogation tape in the latest Hunter case.

A risky game of cat-and-mouse ensues, as C.J., with the assistance of friend and colleague Cory Finley (Joel David Moore), frames himself as a murder suspect in order to try to catch Hunter and his former police partner in
the act of cooking up evidence. Ella’s own life becomes endangered, however, when she discovers incriminating proof that puts the fate of both
Nicholas’ innocence and Hunter’s reputation in her hands. In the background, cop Ben Nickerson (Orlando Jones) tries to make sense of everything.

This material seems an odd fit for writer-director Hyams (Timecop, The Relic, End of Days), almost from the start. Part of it is budgeting, to be sure, but everything in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt feels at once too slick and on-the-nose, starting with Metcalfe’s performance, which offers no subtlety or sense of lurking restraint. In lieu of honest cat-and-mouse narrative give-and-take, however, Hyams also litters his script with great wastes of time, like a protracted, stakes-free second act car chase that ends with the death of a character we knew to be doomed from roughly half an hour earlier. We also find out pretty early on that Hunter is at least a top-shelf scumbag, even if we’re not yet certain of his guilt, so the one possible “twist” that remains isn’t a particularly surprising one. It furthermore doesn’t help that the movie is a de-fanged PG-13, so all its amped personal confrontations and physical imperilment plays kind of like a polite high school play. In short, this is a yawning small screen programmer, through and through.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. A hilarious new trailer for Ashton Kutcher’s Spread, cut to make it look like a more conventional romantic comedy, auto-starts upon disc playback, for what it’s worth; for those who have seen the aforementioned movie, it’s good for a couple giggles. At any rate, anchoring the DVD’s bonus features is an audio commentary track with multi-hyphenate Hyams (who also serves as his own cinematographer) and
actor Metcalfe. While there are a few nice production anecdotes here — including some talk about the trims in lovemaking scenes between Metcalfe and Tamblyn — there are also far too many huge gaps in the chat, making for a sporadic, uninteresting listen. Apart from the theatrical trailer, the only other supplemental material are a pair of three-minute-plus featurettes — one a staid making-of promo puff-piece that slices and dices film clips and EPK-type interviews, the other a scantly informative look at criminal forensics, featuring retied investigator Richard Pfaff. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C- (Disc)