BUG (2007). Nothing less than depression set in when Ashley Judd went from being an extraordinary indie actress to a dull studio-hack heroine, so it was gratifying to once again see her tackling an offbeat role. In Bug, she has one of her most memorable parts yet; she plays Agnes, a lonely waitress who's introduced to Peter Evans (Michael Shannon), a quiet man who right off the bat assures Agnes that he's not an axe murderer. Clearly, though, there's something off about this brooding guy, but Agnes enjoys his company so much (or at least having company, period) that she invites him to stay with her. This irks her thuggish ex-con ex-husband (Harry Connick Jr., about as menacing as a French poodle), yet even his threats seem irrelevant once Peter begins to complain about the insect infestation in her apartment. Yet do the bugs really exist, or are they only in Peter's (and maybe Agnes') imagination? Working from Tracy Letts' screenplay (itself based on the latter's Off-Broadway play), director William Friedkin (The Exorcist) maximizes the claustrophobic feel of the intimate surroundings while drawing suitably anguished performances from Judd and Shannon. But Letts' story is rather limited in its examination of how a lonely person's neediness will often overcome all other emotions, and its employment of government paranoia feels decidedly old-hat. Indeed, it might have taken David Cronenberg, that insect fetishist (Naked Lunch, The Fly), to truly turn this into a freak-out session. As it stands, Bug deserves some measure of buzz, even if it never truly gets under the skin.
DVD extras include both audio commentary by Friedkin and a half-hour interview with the director, and a short making-of piece.
Movie: **1/2
Extras: **1/2
THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976). H.G. Wells must have been spinning in his grave when one of his titles was appropriated -- and mangled -- for this dreadful yarn which finds nature running amok. On a remote island, a creamy white substance bubbling from within the earth is discovered by farmers and (for what reason beyond script contrivance, God only knows) mixed with chicken feed. Soon, humans unlucky enough to stumble onto the island are having to contend with giant rats, wasps, chickens and worms. Writer-director-producer Bert I. Gordon, whose career-long fascination with oversized creatures would have delighted Freud (other credits include Village of the Giants, The Amazing Colossal Man and Earth vs. the Spider), managed to make a Hall of Shame turkey that sadly has never achieved the legendary status of, say, Plan 9 from Outer Space or Robot Monster. That's a shame, because if there are 10 consecutive seconds of quality in this film, I must have rubbed my eyes and missed them. The special effects are laughable throughout: Except for a few scenes featuring mechanized heads and actors in costumes, the giant rats are actually normal-sized rodents seen swarming around toy cars and dollhouses; the wasps are black smudges that look like they were drawn directly onto the film stock; and the chickens (and one mad rooster) look about as real as Burt Reynolds' late-career toupees. As for the performers, former-evangelist-turned-bad-actor Marjoe Gortner stars as a football player who kicks giant-critter butt, Pamela Franklin portrays the requisite scientist, here a horny brainiac who hits on the gridiron star even as they're about to be eaten by rats, and, depressingly, the great Ida Lupino -- a 1940s star and one of the first major female directors -- wraps up her career by playing a Bible-thumping rube who screams, "God! Oh, God! Aaaaaahhhh!" while watching bloodthirsty worms snack on her hand.
There are no extras on the DVD.
Movie: *
Extras: *
KNOCKED UP (2007). Director Judd Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin was unique in that it managed to successfully mix raunch with romance. This summer hit, which reunited Apatow with Virgin supporting player Seth Rogen, attempts a similar balancing act, only it falls a tad short of attaining the same success as its predecessor. There's a sweet love story on view here as well, but because it's more rushed and not allowed to unfold at a natural clip, it ultimately plays second string to the picture's comedy quota. Fortunately, on that front, the movie's an unqualified success, with perhaps no other film this past summer offering as many theater-rumbling belly laughs. Rogen plays Ben Stone, a slacker who meets and has a drunken one-night stand with Alison (Katherine Heigl), who's out celebrating the fact that she has just been promoted to an on-air position at E! Entertainment Television. Alison learns a few weeks later that she's pregnant, and she decides that she and Ben (with whom she has nothing in common) should attempt to make their relationship work for the sake of the baby. Apatow fails to sufficiently flesh out their courting period between that initial tryst and the birth of the child; still, thanks to the sweet performances by Heigl and especially Rogen, there's plenty of warmth to be drawn from the resultant drama. Yet in this picture, it's comedy that's king, with a nonstop barrage of great lines as well as deft contributions from a capable cast.
The two-disc "Extended & Unrated" DVD edition includes over three hours of extra features, the best of which are two mock pieces: One finds various actors (including Orlando Bloom and James Franco) auditioning for the Ben Stone role, while the other shows Capote helmer Bennett Miller helping Apatow direct scenes from the film. Other extras include audio commentary by Apatow and Rogen, deleted scenes, three gag reels, and "Gummy: The Lost Roommate," a revealing piece in which Apatow and David Krumholtz discuss the latter having been cast in the movie, only to bail when offered the lead in a Woody Allen film that ended up falling through.
Movie: ***
Extras: ***1/2
LUCKY YOU (2007). Director Curtis Hanson has spent the last decade delivering nothing but winning hands, so it's not without a measure of irony that his luck has run out with Lucky You. After the incredible run of the critical darlings L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys, the box office hit 8 Mile and the underrated In Her Shoes, Hanson (co-scripting with Eric Roth) found himself at the helm of a film so disowned by its parent studio (Warner Bros.) that not only had its theatrical release date been changed at least twice, it ended up serving as the sacrificial lamb chosen to open against Spider-Man 3 (ouch). In truth, it deserved a less gruesome fate, even if it never reaches its full potential. Eric Bana, nicely underplaying, stars as Huck Cheever, a Las Vegas poker ace who's allergic to responsibility and constantly at odds with his father L.C. (Robert Duvall), a poker champ who abandoned him and his mother decades earlier and now haunts the same casinos as his son. But Huck finds his heart softening -- and his infrequently employed principles hardening -- once he meets struggling nightclub singer Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore), whose sincerity and naivety win him over. The romance between Huck and Billie isn't credible, partly because Billie isn't sufficiently fleshed out but mainly because Barrymore delivers an atypically flat performance that leaves her co-star stranded. Far better are the scenes between Huck and L.C., and Hanson and Roth make sure to surround this pair with a wide array of interesting characters, including Little Children's Phyllis Somerville as a pawnbroker and Jean Smart as a fellow card enthusiast (even an unbilled Robert Downey, Jr. and Borat's manager make appearances). But did it all have to climax with, yes, a championship poker tournament?
DVD extras include a making-of piece, nine deleted scenes, and a short feature on the real-life world of poker.
Movie: **1/2
Extras: **1/2
REIGN OVER ME (2007). An unlikely companion piece to I Think I Love My Wife (released on DVD several weeks ago), writer-director Mike Binder's Reign Over Me likewise centers on a well-to-do African-American male who's bored by what he perceives as a barren life with no passion or purpose. But whereas Chris Rock's Richard Cooper sought to assuage his funk with (platonic) dalliances with a hot-to-trot temptress, Don Cheadle's Alan Johnson seeks to reconnect with his long-ago college roommate Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), hoping that having a beer buddy will allow him some measure of freedom away from his responsibilities. But what Alan isn't taking into account is the fact that, five years after 9/11, Charlie is still shell-shocked by the loss of his wife and three daughters, all of whom were killed on that fateful day. Binder (The Upside of Anger) takes a couple of pages from Spike Lee's playbook on how to tackle the thorny subject of 9/11. As with subplots in Lee's 25th Hour and Inside Man, this is more about the recovery than the ruin -- the film doesn't beat us over the head with the Sept. 11 specter, but neither does it ever allow us to forget how that tragedy hovers around the everyday actions of New York denizens. Cheadle provides the movie with a sturdy center around which Sandler can orbit with his character's many moods; only a plotline involving a needy nymphomaniac (Saffron Burrows) feels superfluous. Then again, that subplot exemplifies Reign Over Me in a nutshell: messy, demanding, and insatiable in its appetites.
DVD extras include a making-of piece, a musical jam session with Sandler and Cheadle, and a photo montage.
Movie: ***
Extras: *1/2
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS (1964). A genuine cult item whose fans have kept it on the cinematic radar for decades, this adaptation of Daniel Defoe's novel plunges the classic story into outer space: The result isn't silly sci-fi fluff (as its title might suggest) but rather an intelligent, imaginative and beautifully shot drama that's equally competent during both of its distinct halves. The early going centers on the efforts of Commander Kit Draper (Paul Mantee) to survive the hostile Martian terrain after his rocket is forced to make a crash landing; with only a little monkey to keep him company, he quickly has to find air, food and water sources on this unexplored planet. The second part of the film introduces the character of "Friday" (Victor Lundin), an enslaved alien who has escaped from his captors and strikes up a camaraderie with Draper. Three-time Oscar winner Winton C. Hoch (The Quiet Man) filmed the movie in Death Valley, and he, director Byron Haskin, co-writers Ib Melchior and John Higgins, and a crack production team manage to create a color-saturated landscape that's as beautiful as it is deadly. Nifty special effects (love those zippy spaceships!) only add to the fun.
DVD extras include audio commentary with various cast and crew members, a feature on the film's science, a new music video for Lundin's song "Robinson Crusoe on Mars," and excerpts from the original screenplay.
Movie: ***
Extras: **1/2