Home Media Magazine - November 4-10, 2007 - (Page 18)

REVIEWS HD DVD SPOTLIGHT I KNOCKED UP Universal, Comedy, B.O. $148.8 million, $39.98 HD DVD, $29.98 DVD, $30.98 two-DVD set, ‘R’ and unrated versions available. Stars Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann. HDTV: Panasonic Vista 42-inch Player: Toshiba HD-XA2 Edited by John Latchem www.homemediamagazine.com W hile the premise — hot, lonely, single girl working in television gets impregnated and keeps baby sired by hapless unemployed dude met in a bar — may be laughable, it’s on par for director Judd Apatow. Since cutting his teeth on the cult TV show “Freaks and Geeks,” Apatow is on a tear cranking out inane movies (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, etc.) that nonetheless deliver acclaim and box office mojo. Despite occasional story lulls, Knocked Up evolves into a surprisingly (by Hollywood standards) endearing pro-life movie that circumvents hot-button issues such as abortion and fiscal reality with endless sophomoric humor and a good soundtrack. Why the movie was released in high-def isn’t exactly clear, given similar humor a generation before (The Three Stooges) worked just as well in black-and-white analog. The extensive bonus material (including a surprisingly boring gag reel) is identical to the standard DVD, except that in HD DVD, the picture-in-picture option allows you access to the material while the movie is running. The My Scenes option permits the viewer to clip memorable scenes and theoretically e-mail them to networked friends — a cool idea if your HD DVD player is Web-enabled, which mine isn’t. Noteworthy are the numerous tracks by folk singer Loudon Wainwright III, who appears in the movie as a wayward obstetrician. His duo (in the bonus section) with Joe Henry live at McCabe’s is worth the price of the disc. — Erik Gruenwedel I LA VIE EN ROSE Street 11/13 HBO Video, Drama, B.O. $10.1 million, $27.95 DVD, ‘PG-13’ for substance abuse, sexual content, brief nudity, language and thematic elements. Stars Marion Cotillard, Gérard Depardieu. T THE TOP 5 I SCARY MOVIES ON DVD It’s kind of sick how much we love horror films. These movies just keep getting more perverse and pervasive, to the point that we have to parse them into subgenres such as slasher and torture films. Halloween may have come and gone, but it’s always a good time for a scary movie. — Billy Gil here are two things surprising about the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose. The first is that it wasn’t made ages ago. As big a musical icon as 20th century Europe ever produced, Piaf was, and for many remains, the brash, heartbroken, defiant voice of France itself. Brought up in abject poverty, her life, like her music, was a study in tragedies survived and overcome — drug-addiction, public scandals — and there is no shortage of the kind of real, dramatic material that makes a screenwriter’s job easy. That no one, especially in France, where her iconic status is impregnable, has gotten to it before now is somewhat baffling. The second surprise is the actress who plays Piaf, Marion Cotillard. Her performance, which spans some 25-plus years with the help of some excellent makeup wizardry, is the kind of transformative miracle that tends to win piles of awards. Young and virtually unknown (in the United States, anyway), Cotillard delivers a bravura version of La Môme that is by turns passionate and fickle, shy and showboating. If this is not exactly how the real Piaf was, it is at least how we understand her legend. Not all subjects get the biopic they deserve, but here director Oliver Dahan has given Piaf an over-the-top treatment that, if nothing else, matches her famously outsized personality. The film skips around frantically in time, depicting the singer’s life as one uncontaminated by any peace. She is either at the apex of her fame, the nadir of her depression, or both. This approach does little to deepen what most fans already know or believe they know about Piaf, but then it’s clear that was never part of Dahan’s agenda. La Vie en Rose is successful as pure, unapologetic hagiography. It regrets nothing. — Eddie Mullins 1. I THE SHINING (Warner) 1980. Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel is the definitive horror film — inventive, haunting and unforgettable. I THE LAST SENTINEL Street 11/13 Echo Bridge, Sci-Fi, $26.99 DVD, ‘R’ for violence. Stars Don Wilson, Katee Sackhoff. 2. I THE EXORCIST (Warner) 1973. Purists should get the 25th anniversary DVD, but I like the 2000 “version you’ve never seen,” with terrific added scenes. 3. I PSYCHO (Universal) 1960. This is the moment when all the terror implied by early horror films was fully realized. J 4. I POLTERGEIST (Warner) 1982. There’s something seriously sinister about this supposedly cursed movie, which remains a favorite 25 years later. 5. I HALLOWEEN (Starz/Anchor Bay) 1978. No list is complete without John Carpenter’s original Halloween, more subtle and terrifying than its countless copycats. ames Cameron’s “Terminator” movies laid out a future where humanity found itself subjugated by its robotic creations. The Last Sentinel seems to draw a heavy influence from that vision, showcasing nonstop action in a story about a human rebellion against robotic police drones. Writer-director Jesse Johnson makes the best of what is obviously a shoestring budget. The scenes are staged in such a way that viewers can practically see Johnson visiting a rusty industrial complex and working his story to match it. The focus is on Tallis (Don “The Dragon” Wilson), a genetically engineered super soldier who is the last survivor of a platoon sent to attack the drones. His only companion is a computerized talking gun that likes to quote philosophy texts. During one attack, Tallis encounters a girl (Sackhoff) who is the last survivor of a group of rebels searching for the drone command center. In leading a human resistance against a robotic army, Sackhoff is basically playing a variation of her Starbuck character from “Battlestar Galactica.” The Last Sentinel is neither groundbreaking nor particularly compelling. “Terminator” fans might get a kick out of seeing the similarities with Cameron’s fictional future. Comparing the timelines, Sentinel seems to take place shortly after a nuclear holocaust, when the drones are attempting to restore order and quell any human uprisings. And “Galactica” fans will soak up every bit of Sackhoff’s appearance (including a sexy shower scene), although her total screen time is all too short, considering her domination of the box art. — John Latchem 18 Home Media Magazine November 4–10, 2007 http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - November 4-10, 2007

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