Trip on over to ShockYa for an examination, in the form of my most recent Blu-ray/DVD column, of Jamie Chung’s battles with prostate stimulation and Mickey Rourke’s terrible impression of trumpet playing. Oh, plus Teresa Palmer and Megan Fox. Again, it’s here if ya need it, with a handful of nice photos.

The presence of a very recognizable ensemble cast can’t save The Big Bang, a colossally strange film noir misfire that plays like a TV pilot run amok, and is bound to go down in history — to the extent that it’s remembered at all — only as the stumper answer to the niche cinematic trivia question, “In what film does Antonio Banderas have a sex scene with a waitress who spews jibberish about particle physics, and also share two separate scenes with a robe-clad Snoop Dogg and a robe-clad James Van Der Beek?”

Let me back up… that introduction makes The Big Bang sound much more interesting and engaging than it actually is. Framed in flashback, as captive Los Angeles private investigator Ned Cruz (Banderas) gets grilled by a trio of possibly dirty cops (Thomas Kretschmann, William Fichtner, Delroy Lindo), the movie centers on the labyrinthine business inquiries Ned conducts on behalf of a just-paroled Russian boxer, Anton Protopov (Robert Maillet, of Sherlock Holmes). Charged with tracking down Anton’s mysterious stripper pen pal Lexie (Sienna Guillory, above), Ned, after much difficulty and various encounters with many colorful characters, tracks Lexie to the New Mexico desert. There, he gets kidnapped by Lexie’s husband, a willowy-maned reclusive and eccentric billionaire, Simon Kestral (Sam Elliott), who has self-funded plans to conduct an underground semiconductor experiment to locate “the god particle.” Oh, and all that’s not even mentioning the aforementioned nutjob waitress (Autumn Reeser); an emotionally stunted, sexually kinky physicist (Jimmi Simpson); and a cache of hidden diamonds.

So, oh sure… it’s another one of those stories. Despite all this apparent narrative adventurousness, the sophomore directorial effort of TV-producer-turned-director Tony Krantz is far more labored than colorfully inventive. Erik Jendresen’s script is awkward and overwritten, a grab-bag of forced quirk for little more than it’s own sake. The dialogue basically falls into two discrete camps: ham-fisted exposition, and flighty, armchair philosphizing.

None of the characters are developed in a fashion that deepens them much beyond how they dutifully serve the story, and major players are still being introduced over an hour into the proceedings. At other times, the screenplay bends and contorts to set up some lame, air-quote witty joke, as it does with a brief and almost entirely unnecessary sequence focusing on a drugged-out playboy actor (Van Der Beek) who has an albino midget sidekick, seemingly only so Ned can quip, “It’s astrophysics — a white dwarf gone supernova” when the latter gets launched through a window after an explosion.

Far and away the most interesting and involving thing about the nonsensical The Big Bang is its cinematography, from Shelly Johnson, who also lensed Jurassic Park III, Hidalgo and the recent remake of The Wolfman. Trading in big, canted angles and other imaginative framing, Johnson sketches a neon-lit urban hellscape that gives the material an electric charge otherwise lacking in its story proper. Even a score by ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, seemingly a big deal and nice fit, fails to connect. The Big Bang tries to inject the soupy moodiness of the noir genre with a surfeit of cool and edgy thrills, but, ironically, it’s actually just a big snooze.

The Big Bang comes to Blu-ray on the heels of a brief theatrical engagement, and it’s presented in 1080p that at least rather strikingly captures the movie’s striking, evocative look. Audio comes by way of a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, with optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Krantz and co-producer Reece Pearson submit to a feature-length audio track in which much praise is doled out to the actors, while a clutch of extended scenes gives a bit more face time to Van Der Beek. There’s also a 20-minute making-of featurette comprised of pretty standard stuff — clips from the movie mixed with brief chats from cast and crew. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) C+ (Disc)

For some of my latest adventures in DVD and Blu-ray, again trip on over to ShockYa, where, in addition to other titles, I take a gander at the fascinating new documentary Bhutto and the considerably less fascinating Single White Female rip-off The Roommate. Only one of those flicks features lesbian tension, by the way. Once more, it’s here, if ya need it, with pretty pictures.

Long before she became an international superstar, and before she started marrying problematic men, Nicole Kidman was just another an Australian lass rocking the sort of frizzed-out hairdo that would later come to be popularized by Sideshow Bob. BMX Bandits, from 1983, represents her first big starring role, and it’s a goofy action-comedy romp that — a bit of a cultural disconnect notwithstanding — still holds some fun for the young at heart, in particular for seeing Kidman outfitted in such gorgeously tacky racing attire. The cover of the new DVD release bears a blurb-rave from none other than Quentin Tarantino, equating the movie to Goonies, but an even better sort of emotional comparison might be something like Better Off Dead, to which this solid international commercial performer serves as a sort of an official cousin/forerunner.

The story is unabashedly constructed to seize upon the then-popular trend of BMX bike-riding, centering around a cache of stolen police-band walkie-talkies, a trio of teen pals, and the ruthless yet hapless would-be robbers (think Home Alone) who pursue them through a variety of graveyards, shopping malls, construction sites, golf courses, and water parks in picturesque New South Wales. Goose (James Lugton, above center) is the droll and sensible kid, P.J. (Angelo D’Angelo, above left) is the anything-goes quasi-love interest, and Kidman’s Judy is the unlikely ringleader. Their foils are slapstick-y, live-wire Duane (David Argue) and his more earnest straight-man, Povic (John Ley), working for a main villain known only as The Boss (Bryan Marshall). Hijinks ensue, to the tune of some mind-meltingly, insidiously catchy, cheesy synth pop.

Produced when it was, and with a clear and understandable commercial bent, BMX Bandits is one of those movies that holds up largely to the extent one wishes it to, if that makes sense. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith (Turkey Shoot) helms the action nicely, and the setting certainly offers up some gorgeous locales, no doubt. If the material is rather assertively unambitious, the acting is of a piece, and designed chiefly to tickle the funny bones of teens and tweens who never tire of seeing goofy and misguided adults meet their comeuppance. No harm, no foul, in other words. And for Kidman completists and fans of unapologetically uncomplicated ’80s pop cinema, it’s rather a delight.

The new Severin Films release is a lovingly assembled thing, coming to DVD in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen release with an English language 2.0 stereo audio track. In addition to the movie’s trailer and previews for three other Severin releases, there’s a nice audio commentary track from Trenchard-Smith. The main bonus feature, however, comes by way of a comprehensive, 38-minute making-of documentary that includes interviews with Lugton, Trenchard-Smith, writers Patrick Edgeworth and Russell Hagg, and a couple producers. Among the revealed bon mots: originating writer Hagg finalized the title after flipping through the dictionary, aiming for alliteration; the story, originally built around 9- to 11-year-olds, was tweaked to accommodate teenagers; Kidman fretted about being fired from the production after spraining her ankle during the movie’s graveyard scene; and Kidman’s stunt double was actually a teenage boy, because the filmmakers had trouble finding a girl rider who visually approximated her tallness and slender frame.

Finally, the producers get around “the Kidman problem” (which is to say her lack of participation here) by throwing on the disc an old two-and-a-half-minute TV appearance clip of her, from a show called Young Talent Time. Standing amidst Australian tykes and chatting with the host, the then-16-year-old Kidman stresses that she didn’t do most of the stunts. There’s no mention or explanation of that hairstyle, though. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

OK, well… a day late, technically. But trip on over to ShockYa for a DVD/Blu-ray look at films from Ed Harris, the (newly and ever) controversial Lars von Trier, and more. Again, it’s here, if ya need it.

Originally released in March via Vista Point Entertainment, I bet this Blu-ray title now has a bit more cachet and Red State rental value pop after the recent Navy Seals takedown of Osama bin Laden.

No, there’s no particular special military focus in this 90-minute documentary, which basically amounts to chopper porn. In fact, it was originally an IMAX theater title, so a lot of the square-jawed, rah-rah narration — from the earnest, how-did-that-tree-spawn-that-apple? Martin Sheen — marks it as more of a History Channel spin-off, really. But director David Douglas also provides plenty of action-infused spectacle, making this a decent Father’s Day thrown-in for the mechanically inclined, and those that already have a Sears Craftman tool set and the whole Time-Life World War II illustrated book series. Propulsion and lift are explained, as well as the accouterments of different “birds,” and a series of pulse-pounding mountain rescues, humanitarian aid and reconnaissance missions and other sorties highlight the many roles these powerful and varied aircraft play in our lives.

Straight Up‘s Blu-ray presentation is solid and straightforward, with no edge enhancement issues and very little grain, only in some archival footage. Plus, it comes with a nice complement of supplemental features, including a film trailer, a director commentary track, a making-of featurette, and a small clutch of deleted scenes. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Trip on over to ShockYa for my latest DVD column and a couple looks at white anxiety and despair, including one featuring the lovely Rachel Nichols, as well as the holy trinity of recessed- and bleary-eyed knuckle-draggers who so
delight girls looking to fill the void in their hearts born of absentee
fathers. (Yeah, I said it.) I also look at a title that would never make the studio cut today. Again, it’s here, if ya need it, with pictures.

For a look at the havoc that Dinoshark wreaks, and more about Seth Rogen’s curious mention of “vagina wipes,” again trip on over to ShockYa, for my latest DVD column. We’ll figure out a title one of these days. Cut me some slack, I’ve been busy — and who wants to be married to a turd moniker, after all?

Reese Witherspoon is pretty, but her movies aren’t the ones designed to make Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann simultaneously crap their pants, so for answers again trip on over to ShockYa, where my latest DVD column is up. And yeah, title is still TK. Get off my back, will ya?

For my thoughts on the home video releases of two of last year’s big dramas, one overrated and one underrated, as well as my disappointment over learning that high school does not involve tuxedo-clad choreographed dance numbers and sky-flying, wolfish basketball dunks, again trip on over to ShockYa, where my latest DVD column is up. Title still TK, for the record…

For a gander at my new DVD column, trip on over to ShockYa, where I look at one of the more traveled and underrated TV shows of recent years, and make a confession that precludes me from ever seeking political office in the South. We’ll be doing it each week, kids, and hopefully have a catchy name soon, too.

Comedy Central’s highly rated celebrity roasts have become nice springboard launching pads for comedians, and on the recent roast special for Donald Trump, comedienne Whitney Cummings did a fairly good job of holding her own, getting in digs at the cartoonishly-haired blowhard while also lacerating her colleagues on the dais. On her first DVD concert special, Whitney Cummings: Money Shot, the 28-year-old (who looks a lot older, honestly… perhaps because of Botox?) returns to her native Washington, D.C. for a set that chiefly explores the differences between men and women, and how they interact and act in relationships.

With her gangly limbs and goofus posture standing in contrast to her feminine persona, Cummings delivers a mix of observational and gender comedy that’s two parts caustic for every one part sugar. Bemoaning the seemingly increased necessity of complex bedroom antics (“My vagina doesn’t do tricks”), she works body issues for laughs, decrying her lack of a stripper’s body by positing that her engaging in any sexual aerobics is likely to elicit the question, “What is that European boy doing on a jungle gym?” Cummings also has a lot to say about testicles, and in particular how unattractive they are.

Cummings also makes fun of guys’ obsession with sports, pubic shaving, pornography, and what she asserts is her own struggle with avoiding farting around guys. The material itself isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, but instead derives a lot of its humorous punch from the forcefulness of Cummings’ personality and go-go motor, as well as the fact that she can spin multiple jokes off of a single theme or observation, examining it from different perspectives that help counterbalance much of the sting of her blue humor.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Whitney Cummings: Money Shot comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo audio track, divided into 15 chapters via a motion menu screen. There are unfortunately no supplemental features, so the title’s spare, 48-minute running time makes it far more worthy of a quick rental than outright purchase. Nevertheless, to buy the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) C- (Disc)

A 46-year-old Dane who looks vaguely like he should be in a kitchen yelling at people on one of those angry-chef TV shows, Bjorn Lomborg is an author and economist whose controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, has put him in the crosshairs of environmental advocacy groups and certain climate change deniers alike — no small feat, really. Part unfocused, worshipful biography of Lomborg, part messy documentary examination of some of his theories and proposals, director Ondi Timoner’s film works the talking head rope-line of enviro-peers but doesn’t heartily impress enough of a clear-eyed point-of-view to lift this film up and make it anything other than muddled and frustrating.

The first 20 minutes or so of Cool It are dawdling and aimless, to an off-putting degree from which the movie never truly rallies and recovers. Lomborg, the founder and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, uses a cost/benefit analysis of various potential solutions to global warming and other environmental problems, a model of economic distinction with variables with which many folks take umbrage. The movie is provocative, certainly, particularly for the manner in which Lomborg takes aim at some of the facts in Al Gore’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. Timoner, though, doesn’t at all do a good job of communicating it, and while his subject admirably advocates for smarter environmental spending, both he and the movie seem to ignore the basic reality that the political calculation of those who peddle doom-and-gloom scenarios stems at least in part from the fact that they’re dealing with people on the other side of the issue who decry all science. Winning an argument in the margins isn’t something that is going to happen with these troglodytes.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Cool It comes to DVD presented in a solid 1.78:1 widescreen transfer that preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical presentation, with Dolby digital 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio tracks, and optional English and Spanish subtitles. In addition to the theatrical trailer, the only bonus material consists of 15 minutes of deleted scenes. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; alternately, if Half is your thing, meanwhile, click here. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Gender-based clichés of fear get trotted out in The Resident, a goosing stalker thriller starring Hilary Swank. A perfunctory, short-window theatrical release built no effective buzz
for this clunking, clanging programmer, which adds nothing new to the single-woman-in-peril subgenre.

Swank stars as Juliet Dermer, a New York ER doctor recently separated from her philandering husband Jack (Lee Pace). Though only half-ready to start a new life on her own, she soon lands what seems like a dream apartment. Her handsome and helpful new landlord is Max (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, above, showcasing grade-A lurking ability), who is fixing up the place, and lives with his leering grandfather August (Christopher Lee). Before long Juliet is gripped by the feeling that she’s being watched, and she’s not wrong. In short order, Max reveals himself to be quite disturbed, and he reacts strongly to a potential reconciliation between Juliet and Jack. The proceedings build to a violent finale which serves a persuasive case against self-renovation.

In fitful fashion, Finnish music video and feature film debut director Antti Jokinen achieves a so-so mood of lingering creepiness, abetted by decent production design and the soft cinematography of Guillermo Navarro, who fills his frames with oaky hues and rich shadows. But Jokinen ladles on stale music cues and sound effects, and the movie’s editing is not always clear. The Resident‘s chief problem, though, is its script, by Jokinen and Robert Orr. It lacks any believable motivations, or artful enough dialogue to paper over this problem. Little more than an unconvincing collection of actions, it quickly abandons any significant flirtation with misdirection, settling upon Max as a villain and then cycling through a litany of sinister bits seemingly pulled in random order from a hat.

Swank by and large adequately conveys the juggled dual demands of steely, modern-day occupational professionalism and feminine vulnerability that such a genre exercise requires, but is consistently let down by the material. Morgan, meanwhile, trades in visual shorthand, deploying a variety of smirks and squints. Rumor has it he committed to the project without reading the script, which makes some of this make sense, so unfocused and broad are some of his choices. Either way, the end result elicits little more than yawns, basically.

Housed in a regular Blu-ray case, The Resident comes to the format presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, in a 1080p high-definition transfer, with a DTS-HD master audio 5.1 track and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Bonus features, you might reasonably expect? Nah, none of those, except a version of the movie’s trailer. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) D- (Disc)

Environmentally flavored nonfiction films are, to put it kindly, on the upswing. One of the more recent is Plastic Planet, a so-so offering that succeeds almost in spite of itself. Director Werner Boote’s film is a personal-journey documentary loosely in the vein of Mitch McCabe’s Make Me Young, which was a look at the $60 billion plastic surgery industry through the prism of her father, a onetime surgeon. Boote’s target of inquiry is plastics in general, and whether they are safe for human use in the degree and fashion that we have embraced. The director’s personal background — his beloved grandfather was a German manufacturing businessman who made his career in plastics — greatly informs his genial, rambling quest for answers.

Original music by the Orb helps give Plastic Planet an easygoing rapport, as do occasional animated segments featuring an avatar of the director amidst polyurethane pellets and molecule trains, even though the latter seem included out of some ill-informed sense of peppy obligation. Boote seems a true innocent, which is a quality not without its advantages, but often not particularly suited for pressing academic inquiry. To the degree that Plastic Planet succeeds, then, it does so almost in spite of its maker’s intentions rather than because of them.

The structure of the film doesn’t originally lay out a central set of questions to be answered, nor does it truly dig deep enough into Boote’s personal history to give his quest a stand-alone, seductive personality all its own. So the result is herky-jerky, and filled with stuttering asides that find Boote wasting screen time (flirting with a personal trainer at a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s office), or coming across as ill-prepared in various interview segments. When Boote gets out of his own way and turns the movie over to the hardcore statistical analysis of scientists, it blossoms in unsettling fashion, with worrisome details about polycarbonate baby bottles and how dangerous phthalates release from plastic products with repeated (but routine) use.

There are also some amazing and thought-provoking visual moments and details, as when Boote joins volunteers for the clean-up of a Japanese bay; trawls the deep sea with an oceanographer; and visits the world’s largest trash dump, in India, where “rag pickers” sort through the debris for the payoff of a handful of rupees per day. These moments, as well as the unsettling revelation that American food and beverage manufacturers are typically in the dark about the particular plastic content and ingredients of their packaging, help Plastic Planet achieve a roundabout emotional impact, despite much meandering and dawdling.

Housed in sturdy paper/cardboard, 100% green-certified sleeve from Oasis Disc Manufacturing, with 99 percent vegetable-based and eco-friendly inks, Plastic Planet comes to DVD presented in a 16×9 aspect ratio, with a stereo audio track, in English and occasional German, so hence with English subtitles. Its supplemental features consist of four deleted scenes, one of which features Boote eliciting understandable discomfort from a Mattel PR representative when he outbids her at a public auction for an old, collectible Barbie, and proceeds to try to get her to lick the doll, in a socially clueless attempt to get her to appreciate the difference in taste/smell of the older plastic. A DVD-ROM press kit and resource guide is also available if you slip the disc into your computer or laptop. Nice packaging in keeping with its environmental commitment gives this title a slight bump, but it does seem curious that there isn’t more Boote (an interview or commentary track) on the bonus slate, given the degree to which the film trades in personality. It isn’t available until April 12, but to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)

I have a soft spot in my heart, I freely admit, for the wacky, New Age mania of Heather Graham, hence my interest in ExTerminators, a 2009 film starring her, Jennifer Coolidge and Amber Heard, and only now making its way to Blu-ray and DVD. A dark comedy of putative female empowerment, the movie dutifully winds up its laboriously colorful characters and sets its plot traps, and then pretty much charts a course of expected zaniness.

After an incident following a bad break-up with her
cheating boyfriend, Alex (Graham) is sentenced to 12 months of anger
management counseling, where she meets a group of small town Texas women
with similar stories of romantic woe, including Stella (Coolidge), the
owner of a financially troubled extermination business, and Nikki
(Heard), a dental technician with the face of an angel, the mind of a
sociopath and a big-time oral fixation. When the ladies band together to fight
back against the abusive lout husband of a friend (Joey Lauren Adams) from their counseling group, a deadly accident ensues. When their actions are subsequently taken as purposeful by their grateful friend, and rewarded with money, the women sense they may have stumbled across a niche business, even as Alex finds herself drawn to a handsome cop, Dan (Matthew Settle), investigating the case.

ExTerminators is the feature film debut of its chief collaborators, screenwriter Suzanne Weinert, who cut her teeth running Julia Roberts’ production company, and director John Inwood, who worked on Scrubs for many years, as both a cinematographer and director. There’s some measure of delight in a bit of the dialogue, but the tone feels a bit off, trying as it does to juggle a sunny optimism with a conceit that is darker, all under the banner of a visual style and scheme that is more or less straightforward and realistic. A lot of the smaller story details feel safe and cutesy (Alex hatches a cover-up plot based on her years of watching Law & Order), and there aren’t the sort of narrative surprises herein that are necessary to keep an audience invested in what is otherwise a fairly flat telling of a potentially raucous and/or subversive concept.

Housed in your typical Blu-ray case, the movie comes to the format in 1080p, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with a DTS HD master audio 5.1 track that more than adequately handles the fairly straightforward aural demands of the title, if just a bit tinnily in its higher registers. Somewhat surprisingly, there isn’t even a chapter menu, and apart from a clutch of trailers that automatically play upon start-up, bonus material consists only a 27-minute gag reel which affords the chance to see line reading flubs and some of Coolidge’s improvisational riffs, including one about having sex with a man in a cricket costume. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Every Day, a workaday domestic drama from writer-director Richard Levine, is loosely
(very loosely) of the same genus as films like Smart People,
The Squid and the Whale and Running with Scissors, though pretty much
vacuumed free of all the more colorful angst and conflict those films
peddle. It sketches its characters humanely, but comes across as
exceedingly polite and pedestrian, never particularly willing to take a
strong stand one way or another. As such, it’s a shrug.

While his wife Jeannie (Helen Hunt) struggles in her role as a reluctant caregiver to her ailing, formerly estranged dad Ernie (Brian Dennehy), New York TV scribe Ned (Liev Schreiber) tries to negotiate a narrow professional pass, satisfying the sensationalist urges of his boss Garrett (Eddie Izzard) on a sexy medical soap opera serial. Mandated script fixes find Ned paired with coworker Robin (Carla Gugino), who provides characteristic temptation.

A film of pleasantly half-sketched familial noodling, Every Day
fails to satisfyingly connect not so much because of what it bungles in
execution as what it just never really tries to do — namely bring
substantive conflict to the fore. Lacking in any major catharsis, the
film perhaps angles to be chiefly a snapshot of the accumulated burdens
of life’s quotidian responsibilities, but instead merely comes across as
inconsequential. There’s no payoff of deep, hidden pain or fire-born resilience; in fact, there is not much honest dysfunction at all.

Everything is instead played fairly bland, and middle-of-the-road. Ernie is dying, but his grandkids seem to have little investment in this revelation. Several pressing conversations between characters — like how to broach the subject of an assisted care facility — are started and never really finished, and even a subplot involving Ned and Jeannie’s homosexual teenage son Jonah (Ezra Miller), who wants to attend a “gay prom” but ends up getting inappropriately hit on by an older guy, fizzles out a bit strangely.

The lead performances are competent but not particularly stirring. Gugino again proves herself fetching, while Miller (City Island) brings an appealing, uncomplicated honesty to Jonah — refreshing in an era when so many teen characters are rendered as little more than attitudinal bundles. Overall, though, Every Day feels lacking in defined dramatic stakes. The exact opposite of the outlandish stories Ned is asked to write, it is polite and genteel, but also ultimately yawningly pointless.

Housed in a regular Blu-ray snap-shut case, Every Day comes to the format presented in 1080p high-definition 1.85:1 widescreen, with an English language DTS-HD master audio 5.1 track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Its picture is sharp and free of any grain or edge enhancement. Bonus features consist of around 15 minutes’ worth of cast and crew interviews, the movie’s trailer and a collection of seven deleted scenes — decent inclusions all, but nothing built for repeat viewing. Visit your favorite brick-and-mortar retailer if that’s still your thing, or to purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)

An Italian import from 1969, The Sins of Madame Bovary stands as one of the more famous offerings of star Edwige Fenech, whose flowing brunette locks, personable demeanor and large, expressive eyes made her a fairly natural screen presence in a string of romantic dramas, sex comedies and other erotic flicks from the 1960s and ’70s.

Gustave Flaubert’s often adapted 19th century novel provides the underpinning, and Fenech stars here as Emma Bovary, an aristocratic woman bored by her bourgeois life, and drifting out of love with her older physician husband, Charles (Gerhard Riedmann). As she daydreams of freedom and a grander life divorced from the formality of society life, a series of other lovers come into play.

Directed by Hans Schott-Schobinger, The Sins of Madame Bovary seems to take as inspiration for its production design template and visual scheme Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, so full of ornamentation is it. The scale isn’t the same, obviously, but it’s a signifier of Schott-Schobinger and cinematographer Klaus von Rautenfeld’s joint intent and efforts to play up the costume drama and play down the potential for sizzle, no matter the fame of their leading lady. For the most part  this works… at least in the theoretical sense. The problem is, for all its surface lushness and attendant focus on feelings and manners, The Sins of Madame Bovary is still burdened by stolid performances and fairly leaden chemistry between the major players.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Sins of Madame Bovary comes to DVD divided into 12 chapters and presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an Italian language Dolby digital 2.0 audio track and English subtitles. The transfer is fairly solid, free of any edge enhancement but marked by a bit of grain here and there. The DVD cover slaps an airbrushed brassiere on this relatively famous photo of Fenech, and its supplemental features consist solely of a self-scrolling two-minute-plus photo gallery of film stills and international poster images. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here, or check Half.com or your other online retailer of choice. C (Movie) C- (Disc)

Scouts Honor: Badge to the Bone isn’t the worst film ever made — not by a long shot — but there’s something in particular about serially mirthless comedies that temporarily irradiates any working recollection of what arguably may be more technically inept and woefully misguided cinematic efforts, and this broad, broad affair falls into that former category. And so while watching it, the movie just feels like it might be that terrible.

Written by Jesse Bryan and David Schultz, who also each costar, Scouts Honor centers on two dimwitted camp counselor brothers, David and Tim Appleorchard (Schultz and BJ Bales), who must circumvent the evil machinations of fellow brother Brandon (Chris Kattan) in order to win the approval of their father (Kip King, Kattan’s real-life dad) and inherit the camp from him at the end of the summer, when he leaves to rejoin his wife/their mother with a traveling circus. Because, God bless him (and I know this from fairly close personal experience), Fred Willard will show up for scale on any job, and read expository asides or fulfill whatever perfunctory wonky cameo needs your production might have, well… Fred Willard shows up and reads a bunch of discretely shot announcements over a P.A. system, goading the brothers Appleorchard into action. Physical contests of strength and endurance ensue, along with parallel love interests for the hapless chaps.

PR press clippings for Scouts Honor try to position it, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, as a willfully, knowingly moronic comedy, something so “insane,” “wacky” and gleefully dumb that it somehow circles all the way back around again to all-out funny. It doesn’t, honestly. Nowhere close. This is a series of bad sketch comedy scenes, strung together loosely into a narrative.

Look, I don’t mind dumb comedy, I really don’t. But this movie never rises to, let alone past, the level of improv comedy you and your buddies mustered when making middle Super 8 videos. It’s just pointless, and made worse by the retread-quality nature of the narrative proper. Chris Kattan is actually capable of good work, but here he trades only in volume, and it grates mightily roughly 25 seconds into the proceedings. Granted, Kattan is given nothing of substance with which to work, but he’s playing such a screaming jackass that when the film, at its merciful conclusion, refuses even to give him some sort of shaming comeuppance, it makes you a bit angry, in addition to just being bored and pissed off.

I’m racking my brain here, but apart from chapter selections and a motion-enabled menu, I don’t believe there are any supplemental features to the DVD release. I can’t recall with 100% clarity though, because the pitch of Kattan’s histrionics are clouding my brain and impairing my memory. Nonetheless, if you still wish to inflict this travesty upon yourself, Scouts Honor may be purchased through Amazon by clicking here. F (Movie) D- (Disc)

Whether it’s sports, dancing or eating, if there’s something that Americans like more than recreational activities and hobbies, it’s watching other people being forced to compete in those arenas. When it comes specifically to baking and cooking there are, by my last count, 4,752 shows on the Food Network and other cable channels about culinary competitions and/or niche specialties, so it comes as no great surprise that a high-stakes dessert competition would get the full-fledged documentary treatment in the form of Kings of Pastry.

Co-directed by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, the film focuses on the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition (Best Craftsmen in France), held, like the Olympics, only once every four years. The sixteen finalists, French-born pastry chefs all, gather in Lyon for three intense days of mixing, piping and sculpting everything from delicate chocolate confections to six-foot sugar sculptures in hopes of being declared one of the best by President Nicolas Sarkozy, and winning a coveted blue, white and red-striped collar — the culinary elite equivalent of a green Master’s jacket in golf, or an Academy Award in cinema.

The film predominantly charts Jacquy Pfeiffer (above), co-founder of Chicago’s French Pastry School, as he journeys back to his childhood home of Alsace more than a month before the event to practice for the contest. Two other finalists are profiled in the film — Regis Lazard, competing for the second time after a crucial drop of his sugar sculpture the first time, and Philippe Rigollot, a chef from Maison Pic, France’s only three-star restaurant owned by a woman. During the grueling final competition, the competing chefs work under constant scrutiny by a squad of master judges, and subject themselves to the critical palates of some of the world’s most renowned chefs, who evaluate their elaborate pastries. Finally, in a twist that will likely ring familiar to anyone who’s paused on the Food Network for more than five minutes, these pastry marathoners must complete their race against the clock by hand-carrying all their creations, including their fragile sugar sculptures, through a series of rooms to a final buffet staging area without shattering them.

Filmmakers Pennebaker (Monterey Pop, Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back) and Hegedus (Startup.com) are experienced “name” documentarians and established collaborators (The War Room, Down the Mountain), but they seem to coast a bit here on the exclusivity of their secured access to the never-before-filmed event, largely eschewing probing questioning of its subjects and their unique world in the name of an uninspired, point-and-shoot style that rivals Sarah Palin for its lack of inquisitiveness. The selection process for the finalists? Not addressed. Other competitors outside of the aforementioned trio? Not addressed. The number of designated winners? Not addressed. The specifics of the chefs’ job duties and backgrounds, and how that might either advantage or disadvantage them in certain areas of the competition? Not addressed.

So it’s a sign of the artistry on display that Kings of Pastry, after a slow start, eventually matures (ripens? comes to a boil?) into something not only engaging, but actually also kind of poignant. The film showcases the extraordinary level of skill and nerve required to tackle the competition, certainly (as well as practice: Pfeiffer sweats out time trials with his coach, while Lazard’s wife notes that his basement kitchen is his true home), but it also highlights how luck plays a part in things too. (Taste and artistic merit scores are still subjective, after all.) That makes the culmination of the competition, with its failures and inspirational elevations, something to which everyone can relate. The biggest tangential takeaway, however, is how and why European chefs will always remain, collectively, a cut above their American counterparts — the exactitude required is immense, and Stateside notions of masculinity don’t allow for this much attention to be paid to food of any sort, without much punishing derision for preparer and taster alike.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Kings of Pastry comes to DVD presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Its bonus features are anchored by a five-minute interview chat with the filmmakers, which is nice but really too short to dig into the story behind the production with much substantive insight. Biographies of the crew are also included, but the best supplemental extras are a segment which follows Pfeiffer as he constructs a chocolate sculpture (complete with film reels), and a chocolate fashion show in which pastry school students mix clothes and desert in intriguing fashion. C+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

After the creative and commercial highs of films like New Jack City, Jungle Fever, White Men Can’t Jump, The Waterdance and even the original Blade, it didn’t seem like the most plausible career path for Wesley Snipes — a string of anonymous, C-grade, mostly internationally-lensed action flicks, followed by incarceration for tax evasion. That’s how it shook out, however. And it’s those long-lingering legal/financial woes, which for years prior to his 2010 sentencing hung over Snipes’ head like a comic strip’s black rain cloud, that most likely explain the existence of something like Game of Death, another yawning, paycheck-inspired action programmer in which, you know, a CIA hit man is caught up between shady underworld-types and those at his agency that would double-cross him.

Snipes stars as Marcus Jones, a special agent tasked with cozying up next to a mobster named Smith (Robert Davi). A pair of rogue agents, Zander (Gary Daniels) and Floria (Zoë Bell, of Kill Bill stunt double
and later Grindhouse fame), try to frame Jones and kill him to boot, and escape and other on-the-fly, name-clearing shenanigans then ensue.

Director Giorgio Serafini does the material no great favors of elevation by ladling on stylistic excess and gimmickry in orgiastic fashion. A straighter, simpler, grittier visual scheme and emotional template would have worked far better here. Snipes, too, seems (perhaps understandably) depressed and bored — just going through the motions. There’s no real pop or excitement here, either in execution or narrative adventurousness. Additionally, just in passing, the DVD front and back cover art does Bell no favors, featuring some terrible airbrushing that makes her look like Jeremy Renner. Yikes!

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Game of Death comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack, and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Special features consist of a half dozen very short behind-the-scenes featurettes that explore the movie’s Detroit location shoot and other various aspects of the production, interspersing film clips with rah-rah, back-slapping interview footage. A small collection of trailers for other Sony DVD releases rounds out the material. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Writer-director David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Festival, is an involving, rangy and sneakily ambitious crime drama that pulses with a low electrical hum of menace. Unfolding against an unfussy, decidedly non-glamorous criminal backdrop of modern-day Melbourne, the movie has intriguing characters and a broad canvas, like it could easily be spun off into a miniseries or TV serial.

When his junkie mom dies of an overdose, introverted 17-year-old Joshua (James Frecheville) gets taken in by his doting grandmother (Jacki Weaver), which would seem to be a good thing. Problem is, she’s den mother to a cabal of ne’er-do-wells, whose armed bank robberies have made them marked men by cops, some of whom play by the rules and some of whom have no qualms with vigilante justice. As one officer (Guy Pearce) tries to flip Joshua and make him a source, a series of shocking twists and turns ensue.

Frecheville believably exudes naivety, and is a great anchor for Animal Kingdom, but Michôd smartly trades in organic rather than artificial thrills, making a movie about the legacy of violence that doesn’t often indulge in it. The result is something that works its hooks into an audience slowly, and feels like it could be compellingly adapted into a recurring small screen serial, actually. For Los Angelenos, one thing certainly awaits — a double-feature playdate at the New Beverly with fellow Aussie crime drama The Square. Other audiences will have to settle for discovering this little gem on the small screen.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Animal Kingdom comes to DVD presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, via a transfer absent any significant grain, edge enhancement or major flaws. Audio consists of English, Spanish and Portuguese language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound tracks, with complementary subtitles. Bonus features are anchored by a nice feature-length audio commentary track with Michôd, as well as a 15-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, a soundtrack promotional spot and a half-hour-plus Q&A with the filmmaker and two of his stars, Frecheville and Weaver. Allegedly exclusive to the Blu-ray, for what it’s worth, is a separate hour-long featurette on the making of the movie. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Look, you just don’t know. If you run in film nerd circles or play a lot of Trivial Pursuit, it may at some point come up — the question of in which movie Jodie Foster is gifted with two penguins, one of which is subsequently beaten to death. Well, the answer is Five Corners. And I’m sure it’s a film to which John Hinckley could relate.

An unusual little 1987 flick starring Foster, John Turturro, and Tim Robbins, Five Corners is a period piece drama whose intensity of feeling and somewhat haughty sense of social-statement importance far exceed the grasp of its execution. It’s set in the Bronx in the early 1960s, and centers on Heinz Sabatino (Turturro), a scummy and not-quite-right-in-the-head kid newly released from prison, who returns to his old neighborhood with his stalking obsession for Linda Komkowski (Foster), the woman he attacked, unabated. There’s hatred, too, for Harry Fitzgerald (Robbins), a one-time friend who tried to protect Linda by crowning Heinz with a beer bottle, but Harry won’t re-engage with Heinz in antagonistic fashion, as he’s now a pacifist looking to hook on with the Freedom Riders and head south. Also thrown into the mix is Jamie (Todd Graff), Linda’s doofus ex-boyfriend, and a pair of cops who get sucked into things when Heinz starts acting out in aggressive fashion, and imperils Linda.

On the outside looking in, Five Corners‘ pedigree is impressive; there’s the cast, of course, and the script is by John Patrick Shanley, and the director is Tony Bill. Still, set against this chaotic backdrop of political and societal upheaval, the film goes to the well of metaphorical relevance a bit too often and heartily, and never really coalesces into anything more than a kind of passably engaging ping-pong drama — meaning something that holds one’s attention in stumble-bum fashion rather than with any precision. A massive and time-consuming subplot in which a couple of yahoos who seem to have wandered off the set of Happy Days hook up with a pair of drugged-out party girls and ride elevators goes nowhere. Well… actually, it “pays off,” if you will, in a late revelation that ties into a recent neighborhood murder involving a bow-and-arrow (yes, seriously), but these attempts at writerly parallelism come across as overly didactic, and never particularly realistic or thought-provoking.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Five Corners comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo track and optional English subtitles. There are unfortunately no supplemental bonus features here, which is really a shame, as the title’s star power merits if not a retrospective with some of the players’ thoughts on the movie (Foster has to have thought about the parallels to Hinckley when shooting the film) then certainly some sort of talking-head inclusion about it, which is easy and cheap enough to produce (I say this having taken part in a couple such interviews myself) should the right production company or distributor get hold of the rights. As is, this is a yawning curio, but only for completists… well, obsessed with the cast. Let’s hope Hinckley’s prison library doesn’t get a copy. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C- (Disc)

I’ve mocked Hilary Duff and her sister before, for appearing in movies with 19 credited producers, but really, there are plenty of times (in fact, most of the time, I’d say) when she is not the biggest problem in whatever piece of entertainment she is appearing. Beauty & The Briefcase, which debuted on the ABC Family Channel last April, is one such exhibit. Based on Daniella Brodsky’s cloying novel Diary of a Working Girl, the movie is so nakedly a stab at modern-young-chick relevance and Duff’s stab at The Devil Wears Prada and Confessions of a Shopaholic-style up-with-sisters! appeal that it induces sighs fairly early out of the gate, and never deviates much if at all from its wan lessons of faux-empowerment.

Duff stars as Lane Daniels, a young, fresh-faced, wide-eyed and ambitious journalist who dreams of writing for her favorite magazine, Cosmopolitan. When she finally gets the chance to pitch an article to Cosmo‘s hard-edged editor Kate White (Jaime Pressly), it is enthusiastically received — with the condition that Lane must live out her (dubious) pitch of switching careers to bag a guy. Kate tasks Lane with landing a corporate job, and then dating as many eligible co-workers as possible. As Lane navigates her way through her new world, she meets first Tom (Michael McMillan), then Seth (Matt Dallas), and finally Liam (Chris Carmack), a dashing music producer working outside her office. Dating him would mean breaking the rules, so, you know, what’s a girl to do — live her life, or adhere rigidly and irrationally to some cockamamie scheme?

Saddled with desultory voiceover that reinforces points and feelings already established twice onscreen, Beauty & The Briefcase is an exercise in rah-rah obviousness, nothing more than pabulum for young girls. The acting isn’t all that bad, really, but director Gil Junger’s stylistic stabs at effervescence and chirpy
buoyancy come across as insipid and contrived, and the dialogue is terrible to boot. Really, something like a repeat viewing of A Cinderella Story is probably the better option for, um, more discerning Duff fans.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Beauty & The Briefcase comes to DVD presented in 1.78 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Special features include… nothing, sadly. Which is strange, because one would have thought that Duff was better with self-promotion, and tossing hungry post-tweenage fans a few interview morsels here and there. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) D+ (Disc)