The brainchild of former 3rd Rock From the Sun show runners Mike Schiff and Bill Martin, Grounded For Life
is a family sitcom that in many ways doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel,
but also makes a few modifications to the well-worn genre that
generally give it a bit of a kick in the pants. The show debuted on Fox
as a mid-season replacement in January of 2001, where it aired for two
seasons before getting quietly snuffed and then traded over to the WB.
It’s subsequently seen a revival on the ABC Family cable network, which
has helped perpetuate confusion as to exactly how long the series has
been around.

The show centers around both Donal Logue and Megyn
Price, who star as Sean and Claudia Finnerty, a fun-loving Staten
Island couple who met in high school and got married when a teenage
pregnancy forced their hand. Now in their early 30s, the excitable
couple have three kids — headstrong teen daughter Lily (Lynsey
Bartilson) and two younger boys, Jimmy (Griffin Frazen) and Henry (Jake
Burbage). The rub, of course, and the source of the title, is that in
becoming parents so young, Sean and Claudia — despite their love for
and unyielding commitment to one another — aren’t really fully settled
adults themselves.

The meddling of Sean’s judgmental, conservative father Walt (Office Space’s
Richard Riehle), and the presence of his kooky, loafer brother Eddie
(Kevin Corrigan), who embodies all of Sean’s extinguished daydreams of
unfettered independence, ensure plenty of contrasting dispositions and
opinions on everything from Lily’s nascent dating practices to familial
shopping trips and birthday gift compromises. The series’ novelty is in
the fashion that it blends traditional, studio-taped segments with
single-camera bits. The general conceit is that there’s some argument,
mishap or misadventure, and this in turn spins back into different
memories of the past that inform or relate to the situation, with these
being the pre-taped bits.

The energy of the cast is what most helps sell these 17 episodes,
along with the relative uniqueness of this parallel construction.
Episodic highlights include “Swearin’ to God,” wherein Sean takes over
as president of the St. Finnian’s parents’ committee, and “We Are
Family,” in which the Finnerty’s plumbing gets busted. On the downside,
Corrigan frequently over-dials the eccentricity as Eddie, and, more
unnervingly, Lily is a thinly veiled knock-off of Kelly Bundy from Married… With Children
— the teen daughter sexpot-in-waiting, albeit here far more
persistently petulant than airheaded. While a definite nod to the
show’s Fox base camp, plotlines like these handicap the series somewhat
as a “tweener,” making it a bit too out-there for full family viewing.

As with their treatment of other Carsey Werner shows (Roseanne, 3rd Rock From the Sun),
distributor Anchor Bay has mostly done right by the series in its
packaging and presentation. Housed in a cardboard slipcase that holds
two slimline cases, the 17 episodes of Grounded For Life’s
second season are spread out over three discs, and presented in a 1.33
full screen transfer, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, that is a solid
duplication of its small screen exhibition. Audio comes courtesy of a
Dolby digital 2.0 track. Eschewing the mondo audio commentaries of the
packed DVD release of the show’s inaugural season, this collection
still features bloopers, a comprehensive (if somewhat dubious)
highlights package and brief interviews with series regulars Burbage,
Frazen and Corrigan. There’s also a three-minute chat with Ashton
Kutcher, who guest stars in an episode as Sean’s daredevil cousin. This
bit, recorded on the set of That ’70s Show, mostly consists of him recounting the plot of said episode, intercut with highlights of the same. C+ (Show) B- (Disc)

Quantum Leap
was a show that could always serve as a common-ground point of bonding
for my girlfriend at the time and I. It was the facile entertainment
value of the series that was its initial draw, but I suppose if I had
to examine it deeper, there was something oddly comforting about its
correlative juxtaposition with a long distance, phone-driven
relationship.

Running from 1989 to ’93, Quantum Leap
centered around the time-traveling adventures of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott
Bakula) and his striking chin and handsome coif. Having put his six
doctorates to good use in postulating that time travel within one’s own
lifetime was possible, and having built a contraption to test those
theories, the story goes, Beckett was forced to prematurely step into
said time machine or face losing important funding. He then awoke to
find himself trapped in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and
ping-ponging randomly from one period to another. His only contact with
the “present” comes in the form of a holographic apparition of project
observer Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell), and in turn his oft-befuddled
interactions with a handheld computer named Ziggy (voiced by Deborah
Pratt).

Trapped in the past, Beckett would in each episode leap from one
life to another, putting right simple things that once went wrong and
hoping that each next leap would be his leap home. Apart from the
inherently beautiful structure this fantastical “mission-based”
storyline provided (and the manner the end of each show could thus
tease the following week’s episode), Quantum Leap also did a
great job mixing poignancy with frivolity. As the series wore on, there
were some fascinatingly mind-bending episodes (including Beckett’s jump
back into his own body as a teen), but Bakula always struck just the
right blend of mind-racing, adroit charm and occasional pathos to make
things interesting.

Highlights from this set include “It’s a Wonderful Leap,” in which
Beckett leaps into a cabbie who accidentally hits a woman who claims to
be his guardian angel; “Raped,” in which Beckett leaps into a date-rape
victim; “Hurricane,” which tests Beckett’s powers of persuasion as a
small town sheriff in the path of an incoming storm; and the Bermuda
Triangle-focused “Ghost Ship.” The season finale, meanwhile, finds
Beckett leaping into the body of a younger Al, as a Navy pilot, and on
trial for the murder of the wife of his commanding officer.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Quantum Leap is presented in
1.33 fullscreen, with an English Dolby digital 2.0 audio track and
optional subtitles in English and Spanish. The transfer is only so-so,
with stock footage noticeably different and scratches and grain
persistent throughout. The first season of the show on DVD included a
20-minute retrospective documentary with all-new interviews and
episodic introductions by Bakula. Unfortunately, none of the principals
return here for anything of that nature, and the only true supplemental
extra is the inclusion of the catch-all, half-hour special The Great ’80s TV Flashback, which collects interviews with The Hollywood Reporter’s
Ray Richmond, producer Stephen J. Cannell, reporter Alex Ben Block and
many others. As a bonus, though, there is a fifth season episode,
“Liberation,” in which Beckett leaps into the body of a housewife
during the struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment. B+ (Show) C (Disc)

Billing Date Movie as “from two of the six writers of Scary Movie,”
complete with a mock-scrawled caret, is on the surface ridiculous, but
actually a piece of deft marketing, wisely pointing up the flick’s
satirical street cred to the same audience that drove that latter spoof
series to the top of the box-office charts.

Directed by Aaron Seltzer, a co-writer on the film with Jason Friedberg, Date Movie name-checks all manner of comedy hits (Bridget Jones’ Diary, Shallow Hal, Wedding Crashers), both romantic and not, but takes as main tentpoles for its spoof My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Meet the Parents and Hitch.
The story centers around Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), an obese,
lovelorn waitress in a “Greek-Indian-Japanese-Jewish” family run by her
well-meaning but overbearing father (Eddie Griffin, apparently having
stolen Dan Hedaya’s eyebrows). After getting a truly extreme
makeover, she finds love with Grant Fockyerdoder (Adam Campbell), an
amalgamation of every foppish, generic, B-list leading man in these
types of movies. There’s trouble in the gathering of Julia’s parents
and Grant’s mom and dad (Jennifer Coolidge and Fred Willard), but the
real romantic obstacle is Grant’s randy bombshell ex, Andy (Sophie
Monk), who makes it her slutty mission to win back her fiancé of only a
week before.

The similarly pitched Not Another Teen Movie is probably the better and more consistent satire of the two, but Date Movie
does have at least a few inspired bits, including a send-up of Paris Hilton’s
slithery Carl’s Jr. carwash commercial, and a terse send-up of Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s
therapy sequence. There’s also a few lines of brilliantly winking
dialogue, such as when we first meet a bikini-clad Andy in the
aforementioned carwash bit and Julia asks, “Why is she in slow motion?”
to which Grant blithely responds, “She likes to make an entrance.”

The film’s blind eye with regards to race in its casting is nice —
Griffin and Hannigan share some amusing scenes together simply by
virtue of their offbeat pairing — and it also has fun with some
obviously fake body doubles for Willard and Hannigan. Far too many
bits, however, seem forced and/or stale — I could have done without the
nonsensical Lord of the Rings parody, another Michael Jackson joke and an abundance of feline gross-out humor meant to be a send-up of Meet the Parents’ Jinx. Many other bits, meanwhile, seem awkwardly shoehorned in only because they share Date Movie’s
distributor, 20th Century Fox. If the filmmakers had gone further back
into the canon of popular rom-coms (as they do with one bit in a nod to
When Harry Met Sally…), the movie would perhaps have felt a
little more grounded. As such, it’s a hit-and-miss collection of
sketches, with an emphasis on the latter.

Where this unrated version of Date Movie really grades out,
though, is in its vast slate of extras. The film is presented in 1.85:1
anamorphic widescreen, with a dozen excised, extended or otherwise
alternate scenes. A production featurette, audition tapes,
screensavers, forthrightly billed extra footage of Monk cavorting about
poolside and a set-top game are also included, as are three audio
commentary tracks. The first is from writers Seltzer and Friedberg; the
second features stars Hannigan, Campbell and Monk; and the third, a
real hoot, is from critics Scott Foundas and Bob Strauss. While Strauss
defends the movie on its own to-scale terms, Foundas quotes from his
review in which he confesses jealousy at the random bit player who
takes a nail gun to his head in the movie’s first two minutes. C- (Movie) A- (Disc)

For the full review, from IGN, click here.

Banned
in its homeland of Spain and denounced by the Vatican even before it
was bestowed with the Palme d’Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival,
director Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana is an irreverent vision of
life as a beggar’s banquet. While not the most essential of the
surrealist master’s works, it’s still an intellectually arresting and
visually captivating movie, well worth the time of devoted film buffs.

A sour allegory of Spanish idealism and its fault-line collision with and corrosion by pragmatism, Viridiana
was Buñuel’s first film made in his homeland after a self-imposed exile
of almost 20 years. It centers on an innocent, young, aspirant nun
(Silvia Pinal) who visits her lecherous and contemptible uncle, Don
Jaime (Fernando Rey). Viridiana strongly resembles her deceased aunt,
and Don Jaime begs her not to take her vows as a nun, but instead marry
him; when Viridiana refuses, he drugs and gropes her, though stops
short of complete violation. One night, then, Don Jaime hangs himself,
and leaves his estate to Viridiana and his illegitimate son, Jorge
(Francesco Rabal), who naively open the house’s doors to beggars.

Given its content, Viridiana could easily come off as
hectoring or oppressively muggy and dark, but Buñuel has such a spry
touch that the movie veritably sings at times, and its religious
provocation (chiefly a staged recreation of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The
Last Supper”) may seem relatively mild by today’s standards. The
director’s fondness for Rey — a frequent collaborator — is readily
apparent, even glimpsed through the lens of this disgusting character.
The film as a whole, meanwhile, turns a skeptical eye toward the
politics of faith, and is vacuumed free of most of the absurdist
touches for which Buñuel is best known.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Viridiana comes in a
restored, high-definition digital transfer in 1.66:1 aspect ratio, with
some artifacting and minor grain here and there. Unlike most Criterion
releases, there is no audio-commentary track, relatively surprising for
a work so rife with opportunity for symbolic and critical dissection. Cineaste
editor Richard Porton, however, does sit for a 13-minute interview in
which he provides a contextual analysis of the movie and its place
within Buñuel’s canon, and Pinal sits for a 14-minute chat in which she
discusses both Viridiana and her other movies with Buñuel. Best, though, are the collected excerpts from a 1964 episode of the French television show Cineastes de Notre Temps.
The French, of course, take their auteur theory black and serious, and
in this regard Buñuel is a perfect subject. The theatrical trailer and
an insert booklet completes the set, with the latter containing an
essay by author Michael Wood and, most valuable of all, an extended
interview with the artist and filmmaker himself. B+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Good,
yet still funny, romantic films are hard to come by. Most romantic
comedies bend too heartily to some outrageously contrived conceit,
sacrificing plausible characters and interactions in an effort to pump
up comedic set pieces. On the opposite end of the spectrum, many
tearjerkers typically over-inflate or too obviously compact the drama
and pathos of fresh love, missing out on its facile, easygoing
vibrancy. Rare are the films which are both funny and yet seem utterly
human as well, films which generate conflict from deep, real personal
problems, not just surface conflict. Into that latter category dances Something New, a movie that slowly grows on you and paradoxically seems even fresher when granted some time and a second viewing.

Written by Kriss Turner, produced by Stephanie Allain and directed by Sanaa Hamri, Something New
is on the surface a minority-skewing, light-and-airy look at
interracial romance — the story of an uptight, white-collar
African-American workaholic who learns to relax and get her groove
back, all courtesy of an unlikely blind date hook-up with a decidedly
blue-collar white guy. “I take hard soil and make something bloom,”
says Brian Kelly (Simon Baker) of his job when he meets Kenya McQueen
(Sanaa Lathan), but he might as well be talking about the effect he’ll
eventually have on her.

Something New starts out from upon a bit of a pedestal, with
its pedantic talk of “42.4 percent of all black women never getting
married,” and Kenya and her trio of well-to-do professional friends all
bemoaning the current states of their unions, or rather lack thereof.
Viewers can be forgiven for bracing themselves for another harebrained
film in which men are stereotypically dogged and only the most obvious
racial differences get trotted out for some sassy badinage.

But a funny thing happens on the way to the wincing. Such hectoring
chatter abates, because both Kenya and Brian are beautifully sketched,
three-dimensional characters. The work of both Lathan and Baker ranks
as the best of their respective careers, and the movie even does a
handy job of introducing another dashing romantic prospect, Mark Harper
(Blair Underwood), who on the surface is a much better match for Kenya.
When Kenya bristles at Brian innocently inquiring about her weave, or
the pair fight about race after a tired Brian innocently interrupts
her, but thus offends her sense of being, Something New lives
up to its title. It’s an entertaining and optimistic film that’s also
decidedly of the 21st century in a way that even a lot of very
intelligent people aren’t — open-minded and accepting of other races
while also being honest about our differences.

Something New is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen
transfer that is crystal clear, with no discernible grain or edge
enhancement. The audio — a Dolby digital 5.1 English language track —
is more than capable to handle the relatively sparse aural demands of
this film, and optional Spanish, English and French subtitles are also
included. Unfortunately, though, the supplemental materials are rather
lacking. A cursory, 11-minute making-of featurette includes interviews
with virtually every member of the movie’s ensemble cast, and while
there are a few insightful comments about race and love that help raise
this above the level of congratulatory back-slapping one might expect
from such an EPK-style mini-doc, you’re still left wanting more. In the
only other extra, a brief, 15-second introduction from Underwood sets
up a five-minute segment in which cast members share their own
do-and-don’t tips for first dates. Where’s the filmmaker-producer
commentary track? B+ (Movie) C (Disc)

Along
with concert documentaries, there’s a burgeoning sub-genre of musical
biographies making their way to DVD, and while these often serve
chiefly as sermons for a converted choir, they’re also handy primers
for abiding music fans who perhaps want to fill in a few gaps in their
own musical history. Cases in point: Under Review: Kate Bush and Under Review: The Velvet Underground, two superlative looks at influential acts.

Kate
Bush, one of Great Britain’s most enduring solo acts of the past two
decades, is always a singer for whom I’ll hold a special place, as the
favorite literate chanteuse of an old college flame, who first
introduced me to her. Similarly, mixing interviews, rare performance
footage and commentary and contextualization from peers and critics,
this finely culled Under Review title (a branding to which
Captain Beefheart and Small Faces have also submitted, with a disc on
The Smiths due later in June) is the perfect introduction for those who
have perhaps heard of Bush’s music but never given her a spin. From her
striking debut, The Kick Inside, to latter-era work like 1993’s stirring The Red Shoes and last year’s double disc Aerial,
a comprehensive chronological overview is given. Deejay Paul
Gambaccini, producer Morris Pert, music journalists Lucy O’Brien and
Phil Sutcliffe and many others lend their insight into Bush’s lilting
melodies, and live and studio recordings include such numbers as
“Wuthering Heights,” “Army Dreamers,” “Running Up That Hill,” “This
Woman’s Work,” “Wow” and “Cloudbusting.” Also featured on this
90-minute doc — which lacks only a firmer imprint of Bush’s own
personality — are an interactive quiz, complete discography and
extended classic television interviews.

Clocking in at a lean 80-some minutes, Under Review: The Velvet Underground
tackles the music and career of a band which esteemed rock ’n’ roll
journalist Lester Bangs — portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the
movie Almost Famous — claims kick-started “modern music.” Village Voice
music editor Robert Christgau and author Clinton Heylin provide some
clear-eyed analysis, but some of the other talking heads here grate and
waste time more than anything else. That said, there’s a heady mix of
rare performance footage (“Pale Blue Eyes,” “All Tomorrow’s Parties,”
“Heroin,” “Venus in Furs,” “Sweet Jane,” “White Light/White Heat” and
“Sunday Morning”) and new interview material exclusive to this release.
The best probably comes courtesy of drummer Moe Tucker. Even without
any words from Lou Reed himself, Under Review: The Velvet Underground
illuminates the uncommon and extraordinary blend of gritty social
realism and sexual kink that made the band’s music so intoxicatingly
original.

Each Under Review title comes in a regular Amray case that is
in turn housed in an extremely thin cardboard slipcase. Supplemental
extras are a bit dashed off, limited to the aforementioned interactive
quizzes (nice evaporations of time for hardcore fans, but ill-suited
for neophytes or casual viewers), discographies and amorphous extended
footage. That said, Under Review: Kate Bush and Under Review: The Velvet Underground are both appealing introductory-level documents of two legendary musical acts. B- (Movies) C (Discs)

While
crime procedurals and all other manner of show featuring lawyers and/or
doctors sniping at and tumbling in and out of bed with one another
crowd the docket of network television, the modern sitcom slate has for
the most part congealed into entirely predictable family-oriented dreck
(According to Jim is still on? Really?), aging animated shows, a few attractive ensembles (How I Met Your Mother)
and a fewer still number of star vehicles. The time is ripe, in many
ways, for a half-hour dose of Franklin Roosevelt’s famous prescription
of “bold and persistent experimentation.” Actually, come to think of
it, I guess that was what Arrested Development was, and nobody watched. Damn.

At any rate, at a time of development deals parceled out to up-and-coming comedians, 3rd Rock From the Sun
was, from 1996 to 2001, a wild and wooly antidote — a show about aliens
posing as humans that took great delight in re-injecting colorful
silliness into prime time. As oblivious and self-satisfied patriarch
Dick Solomon, star John Lithgow embraced with glee the opportunity to
engage in all manner of physical slapstick and humiliating comedy, and
the result was a series that, while still working within the confines
of a traditional family show, infused a fresh, anarchic spirit into the
half-hour sitcom.

Episode highlights here include “Paranoid Dick,” featuring a Neil
Diamond impersonator; “Y2dicK,” in which Dick becomes furious over his
inability to retrieve grade reports from his computer; “Collect Call
for Dick,” in which young Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets drafted
into duty as his school’s mascot after not showing the proper spirit at
a basketball game; and the self-explanatory “Dick and Taxes.” Guest
stars include recurring bit players William Shatner and Jan Hooks, plus
Kathy Bates, Laurie Metcalf, Larry Miller, Kurtwood Smith and Kevin
Nealon.

Spread out over four discs in solid and extremely attractive gatefold packaging, 3rd Rock From the Sun
marks the latest winning release from Anchor Bay. First off, the
picture on these two dozen, full-frame presentations is fairly solid,
with no problems with grain or compression. There is perhaps a bit of
attrition in color, but nothing that mortally wounds your enjoyment of
the show. Audio comes courtesy of a competent Dolby digital stereo
track, which more than adequately captures the show’s meager aural
demands. A full spate of season-specific bloopers anchors the slate of
supplemental materials, though there’s also an interview with Jane
Curtin in which she discusses the challenge of tending to her
character’s rigidity on such a wild set. There are also season
highlights, but these are a bit repetitive and unnecessary for the
casual viewer.

While there are unfortunately no audio-commentary tracks from the
show’s writer-producers, there is, thankfully, a full-color, 16-page
insert booklet that includes photos, substantial episodic recaps and a
humorous, canted guide to human vanity and all sorts of other quirks,
as seen through the eyes of the alien Solomons. Sample line about
prosthetic legs: “Some people apparently prefer the durability of wood
or plastic to traditional meat legs. First popularized by pirates.” B+ (Show) B+ (Disc)

diabetic cat support group.

It isn’t necessarily deep on plumbing sociological insights, but where 24 Hours on Craigslist
really comes alive is in its voluminous slate of DVD extras — over four
hours of deleted scenes and bonus footage, including a 15-minute
making-of documentary on the marshalling of resources, a 16-minute look
at the staff of craigslist.org and, yes, an interview with Newark
himself. Still, will people find this entertaining? Will they pay money
to extend their “brand” experience and watch a movie about a web site?
Don’t bet against it. At the very least they’ll swap it on the site. C+ (Movie) A- (Disc)

The archive-stuffing party train simply does not stop. To wit, this review of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, originally published upon its 2004 DVD release:

Doing dumb is easy, but doing dumb well is hard. Plenty of
movies try and, well, for lack of a forceful enough clinical term, suck. This
film isn’t one of them. A precursor to the even greater mainstream success of
dim-bulb and/or friends-in-low-places teen flicks like Wayne’s World, Bill
& Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its 1991 sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus
Journey, updated the Jeff Spicoli image in a fresh and influential way.

Written
by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon and directed with style and economy by Stephen
Herek, the movie finds two vacant-eyed San Dimas, Calif. seniors (Alex Winter
and Keanu Reeves) more interested in their rock band (Wyld Stallions) than
history class. (Question: “Who is Joan of Arc?” Reeves’ thoughtful, reasoned
response: “Noah’s wife?”) Consequently, of course, they’re flunking. But possible
redemption arrives in the form of Rufus (George Carlin), a guardian angel from
the future who proffers the pair a time-travelling phone booth to go back in
time and learn history from those who made it, including Napoleon, Socrates,
Gengis Khan and Abe Lincoln. Surprisingly, the film holds up pretty well;
probably the worst thing you can say about the movie is that it no doubt
inspired some dunderheaded studio exec to greenlight all of Pauly Shore’s
flicks.

DVD special features on this anamorphic widescreen release include only the theatrical trailer, which is kind of
a bummer since you get the feeling that there are some fun extras lurking out
there, not to mention an interesting audio commentary track or two. Still, Bill &
Ted’s Excellent Adventure stands as a compelling piece of prima facie evidence
that like movies can make a difference: how else do you think SAT words like
“heinous” and “bogus” entered the teen lexicon? B+ (Movie) D (Disc)

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