Too many romantic comedies witlessly hone in on the differences between men and women to create a heightened-stakes backdrop in which every interaction with the opposite sex is imbued with some sort of grand, gender-statement significance, which is of course then supposed to be neatly resolved and tidily put away by the time a paired-off happy ending rolls around.

Co-written by Annie Mumolo and Saturday Night Live‘s Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids instead focuses a considerable amount of its energy on female friendships, yes, but also the things women want in relationships — love, security, availability — that are the same as men. The result is the best female-fronted Hollywood comedy in years, and a movie that just happens to almost incidentally be about women, if that makes sense. Yes, theirs is the lens or perspective through which the story is told, but it is not a pandering or cloying, exclusively pitched tale. In its savvy blend of the utterly silly and urbane, Bridesmaids reaches across aisle and grabs back the dignity of its nuptial-inspired moniker from seemingly a generation’s worth of mainstream studio pap like 27 Dresses and Bride Wars.

Wiig stars as Annie, a thirtysomething Milwaukee native who, after the failure of her bakery forces her into a jewelry store retail job for which she is ill-suited, finds herself stuck in a friends-with-benefits situation with a narcissistic jerk (Jon Hamm). Annie’s rough patch is additionally complicated when her longtime best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces her engagement. This seemingly highlights and underscores every perceived failing or emptiness in Annie’s life, and the passive-aggressive competitiveness of Helen (Rose Byrne), Lillian’s wealthy and newer friend, does little to bring about the best in Annie, even as a local cop, Nathan (Chris O’Dowd), tries his best to get to know her.

Its tone is a pinch exaggerated, true, but almost all of the movie’s set pieces are genuine howlers, and Bridesmaids belies the notion that femme-centric comedies have to be either toothless, gorgeously wardrobed fluff or vapid and completely over-the-top. Possessing distinctly drawn supporting characters, director Paul Feig’s film is honest about their different backgrounds and stations in life, and doesn’t sacrifice sensible motivation for a couple cheap scene-to-scene laughs. Wiig, meanwhile, elevates her game from mere top-notch sketch performer; as Annie, she’s so damn good at communicating the quiet and relatable sadness behind the smile and cackling, put-on-a-happy-face exterior. And that’s why Bridesmaids comedy connects so consistently, and forcefully — because it matters to the characters, who in turn are genuine and familiar.

Combo-pack versions are also available, but Bridesmaids comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio tracks in English, Spanish and French. Housed in a complementary cardboard slipcover, this version includes both the (R-rated) theatrical version of the movie and a longer unrated version, with an additional six minutes of material — much of it foul-mouthed riffing. An audio commentary track with Feig, Mumulo, Wiig and other cast members proves a lively, enjoyable listen, anchoring the bonus material. Other supplemental extras include 12-plus minutes of very funny improvised and alternate line readings, and a four-minute gag reel in which breasts are touched (accidentally and otherwise), car alarms go off in the distance, and the late Jill Clayburgh engages in some salty sex talk, including an explanation of the act of “bird-bathing.” There are also a number of extended and alternate scenes, a fake commercial for Annie’s jewelry store employer, and three entirely excised sequences — the big one being a five-minute blind date scene featuring Wiig’s character with Paul Rudd, who experiences a character-revealing ice skating accident. Whatever your format of choice, this release is a home video collection keeper, for sure. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A (Movie) B+ (Disc)

In my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at what is undeniably one of the year’s best comedies, the Blu-ray bow of Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill, Julie Taymor’s sex-changed version of The Tempest, football documentary 4th & Goal, a French film you can use to shock and/or unnerve your significant other, and more. For the full, fun read, over at ShockYa and inclusive of pretty pictures, click here.

As the film industry has contracted, and the burden of financing shifted away from companies and more onto creative individuals themselves, American independent films of the past 10 years or so, whatever their genre, have been typically characterized by a certain eagerness to please. This isn’t entirely surprising. Like any other occupational venture in tougher economic times, there’s an element of self-preservation involved; emergent filmmakers have a desire to keep working, and so they craft stories, consciously or subconsciously, that often play to the whetted appetites of a particular audience or demographic.

Writer-director Spencer Susser‘s feature debut, Hesher, is not much concerned with such niceties. It’s not flat-out confrontational, per se, but it is warped, weird and given to neither easy explanation nor pat, sum-of-its-parts analysis. By various turns a shrewdly drawn coming-of-age drama and a full-tilt, gonzo exploration of the dirty, unfortunate reality that pain and disappointment visits everyone’s life, the movie — about a young kid (Devin Brochu) coping with the death of his mother, and the vaguely sociopathic loner who forces his way into his home, moving in with said kid’s father (Rainn Wilson) and grandmother (Piper Laurie) — cruises along solidly, for much of its running time, on the unlikely interplay of its two lead characters before finally losing its way a bit in the home stretch.

A colleague described Hesher, in less than flattering terms, as a knock-off of Chuck Palahniuk produced by people raised only on Sundance films, and that’s actually not a bad description, to whatever degree one is invested in or detested with the narrative. With his crudely drawn tattoos, stringy hair, facial scruff, penchant for elliptical aphorisms, and psychotic thousand-yard stare, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Hesher comes across as a sort of punk-rock Jesus or G.G. Allin disciple — or perhaps a Beavis & Butt-head acolyte who’s stepped down out of their cartoon suburban world into a slightly more grounded but equally scummy American suburbia. He’s an outsized character, at once original and representational, and to the extent one objects to dollops of ambiguity and abstraction liberally applied to a narrative of coming-of-age and familial reconciliation, they will find molehills or not outright mountains of frustration in Hesher. Hesher is real, yes, but it’s also somewhat best to think of him as a construct or a forceful change agent rather than attempt to make sense of all of his behavior.

The film’s third act isn’t quite as tightly drawn as it should be; rather than pull back and swing for a knockout blow, Susser seems to lose his nerve. He aims for a pay-off more in line with traditional settled-grief catharsis, which doesn’t quite fully connect, the way it’s constructed. Neither does the intimation of a potential relationship between Nicole (Natalie Portman) and Hesher make total sense. Reflecting back on this now, it’s hard to fully distill or explain these criticisms, except to simply say that, for me, the movie’s hold simply loosened considerably.

And yet, still, Hesher courses with a unique verve missing in many independent productions, hovering somewhere between outright success and “interesting failure.” An appreciation of feeling is what informs one’s affection for this movie, much more than a simple narrative engagement, and it taps into those raging, conflicted sensations of adolescence with considerable aplomb.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Hesher comes to DVD presented in 2.44:1 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 EX audio track and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Bonus features include seven minutes of deleted scenes and an additional seven-minute making-of featurette. Much more interesting is a clutch of outtakes that runs almost a full half-hour, and features Wilson’s impression of Rush Limbaugh, plus all sorts of unwound improvisation run amok. There’s also a sketch gallery of Hesher’s tattoos and other movie art, plus around two minutes of outdoor footage being ruined by the sounds of airplanes passing overheard. If that sounds like a weird DVD extra, it surely seems a fitting tribute, in a way, to this movie’s out-there title character. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Over at ShockYa, for my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, I take a look at X-Men: First Class and January Jones’ ample cleavage, full-season sets of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Glee, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the Blu-ray debut of the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple, a documentary on the United States’ rather tortured relationship with Cuba, and more. Again, it’s over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

Over at ShockYa, in my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, I take a look at Hanna, the 1992 version of Captain America, horror flick A Horrible Way To Die, the sequel to Bambi, a nice B.B. King concert documentary and a couple Dalai Lama DVDs. Again, it’s over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read, inclusive of a couple creepy pictures.

Over at ShockYa, in my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, I take a look at the unintended bonus of Mel Gibson‘s casting in the darkly comedic The Beaver; a killer-car flick that rather unabashedly rips off Predator; a surprisingly decent straight-to-video buddy-cop flick with Jason Statham and Paddy Considine; Disney’s tween-targeted Prom; a documentary about the mysterious death of Andy Kaufman; and more. Again, it’s over at ShockYa, so click here for the full, fun read.

Over at ShockYa, in my latest Blu-ray and DVD column, I take a look at, among other things, Rio, a pair of John Belushi Blu-ray releases, a movie that Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson may or may not receive residual checks for, and documentaries about both hemp and the ugly history of South African apartheid as channeled through the eyes of a professor searching for personal healing. Again, it’s over at ShockYa, so click here for the full, fun read.

So, is Sexy Pirates related to the billion-dollar Disney franchise… like, a spin-off with a bunch of lesbian swashbucklers? No, alas. Or is it related to the adult film spoofs of same franchise? Nope, not that either. Instead, Sexy Pirates actually predates all of those efforts; it’s the American title of a softcore effort from Joe D’Amato, in which a bit of nudity, sex and catfights are commingled with a bunch of costumed sword-play.

The story centers on Sir Francis Hamilton (Menyhert Rene Balog-Dutambe), an ambassador of King Charles II, who has to go to Jamaica to sign a peace treaty with the loathed French government. On the way, his ship is attacked by a bunch of savage pirates, and his wife (former Penthouse Pet and Hungarian hardcore starlet Anita Rinaldi) is asked to pay a huge ransom for his safe return. Gathering up a huge crew of her own, however, she sets sail for revenge.

D’Amato is… what’s the most polite word for hack, again? Prolific, that’s right. The director of over 200 movies, from regular narrative to hardcore costume genre dramas and everything in between, D’Amato is a shooter, meaning he’s not precious or particular about much of anything. That fact certainly shows here. Yet if the acting and story are of dubious quality, the settings and staging are at least legit. The chief problem is that Sexy Pirates, in which women occasionally traipse around in the spirit of “nudie cuties” of yesteryear, has neither the action and spirit to satisfy a mainstream audience, nor the content to sate more prurient interests. It’s a tweener — fairly impressively lensed by Piero Montanari, but nowhere near rousing enough to elicit hearty bellows of, “Yo, ho ho!”

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Sexy Pirates comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with an Italian language mono Dolby digital 2.0 audio track, on a region-free disc. The optional English subtitles are rife with spelling and grammatical errors. Apart from the obligatory chapter stops, there are no supplemental bonus features. Nevertheless, to order the DVD, click here. D+ (Movie) D+ (Disc)

Above-the-line stars get most of the credit and glory for Hollywood successes, but dozens if not hundreds of other specially gifted artisans labor on most big-budget productions, often going their entire careers without so much as an acknowledged tip of the proverbial cap from the moviegoing public at large. Craig McCall’s fascinating documentary Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, then, attempts to right this wrong, shining a light on its namesake subject, who in March, 2001 — more than five decades after winning his first Academy Award, for his stunning work on Black Narcissus — became the first cinematographer ever presented with an honorary Oscar, for his exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences.

After getting his start as first a “clapper boy” and then a camera assistant for a string of quick-shoot quota pictures, many of the British-born Cardiff’s gifts were rooted in his extraordinary touch with Technicolor, honed through work with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger on the groundbreaking A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and then The Red Shoes. While he lacked a formal education and wasn’t the most technically proficient, Cardiff’s lifelong love of painting, and more specifically his astonishing, virtually peerless ability to communicate mood through lighting, quickly won him a legion of filmmaker fans. From Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston to Henry Hathaway, Laurence Olivier, Alan Parker and many more, Cardiff worked with highly skilled directors spanning seven decades, and even helmed more than dozen feature films himself.

Actors whom he beautifully lit (including Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Kim Hunter) sit to sing Cardiff’s praises, and many more with whom Cardiff worked (including Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn) are glimpsed in photographs and on-set home video footage from his private collection. The most edifying interviewees, however, prove to be Cardiff’s fellow behind-the-camera craftsman, including peers and colleagues like Freddie Francis and Richard Fleischer. None other than Martin Scorsese also pops up, crediting Cardiff’s subjective work on The Red Shoes as a major inspiration for the boxing scenes in his Raging Bull.

Cameraman director McCall has an obvious affection for his subject (several times he’s glimpsed on screen alongside Cardiff, always smiling adoringly), and his passion for the most part is infectious. In letting Cardiff (who was still mentally sharp as a tack until his death at 94 years of age in 2009) basically narrate his own story, McCall is the beneficiary of a wide variety of amazing and delightful anecdotes, ranging from Marlene Dietrich’s intimate knowledge of lighting and Ava Gardner’s insecurities to how the crew of The African Queen was gripped with dysentery, and why Humphrey Bogart and the aforementioned Huston were the only ones immune.

If there’s a strike against the picture, it’s that it unfolds in a very linear and somewhat unimaginative fashion. Cameraman lacks a real spine, and doesn’t delve at all into Cardiff’s (doubtlessly fascinating) personal life. More about what shaped him in his young, formative years (there’s one scene that touches on this, but it seems the tip of an iceberg), as well as how Cardiff coped for so long with the itinerant lifestyle of a cinematographer and director, would have given McCall’s movie a much-needed extra dimensionality. Regardless, as is, Cameraman is a captivating look back at a transitory time — before basically all movies were made in color — when camerawork was slightly more welded to the emotion of the material, and used unabashedly to heighten the effect of genre elements. That Cardiff’s unique role in this era, and spanning into the periods that both preceded and followed it, finally receives its own recognition is indeed a special thing.

Separated into a dozen chapters and presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, Cameraman comes to DVD with a nice complement of supplemental material. An interview with director McCall from June 2010 by Ian Christie runs14 minutes, and tells of the filmmaker’s first meeting with his subject-to-be (they bonded over a Bolex camera), as well as other anecdotes. There is also a clutch of photo galleries, including many of Cardiff’s portraits of the actresses with whom he worked, and 10 minutes of Cardiff watching some of his behind-the-scenes movies from the set of The African Queen and the like — the latter at least a generation before lightweight cameras made such off-the-cuff cinematic capturing all the rage. Eleven minutes of extra interview material featuring filmmakers like Alan Parker and Christopher Challis discussing the important nature of the cinematographer-director relationship are also included, and a five-minute segment on three-strip Technicolor highlights the stringent measures the company’s color-control department in safeguarding their technology and rare cameras. A collection of trailers for Cameraman and a quartet of other Strand releases rounds out the release. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B (Disc)

In my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a second look at Paul Bettany’s Priest, recoil at memories of the soul-sucking Hoodwinked Too! and ogle the chests of Colin Farrell and Christina Lindberg, one of which I enjoy more than the other. To find out which, click here and give the column a spin over at ShockYa.

Romantic comedies can live or die on chemistry alone, and 1997’s Just Write is a good example of a movie that has a serviceable meet-cute concept, but a certain gulf of personable connection between its two leads.

Hollywood tour bus driver Harold (Jeremy Piven) spots his favorite actress, Amanda Clark (Sherilyn Fenn), sitting alone in a diner, and decides to approach her. When she assumes he’s a screenwriter, he doesn’t correct her, and then tumbles deeper into deceit by offering up the name of a hotshot agent as his own. When Amanda proposes a date to discuss her next movie with him, Harold finds himself scrambling to make good on his white lies.

Written by Stan Williamson and directed by Andrew Gallerani, Just Write has a nice set-up, and the ability to make good on plenty of cool local locations. Unfortunately, Piven and Fenn are just never really a good match. Williamson’s script favors cutesy interactions over digging into Amanda’s psyche with any appreciable depth, and Piven — for all his surface charisma — just isn’t really an actor into which an audience can invest an enormous amount of sympathetic identification as a vessel for pent-up sexual or romantic yearning.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Just Write comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, absent any supplemental features or Final Draft trial offers. To purchase the DVD via Amazon in this, the latest iteration of several bare bones home video releases, click here. C (Movie) D (Disc)

In my latest spin around Blu-ray and DVD releases over at ShockYa, I take a gander at two interesting subcultural documentaries, a pair of releases (!) co-starring erstwhile Starship Troopers mates Patrick Muldoon/Casper Van Dien, the Blu-ray release of Four Weddings and a Funeral, and more. Oh, and I also adjudicate whether humans need Mars Needs Moms. It’s a fairly quick and breezy read, so trip on over to ShockYa for a look.

The Misfits stands as the last completed film for both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, but its value and engagement extends well beyond that trivia question value, or any of the other salacious stories behind its troubled production. An unusual and illuminating ensemble drama from director John Huston and screenwriter Arthur Miller, the 1961 film is long on color and a bit short on plot, but so striking for the empathy it radiates for its fringe-dwelling, booze-happy characters. For the full, original review of its new Blu-ray release, from ShockYa, click here.

In my latest spin around DVD and Blu-ray releases over at ShockYa, I take a gander at two new family-oriented films, two slightly different and canted science-fiction entries, and a couple manufactured-on-demand releases. Oh, and a film collection for someone who is not related to Sarah Palin. It’s a quick and breezy read, so trip on over to ShockYa for a look.

In my latest spin around Blu-ray and DVD releases over at ShockYa, I take a gander at the comedic nostalgia on display in Take Me Home Tonight, and a documentary about the beautiful mystery that is the female orgasm, and the pharmaceutical industry’s attempts to monetize it. I also point out how not to release a catalogue title to Blu-ray. Oh, and rhapsodize about American Grindhouse. Again, it’s here, if ya need it, though unfortunately without bikini-clad babes this week.

In my latest spin around Blu-ray and DVD releases for ShockYa, I take a gander at Boyz N The Hood, swimsuit babes, The Warrior’s Way, a couple manufactured-on-demand titles, plus a nature documentary, as well as ruminate on the career of the late David Carradine, as summed up by a pair of posthumous releases. Again, it’s here if you need it, with photos of Julie Henderson and grizzly bears.

A couple days late to post, but I take a gander at Julian Schnabel’s Miral and the Blu-ray debut of Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas‘ sex-saturated Original Sin in my latest home video column over at ShockYa, as well as a movie for those who view both belts and nuanced plots as their mortal enemies. Again, it’s here, if ya need it, with a nice assortment of pretty pictures.

It’s a sign of the times that Rob Schneider and erstwhile Wayne’s World babe Tia Carrere are old enough to play the adults in Wild Cherry, one of those head-feint hormonal comedies that would perhaps seem to promise an endless supply of boozy high school partying and topless chicks, but in actuality is a tale of a trio of savvy babes turning the tables on some of their boneheaded brethren.

The front-and-center star is Tania Raymonde (Jeff Goldblum’s ex-arm candy, above left), who plays Helen McNicol, a virginal good girl who lives alone in a small town with her dad (Schneider), and dates high school classmate and footballer Stanford (Ryan Merriman, above right). Her friends, Katyln Chase (Rumer Willis) and Trish Van Doren (Kristin Cavallari), are a bit more romantically experienced but also virgins. When they discover their names in a legendary book that pairs the school’s senior virgins with football players — ostensibly to bring good luck — the ladies undertake a series of pranks to get back at Franklin (John White), “Skeets” (Jesse Moss) and a bunch of other guys, and show them who’s really in charge.

There’s a convoluted history of writing credits pegged to director Dana Lustig’s film, which contributes a bit to a feeling that ghost traces of tonally disparate material have been mashed up against one another. Raymonde (not to mention the rest of the cast) seems far too old for a high schooler, but actually has a bit of eye-batting charm. Unfortunately, she’s not given much with which to work, as the script cycles through all sorts of expected set-ups and montages.

Wild Cherry isn’t terrible, but its pedestrian rewards — Schneider, for instance, rather astonishingly tries to craft a recognizably human character — aren’t really likely to satisfy the target demographic of a movie featuring a midriff-baring girl in a “69”-emblazoned T-shirt on its cover. It pulls too many punches, really, and bits that seemingly most squarely hit the target at which the movie is aiming — that of a femme-centric American Pie sequel — are delivered with a kind of winking, too-chaste apologia that cleaves them from the emotional honesty of a teenager discovering their body. When Katyln and Trish give Helen an “iBod” (which supposedly pegs a vibrator to the rhythms of bass-happy music), Helen fitfully monkeys around with it for a bit before turning to a water faucet, then a carrot, and then the washing machine. There’s a really interesting — and still quite funny, I’m sure — movie to be made about teenage girls figuring out their bodies and learning about sex before actually having it, but Wild Cherry just isn’t that film.

Housed in a regular Amaray case with partially hollowed-out spindles (to use less plastic), Wild Cherry comes to DVD with a complementary cardboard slipcover, presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound track that more than adequately handles the title’s meager aural requirements. Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles are also included. An action menu screen will drive viewers insane in less than 10 minutes if its chirpy background pop music is left turned up too loud, but apart from the requisite chapter stops (of which there are a dozen) and a version of the trailer, there are unfortunately no supplemental extras, not even an EPK-style making-of featurette. Nevertheless, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) D (Disc)

The conundrum facing many independent-minded would-be filmmakers is how much, if any, attention to pay to the marketplace. Ignorance to the commercial realities of eventual distribution (in whatever form) is dangerous, and yet pandering to patty-cake notions of superior “character-rooted narrative” has resulted in its own set of collective sins, I’d argue — a robust slate of risible low-fi product in which ethnically diverse families come of age in America, small town soldiers return home from Iraq, or various combinations of philandering hipsters grapple with heroin, dyslexia and coming out of the closet. Multi-hyphenate Todd Berger’s The Scenesters intuitively understands this — what makes voracious but mainstream-leaning film audiences queasy or skeptical about “indie” film as a more broadly categorized movement — and has loads of fun twisting it in all sorts of pretzel shapes in service of a rangy, noir-tinged murder comedy.

A quirky and engaging film that honors many of the conventions of classic whodunit? cinema while also giving them both a modern spin and a deconstructive nudge to the ribs, The Scenesters  centers on a smarmy, out-of-work film director named Wallace Cotton (Berger) and his equally self-centered producer, Roger Graham (Jeff Grace), who land work as crime scene videographers, and set out to make some great art. They quickly stumble across crime scene cleaner Charlie Newton (Blaise Miller, resembling a cross between Casey Affleck and Dwight Yoakam), a schlubby, down-on-his-luck guy who’s quietly honed a superb sense of deduction through his work.

As a couple of apathetic detectives (Kevin Brennan and Monika Jolly) investigate a series of killings in ultra-hip East Los Angeles, Charlie discovers clues that link together the killings, which convinces Wallace and Roger that Charlie is himself the perfect subject around which to center an investigative movie. As the body count mounts — and Charlie is encouraged to romantically reconnect with a beautiful reporter, Jewell Wright (Suzanne May), at the center of the story — Wallace and Roger angle to stay ahead of the killer, and craft a winning documentary, no matter the outside corporeal toll.

Reminiscent in some slight ways of Russell Brown’s The Blue Tooth Virgin, another inside-Hollywood tale that wasn’t afraid to showcase under-the-radar ambition in ways that didn’t always flatter its characters, The Scenesters unfolds against the backdrop of an appropriately hipster-friendly soundtrack that includes the Airborne Toxic Event, the Cribs, Wallpaper, Le Switch and more. Scream is obviously something of a touchstone inspiration here (and Chinatown, too, for the film within the film), but the shoegazing, mumblecore cinema of the Duplass brothers also rates mentioning, both because of this movie’s DIY ethos and the fact that it’s simultaneously self-aware about the dangers of arthouse pretension. Berger’s film spins off all sorts of jokey asides (Charlie’s crime scene training video, a music video from a side project rock band one of the cops fronts), as well as a trial session framing device that features Sherilyn Fenn as a prosecutor and John Landis as the judge, and sometimes these bits don’t connect. Or, rather, they play OK as scenes, but muddy the editorial collection as a whole — a sense of how much what an audience is watching is formed after the fact, and by whom, after the conclusion of the murder spree mystery at its core.

Smartly, though, Berger seeds his film with all sorts of mini-conflicts and personality clashes, which makes for much fun and amusement. His dialogue has some salty bite (“Would it kill people to find bodies during magic hour — I feel like I’m on the face of the sun,” Wallace bitches at one crime scene), and doesn’t always dwell on its punchlines, in a hamfisted effort to drill them home, and let you know how “smart” it is. A few of the performances aren’t quite up to the par with the material, and the movie could have benefited from a bit more rakish snap to its telling, particularly in the finale. But The Scenesters has in abundance what every independent film yearns for — intrigue and a cocksure rhythm that doesn’t ever feel false. If its plotting doesn’t in the end leave much room for a big surprise, that’s no reason not to surrender to the pleasures it provides along the way. Sometimes a nice slice of archness can be a good thing.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Scenesters comes to DVD presented in a 16×9 aspect ratio, with closed captioning and a Dolby 2.0 stereo audio track. A music video, a clutch of deleted scenes and a nice little behind-the-scenes featurette make up the slate of bonus materials. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

Since my latest ShockYa Blu-ray/DVD column includes reviews of Cedar Rapids, The Terminator‘s new Blu-ray release, Djimon Hounsou and Kevin Bacon’s Elephant White, an old William Shatner flick and more, does that mean a whole lot of actors just got closer to the main man himself in the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game? Not really, I guess, but we could stretch it and say so, if you really want. Again, it’s here, if ya need it, with Anne Heche clasping at her bosom.

I have a theory that if a dozen adolescent boys from a dozen different countries were plopped down in a pleasant but controlled environment, inside of a day or two they’d be playing cops and robbers. Such is our almost primal fascination with good and bad, and the use of force in the pursuit of those who trade in violence. Anecdotal supporting evidence arrives in the form of 36th Precinct, a top-notch criminal thriller import from France which finds a pair of cops skirting the edges of the law in the name of their jobs as well as macho competition.

Set in Paris, the film unfolds in the aftermath of a brutal gang’s bloody and successful armored car robbery, their seventh in the last year. On the verge of retirement, precinct captain Robert Mancini (Andre Dussollier) tells his charges that whoever apprehends the thieves will get his job and become the chief of police, so Leo Vrinks (Daniel Auteuil) and Denis Klein (Gerard Depardieu) — longtime friends and colleagues, as well as quiet rivals — start jockeying for position. Slowly, the competition between them becomes increasingly ruthless, blurring the lines of morality and wreaking havoc on their families and loved ones.

Depardieu is probably the more known commodity on American shores, amongst arthouse audiences, but Auteuil is a superlative actor, and the harsh truth about Depardieu is that he has a tendency to coast when either not challenged or he is seemingly not interested in the material. Thankfully that is not the case here, as Depardieu seems invigorated by the on-screen (and perhaps off-screen?) competition, delivering a performance coursing with flawed, misdirected ambition. The film is loosely based on a string of real French robberies from the early 1980s, but director Oliver Marchal doesn’t bend over backwards trying to conform to some detailed procedural schematic, and the material benefits from a gritty, streamlined telling that keeps the focus first and foremost on the characters and not the ancillary mayhem that surrounds them and that they later cause. The lesson? Cops-and-robbers translates pretty universally, don’t you know.

Presented on DVD in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, 36th Precinct arrives via a solid transfer that is free of any edge enhancement or color distortion. Audio comes by way of a French language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound mix — easily the preferred option — with optional English subtitles, plus Dolby 2.0 stereo mixes in French and English. A hearty slate of bonus features nicely complements the title. First up is a half-hour production featurette, which nicely blends behind-the-scenes footage with cast and crew interviews. There’s also a separate sit-down interview with Marchal in which he discusses (in French, with English subtitles) the inspiration for the film, and how his brief past history as a police officer influenced his telling of the story. Finally, a pair of shorter featurettes spotlight the movie’s costume designs and tests, as well as its attempt at authenticity in its selection of weapons. Theatrical trailers are also included, both for 36th Precinct and other Palisades Tartan releases. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

What do the spelunking adventure flick Sanctum, executive-produced by James Cameron, and German pop star biopic Falco have in common? Well, very little, except that if you trip on over to ShockYa, they’re part of my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, where I tie them together with a special NBA release. Again, it’s here if ya need it, with photo accompaniment, including Andre Iguodala’s early impression of a dried-apple doll.

What do Neil Young, Dead Man Walking, Mega Python Vs. Gatoroid and a documentary about Doctors Without Borders have in common? Well, little… save for the fact that if you trip on over to ShockYa, they’re all part of my latest DVD/Blu-ray column. Photos of Sean Penn’s Dead Man ‘do and erstwhile pop sensation Debbie Gibson are also included; I’m not sure which is more unsettling, quite frankly. For a separate, stand-alone look at the home video release of John Well’s The Company Men, meanwhile, click here.

Some films develop a cult following based on their actual inherent appeal and the skill with which they’re crafted; other films are labeled “cult hits” because they tap into the aspirant impulses of the lowest-common-denominator crowd to which they cater. My latest ShockYa DVD column takes a look at one of the latter, in addition to Stanley Kramer’s directorial debut and a couple other titles. For more, including pretty pictures of accompaniment, click here.

A day late but less than a dollar short, trip on over to ShockYa for my Blu-ray musings about the measured insanity of Drive Angry and Nicolas Cage drinking blood from a skull, plus my look at a new-to-DVD title that sounds like one of those old AOL internet test disc sign-up passwords, in which randomly generated words get thrown together. Again, it’s here, if you need it, with a nice view of Amber Heard, and other pretty pictures.