BIG MOMMAS: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON (2011). Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son isn't like Some Like It Hot; instead, it's like every other witless sequel meant to prolong the life cycle of a flailing franchise. Like it or not, the fact remains that there's not much to like here, and it only escapes a bomb rating because it's more irritating than offensive — like an ant crawling across a countertop rather than a roach roosting in the cereal box. The second sequel to the 2000 box office hit Big Momma's House, this finds Martin Lawrence again cast as FBI agent Malcolm Turner, donning the wig and fat suit once more to elude some Russian mobsters. The added, uh, hilarity comes with the notion that Malcolm's stepson Trent (Brandon T. Jackson) must also disguise himself as a female — in his case, a student named Charmaine. Together, Madea — excuse me, Big Momma — and Charmaine head to an all-girls arts school to uncover some evidence that will put away the criminals on their trail. Big Momma gets romantically wooed by a hefty caretaker (Faizon Love) who's into hefty women, Charmaine ogles the young ladies as they strip down to their undies, and everyone involved dutifully collects their paychecks while hoping for better luck the next time out.
The Blu-ray includes the theatrical cut as well as an unrated version that runs five minutes longer. Extras include audio commentary by Jackson, co-stars Jessica Lucas and Portia Doubleday, director John Whitesell and producer David T. Friendly; seven deleted scenes; a Top 10 countdown of Big Momma's most noteworthy antics; a 2-minute gag reel; and music videos for Prodi-G's "Myrical Miracle" and Jackson and Lucas' "Baby You Know."
Movie: *1/2
Extras: **
BLOODWORTH (2011). It's easier to get blood from a stone than to get entertainment value from Bloodworth, a tedious adaptation of William Gay's novel Provinces of Night. Gay's story "I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down" was turned into a movie (That Evening Sun) that primarily worked because of the excellent lead performance by Hal Holbrook. Here, Kris Kristofferson is cast in a vaguely similar role — an elderly man whose past behavior makes himself unwelcome among his former neighbors and kinfolk — but unlike Holbrook, Kristofferson is used so sparingly in the story that he's never allowed to really shine, or even build a concrete character. Instead, this is primarily yet another coming-of-age tale about a clearly intelligent youth who wants to escape the rubes who surround him — in this case, aspiring writer Fleming Bloodworth (Reece Thompson), who gets along better with the grandfather (Kristofferson) he barely knows than with his father (Dwight Yoakam) or uncles (Val Kilmer and W. Earl Brown). With cinematography by Tim Orr (Pineapple Express) and a music department overseen by the great T-Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart), Bloodworth — set in Tennessee but filmed in North Carolina (including the Wilmington area) — certainly doesn't lack for competence behind the camera. But despite director Shane Dax Taylor's valiant efforts, the movie isn't able to render these familiar, Southern fried hicks the least bit interesting. It's more entertaining, then, to ignore the painfully obvious scenarios being played out and instead mull over the fact that siblings Kilmer and Yoakam are supposed to have emerged from the same gene pool.
DVD extras include audio commentary by Taylor and scripter W. Earl Brown; 20 deleted and extended scenes totaling 32 minutes; a 16-minute making-of featurette; and an 8-minute piece that look at the creation of Kristofferson's new song "You Don't Tell Me What to Do."
Movie: *1/2
Extras: **
CEDAR RAPIDS (2011). Cedar Rapids is a low-rent version of the sort of raunchy comedy that's all the rage these days, but it wears its modesty rather well. In fact, its reliance on vulgar gags is so sparse that it's somewhat startling when this ends with an outtake of co-star John C. Reilly mixing flatulence and flick-a-BIC. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The plot of this amiable comedy centers around Tim Lippe (Ed Helms), a dorky insurance agent who's never ventured outside his hometown. So it's a big deal when his company sends him to the annual convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with the task of returning home with the event's top sales prize. But Tim's attempt to snag said honor frequently takes a back seat to hanging out with his new pals, including the obnoxious Dean Ziegler (Reilly), the reserved Ronald (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and the flirtatious Joan (Anne Heche). It's the same outline often employed in these types of films (e.g. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, also featuring Helms), but because the writing is a bit sharper and the characters more fleshed out than expected, there's actual interest in seeing how the story pans out and what happens to these people. Empathic feelings aren't usually engaged with this sort of fare, but Cedar Rapids manages to sell the idea, if just barely.
Blu-ray extras include six deleted scenes; 13 minutes of cast interviews; interviews with director Miguel Arteta and writer Phil Johnston, each running seven minutes; a 4-minute gag reel; and a faux insurance commercial.
Movie: **1/2
Extras: **1/2
THE LORD OF THE RINGS MOTION PICTURE TRILOGY: EXTENDED EDITION (2001-2003). The Beatles over Elvis, Coke over Pepsi, coffee over tea, and Star Wars (original trilogy) over The Lord of the Rings — those are my long held preferences and I'm sticking with them. Still, regarding that last face-off, I must admit that George Lucas has his work cut out for him when he releases the Star Wars saga on Blu-ray this September, given the fact that LOTR has largely defined the glories of the DVD experience and now promises to do likewise on Blu-ray.
Between a mountain of critical raves, a $314 million box office haul, and 13 Oscar nominations (resulting in four wins), the colossal success of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) initially caught even ardent admirers of J.R.R. Tolkien's literary trilogy off guard. After having filmed all three parts of the trilogy in one fell swoop (an enormous risk on the part of New Line Cinemas), director Peter Jackson got things off to a roaring start with a fantasy flick that pleased both fans and novices alike. Even those who haven't read the books are doubtless familiar with the saga's basic thrust — noble Middle-earth denizens must destroy a powerful ring before it falls into the hands of an evil warlord — but to their credit, Jackson and his co-scripters kick things off with a helpful prologue that nicely sets up the story. From there, Jackson juggles a daunting array of conflicts and characters (Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf is the cast standout), and it's to his credit that the saga leaves viewers panting for more.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) doesn't quite match the majesty of its predecessor, though that's hardly meant as a knock against a rousing, far-reaching spectacle of unlimited ambition. But whereas Fellowship did a nice job of balancing quieter moments with the bombast, this action-packed installment often treats its expository scenes as asides (too many good actors — McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Miranda Otto — are given the short shrift in this outing); what's more, the movie doesn't deepen or expand the tale's themes as masterfully as The Empire Strikes Back added to Star Wars' mystique. But as a stirring story of unsullied heroism, it's a winner, and as an action epic, it features some of the best battle sequences of recent vintage. And while the campaign to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the CGI-created Gollum (voiced by Andy Serkis) proved to be a fizzle, he turns out to be the best special effect in a movie crammed with them. This was the Oscar weakling of the bunch, earning two awards out of six nominations, although no one at New Line was complaining about its sizable $341 million gross.
Pulling off a successful three-peat, Jackson wraps up Tolkien's fantasy saga with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2002), a dazzling chapter that outgrossed its predecessors ($377 million domestically and over one billion internationally) and led to Oscar overkill when the myopic Academy handed it 11-out-of-11 awards (four or five would have been more reasonable). With the heftiest running time of all three films, this installment is long but not necessarily overlong — even the battle sequences have been executed with more focus and clarity than those in Two Towers. The super-sized length also allows several members of the large cast to strut their stuff, and several new creatures, from an army of ghostly marauders to a gigantic spider in the best Harryhausen tradition, are staggering to behold. Ultimately, though, this final act belongs to the ring-bearer and his equally diminutive companions. The odyssey of the Hobbit Frodo (Elijah Wood), his faithful companion Sam (Sean Astin) and the treacherous Gollum contains the true heart of the film, evoking all sorts of emotions as we watch each player constantly forced to make painful decisions and struggle with their own tortured psyches. This is a movie of expensive visual effects and expansive battle scenes, but when it comes to truly making its mark, we have to thank all the little people.
The sound and picture quality on the DVDs were so spectacular that (is this blasphemy?) I enjoyed the series even more at home than in the theater -- on the big screen, this ambitious undertaking occasionally felt distant, but on disc it exudes more warmth, coming off as the best mini-series never made. On Blu-ray, the sights are even more astounding, and the sound is equally fantastic (better check the living room wall for fissures after cranking this baby). As for the Blu-ray extra features, where to begin? In addition to the extended cuts of all three pictures (totalling just over 12 hours), this 15-disc set also includes over 26 hours of bonus material. Notable among the inclusions are the much-ballyhooed, behind-the-scenes documentaries created by Costa Botes, who was given complete set access by Jackson. Other extras include four separate audio commentaries on each film (over 30 participants, including Jackson and most of the principal cast members); 43 documentaries covering practically every aspect of production except for catering (and that might be buried in there somewhere); interactive maps of Middle-earth; and photo galleries containing over 5,000 images.
The Fellowship of the Ring: ***1/2
The Two Towers: ***
The Return of the King: ***1/2
Extras: ****
SUCKER PUNCH (2011). It wouldn't be quite accurate to call Sucker Punch the ultimate fan-boy film, but it's a designation that nevertheless offers a near-perfect fit. It's a (wet) dream come true, an orgy full of Dolby sound and CGI fury. To finish the paraphrase by stating that it signifies nothing would be to drag Shakespeare into a world — and a conversation — that would baffle him. Front and center for most of the picture is Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who's thrown into an insane asylum by her despicable stepdad and prepped for a lobotomy. She mentally escapes that reality by imagining herself in a bordello, where she's verbally and physically abused. To escape from that scenario, she performs hypnotic dances that allow her to visualize herself and her sisters-in-arms — Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung) — battling formidable opponents in fantasy worlds in an effort to secure certain items that will allow them to break out of the asylum way back on the first level. Just call this Inception for Dummies. While writer-director Zack Snyder offers a story that's ambitious enough to allow for multiple interpretations (a plus in this age of lobotomized entertainment), he sacrifices any real desire for discussion by tricking this project up with every fetishist and/or pop-geek card up his sleeve. Even more than Battle: Los Angeles, it's an all-out assault on our senses — not in the fun, roller coaster ride sort of way but in a manner that's exhausting rather than exhilarating.
The Blu-ray includes both the theatrical PG-13 version as well an R-rated extended cut that adds 17 minutes of new footage. The latter version can be watched in the Maximum Movie Mode, an interactive viewing experience that includes picture-in-picture commentary, in-depth scene analysis by Snyder, and more. Other extras in this pack include four animated shorts inspired by the film and a 3-minute featurette about the film's soundtrack.
Movie: *1/2
Extras: **1/2
TRAILERS FROM HELL! VOLUME TWO (2011). A spawn of the popular Trailers from Hell! website manned by filmmaker Joe Dante (The Howling) and fellow enthusiasts — you can check out the 6,000-plus sneak peeks yourself at www.trailersfromhell.com — this DVD follow-up to last year's Volume One contains 20 vintage trailers not yet available on the site. Viewers as always have the option of watching the trailers with or without commentary, and the selection of plugged films run from the fantastic (Jaws) to the forgotten (Ski Troop Attack). For starters, Pan's Labyrinth auteur Guillermo del Toro does double duty in examining Dario Argento's Deep Red (in English and Spanish), The Stand helmer Mick Garris notes the number of future FX greats who worked on the softcore spoof Flesh Gordon, and BMX Bandits director Brian Tranchard-Smith discusses the UK edits that greeted The Stranglers of Bombay (filmed in "Strangloscope"). You also get Dante discussing Donovan's Brain (look for Nancy Davis, aka Nancy Reagan, in the clip), John Landis (An American Werewolf in London) looking back at Gorgo, director-producer Roger Corman commenting on his own films The Premature Burial and Ski Troop Attack, and much more.
Unlike other DVDs, wherein the trailers are supplements to the feature film, here's a rare case where the trailers are the main attraction and the feature film is the extra. So while Volume One included the complete version of 1933's The Vampire Bat (starring Fay Wray), this disc contains 1960's The Little Shop of Horrors, Corman's classic cult flick about a nerd (Jonathan Haze) and his man-eating plant. Legendary as the film that Corman shot in a mere two days, this endearing yarn (presented for the first time in anamorphic widescreen) also features a 14th-billed Jack Nicholson earning early attention for his uproarious turn as a masochistic dental patient.
Collection: ***
The Little Shop of Horrors: ***
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