The Wrap Up ...
The Illusionist	MCN Review: The Illusionist is a long-gestating project that Bob Yari ended up backing with Michael London as one of the three producers. Edward Norton plays the humorless Illusionist. Paul Giamatti plays the not-as-funny-as-Giamatti-was-clearly-ready-to-make-him police chief who is under the thumb of the scenery licking, bulgy-eyed Rufus Sewell. And what brings them all together is the lovely Jessica Biel, whose creamy skin and bee-sting lips offset her modern woman vibe... along with some very... slow... dialogue... readings... Unfortunately, the nice looking film, shot in Prague for 1900 Vienna, never digs deep into the passion. And for me, the tension of the narrative was shot dead when I realized exactly what would happen in the rest of the film sometime in the first hour. And indeed... every single expectation was met. Sad.
The Beauty Academy of Kabul Sir! No Sir! When the Levees Broke	In the wake of the allied invasion of Afghanistan, many westerners unfamiliar with Islamic culture envisioned women freely roaming the streets of Kabul unencumbered by chadors, burkas and other coverings demanded by the Taliban. Not only would these women be allowed the political and professional options denied them by fundamentalists, but they also would suddenly demand cosmetics and hair-care products featured in ads from fashion magazines. But, just as gas prices failed to drop after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Max Factor didn't realize windfall profits in the wake of the collapse of the Taliban. The glow of hope that arose from the liberation of Kabul has faded even further as the Taliban have re-emerged from their caves in the mountains of Pakistan. None of this should detract, however, from an enjoyment of Liz Mermin's highly entertaining The Beauty Academy of Kabul. The film documents what happened after a group of western stylists, including Afghan-American women, opened a school to teach Afghan women the art of fixing hair and using makeup. If only the mercenary capitalists of Halliburton were as good at their job as these women were in their's, it's possible we wouldn't find ourselves in the mess we're in today. Like Winter Soldier, Sir! No Sir! reminds us of the movement led by American soldiers and veterans to end the war in Vietnam on their terms, not those of military brass or megalomaniacs in Washington. People tend to forget that not all anti-war activists looked as if they'd just exited a Grateful Dead concert. Many wore the uniforms of the U.S. armed forces, and carried medals won in combat. Failed presidential candidate John Kerry was among these courageous men and women, even though, three decades later, he would allow Republican draft-dodgers to challenge his patriotism and mock the struggle of fellow vets who dared challenge government lies. Dave Zeiger's film goes beyond the Winter Soldier hearings, to remind us of how a confluence of activism, anti-war synergy, coffee-house culture and underground media helped force an end to an unpopular war. (It also helps explain why the Bush administration has yet to embrace a renewal of the draft, which could flood the military with unhappy non-professionals.) HBO used Spike Lee's heart-breaking four-part documentary on the horrifying toll paid by New Orleans residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to mark the one-year anniversary of the deluge. Lee's powerful visual images complemented the first-person testimony of everyday citizens who'd lost everything, musicians known and unknown, relief workers, police, politicians and celebrities with roots in the saturated soil. It also presented a withering indictment of state, local and federal governments' inability to protect and comfort their constituencies. The DVD adds a new act to the four-part documentary, as well as a 105-minute epilogue with more interviews and insights, and a gallery of photos by David Lee, with music by Terence Blanchard. -- Gary Dretzka
Jackass Number Two	If the approval of America's critics couldn't throw a monkey wrench into MTV's Jackass franchise, nothing will. In a 180-degree reversal of opinion from the reviews accorded the first feature-length Jackass, four years ago, this summer's sequel won the unqualified approval of two-thirds of the nation's great thinkers. It must have sent Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O and the gang screeching back to the drawing board, wondering what they did wrong … or, at least, differently. The answer to the former would be, nothing. Jackass: Number Two dialed up the gross-out meter to include gags that set new standards for bad taste, while also enlisting innocent animals in their traveling minstrel show. This time, critics came to the consensus opinion that the lads weren't simply a bunch of knuckleheads who saw an opportunity to get rich performing insanely dangerous stunts, and took it. All of a sudden, the self-destructive routines were being seen as homages to the great cartoon characters and slapstick artists of the 20th Century. Indeed, Knoxville has said in interviews that he drew inspiration from Tom & Jerry, Wile E. Coyote (the human-rocket gag) and other Looney Tunes characters. Who knows, though, what inspired Chris Pontius to put a cotton puppet on his penis, and use it to taunt snakes? Ditto, adding freshly squeezed horse semen to a cocktail? Like Borat, Jackass dares audiences not to laugh uproariously at behavior that would get anyone else fired, arrested or committed to a mental hospital. The unrated Number Two DVD package adds 16 deleted scenes, 29 additional segments, outtakes, a making-of featurette and the Karazy music video. Bon appetite. -- Gary Dretzka
A Scanner Darkly	Adapted by Richard Linklater from one of acclaimed sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick's bleaker visions of the not-so-distant future, A Scanner Darkly imagines an Orange County plagued by free-roaming drug addicts, omnipresent surveillance cameras, rampant paranoid and deceit (sort of like The O.C. on psychotropic drugs). As he did in Waking Life, Linklater employs the computer-animation technique interpolated rotoscoping to pile another layer of dread onto what already is a pretty creepy experience. For instance, in the opening sequence, a man addicted to a powerful substance known as D performs his morning toilet while being swarmed over by imaginary aphids. As drawn, the addict appears to exist in a nether-zone between reality and artificiality, as does an undercover cop (Keanu Reeves) who morphs from a solid member of mainstream society into a demented freakazoid during a speech to a local civic group. Or, at least, that's what we're led to believe. Without the animation, these early scenes wouldn't deliver quite the same punch. Take that as fair warning. Like the Dick story, A Scanner Darkly isn't for the feint of heart or anyone with a Pollyannish view of the things to come. Fans of David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch and Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas should find plenty to chew on here, and the presence of Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane and Robert Downey Jr. doesn't hurt, either. The bonus features help explain Linklater's methodology and unique vision. -- Gary Dretzka
Idiocracy	Movie City Indie: Fox dumped Idiocracy, Mike Judge's savage, often very funny satire of media and mediocrity over the weekend, with little notice and no advance screenings. After catching it on Saturday with an audience of five (and I seemed to be the only English speaker in the room), I was pleased to run across three other moviegoers over the holiday who had seen it and were buzzing about its brazen “Planet Butt-head” mix of stupid characters behaving in numbingly stupid ways. Luke Wilson plays very ordinary Army private Joe Bowers who’s conscripted into a cryogenics experiment that should last a year, but lasts until The Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505. He wakes to a world of relentless crudity, but of Kafkaesque familiarity and repetition, with a fistful of familiar brand names, transformed into gaudier (truthier?) versions of their current incarnations: Fox News is read by naked bodybuilders, FuddRuckers has transformed into ButtFuckers (where a kiddy birthday party can be seen under the sign) and Starbucks has become a chain of handjob parlors.
Little Miss Sunshine	Already cited by many critics as one the year's 10 best films, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' kooky Little Miss Sunshine is that rare Sundance-launched comedy that was as funny at sea level as it seemed in the thin air of Park City. Even more unusual, Little Miss Sunshine not only made money for its creators, but it also rewarded the $10-million gamble taken by Fox Searchlight for distribution rights. Now that the year's-best lists are coming up rosy, as well, the DVD release is ready to take Little Miss Sunshine into the same financial territory as Napoleon Dynamite. These days, when it comes to movies about dysfunctional families -- and there are plenty of them -- there's a very thin line between drama and comedy. In Little Miss Sunshine, Grandpa Hoover snorts cocaine and encourages pageant-obsessed Olive to do a partial striptease to Super Freak for the talent phase of the contest. Uncle Frank is a jilted gay professor, and Proust scholar, who's just been released from the nuthouse. A teenage boy communicates only through curt hand-written notes. Mom seems pretty normal, but Dad's career as a self-help guru is foundering. Individually, their stories border on tragic. Thrown together in a confined space -- on a trip from Albuquerque to southern California in a VW bus, for example -- the interaction is funny, bordering on hilarious. Their ability to survive and persevere as a family unit against the forces of conformity is downright inspirational. Although academy voters may consign the Best Picture hopes of Little Miss Sunshine to the Indie Spirits, it's extremely likely that Alan Arkin, Toni Collette and possibly Steve Carrell, who plays against type as the uncle, will compete in supporting categories. Besides commentary, the package includes four alternate endings and a music video. -- Gary Dretzka Pride, Unprejudiced: Little Miss Sunshine. Funny, with exemplary moments of timing, plus Dayton and Faris know how to dress a set with understatement, and they also recognize another facet of Toni Colette's beauty.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend	It's been a long time since Ivan Reitman has directed a comedy as good or as popular as Ghostbusters, Stripes, Kindergarten Cop or Dave. His appealing summer superhero-spoof, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, didn't make anyone forget those successes, but it was a step in the right direction. In it, Luke Wilson plays an unlucky-in-love architect, Matt, who falls for a timid art dealer, Jenny (Uma Thurman), who moonlights as the super-quick, super-powerful, super-randy G-Girl. Unlike other superheroes, G-Girl lets her boyfriend in on the ruse, and, in fact, employs her talents as a sexual aid. The problem is, G-Girl becomes super-jealous whenever Matt comes within a foot feet of an attractive young woman, especially a blond colleague at the office. Her possessiveness convinces Matt to split from Jen/G-Girl, a move that proves disastrous for him and his dates. Matt is required to deal, as well, with arch-villain Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard), who has carried a torch for G-Girl since high school. The result is a one-joke picture that wants everyone to like it, but refuses to ratchet up the shenanigans for fear it would it would threaten its studio-mandated PG-13 status. It would have be fun to see an R-rated, director's-cut version of My Super Ex-Girlfriend that teeters on the edge of being a soft-core bedroom farce. Reitman already had the makings of one with a neat airborne shag, a pair of wall-pounding orgasms and catfights for Matt and G-Girl's attention worthy of the WWE. Too bad … another opportunity wasted. -- Gary Dretzka
All The King's Men	Sean Penn's energetic portrayal of populist firebrand Willie Stark was probably the only good reason for spending time with All the King's Men in theaters. Much delayed by its distributors, it is the second adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning study of a Southern politician whose rise from the grass roots of rural Louisiana to the governor's mansion personified Lord Acton's observation, Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. Those old enough to remember the original will have a difficult time accepting Penn in the role that earned Broderick Crawford a Best Actor trophy, but, in fact, he better fits the profile of the book's inspiration, Huey Long. (James Gandolfini, who plays kingmaker Tiny Duffy, looks enough like Broderick to be his son.) As good as it is, however, Penn's performance is diluted by the muddled script and portentous direction of Steve Zaillion, who seems to have bitten off more than he chew here. (Who knows, though, the inevitable director's cut could be better.) Also somewhat discomfiting are the Brits -- Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet -- assigned to play Southerners at a time before the range of distinctly Louisiana dialects was homogenized by exposure to national TV and radio announcers. The extras include featurettes on the film's production, the process of adapting Warren's novel, shooting on location and The Legend and Lore of Huey Long, as well as deleted scenes and an alternate ending. -- Gary Dretzka MCN Review: So, what’s wrong with All The Kings Men? If you had only one target to affix, it would have to be on writer(adapter)/director Steven Zaillian, who shows breathtaking arrogance in his effort to top the 1949 original based on the Robert Penn Warren novel.
Lady In The Water	Critics sharpened their knives before disemboweling Lady in the Water, M. Night Shyamalan's undernourished attempt to merge supernatural menace with bedtime storytelling. As if they needed any more incentive than they already had after watching The Village, Shyamalan wrote into Lady in the Water a critic who appears to be there simply to be eaten by a monstrous grass-backed animal. He also made headlines in the entertainment press after news of his pissing match with Disney was made public in the book, The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale. Hubris caught up with Shyamalan -- and subsequent distributor, Warner Bros. -- in the form of an anemic domestic box-office return. I'd be surprised if Lady in the Water didn't fare much better in DVD, if only because that's when adult viewers while take a chance on it. Paul Giamatti plays Cleveland Heep, a mopey apartment superintendent who discovers a pale-skinned sea-nymph (Bryce Dallas Howard) residing in the complex's swimming pool and provides shelter for her in his bungalow. After consulting with the mother of one of the apartment building's many oddball tenants, it becomes clear that she actually is a mythical critter in whose hands rests the future of mankind. Unfortunately for mankind, this Narf revealed herself to a guy who lives near a forest sheltering dog-like creatures who feast on such nymphs-out-of-water. Heep is assisted in his life-saving mission by residents desperately in need of any kind of savior. The film's overriding problem comes in its inability to decide whether it wants to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller or a fairy tale suitable for teens and adults. The creatures' moves are telegraphed well ahead of time by the ominous musical score and lingering build-ups to attacks. At the same time, these threats to the Narf's safety overwhelm the fairy-tale aspects of the tale. Bedtime stories are intended to last only as long as it takes for a child to effect the transition from wakefulness to dreamland. This one lasts 110 minutes. The extras include the featurette, Lady in the Water: A Bedtime Story; a six-part documentary, Reflections of Lady in the Water; auditions, deleted scenes and a gag reel. -- Gary Dretzka MCN Review: The movie is so steeped in so much stuff that has nothing to do with whether a movie is good, bad, or indifferent. There are, obviously, the other movies M. Night Shyamalan has made. And there is the book that tells the saga of the birth and production of the film, written by Michael Bamberger, but clearly loaded with Night's voice, that tells its readers more than anyone needs to know about the making of the film before the film is seen.
The Last Kiss	If Paul Haggis is to win a third consecutive Oscar for Best Screenplay, it will have to be for his work on Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima-set dramas. It certainly won't be for The Last Kiss. Based on the Italian dramedy, L'Ultimo bacio, Haggis and Tony Goldwyn's film comments on the fragility of personal and sexual relationships at a time when such things ought come with expiration-date warnings. Michael, the 29-year-old architect portrayed by Zach Braff (Scrubs, Garden State) is freaking out because his fiancé is pregnant, his friends are heading for splitsville, no one likes their jobs and he's about to embark on an affair with a college tootsie (Rachel Bilson, of The O.C.) who still lives in the dorms. If it weren't Michael's bickering in-laws-to be (Blythe Danner, Tom Wilkinson) there would be no reason for anyone over 30 to care about the comparatively insignificant plights of these hapless characters. The in-laws' icy presence serves as a reminder that today's generation of whining yuppies better get accustomed to such bumps in the road. By making the seductress in Last Kiss as pert, pretty and unblemished as Bilson, however, the filmmakers have ignored the unlikelihood of her wanting anything to do with a nebbish experiencing buyer's remorse. All of this sturm und drang takes place in and around the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, a beautiful city perfectly suited for such fantasies. With all of the options available to her, it hardly seems possible that Bilson's character would settle for a guy -- Braff plays them as well as anyone -- who's so much needier and boring than most of the man-boys she could attract in the student union. Still, the movie looks great and many young adults will empathize with the familiar characters. The reaction of older viewers will amount to three words, Oh, grow up. Besides commentaries and making-of featurettes, the DVD package includes a Cary Brothers music video, Ride, directed by Braff. -- Gary Dretzka
Walt Disney Treasures More Silly Symphonies The Complete Pluto, Volume Two Your Host, Walt Disney The Mickey Mouse Club Featuring the Hardy Boys	Disney has quickly followed up the release of its revered True Life Adventures series with another quartet of titles in the Walt Disney Treasures collection. The second set of Silly Symphonies cartoons completes the series of music-themed shorts Walt Disney began in 1929, with The Skeleton Dance. The series was launched, in part, to allow his animation team to experiment and evolve gradually with the medium. Some of the images would be updated and introduced into later shorts and features, as well. We're told that some of the cartoons were allowed to gather dust on warehouse shelves due to their stereotypical representations of black, yellow and brown characters. (Of course, if it wasn't for the stereotypes, there wouldn't be any characters of color at all.) Along with the return of Pluto comes a commemorative box featuring shorts in the Hardy Boys series shown during The Mickey Mouse Club. I'd forgotten the words recited at the opening of every new segment of The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure -- Gold doubloons and pieces of eight/Handed down to Applegate -- but hearing it again brought a smile to my face. In it, Disney Everyboys Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk imitated the sleuthing techniques of their father, private detective Fenton Hardy. Uncle Walt is represented in snippets gleaned from his introductions to the Disneyland anthology series, TV specials and promotional material for new Disney products and theme-park attractions. As the Master of Synergy, Disney involved fans young and old in the creation process, much as making-of featurettes are used today on HBO and Showtime to promote upcoming movies. Unlike today's celebrity-centric efforts, though, Disney treated his artists, set designers and engineers with the same familiarity and respect as he did the stars of his shows. -- Gary Dretzka
Sparkle Five years before Dreamgirls opened on Broadway -- 30 years before the musical was adapted for film -- Sparkle told the hard-luck story of three young black women from Brooklyn, who, in the late-'50s, struggled to become pop stars. It opened in the waning years of the blaxploitation period, when urban audiences had precious little to look forward to besides movies about gangsters, pimps, kung-fu fighters and unruly high-school students. If memory serves, Sparkle wasn't given much of an opportunity to find white viewers, who, by this time, had abandoned downtown theaters for the cramped multiplexes of the suburbs. Distribution patterns for feature films were based as much on segregation as budgets in any school district in Mississippi. Too bad. Finally, Sparkle has arrived on DVD, and fans of the movie version of Dreamgirls will want to check out performances by Irene Cara (pre-Fame), Phillip Michael Thomas (pre-Miami Vice), Lonette McKee (in her debut role), Mary Alice and Dorian Harewood, as well as a Joel Schumacher screenplay and music by the late, great Curtis Mayfield. Like Dreamgirls, Sparkle owes a great deal to the Supremes' saga, but neither production was strictly biographical, and it remains an entertaining and moving experience. -- Gary Dretzka
Invincible The arrival, on DVD, of the NFL-authorized Invincible coincides with the theatrical openings of stadium-pleasers Rocky Balboa and We Are Marshall. The timing of all three releases could hardly be more conducive to successful launch campaigns, in that it will be difficult to turn on a television in the next three weeks without finding some kind of sporting event, whether it's football, basketball or hockey. The marketing options and tie-ins are virtually endless. (Disney, which made Invincible, also owns ESPN and ABC.) Invincible recalls the inspirational story of Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), a 30-year-old substitute teacher and bartender from Philadelphia who beat huge odds to realize his dream of playing for the hometown Eagles. Blessed with the imprimatur of the NFL, Invincible was able to affect the kind of professional sheen -- actual team names, uniforms, athletes -- absent in most other sports movies, and it shows. Despite the familiarity of such against-all-odds, feel-good dramas (Rudy, The Rookie, Glory Road and, of course, Rocky), there always seems to be an audience ready to cheer on the little guy. These films are relatively inexpensive to make, tend to stay in theaters for more than two weekends at a time and need return only moderate box-office returns to be considered successful before entering the DVD marketplace. The real Vince Papale is on hand to provide commentary. -- Gary Dretzka
The Black Dahlia Although The Black Dahlia carries the imprimatur of author James Ellroy, this adaptation of his fine novel is more interesting as an exercise in style than as a crime story well told. Director Brian De Palma knows his way behind a camera, but, sometimes, his technical skills overwhelm the intricacies of a story of which most viewers already have a working knowledge, and we're not allowed to focus on the heart of the matter. His Black Dahlia imagines the circumstances that may have led to the notorious, unsolved butchering of Elizabeth Short. Mia Kirshner plays the aspiring actress, mostly in flashback, who was forced to make ends meet by appearing in stag films, and, apparently, was on the wrong set at wrong time. Assigned to the case are a pair of golden-boy cops -- Lee "Mr. Fire" Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky "Mr. Ice" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) -- who earned the respect of their commander by agreeing to compete against each other in a high-profile boxing match. Blanchard is cock-sure of his crime-fighting abilities, but is weighed down by a grudge similar to the one that weighed upon Wendell Bud White in L.A. Confidential. As much as Bleichert likes and admires his new partner, he learns to fear his violent outbursts. Scarlett Johannson is Blanchard's dreamboat girlfriend, the original hooker with a heart of gold, who also takes a benign shine to Bleichert. In the course of their investigation into Short's murder, we're afforded a glimpse of a Hollywood very few tourists would have enjoyed in the post-war years. Prominent among the attractions is a lesbian nightclub, which, if it didn't actually exist, would have been invented by DePalma simply to provide a very cool nexus for potential witnesses, killers and crime fighters (k.d. lang plays the club's headliner). After about an hour into the story, however, The Black Dahlia feels more like a collection of outtakes from L.A. Confidential, True Confessions and Chinatown than a single cinematic entity. Never less than watchable, too much of design elements and dialogue feels unnatural. The DVD benefits from interviews with Ellroy, whose mother was the victim of a similar crime, and other background featurettes. One, The De Palma Touch, has the distinction of being presented by Volkswagen. Yes, it's come to this. -- Gary Dretzka
Vera School of Senses Those fans of Apocalypto, who couldn't get enough of Mayan culture and language, would do well to check out this barely distributed quasi-religious fantasy from Mexico. In it, a peasant spelunker triggers a rockslide while hammering away at something of interest on the wall an underground cave. Roused after being knocked senseless, Juan finds himself in a cavern vastly dissimilar from the one he entered in the morning … so different, in fact, as to be the waiting room to the afterlife. Joining Juan in his journey back home is a mysterious blue humanoid (remarkably played by 75-pound dancer, Urara Kusanagi) who could easily pass for E.T.'s older brother. It's at this point that director Francisco Athié embarks on a surrealistically drawn path previously charted by such fantasists as Carlos Castenada, William Burroughs, Jean Cocteau, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Andrei Tarkovsky, Hayao Miyazaki, Aldous Huxley and Terence McKenna. Along the way, Athie also references Catholic mysticism, Mayan and Aztec iconography, shamanism and various Books of the Dead. And, yet, there are parts that seem to owe as much to the simple visions of such non-hallucinogenic Hollywood dreamers as Steven Spielberg and Ray Harryhausen (especially in Vera's hilarious dance with a skeleton). There isn't much dialogue, but when words are exchanged between Juan and his muses, they're Mayan. You won't find Vera in the local Blockbuster, but, for adventurous viewers, it's worth a visit to the Facets or Netflix websites. It also would make a terrific midnight movie. Also from Facets Video (and Hungary) comes School of Senses, a remarkably erotic drama adapted from a novel by Peter Eszterhazy. Immediately reminiscent of The Incredible Lightness of Being, it tells the story of Lili Csokonai, a waifish gypsy girl who falls for a married businessman and eventually is repaid for her passion with heartbreak and physical pain. In the meantime, though, we're as exhilarated as Lili is by her sexual awakening, even if it's tempered by glimpses into her crystal ball. Made in 1996, it has been seen by very few people outside eastern Europe. School of Senses deserves a much better fate in DVD. -- Gary Dretzka
The Covenant The Wicker Man (1973/2006) Early in his career, Rennie Harlin was one of the go-to guys when it came to big-budget action-thrillers (Diehard 2, Cliffhanger), but his collaborations with then-wife and production partner Geena Davis (Speechless, Cutthroat Island, The Long Kiss Goodnight) nearly killed both of their careers. It certainly sapped their creative juices. Harlin's latest would-be thriller, Covenant, was deemed so anemic, it was released before critics were given an opportunity to take potshots at it. Even so, the young cast and supernatural storyline found a teen audience willing to suspend its disbelief long enough to keep it in theaters a few weeks. It resembled The Craft, in that the protagonists are witches -- this time, of the male persuasion -- descended from a family that avoided prosecution in the witch hunts that occurred in Ipswich, Mass., circa 1692. Rated PG-13, The Convenant is pretty tame compared to most horror flicks. The DVD comes with commentary by Harlin and a making-of featurette. History tells us that no matter how in love Hollywood is with re-makes and updated versions of classic and cult favorites, few are made without great financial risk. Films that attain such status do so on the shoulders of generations of movie lovers, who live in dread of seeing their loved ones mangled and misconstrued by philistines. Such was the case with The Wicker Man, Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer's much-admired tale of paganism and ritual ball-busting run amok on a spooky Scottish isle. The original has been re-released on DVD in a special Two-Disc Special Edition, which offers splendid commentary and other supplementary material. The remake seemed to have everything going for it, except a solid reason to exist. It starred Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, Molly Parker and Leelee Sobieski, and was directed by one of our foremost interpreters of the battle between the sexes, Neil LaBute. They needn't have bothered. Like The Covenant, it opened without the benefit of critical review, and quickly sank like a stone. If nothing else, folks disappointed by the re-make -- and, God knows, someone must have liked it -- will sample Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland and Edward Woodward's work in the original. That's not a bad thing, at all. -- Gary Dretzka
Idlewild There are so many good things happening in Idlewild, it's impossible not to recommend it to audiences looking for the next great musical. The hyper-kinetic invention of hip-hop sensations, Andre 3000 Benjamin and Antwan Big Boi Patton (a.k.a. Outkast), overflows with so many disparate ideas, conceits and fantasies that you want to applaud, even as the storylines begin to overlap and snarl into a knot of barely harnessed ambition. Idlewild follows the progress of a pair of childhood friends as they struggle to fulfill their disparate Depression Era dreams, while also honoring the expectations of family members. Percival's deeply religious father assumes that his son (Patton) will follow him into the undertaking business -- one of the few careers in which a black man could prosper in the Deep South -- but he is most happy playing piano in a madly swinging speakeasy, Church. Under the tutelage of a slick older gangster (Ving Rhames), Rooster advances quickly from novice to journeyman bootlegger. To the great consternation of his wife, Rooster's business keeps him up until all hours and in close proximity to the hootchie-kootchie girls who frequent Church. The joint jumps with music out of the Cab Calloway songbook, while the dancing recalls the Nicholas Brothers and Busby Berkeley. The plots thicken when Rooster's mentor is killed by a dangerous rival (Terrence Howard), and Percival falls for an ambitious torch singer. Here, Idlewild strays to close to territory already covered in Robert Altman's Kansas City and Francis Coppola's Cotton Club, minus the white characters. Even so, the inability of Benjamin, Patton and director Bryan Barber to decide if their film is a musical with drama, a drama with music or a dramatic musical with neat visual effects is trumped by the sensational music, dancing and costumes. The DVD package comes with a deleted scene, new songs and Outkast music videos. -- Gary Dretzka
The Architect While a knowledge of racial politics in Chicago isn't necessary to enjoy Matt Tauber's intense ensemble drama, it certainly helps. Anthony LaPaglia is too young to play the architect who actually designed -- with all the best intentions -- the city's disastrous public housing projects, but the reliably excellent Aussie does a fine job playing the hub around which several disturbing family and civic problems play out simultaneously. Adapted from a play by David Greig, The Architect introduces LaPaglia's Leo Waters at the exact point in his life when his wife (Isabella Rossellini) is evidencing symptoms of an impending nervous breakdown, his two teenage kids are wrestling with their sexual identities and a resident of the projects (Viola Davis) leads a drive to tear down his failed creations. Overly theatrical and extremely downbeat, The Architect is nonetheless graced with excellent performances throughout. It also asks us to think about what happens when good ideas go bad, as was the case with the Bauhaus-inspired high-rise projects in Chicago, where the buildings were allowed to fall into disrepair and gangs turned them into shooting galleries. When all the various storylines begin merging, The Architect feels very much like Paul Haggis' Crash, and that's not a bad thing, at all -- Gary Dretzka
Beerfest If this gross-out comedy accomplished anything last summer, it was to discourage the distributors of the other movie with beer' in its title -- Artie Lange's Beer League -- to limit its exposure to a relative handful of screens. Created by the Broken Lizard troupe, also responsible for Super Troopers and Club Dread, Beerfest is aimed directly at the many teenage boys who consider their first projectile vomit to be a right of passage. The storyline revolves around a series of beer-chugging contests that culminate in a showdown between sets of cousins -- one American, the other German -- from an extended family of brewmeisters. The DVD arrives in R and unrated versions, which vary primarily in the length and crudity of the boob shots, masturbation gags and fantasies about sex with fat women. It's difficult to imagine how Donald Sutherland, Cloris Leachman, Willie Nelson and Jürgen Prochnow were convinced to participate, but it probably had little to do with the promise of free beer. -- Gary Dretzka
The Wim Wenders Collection: Vol. 2 Tracks/New Year's Day/Someone to Love Forbidden Hollywood Will Rogers Collection 2 A more precise title for Anchor Bay's terrific compilation of early to mid-career efforts by the prolific German filmmaker would be The Wim Wenders Collection: Vol. 1¾. That's because it adds restored editions of the little-seen Tokyo-Ga, Room 666, Wrong Move: Six Days in the Life of Wilhelm, The Scarlett Letter and A Trick of Light to the first volume's The American Friend, Lightning Over Water and Notebook on Cities & Clothes. Mainstream audiences know Wenders better for such titles as Paris, Texas, Hammett, Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club and The End of Violence, but these DVDs will be of interest to anyone who loves international cinema. The respect he pays fellow directors Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller and Yasujiro Ozu is as infectious as it is illuminating. Indeed, in Room 666, he interviews a who's who of filmmakers, simply posing the question, What is the future of cinema. Anyone fortunate to have seen Liliana Cavani's sumptuous Ripley's Game, will want to check out The American Friend, if only to study Dennis Hopper's very different interpretation of Patricia Highsmith's brainy sociopath. Hopper's Ripley seems to come from a different corner of the universe than John Malkovich's, and, for that matter, the younger Ripleys of Alain Delon and Matt Damon. It's also fun to watch the seven directors -- including Ray and Fuller -- who Wenders enlisted to play criminals. Playing the six-degrees-of-separation game, Lightning Over Water documents Ray's struggle to complete a final film, before succumbing to cancer. Ray directed Hopper in Rebel Without a Cause. Wenders' choice of Hopper to play Ripley was made after seeing him in Henry Jaglom's Tracks. In Tracks, a soldier (Hopper) is assigned to accompany the body of a friend killed in Vietnam to California for burial. In the course of the train trip, the soldier experiences flashbacks to the war while also interacting with a diverse group of passengers. Hopper hadn't starred in a feature film for a while, and the movie was held back from non-festival distribution for four years. Still, it helped resuscitate a career stalled by Hollywood's pigeonholing of Hopper as a drug-addled madman. Soon would come Apocalypse Now and The American Friend. Jaglom's Someone to Love and New Year's Day are far more representative of the kind of introspective (to the point of voyeuristic) and improvisational talk fests that made him a cult hero. In Someone to Love, Jaglom's muse, Orson Welles, made his final screen performance, while an all-star cast of actors discussed love and loneliness. The more things change, the more they stay the same, especially in Hollywood. The films in Forbidden Hollywood Collection -- Waterloo Bridge, Baby Face, Red-Headed Woman -- represent the type of steamy material that put the studio on a collision course with grandstanding lawmakers. To avoid a confrontation that some felt would lead to government-imposed standards and economic sanctions, the industry created a censorship board of its own. For the next 30 years, the Hayes Production Code dictated exactly what filmmakers could depict in their movies, right down to the number of feet could be left on the bed during love-making sessions. These three titles are among the films that put the final nail in the coffin. James Whale's 1931 Waterloo Bridge, once thought lost, describes the romance between a London prostitute (Mae Clarke) and a young soldier on furlough during World War I. In the 1932 Red-Headed Woman, Jean Harlow played an ambitious secretary who uses her sexual wiles to pry her boss from his wife. Also included are two versions of the 1933 Baby Face, in which Barbara Stanwyck plays a small-town hooker who moves to New York, where she attempts to sleep her way up the ladder. The steamier version of Baby Face also was long thought lost. Before his untimely death in 1935, humorist Will Rogers was one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet. (Try to imagine Bob Hope or Johnny Carson trying to perform their monologues in chaps and twirling a lariat.) On stage and in the movies, his aw-shucks delivery and old-fashioned logic camouflaged the potency of his populist political commentary and us-against-them quips. Rogers' Hollywood career spanned nearly two decades and survived the transition from silence to sound. 20th Century Fox has just released its second collection of Rogers films, which have been restored and are accompanied by commentary and biographical material. The titles are Ambassador Bill, David Harum, Mr Skitch and Too Busy to Work. The earlier collection was comprised of Life Begins at Forty, Steamboat Round the Bend, Doubting Thomas and In Old Kentucky. -- Gary Dretzka
Dane Cook's Tourgasm/Vicious Circle Simple Life 4: 'Til Death Do Us Part Two-A-Days: Hoover High -- The Complete First Season You don't have to be a 20-year-old slacker or an over-served frat boy to find the humor in Dane Cook's material, but it sure helps. There are few hotter comedians today than Cook, who uses the kind of boisterous exaggeration, sexual bravado and fart jokes usually reversed for Monday-morning coffee breaks at the factory. Judging from the sales of tickets for his concerts, it's something at which he's very accomplished. The HBO reality series, Tourgasm, followed Cook and fellow comics Gary Gulman, Jay Davis and Robert Bobby Kelly on an extensive bus tour across America. Each episode contained brief stage appearances, practical jokes, arguments and raunchy conversations on the bus. Vicious Circle was recorded during a full-length performance, in front of 18,000 hometown fans. The DVD adds the two-hour DANEgerous concert and featurettes. Paris & Nicole may never be confused with Martin & Lewis, but their unexpected split shocked the entertainment industry, anyway. That's because it presented a substantial challenge for the producers of the fourth season of Fox's reality hit, The Simple Life. Most of the show's irrepressible charm derived from watching these daughters of privilege make a mockery of the everyday chores and concerns of average Americans, while also attempting to perform tasks even pre-schoolers can do without operating manuals. In Season 4, the ladies were assigned similar duties but never together. It didn't really work, but there were plenty of funny moments, anyway. The question that remains unanswered, of course, is how both women can be so delightfully ditzy on television and so ludicrous in real life. How did ESPN miss out on Two-A-Days, a reality show that documented the efforts of one Alabama high school team's drive to a fourth state football championship in five years? Perhaps, it had something to do with all the goofy stuff that occurred off the playing field, and fits MTV's increasingly music-free schedule to a T. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the same viewers who failed to boost ratings for NBC's Friday Night Lights got their fix of jock culture on MTV and lacked an appetite for more jock-sniffing. -- Gary Dretzka