Star-Telegram.com: Video / DVD

DVD reviews: 'The Bank Job,' 'Step Up 2 the Streets,' 'College Road Trip,' 'Shutter'

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:13 CDT

The presence of Jason Statham in a movie usually means one thing: Someone is on the receiving end of a beat-down or two.

With The Bank Job, he doesn’t disappoint on that score. But, unlike so many Statham movies whose only saving grace is his martial-arts and fighting abilities, The Bank Job has a few other redeeming qualities.

Based on the true story of a 1971 British bank heist, the film is an innocuous, occasionally suspenseful, fast-paced thriller that whizzes by before it has a chance to wear out its welcome.

Directed with crisp efficiency by Roger Donaldson, The Bank Job doesn’t feel like as much of a lark as similar films such as The Italian Job (which also co-starred Statham), but it doesn’t take itself too seriously, either. The Usual Suspects it’s not.

Those who want extended footage and background on the real-life heist should pick up the two-disc DVD and Blu-ray editions, because the single-disc edition just gives you the movie.

— Cary Darling

2008, R, $29.95, $34.98

***

Step Up 2 the Streets

(2008, PG-13, $29.99-$34.99)

This sequel to 2006’s Step Up opens with a startling piece of guerilla theater on a subway train. It ends with a rain-soaked dance number that looks like an outtake from Night of the Living Dead: The Musical. Sandwiched between these two are a lot of familiar ingredients. Step Up 2 starts over with a new cast, if not a particularly new premise. Hardly a cliche is missed, which wouldn’t be so bad if the dance sequences were more convincing. The DVD and Blu-ray releases come with deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes segments and five music videos, including tunes by Flo Rida and Missy Elliott.

— David Germain, The Associated Press

College Road Trip

Not reviewed

(2008, G, $29.99-$34.99)

Martin Lawrence makes life miserable for Raven-Symone as they hit the highway in this family comedy. Lawrence plays a well-meaning but meddlesome dad who butts into his daughter’s hunt for the right college, accompanying her and her friends on their mishap-laden trip. The DVD and Blu-ray discs have an alternate opening and alternate endings, plus deleted scenes with commentary from director Roger Kumble. The full movie has commentary with Kumble, Raven-Symone and the screenwriters. Raven-Symone also pitches in with a music video and a video diary of her experiences on the set.

— David Germain, The Associated Press

Shutter

The Fab Five: What our critics are buzzing about this week

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:45 CDT

'The Office' Webisodes
1 For the second year in a row, NBC’s squirm-com fills the summer-repeat void with two-minute Webisodes featuring the show’s deep-bench supporting cast. This year’s entry, Kevin’s Loan, focuses on accountant Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) and his unique scheme for paying off some gambling debts. Sure, you’d think an accountant would know that efforts such as Kevin’s are misguided, but this is The Office, after all — most of these folks aren’t well-suited to their jobs. The Webisodes are available at www.nbc.com.

— Robert Philpot

'Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson'
2 In Gonzo, a hypnotic examination of the druggy, literate and libidinous life of the original "gonzo" journalist, hallucinatory production values dovetail perfectly with the roller-coaster life of the film’s subject. A kaleidoscope of grainy professional and home-movie footage, off-the-cuff testimonials from talking heads such as Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner and Tom Wolfe, and smoky narration by Johnny Depp, Gonzo scores points with the deadly efficiency of one of Thompson’s favorite pistols. Like the man himself, the moviespares no one, is acerbically irreverent and more than a bit licentious.

— Andrew Marton

The Hold Steady, 'Sequestered in Memphis'
3 The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn is a rock poet of unparalleled wit and grace. Stay Positive, the band’s latest album (in stores now), is rife with mini-epics of religious uncertainty, aimless drinking and foolish behavior, but one of its best tracks hits early. Goosed with relentless piano and a chorus that isn’t sung so much as slurred, Sequestered in Memphis conveys the tale of a young man led astray by a woman: "in barlight, she looked alright/In daylight, she looked desperate." Hey, Craig — bonus points for name-checking the Lone Star State!

— Preston Jones

'The Bank Job' on DVD
4 A fantastically underrated thriller that zipped in and out of theaters in March, director Roger Donaldson’s period heist drama The Bank Job crackles with tension, oozes style and boasts sharp performances from a truckload of British character actors, including — astonishingly — the eternally dour Jason Statham, revealing a depth hidden in all those C-grade actioners. The two-disc set, in stores Tuesday, includes a digital copy of Job, along with a fascinating featurette on the real-life events that inspired the film.

— Preston Jones

Jason O'Mara on the season premiere of 'The Closer'
5 O’Mara is a familiar face to TV viewers, having had recurring roles on Grey’s Anatomy and Men in Trees and his own short-lived series In Justice and The Agency (he has another, Life on Mars, coming this fall). But he has rarely been better than as Billy Croelick, a smirking pyromaniac who first appeared in a 2005 episode of The Closer and returns in this week’s season premiere to taunt Kyra Sedgwick’s tough-but-vulnerable Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson. O’Mara strikes just the write balance of evil and charm, playing off Sedgwick well and getting the season off to a crackling start. 8 p.m. Monday, TNT

— Robert Philpot

DVD reviews: 'Batman Begins,' 'Stop-Loss,' 'The X-Files Revelations,' 'Superhero'

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:54 CDT

The Batman movies tend to live or die on the strength of their villains, and Batman Begins has . . . well, too many villains. There’s Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), a snarling Mafia kingpin who has all the cops and judges of Gotham City in his pocket. There’s psychiatrist Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), who poisons unsuspecting Gothamites, puts a sack over his head and calls himself "The Scarecrow." There’s also Richard Earle (Rutger Hauer), as the acting head of Wayne Enterprises, who is trying to wrest control of the company from the Wayne family. The movie is so wildly overpopulated that it’ll give you a headache.

Directed by Christopher Nolan, Batman Begins is an earnest attempt to restore some dignity to a once-promising franchise, and parts of the movie do just that. But mostly, Batman Begins is an exhausting hodgepodge of summer blockbuster motifs.

But fans will be interested in the extras in the limited-edition Blu-ray gift set. They include The Dark Knight Prologue, a Dark Knight Prologue book, Hollywood Movie Money (worth $7.50) to see The Dark Knight in theaters and a 16-page comic-book adaptation of the first six minutes of The Dark Knight.

— Christopher Kelly

Limited-edition Blu-ray gift set

$28.99-$49.99

Stop-Loss

(2008, R, $34.99)

In the swift, impressive opening scenes of Stop-Loss, writer-director Kimberly Peirce immerses us in the urban warfare of modern-day Iraq, where soldiers led by Staff Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) are lured into an ambush by a gang of insurgents. But as soon as the buzz of these early scenes wears off, Stop-Loss quickly settles into a rut. It’s yet another solemn, tedious movie that does more preaching than dramatizing. By the time Peirce arrives at her underwhelming finale, Stop-Loss feels like little more than recycled goods: It’s Flags of Our Fathers meets The Last Detail meets The O.C. Extras: deleted scenes, a making-of documentary and Peirce commentary.

— Christopher Kelly

The X-Files Revelations

(2008, not rated, $22.98)

With the new X-Files: I Want To Believe movie set to open in theaters July 25, series creator Chris Carter has put together this DVD set that includes eight episodes from the popular TV series’ first six seasons, with introductions by Carter and producer Frank Spotnitz about how each one relates to the forthcoming movie. The set’s bonus features include a February 2008 panel discussion with Carter, Spotnitz and series stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, and a "movie cash" ticket worth $8.50 toward the purchase of a ticket to see the new film in theaters.

— Bruce Dancis, McClatchy Newspapers

Superhero

Movie

DVD reviews: 'Vantage Point,' 'Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns,' 'My Blueberry Nights,' 'Drillbit Taylor'

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:20 CDT

A Secret Service agent who’s back on the job one year after taking a bullet. His all-American partner, who harbors some kind of dark secret. The earnest U.S. president, who’s determined that a political summit will go on despite threats of violence. A tourist with a camcorder who never expected to document an assassination and a terrorist bombing.

These are just four of the dozen or so characters you won’t be able to keep track of in Vantage Point, an alternately frantic and boring thriller that purports to show us the elaborate plot beneath the surface of a seemingly straightforward shooting. Opening scenes unfold in crisp and taut fashion, from the point of view of a TV-news producer (Sigourney Weaver). Then Vantage Point flashes back 23 minutes, and we’re watching the same events from the perspective of Dennis Quaid’s Secret Service agent. So it goes for the rest of the film, as each new character adds something new about the crime. Too bad the various perspectives don’t deepen our understanding so much as clutter it.

Extra features are only on the two-disc version: a commentary by director Peter Travis, deleted scenes, and interviews with members of the cast and crew.

— Christopher Kelly

(2008, PG-13, $28.96-$38.96)

Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns

***

(2008, PG-13, $29.95-$34.98)

Tyler Perry has built most of his audiences from the African-American community. His comfort-food family comedies are overly sentimental but also at times heartwarming. While he never pushes the envelope, Perry also never stoops to crassness or stupidity. So give him his due. Out this week: his TBS TV show House of Payne, Vol. 2: Episodes 21-40 and his latest movie, Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns, starring Angela Bassett as a single mother of three from Chicago who travels to a small town in Georgia to attend her father’s funeral. Extras on the two-disc special edition include four short features.

— Rob Lowman, Los Angeles Daily News

My Blueberry Nights

***

(2008, PG-13, $19.98)

In Wong Kar Wai’s mood piece, singer Norah Jones plays a woman whose response to a broken relationship is to wander the U.S., taking jobs in bars and diners along the way. You can become so preoccupied with judging Jones’ talent that it takes away from the story. Although she isn’t awful, Jones is overshadowed by the actors — Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman — who are known for acting. Wong’s exploration of loneliness turns out to be a lot like a Norah Jones album: pleasant, but a little boring in places. Extras include an interview with the director, deleted scenes, a photo gallery and a "making-of" documentary.

— Robert Philpot

Drillbit Taylor

(2008, PG-13, $29.99)

Four-disc set of AMC’s 'Mad Men' hits shelves just in time to sell us on season two

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:06 CDT

By CARY DARLING

When Mad Men first made its splash last summer — on AMC, of all places — there was no doubt that it was going to look as sharp and shiny as a classic Cadillac tailfin. Set in 1960 amid the hustle and bustle of Madison Avenue ad agencies (hence the title), MadMen was an art director’s fever dream, full of smart suits, cool cars and cumulus clouds of cigarette smoke.

If Mad Men were only about style, it would be a mildly intriguing curio, an eye-catching set piece with about as much relevance as a used tube of Brylcreem. Instead, it uses 1960 as a prism through which the last 48 years of cultural convulsions come into sharp relief.

Just in time for the second season, which starts July 27, Lionsgate will issue the 13 episodes of season one Tuesday, in a four-disc DVD set that looks like a Zippo cigarette lighter. (The shape works better in concept than execution. It can be hard to lift the lid without one or more of the discs coming with it.)

But what’s on the discs is what matters, and that’s the story of Don Draper, a man whose very name bears the easy alliteration of a successful ad campaign. Played with a moody grace by Jon Hamm, Draper is an ad exec who would seem to have it all: beautiful wife (January Jones), suburban dream home, two apple-cheeked children, grateful clients.

Yet Draper is stalked by fear. It’s not because of his bohemian, Greenwich Village mistress. Or grasping office backstabbers, like Pete Campbell, given odious charm by actor Vincent Kartheiser. And it’s not just that Draper’s hiding a deep personal secret, though that’s part of it.

Instead, he knows he’s sitting gingerly on the bull’s horns of change, riding into a decade in which the roles of masculinity, women, sexuality, race, religion and advertising itself will be upended.

Mad Men isn’t all about Don, though. From ambitious secretary Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) and bosomy office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), who cruises through the workplace like the Cutty Sark on the high seas, to sexually conflicted designer Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) and booze-hound boss Roger Sterling (John Slattery), Mad Men makes for a smart, sophisticated soap opera.

The set’s extras are worth noting, as well. Two of the best are Establishing Mad Men, an hourlong feature on how the series came about, and Advertising the American Dream, a half-hour doc on changes in the ad game since the ’50s.

It all adds up to an entertaining and informative package, the perfect appetizer for next season, the main course.

Mad Men: season two Begins 9 p.m. July 27

AMC

Mad Men: season one on DVD *****

In stores Tuesday

Lionsgate, $49.98