Climb on board for some tween-targeted fun on the high seas with this mash-up/crossover special of three favorite Disney Channel shows. In Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana, the S.S. Tipton embarks on a triple-length comedy crossover event when Justin (David Henrie) wins a cruise to Hawaii and a chance to meet London (Brenda Song). Both Justin and Max (Jake T. Austin) do their best to win the heiress’ affection, while Cody (Cole Sprouse) tries to win concert tickets for Bailey (Debby Ryan), and Alex (Selena Gomez) accuses Zack (Dylan Sprouse) of being a prankster. Between the kids’ various jokey stunts (who turned Justin blue?) and all manner of other crazy schemes (Alex sneaks a girl on board to take her make-up science class), enterprising kids will perhaps learn a new trick or two to pull on a younger sibling.

What about Miley Cyrus… err, Hannah Montana, though? Well, the excitement goes overboard when the international pop superstar (a demonstrative Cyrus) checks in on her way to a sold-out concert in Hawaii. But when Miley Stewart (Cyrus again… displaying wily range?) loses both her lucky charm anklet and her Hannah wig, are her days as the world’s biggest pop star over forever? Well… probably not, if the flush-with-cash executives at Disney have anything to say about it. None of this, naturally, is as radically inventive and subversive a mash-up of different forms of entertainment as the Moesha spec script a friend and I once co-wrote based on a cast photo, without benefit of ever having watched the show, not the least of which is because all the ingredients here are so vanilla. Still, fans of each individual series will delight at the colorful gum-bumping and kids being pushed into pools, so if there’s a tween girl if your life with a birthday looming on the horizon, this is certainly a good title to flag.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, the 68-minute Wizards on Deck comes to DVD presented in a 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio. Bonus features consist of a brief video essay spotlighting the honing of power-writing skills, the sort of which won Justin and his siblings a spot on the S.S. Tipton Teen Cruise. There’s also a five-minute collection of bloopers and backstage interviews with the stars, and a brief clip in which the Sprouse twins tout the technological advances of Blu-ray in a manner that kids will likely parrot back to their parents. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Another self-satisfied, allegorical tale of the gritty dark side of Northeastern suburban paradise and its attendant loss of innocence, Lymelife is a bunch of discrete, thematically similar scenes in search of a cogent narrative punch. The directorial debut of Derick Martini, the movie is sort of a facile, surface-polished lesser entry in the canon of thematically like-minded films like The Ice Storm, The Chumscrubber and American Beauty, in which sensible and in some regards overly mature kids grapple with their place in the world amidst philandering and emotionally stunted adults.

Centering on two deeply troubled, dysfunctional families during the dog days of the 1970s, Martini’s film revolves around an awkward, sensitive 15-year-old boy, Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin, above left), whose family life is ostensibly turned upside down after an outbreak of Lyme disease hits his community, spreading illness and paranoia. Scott’s parents –workaholic father Mickey (Alec Baldwin) and overprotective mother Brenda (Jill Hennessy) — are unhappy in swallowed ways bubbling just underneath the surface,and his older brother Jim (Kieran Culkin) is back on brief loan from the Army, and about to ship off for war. Complicating matters, Scott has fallen in love with his neighbor and longtime friend, Adrianna Bragg (Emma Roberts, above right). Troubled in different ways, Adrianna’s less affluent family consists of her uptight mother, Melissa (Cynthia Nixon), who’s carrying on a not-so-clandestine love affair, and her father, Charlie (Timothy Hutton), whose sanity seems to be slowly unraveling from the effects of Lyme disease.

Derick Martini and his brother Steven, the writer-actors behind the winning, low-budget 1999 indie Smiling Fish & Goat on Fire, collaborated on Lymelife‘s script based on their own experiences growing up on suburban Long Island, but the movie feels too cute by about half, and overly groomed for indie flick preciousness in certain scenes. Lymelife premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, and truth be told it’s the warm bosom of a welcoming throng of international filmgoers that’s the best home for this decently acted but otherwise entirely marginal domestic ensemble.

There’s something of a charismatic star spark from the young Roberts, particularly in the manner in which she captures how teenage females drive the bus of sexual experience, and set the tone for the vast majority of adolescent amorous encounters. But overall her performance is a hot-and-cold thing, a lot of which is admittedly dictated from a scattershot characterization that finds Adrianna admonishing and/or patronizing Scott one moment (“I can call your mom, she can bring you an icepack or a Yoo Hoo or something,” she says in an awkward,meant-to-be-serious moment, after a bully thumps Scott), and then flashing him her red bra in confessional booth the next. Yes, lust can bloom quickly, especially for adolescents, but Adrianna’s actions feel more a product of narrative manipulation than anything else.

The Martinis have a nice touch with some end-around, unexpected moments of interpersonal friction or personal introspection — there’s a great bar scene between Mickey and Charlie that ranks among the best scenes of screen-captured passive-aggressiveness I can recall– but the Lyme disease-as-metaphor stuff doesn’t play, and the Martinis absolutely overreach when they aim for more overt emotional manipulation. These hamfisted instincts most reveal themselves in thunderously stupid and unrealistic behavior by cheating adults — bits crammed in to advance scenes, and feed revelation amongst minors — and reach their apex in a woefully misguided finale that feels like a straight-up gangsta rip-off of American Beauty, only without the balls of actual catharsis through bloodletting.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover with raised cover text, Lymelife comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks and optional Spanish subtitles. Bonus features consist of an audio commentary track with writer-director Martini and the younger Culkin, eight minutes of deleted scenes with optional audio commentary, and an alternate ending that basically re-frames the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. No cast interviews here, though, somewhat strangely. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Important Things with Demetri Martin is a stream-of-consciousness
Comedy Central sketch and variety show from multi-hyphenate Demetri Martin. Each episode focuses on a single topic
as filtered through the prism of Martin’s unique point-of-view,
encompassing quick-hit sketches, sketchboard-assisted written jokes,
low-fi animation and dryly delivered stand-up. “Timing,” for instance
includes sketches about a man who uses time travel to meet women as
well as an actor with terrible timing, while “Games” includes a bit
about an “emotional escape artist” who finds the tables turned on him
when he attempts to end a relationship.

Martin, who dropped out of law school to pursue comedy, swinging to a position as a staff writer on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, has the look of a most affable Jewish Muppet, and a top-shelf touch with absurdist deadpan humor to boot. His “Trendspotting” has been an occasional featured segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart since late 2005, and he’s lined up acting and screenwriting jobs that undeniably mark him as an emerging multiple-threat talent. The promos for Important Things, though, won me over with their delicious embrace of offbeat simplicity; pointing to a hand-drawn picture of a windowless van, Martin said, “When vans first arrived, I bet creeps were like, ‘Yeah! OK…'” That sort of canted humor gets a solid workout in this engaging and amusing series, which cycles through jokes at a just-right pace that doesn’t wear out its premise or conceit. H. Jon Benjamin provides frequent sketch support, and David Cross, Amanda Peet and John Oliver also pop up in cameos.

Housed in a regular, white plastic Amaray case, the seven first season episodes of Important Things with Demetri Martin comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with a Dolby digital stereo audio track. Included in the packaging are a mini-poster and sticker for the series. Its special features consist of four audio commentaries with Martin and his co-creators on the show, pegged to the episodes “Timing,” “Power,” “Coolness” and “Games.” In the chats, Martin and company talk in fairly laconic fashion about the series moving away from concrete point-of-emphasis topics (“Chairs” being the show’s pilot) and more into the conceptual realm.

Hand-sketched production graphs and sketch line-ups are curios, nothing more. More substantively, there is also a clutch of deleted sketches, 10 in all, with additional audio commentary. This material runs the gamut, from goofy outtakes from a “Parking Wars” bit and the musically rooted “Killing Someone with Kindness” (sample advice: “Beat them with a mix tape,” or, “Help them move… into a haunted house”) to the thumbnail sketch “A Yellow Belt Breaks an Awkward Silence,” which is exactly what it sounds like, but nonetheless quite amusing. A long, three-minute version of “Cult Leader in Love” (used heavily in the show’s promotion on Comedy Central) is included, which Martin correctly identifies and breaks down as problematic. Other bits, especially a mock safety instruction using a CPR dummy, come off as flat as well. Overall, this material is more miss than hit, but hey, that’s why it was excised to begin with, and Martin and company are upfront about owning up to why they feel the material doesn’t work. That’s somewhat refreshing, and maybe even important. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Show) B (Disc)

Detailing four interconnected stories revolving around love, drugs,
poverty and modern ennui, Explicit Ills unfolds chiefly amidst a bunch
of rundown tenements in a boarded-up, bombed-out area of
Philadelphia. So drab and depressing is its setting that it seems like
the movie, the feature writing and directing debut of young actor Mark
Webber, could be alternately titled American Shantytown. Lyrical,
earnest and well photographed, Explicit Ills is ultimately more
intriguing than good; its narrative is so meandering and its grip so
loose that one loses interest a bit less than halfway through its
90-minute running time.

The intertwined stories? Seven-year-old asthmatic Babo (Francisco Burgos) lives with his mother (Rosario Dawson) in the badlands of North Philly. His slightly older teen neighbor Demetri (Martin Cepeda), who makes moves on a girl by approaching her and asking if she wants to kiss him tomorrow, methodically a more bookish persona in order to try get the girl. Michelle (Frankie Shaw), a well-off art student, falls into a drug induced love affair with her dealer Jacob (Lou Taylor Pucci, above). The marriage of Kaleef (Tariq Trotter, of The Roots) and Jill (Naomie Harris) suffers tension as they pursue their dreams of bringing “produce to the people,” while their lanky teenage son Heslin (Ross Kim-McManus) improbably focuses on heading to Jamaica to compete in the World’s Strongest Man competition. Around the periphery, meanwhile, floats would-be actor Rocco (There Will Be Blood‘s Paul Dano).

Webber draws upon his personal relationships to help round out the cast (several of the actors are past costars), and his obviously collaborative approach yields some quiet, sensitive work. What’s most interesting about Explicit Ills is the manner in which individual scenes subtly undercut one’s expectation about where they’re headed. Also somewhat engagingly, Webber proves himself the rare first-time filmmaker who doesn’t overwrite; he’s much more interested in crafting mood (additional props to cinematographer Patrice Lucien Cochet’s inquisitive camerawork, and Michael Hersey’s art direction) than pushing forward a specific narrative agenda, either collectively or individually. In this regard, his movie variously recalls works like George Washington, Raising Victor Vargas and/or Jim McKay’s underrated Our Song.

Unfortunately, Explicit Ills suffers in comparison to all of these films, and its putative multicultural macro lesson — in which disparate individuals stumble toward connection with one another as they try to circumvent the isolating influences of homogeny and drug use, and draw together as a community — is tied together awkwardly in the third act, and doesn’t connect in a strong enough, emotionally resonant manner to really hold one’s attention. Notwithstanding some wholly invested performances and, again, an impressively atypical artistic instinct for a filmmaker of Webber’s age, Explicit Ills slots as more of an interesting misfire than a must-rent for one’s Netflix list.

Presented in 2.35.1 widescreen, which preserves the original aspect ratio of its March theatrical exhibition, Explicit Ills comes to DVD in a regular plastic Amaray case. A clutch of deleted scenes were touted in the original home video announcement for the movie, but the disc’s only bonus features are the theatrical trailer and some text-screen information on social activism issues raised in the movie. The film is also available on Blu-ray in 2.35:1 widescreen in 1080p. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) D (Disc)

Debuting in 2005 as a television series specifically for preschoolers, Disney Little Einsteins was created in conjunction with both child development experts and musicians, which helps make it colorful but also slyly educational. The lovable and diverse cast of the show — Leo, June, Quincy, Annie and Rocket — each bring a special talent to the group of spirited adventurers. Leo is six years old, loves music, and is the conductor of the group. Annie is four years old and Leo’s sister. She loves to sing, and can make up a song on the spot. She’s also the only one who can fly Rocket all by herself. Five-year-old jokester Quincy is a musical virtuoso who plays any instrument he gets his hands on, and especially likes the trumpet and violin. June is six years old and loves dancing; her leaps, spins and twirls help change the direction of each mission. The magical Rocket, meanwhile, is the best friend of all four children; he has lots of gadgets, and can transform himself into anything imaginable.

Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Rocket’s Blastoff collects four episodes of the series, in which the Little Einsteins set out on rescue missions that take place in all corners of the world. In the never-before-seen title episode, Rocket transforms into a hybrid fire truck rocket, and the Einsteins rush to rescue an adorable monkey from an erupting volcano on the tropical island of Java. The second episode is “Melody the Music Pet,” which features the Little Einsteins in France, watching animals board the special train that takes pets to their new homes. When Melody can’t find her ticket for the train, Leo and company promise to help Melody find it; an adventure ensues that takes them over Monet’s famous painting of lily pads, through the French countryside and all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower. In “Carmine’s Big Race,” meanwhile, the Little Einsteins head to the Grand Prix in Monaco to cheer for Quincy’s friend Carmine, a musical car. The final episode is “Mr. Penguin’s Ice Cream Adventure,” in which the team explores the Patagonia region of South America.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Rocket’s Blastoff comes to DVD presented in a 1.33:1 full screen aspect ratio, rated TV-Y in the United States and G in Canada. Audio tracks are available in English, Spanish and French, and the DVD also features a “Magic Mission Viewing Mode,” which let little viewers use the remote
control to answer fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes. The title has micro appeal, to be sure — kids older than six years old will become bored quickly, and squirm away from the set — but for younger viewers there’s a lot to like here, especially since the aforementioned interactive options split into two levels, meaning four- to six-year-olds don’t have to cycle through the same super-easy-to-answer questions as pre-verbal toddlers. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. B (Show) B- (Disc)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse ranked as the top cable series with children under the age of 5 in February 2009, with a whopping 24 million-plus unique viewers — over 42 percent of preschool kids. No surprise, really. In an era of multitudinous and ever-expanding entertainment options for toddlers and the pre-verbal set, the show, which centers around the typical blend of genial slapstick and easy-to-digest storylines encouraging teamwork and problem-solving, has a leg up on other similar series in the form of the iconic characters of Mickey and friends.

Inspired by Disney’s animated classic Alice in Wonderland, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Adventures in Wonderland features all-new animation and original songs, set around a story involving Mickey, Donald Duck and other classic Disney characters. Slipping into a colorful alternate dimension full of giant mazes, mysterious riddles and zany croquet matches, Mickey and the entire Clubhouse gang encounter Tweedle Chip, Tweedle Dale, Goofy Hatter and other characters. Their zany quest becomes a race against time in order to get back to the clubhouse for Daisy’s surprise birthday party.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Mickey’s Adventures in Wonderland is presented in a 1:78:1 widescreen aspect ratio, with English, French and Spanish language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio tracks. Like a handful of other Disney DVD titles, it features interactive adventure modes, with two separate levels of difficulty. Using the remote control, kids ages 2-3 can answer fun, easy questions about colors, shapes and sizes as the story moves along. The second level, appropriate for kids ages 4-5, is slightly more difficult, with questions aimed at testing memory, logic and the ability to tell time.

While the feature presentation’s relatively scant 50-minute running time may serve as a strike in some quarters — that’s barely enough time to get small kids situated in front of the TV set, put away all the groceries and fix dinner for many parents — the DVD does also include a bonus Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode, “Goofy Goes Goofy,” in which Goofy accidentally gets slimed with the Professor’s latest experimental goop and splits into a half dozen different Goofys. Hey, it’s no Multiplicity, but it’s a serviceable kid-friendly rendering of a shopworn concept. To purchase the disc via Amazon, click here. B (Show) B (Disc)

I’d interviewed her a couple weeks before its release, but I didn’t get a chance to tell writer-director Marianna Palka after her movie’s theatrical bow last fall — when I saw later her headed to a screening at the Landmark, her Prius adorned with matching “Got Dick?” bumper stickers — that if Tidal-era Fiona Apple were able to spawn a movie, it would be Palka’s Good Dick. And that’s a compliment. A barbed love story wrapped inside a threadbare character drama of swallowed anger and despair, Palka’s film eschews the achingly manufactured quirkiness or shaggy desire to please of so many of its American indie brethren. It’s instead simply seeded with moments of dark humor, and a few nice supporting turns that make it seem quietly fleshed-out, pained, funny and real, all in equal measure.

Yes, the title summons forth all sorts of jokey impulses, not to mention visions of dumb Hollywood studio comedies or, as mentioned, indie projects a lot more pat and self-satisfied. But the spare, intimate Good Dick proves that, well, size doesn’t matter. Its story centers around a sullen, emotionally deadened, pathologically introverted young woman (multi-hyphenate Palka) and an equally adrift Los Angeles video clerk (Jason Ritter, above) who slowly draws her out of her claustrophobic world. At first he merely recommends more artistically satisfying pornography, but soon he’s camping outside her apartment and pursuing a relationship with her. After slowly chipping away at her sexual antipathy and deflecting her prodigious flashes of anger with Job-like patience, the two reach an impasse in their strange, partly platonic, partly romantic relationship. The question for both: is said morass permanent, or just a final hurdle en route to more firmly rooted happiness?

The characters aren’t ever named, which contributes a bit to a sense of the metaphorical heft of the story being stretched thin. But the performances, unsurprisingly, are perfectly modulated and bounced off of one another, and Palka doesn’t use a limited budget as an excuse to punt on production value; the movie is gorgeously, economically shot by Andre Lascaris, in a manner that feeds the shuttered worldview of its wounded protagonists, who are also a couple in real life. Unconcerned with and unburdened by traditional notions of both feminine centeredness and masculine chivalry, Good Dick is at its core about awakening to the notion of a life lived looking forward, and how one good, hard… friendship (what did you think I was going to say?) can serve as a tethering lifeline in a sea of intra-personal turmoil. The other stuff? Extra benefits, don’tcha know…

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Good Dick comes to DVD with a cover that features its kissing characters superimposed over a hand-sketched, art school-approved background that summons immediate comparisons to the hand-crafted nature of Juno‘s promotional game. That may or may not help draw more of a home-screening audience for the film, but it certainly isn’t a good comparison, given the lack of preciousness and precociousness in the manner in which the film unfolds. Presented in 16×9 enhanced widescreen, with English language Dolby 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks, and optional Spanish and English subtitles, Good Dick is divided into a dozen chapters via a static menu screen, and comes with two versions of its original theatrical trailer — the all-audiences version, as well as a restricted red-band version.

Its supplemental features are intriguing, anchored by a 65-minute featurette which trails Palka, Ritter and costar Eric Edelstein around the Sundance Film Festival, where the movie premiered. There’s a lot of material from post-screening Q&As, which is nice, but plenty of photo shoot, guitar-jam noodling and other random stuff as well, and the rub is that almost all of it is hamstrung by poor sound, seemingly captured only by whatever source-mic was on the digital video camera(s) being used. There’s also a 12-minute gag reel, time-code stamped and unprocessed, which features flubbed lines and crack-ups from Ritter’s character’s video store buddies (Edelstein, Mark Webber and Martin Starr), Palka’s penchant for belching, Los Angeles’ constant goddamned police and fire sirens, and an old lady neighbor wandering cluelessly through frame during a shot at Palka’s apartment complex. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B (Disc)