Home Media Magazine - April 6-12, 2008 - (Page 26)

REVIEWS Q U I C K TAK E www.homemediamagazine.com How to Drink a Milkshake With Paramount Home Entertainment’s April 8 release of There Will Be Blood (single-DVD $29.99, two-DVD set $39.99), viewers can check out Daniel Day Lewis’ incredible Oscar-winning performance for themselves. He commands the screen as cynical, despicable early 20th century oil-man Daniel Plainview, making it easy to overlook parts of the film that begin to drag, or the fact that even with two discs, the DVD is pretty scant on bonus material. It has a photo gallery and some cool deleted scenes, but the best extra is the 1923 silent film The Story of Petroleum, a half-hour movie made to promote the operations of Sinclair Oils. The film takes viewers behind-the-scenes of the early oil industry, showing how oil is extracted, stored and shipped. Composer Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) provides a new musical score, evoking the same mood as the main feature. – John Latchem I DOLLGATORY Prebook 4/8; Street 5/20 Ariztical, Comedy, $29.95 DVD, NR. Stars Conor McLean, Nadia Qaqish, Jean Pantelidis, Paolo Giacco. I t has been said that money can’t buy love, but it can put you in a good bargaining position — but with whom? In the indie comedy Dollgatory, it isn’t love that dollarstore owner George Speedopoulos (McLean) is after; it’s money. To save his store, the hapless and lanky owner takes on the whimsical notion of murdering his nasty wife, Gina (Qaqish), for her life-insurance money. The film opens to a hypnotic pop-samba rhythm beat that beckons a cavalcade of psychopathic clientele through the door, one by one. Those who admired Stanley Kubrick’s wildly contrasting colors in A Clockwork Orange will feel right at home in Dollgatory. And just as in Kubrick’s film, the characters have an eerie insane stupidity about them — an almost zombie-like character and a single-mindedness of purpose, in this case to find love and acceptance for all the wrong reasons. The Question Woman (Mounira Fawzy) believes ev- eryone else can tell her where to find love. The Pharos (Joe Doss) seems to think that love comes in a balloon, and Josie Crups (Sarah Fawzy) thinks her polished pink toenails can attract the macho man of her dreams, instead of her rent-a-cop husband (Tony Vogiantzis). Then, there’s Suzy the Diva (Tara Shuttleworth), who is a sultry image of the devil — portrayed this time in a black business suit, sporting a sharp white-winged collar and hard back-framed eyeglasses. She taunts Speedopoulos at every turn. But when Speedopoulos’ plan to kill his wife during a love session gone bad ends up with him dead instead, the dollar dealer winds up in a sort of purgatory, forever doomed to the confines of his petty store until he learns the value of helping his fellow man. Dollgatory will play best to those who truly love the stage feel of an independent film where everything revolves around a few wacky characters who enter and leave. The acting is stilted and the dialogue a little weak, but the storyline is enough to keep you wondering how this mess will all end. Much like a Christian rock band, it’s the message that redeems it. – Brett Sporich I WHO’S YOUR MONKEY Prebook 4/8; Street 5/6 Universal/Screen Media, Comedy, $24.98 DVD, ‘R’ for language, sexual content, some drug content and violence. Stars Jason London, Kevin Durand, Wayne Knight, Susan May Pratt, Ali Hillis, David DeLuise, Scott Grimes. T he title Who’s Your Monkey might conjure up images of MVP: Most Valuable Primate or even MVP: Most Vertical Primate. However, you might want to keep the kids away — or the number of a good therapist on speed dial. Take one of those lovable primates and combine it with a bit of Very Bad Things and you have this bizarre, badly titled dark comedy. When one (Grimes) of four childhood friends kills off a local drug dealer (Durand), the band of almost-brothers comes together to ditch the body. In between, they deal with bankruptcy, widowhood, insecurities and impending fatherhood. All of that doesn’t leave much room for the kill count of Very Bad Things, but it does include a few more laughs and male bonding at its best — or the best it can get when animal porn is also a main plot-point. A making-of featurette is the DVD’s only extra. However, it’s the actual film that’s the real bonus, since it never made it to a wide theatrical release. The DVD might have made a better impression under the film’s original title, Throwing Stars. Despite an overly neat ending and a misleading title, this isn’t such a bad little dark comedy. – Rachel Cericola I STEEL CITY Prebook 4/8; Street 5/6 PeaceArch, Drama, B.O. $0.01 million, $26.99 DVD, ‘R’ for language and brief drug use. Stars Thomas Guiry, America Ferrera, Clayne Crawford, Laurie Metcalf, Raymond J. Barry, John Heard. T he Sundance- and IFC Spiritaward nominated Steel City is a bleak but engaging story of four men in a depressed Midwestern town. PJ (Guiry of “The Black Donnellys”) is thrust out on his own after his father, Carl (Heard), is arrested for manslaughter. PJ’s dishwashing job isn’t enough to pay the utilities or rent on their house. His older brother Ben (Crawford) is cheating on his wife, who is left home in their dumpy trailer to take care of their baby. Vic (Barry), their uncle, re-enters the picture in an effort to help his brother Carl and try to convince PJ to snap out of his funk and find a future. Writer and director Brian Jun recognizes that when you don’t have much outwardly — like PJ, who loses his father, his job and his home — all you have is family, regardless of how deep old wounds may be. The film belongs to Guiry, a solid actor who plays a lost lamb quite well, veering from misguided anger and attitude to tenderness and innocence. He doesn’t have a single relationship that isn’t complicated, especially those with his girlfriend (Ferrera) and his father, but all are portrayed realistically. The rest of the cast — veteran actors such as Heard, Barry and Metcalf — all turn in expectedly good performances. Jun keeps a steady gaze on his story, characters and the unnamed, downtrodden town. A story such as this — full of jailed relatives, abandoned children and broken marriages — is rife for melodrama, but Jun’s light touch and his ability to let the camera just sit back and drink in the proceedings gives the film a realism straight out of one of Bruce Springsteen’s more depressing tunes. Folks who like their drama on the quiet side, but with a heavy does of realism that doesn’t turn away from the hard scenes — as in North Country or Snow Angels — will likely find Steel City a tiny gem worth discovering. – Laura Tiffany 26 Home Media Magazine April 6–12, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - April 6-12, 2008

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