The Wrap Up ...
Georgia Rule	Not surprisingly, critics used Georgia Rule as a pin cushion when it opened earlier this summer. Besides being directed by Garry Marshall -- a favorite whipping boy of pundits -- the family drama also dragged with it the stench of manufactured controversy. It was during the making of Georgia Rule that Morgan Creek CEO James G. Robinson famously sent Lindsay Lohan a letter -- and, presumably, cc'd it to the Hollywood press corps -- warning the 20-year-old that her discourteous, irresponsible and unprofessional behavior was unacceptable and wouldn't be tolerated … until the tabloids moved on to next scandal du jour, at least. Funny, then, that her character turned out to be every bit as undisciplined and unmanageable as Lohan was supposed to have been off the set. As the picture opens, her Rachel is being escorted by her alcoholic, post-hippy mother (Felicity Huffman) to the wilds of Idaho, where she'll spend the summer with her Mormon Grandma Georgia (Jane Fonda). Rachel is a foul-mouthed brat, who meets her match in a woman tough enough to stick a bar of soap in her pie-hole for taking the lord's name in vain. Before long, the girl not only has corrupted the handsome Mormon boy down the block, but she's also disrupted plans for his spiritual union with a squeaky-clean local gal and his two-year mission. Apparently, Rachel has inherited several bad traits from her mother, not the least of which is telling whopping lies. In real life, even Dr. Phil couldn't put this Humpty Dumpty of a family together, again. Being Hollywood, however, Marshall and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Mark Andrus manage to overcome three generations' worth of emotional trauma in just under two hours. As such, Georgia Rule is the kind of cinematic train wreck that plays far better on DVD than in theaters at $9 a ticket. The bonus features are the usual array of commentary, deleted scenes and making-of material. The film carries an R-rating, for raw language and sexual content of the fully clothed variety. Parents are rightly cautioned not to use Georgia Rule as a babysitter for kids who fell in love with Lohan, circa The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday. Those days are over for good. Lohan's really quite a decent actor, just not a very good role model. -- Gary Dretzka
Wild Hogs	If they really something constructive to say about male menopause and other midlife crises, you'd assume that such A-listers as John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy would have chosen a more substantial vehicle than Wild Hogs. Instead, they wasted their considerable comedic talents on a paint-by-numbers crowd-pleaser. The stars play old friends from Cincinnati who share a love for motorcycles, but have been too pre-occupied with the necessities of middle-class life to do much more than ride their Harleys in parades. When their worlds simultaneously begin to spin out of control, the Wild Hogs decide to hit the road for a few days and re-live their Easy Rider days. Their destination is southern California where the can breathe some regenerative air during a ride north on the Pacific Coast Highway. That's not a bad premise for a buddy film, really, but director Walt Becker (Van Wilder) was incapable of wringing a single surprise encounter or unexpected plot twist from Brad Copeland's screenplay. The actors seemed to enjoy driving through the magnificent New Mexican countryside, however, and the scenery is the film's one saving grace. Not surprisingly, perhaps, star-struck audiences ignored the copious warnings of critics and made Wild Hogs a big hit. No surprise there, either. The bonus material includes a making-of featurette, alternate ending, deleted scenes and coupons from a transmission-repair outlet. -- Gary Dretzka
The Wind That Shakes the Barley	Ken Loach set this intense period drama in 1920, near the end of the British occupation of Ireland's lower counties and at the blood-soaked dawn of the republic. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, The Wind That Shakes the Barley describes how Irish farmers and patriots were able to devise guerrilla tactics capable of driving well-armed British troops and thuggish mercenaries from the island, but couldn't prevent politics from tearing apart their families and communities. Even today, the ramifications of hastily made decisions and pragmatic concessions continue to weigh heavy on Ireland and Great Britain, alike. Cillian Murphy and Padraic Delaney are exceptional as brothers united in revolution but divided by the civil war. Adding greatly to the credence of The Wind That Shakes the Barley was Loach's decision to shoot in County Cork, where much of the rebellion actually took place. The special features include a documentary on Loach and commentary by the director and historian Donal O'Driscoll. Any similarities between the British occupation of Ireland and its role in the Iraq war are anything but coincidental. -- Gary Dretzka
Blades of Glory A Night At the Roxbury: Special Collector's Edition	Ever since The Blues Brothers proved there was life after Saturday Night Live, such synergistically opportunistic producers as Bernie Brillstein and Lorne Michaels have turned out an endless stream of movies based on sketches and characters made popular on NBC's venerable comedy series. With rare exceptions, the results have bordered on the insipid. For every decent feature-length spinoff -- besides The Blues Brothers, only Wayne's World comes immediately to mind -- there were a dozen train wrecks on the order of Coneheads, It's Pat and Stuart Saves His Family. Even though the one-joke A Night at the Roxbury was similarly disastrous, audiences willingly gave Will Ferrell several more opportunities to redeem himself as a comic actor. Chris Kattan wasn't as fortunate. The Special Collector's Edition adds a trio of featurettes to what's already available on DVD, but the sole reason for its re-release is to piggy-back on the marketing campaign for the vastly more entertaining, Blades of Glory. At 40, Ferrell has gotten a bit too long in the tooth to play world-class athletes, but the television networks have turned figure skating into such a freak show it's not difficult to imagine same-sex pairs competition. Here, he was joined by 29-year-old Jon Heder, who likely will be asked to put different spins on Napoleon Dynamite until he goes bald. Heder and Ferrell play rival Olympians -- Chazz is macho, Jimmy is effeminate -- whose dislike for each other resulted in a fistfight during an awards ceremony. After nearly four years of demeaning semi-employment, they are made aware of a loophole that would allow them to participate in pairs competition. Once Chazz and Jimmy get over their initial trepidation, they embark on a collision course to the world championships with the reigning brother-sister team of Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg (Will Arnett, of Arrested Development, and SNL regular Amy Poehler). To maintain an edge over the new competition, Stranz and Fairchild force their disturbingly normal adopted sister (Jenna Fischer, of The Office) relationship to spy on the boys' routine and sabotage their chances of winning. Heder and Ferrell are the stars of the show, but everyone in the ensemble cast is appealing. The presence of real-life Olympians among the actors helps soften the impact of what some might consider to be a cruel parody of figure skating and the dominance of gay men in the sport. Instead, the villains are those promoters, TV producers and obsessive fans who have turned figure skating into an often crass commercial exercise. -- Gary Dretzka
Year of the Dog	Before Molly Shannon reprised her nerdy Catholic-schoolgirl invention, Mary Katherine Gallagher, in Superstar, she was given a prominent role in A Night at the Roxy. As the Emmy-nominated Cleveland native has frequently demonstrated on SNL and in guest appearances on such sitcoms as Seinfeld and Will & Grace, she has a gift for going from sane to psycho in a heartbeat. In Mike White's typically offbeat Year of the Dog, Shannon plays an executive secretary, Peggy, whose many neuroses are compounded by the suspicious death of her beloved pet beagle, Pencil. In a desperate effort to cope with her loss, she accepts the advice of a similarly brittle dog rescuer (Peter Sarsgaard), who convinces her to adopt a hair-trigger German Shepherd. Their relationship is doomed, as well, but in a decidedly non-comic way. Her great disappointment leads Peggy to seek shelter among advocates of animal rights and hard-core vegans, while also plotting revenge against the neighbor she holds responsible for Pencil's demise. Keeping viewers sympathetic to Peggy's sad plight, while acknowledging her increasingly disturbing behavior, requires Shannon and White to maintain their balance on a slippery tightrope. They seem perfectly willing to let us decide for ourselves what to make of Peggy's emotional journey, without employing any of the usual Hollywood tricks or compromises to make our job easier. In addition to commentary by White and Shannon, there are several featurettes, deleted scenes, a gag reel and interviews. -- Gary Dretzka
Offside	Earlier this summer, in Gracie, Carly Schroeder played a New Jersey teenager struggling for the right to play soccer alongside the boys on her school's varsity squad. Based on a true story, it was as entertaining as it was inspirational, if a bit too similar to several dozen other movies about women breaking down gender boundaries. The soccer-loving girls in Jafar Panahi's Offside faced even more formidable odds, and all they wanted to do was watch a match between Iran and Bahrain, along with 80,000 of their male peers in Tehran's Azadi Stadium. Instead, based on their interpretation of the Koran, the country's rulers have forbidden the intermingling of men and women at sporting events, ostensibly because women must be protected from foul-mouthed men and their presence would distract men from simultaneously watching the game, cursing the refs and honoring God. This was no idle threat. Women caught attempting to sneak into a stadium dressed as men, or wearing a chador, were subject to arrest and even harsher penalties. Offside doesn't shy away from commenting on a law that many of the men at the game and tens of millions of people outside Iran consider to be absurd, but Panahi uses comedy to make his point. The real debate takes place between girls caught entering the stadium and those conscripted soldiers entrusted to keep them from running away from a makeshift holding pen. Each of the characters has his or her own reason for being at that particular match, and different perspectives on the law. The young men and women do agree on a couple of things, however. They love their country and are passionate about soccer, especially with Iran on the brink of qualifying for the World Cup. Ultimately, the law that divides them also helps bring them together as human beings and joyous fans. One scene is especially effective in finding humor in a situation that is intrinsically discomfiting. Desperate to relief herself, one of the girls begs the soldier in charge to let her go to the nearest bathroom with an escort. The catch: there are no such facilities for women in the stadium, and her guard fears the girl will be damaged by seeing the graffiti on the walls. After clearing the bathroom of men, he stands guard at the entrance to prevent others from using the facilities. The longer the girl takes, the angrier grow the men forced to wait at the door. When the crowd finally breeches the blockade, a fan helps the girl escape into the stadium. Fearing reprisals, the guards agonize over how to handle the disappearance, even as the girl returns to the holding pen on her own. The prisoner had seen what she came to see, and worried that the soldier would be punished. Common sense prevails … crisis averted. If you've guessed that Offside might have had trouble finding a distributor in Iran, you'd be right. Like most of Panahi's films, Offside was banned in Iran. Even so, it reached blockbuster status after pirated DVD copies were circulated in neighborhoods and among more enlightened Iranians. An interview recorded with Panahi during the Berlin Film Festival is included in the DVD package, and it's definitely worth watching. (Gracie arrives on DVD on September 18.) -- Gary Dretzka
Broken English	This slight urban romance is notable for two things: the debut of Zoe Cassavetes as a writer and director of feature films and the wonderful performance she elicits from Parker Posey. The former is significant because Zoe Cassavetes is the daughter of John Cassavetes, the godfather of the American indie-film movement. That Posey is great fun to watch is neither surprising nor unique to Broken English. Otherwise, Cassavetes' freshman effort hasn't warranted comparisons with her father's work, as has Sophia Coppola's growing resume. There's plenty of time for that to happen, though. Here, Posey's Nora is a concierge-with-privileges at a trendy New York hotel. One would think this smart and reasonably sexy character would have her pick of the litter when it comes to hip male guests. Alas, she hasn't been blessed with the good judgment and better luck necessary to make sound romantic decisions. Worse, she actually comes to believe there's some kind of a clock ticking somewhere within her, and her time is running out. We are made aware of Nora's dilemma through a series of conversations she has with her best friend, played by Drea de Matteo, whose five-year marriage leaves much to be desired. After a false dating alarm, Posey's character finds something resembling love in the presence of an improbably smooth French dude. After letting him get away once, the two gals travel to Paris to hunt him down. It's cute, but not very filling … for guys, anyway. Posey's on-screen mother is played by Gena Rowlands, Zoe's real-life mom, and that's a nice touch. -- Gary Dretzka
I Was Stalin's Bodyguard I Worked for Stalin The Beautiful Washing Machine On the Silver Globe Great African Films, Vol. 2 Xperimental Eros Only the most adventurous of movie buffs are likely to be drawn immediately to the eclectic mix of titles added this month to Facets Video's ever-expanding catalog. Nothing wrong with that, however. For some us, half of the fun of owning a DVD is derived from finding and watching movies that wouldn't last five minutes in the local multiplex, or, for that matter, most off-brand film festivals. Representing the Malaysian New Wave, The Beautiful Washing Machine is a perfect example of just such a well-hidden gem. As elliptical and casually paced as any of Jim Jarmusch's earlier films, James Lee's enigmatic dramedy describes how the purchase of a second-hand appliance -- albeit, one with a mind of her own -- is able to trigger a series of events and non-events that speak volumes about life in a multicultural city (Kuala Lumpur) whose residents are coming to grips with rampant consumerism, the loosening of sexual mores and gender politics. The more patient and open-minded the viewer, the more enjoyable an experience The Beautiful Washing Machine will provide. Watching I Was Stalin's Bodyguard back to back with I Worked for Stalin (set for release next month) is like discovering a scrapbook overflowing with a hundred years' worth of sepia-toned photographs in a long-ignored corner of the attic. Semyon Aranovich's documentaries on life and politics during the reign of Josef Stalin would never win any prizes for their minimal production values, but anyone who considers himself to be a student of 20th Century history will find them essential viewing. At a time when monsters roamed the Earth, Stalin was second to none in his ability to inspire dread in friends, foes and the people in whose name the Communist Party was founded. And, yet, this ogre was an essential ally in World War II, and we allowed him to devour great chunks of eastern Europe with nary an apology to those who were forced to substitute one form of tyranny for another. I Was Stalin's Bodyguard required of Aranovich that he track down the oligarch's last surviving personal bodyguard, who provided first-hand testimony, home movies and other rare footage. I Worked for Stalin is more concerned with the political machinations of those Communist Party leaders and apparatchiks who never knew where they stood with Stalin, and made fateful decisions based on well-founded paranoia, political gamesmanship and, only occasionally, the philosophies of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Here, elderly confidantes of once-powerful party officials shared recollections of the period with relatives of those men and women who led the fight against Hitler but couldn't convince Stalin of their loyalty. Admirers of Stanislaw Lem's sci-fi epic, Solaris, will want to check out Andrzej Zulawski's even more challenging On the Silver Globe. The 166-minute metaphysical marathon almost didn't see the light of day. In 1978, after three years of work, the Polish Ministry of Culture pulled the plug on the increasingly expensive and thematically unacceptable project. After the democratization of Poland, in 1986, Zulawski did what he could to complete the film, whose sets and costumes had been destroyed. It was this version that was shown at Cannes -- and almost nowhere else -- in 1988. On the Silver Globe describes what happens to a mixed-gender trio of astronauts who find themselves stranded on the dark side of the moon, yet are capable of breathing and keeping themselves nourished. They also are young enough to give birth to the children who would populate the colony. This, of course, begs many of the same questions asked of geneticists and theologians about the offspring of Adam and Eve. Time passes, and the colony grows in ways both unexceptional and surprising. So, too, do rivalries and conflicting philosophies on the meaning of life and the need for answers to the same questions that perplexed Earthlings for millennia. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the new society finds different ways to work out its anxieties, frustrations and ambitions … except in a shorthand version. On the Silver Globe was adapted from The Moon Trilogy, a series of novels by the filmmaker's great-uncle Jerzy Zulawski. Facets' fledgling Out of Africa series expands with Tasuma, The Fighter and Sia, the Dream of the Python. The former describes what happens when an African soldier, retired from duty in the French colonial army, finally must come to grips with the realization that the pension he was promised isn't likely to materialize. The soldier had intended the money to go to a grain mill in his home village, and the women who stood to benefit from it most join forces to get justice. Sia was inspired by a 7th Century legend about what happens when impoverished villagers agree to sacrifice a beautiful woman to a mystical snake god. By doing so, they hope to ensure a prosperous future, but their chosen victim has other ideas. Xperimental Eros takes viewers on an often bumpy ride through the wet dreams of underground filmmakers and others who dwell on the fringes of the sexual frontier. The short films run the gamut from silly to discordant, and some even qualify as erotic. They will appeal far more to the art-house crowd, than those who enjoy couples-friendly videos from Playboy or don raincoats before visiting the local Pussycat Theater. Other August titles from Facets include Dialogues With Solzhenitsyn; the 1936 Charro classic, Over at the Big Ranch (Allá en el Rancho Grande); and episodes of the animated Bolek & Lolek series, from Europe.
Two and a Half Men: The Complete First Season Rules of Engagement: The Complete First Season Rick & Steve: The Complete First Season The Odd Couple: The Second Season Bosom Buddies: The Second Season Soul Food: Season 2 Sabrina, The Teenage Witch: Season 2 Charmed: Final Season Nip/Tuck: The Complete Fourth Season Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Ninth Season Babylon 5: The Lost Tale Voyagers: The Complete Series If there were a magic formula for the creation of hit sitcoms, the networks would still be kicking the butts of HBO, Showtime and other services turning out half-hour comedies. Sadly, there isn't, and they're not. The examples of failed series are too many to mention. Some, like ABC's much-touted Emily's Reasons Why Not, lasted all of one episode. This, despite the presence of Heather Graham, who couldn't have come cheap. Before launching Two and a Half Men, in 2003, CBS executives probably were as nervous about the Odd-Couple-in-Paradise concept as any of the shows on their fall schedule. The show's titular star, Charlie Sheen, had made headlines for all the wrong reasons, and Jon Duckie Cryer and newcomer Angus T. Jones could hardly be expected to carry the show on their shoulders. What they couldn't have anticipated was just how forgiving audiences would prove to be when it came to Sheen, whose sitcom character was every bit as transparent, manipulative, charming and unapologetically promiscuous as the actor himself. Our familiarity with Sheen made our learning curve on Charlie Harper -- jingle writer and Malibu's most hedonistic bachelor -- practically non-existent. Given the show's solid writing and casting, everything else fell right into place. In addition to Cryer and Jones, who played Charlie's divorced live-in brother and his 10-year-old slacker son, supporting actors were adept at bouncing wisecracks off the Harpers, or allowing themselves to become the brunt of their jokes. They included Holland Taylor, as the world's least attentive mother; Marin Hinkle, as Alan Harper's intolerant ex-wife; Melanie Lynskey, as Charlie's personal Malibu stalker; and Conchatta Ferrell, as the maid who doesn't take any guff from Charlie, or anyone else. Together, they provided a textbook example of chemistry, as it pertains to network television. The first-season set adds a making-of featurette, gag reel and behind-the-scenes tour by Jones. Unlike the Two and Half Men set, it's taken only a few months for the first-season package of Rules of Engagement to hit the TV-to-DVD marketplace. The mid-season relationship sitcom was parked behind Two and Half Men on CBS' Monday-night lineup, and benefited mightily from its lead-in audience. David Spade plays the wise-cracking horn-dog who serves as the fly in the ointment to a pair of married couples, still grappling with commitment in their relationships. Besides Spade, whose shtick hasn't changed all that much in the last 15 years, the cast included Patrick Warburton (a.k.a. Elaine's boyfriend, in Seinfeld), Oliver Hudson, Bianca Kajlich and Megyn Price. The lack of generational shadings and distinctive supporting characters likely will keep Rules of Engagement from stealing the thunder any time soon of Two and a Half Men -- or How I Met Your Mother, which it resembles -- but it should fill the timeslot adequately until something better comes along. The bonus features add a table-read featurette, blooper reel and set tour. Sexual innuendoes and double-entendres are the lifeblood of network sitcoms, even in shows targeted at family audiences (as most ostensibly are). Anything more obvious remains taboo. Premium cable networks have used their competitors' reluctance to go all of the way to their advantage. Commonly expressed epithets and four-letter words can now be heard on basic-plus cable sitcoms, and women characters are allowed to wear the same sexy britches as the gals on the Victoria's Secret specials. The premium services don't need to appeal to the mass audience for their shows to survive, nor are they required to avoid offending sponsors or squirrelly special-interest groups. One example of such tightly focused niche programming arrives in the DVD form of Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World. The first-season box of Logo Network's cartoon series is comprised of six episodes, during which the overtly stereotypical Rick is asked by his longtime lesbian friend, Kristen, to supply the sperm for her child. The rancor between Kristen's wife and Rick's husband adds tension to the humor inherent in the series' best-of-all-possible-gay-worlds conceit. The animated-Lego-characters series, inspired by a festival-favorite short, features such versatile voice actors as Alan Cumming, Margaret Chu and Laraine Newman, as well as music provided by the creators of Avenue Q. The extras -- described as more gay crap -- include behind-the-scenes material and a dozen digisodes. Neil Simon built such a sound foundation for the Broadway and Hollywood versions of The Odd Couple, the sitcom adaptation could hardly be anything but a hit. Jack Klugman and Tony Randall spelled Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as a pair of divorced New Yorkers forced to share an apartment, despite being polar opposites in the housekeeping department. Thirty-five years later, it's easy to read into the set-up that Lemmon/Randall's prissy Felix was, in fact, a closeted gay man, and Matthau/Klugman's slovenly Oscar was as sexually appealing as the Abominable Snowman, although the sportswriter's raging male ego convinced him he could hang with and compete for women with Joe Namath. In the early '70s, however, Felix was required to hold out hope for a reconciliation with his former wife. Here, again, the supporting cast of veteran character actors and guest stars took the pressure off the stars to carry the full load of the comedy. The conceit behind Bosom Buddies required two straight men to don women's clothing and wigs, so as to be eligible for an apartment in a decent New York building. An attractive female co-worker is in on the scam, which also requires Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari's Buffy and Hildegard to keep their true male identities secret from the hotties in the women-only dwelling. Two years after the end of the second season, Hanks would score big in Splash and Bachelor Party. It's goofy, but Hanks' fans will eat this DVD collection up. Showtime deserves a lot of credit for adding Soul Food to its roster of original shows in 2000. Loosely adapted from George Tillman Jr.'s popular family dramedy, the series took off where the movie ended, with Mama Joe (Irma P. Hall) hanging around for the first 14 episodes. The series necessarily adopts a soap-opera approach to the story of hard-working, fussin' and fightin' middle-class African-Americans on Chicago's South Side. The sisters, husbands, kids and other family members ran the gamut from parolee to lawyer. Apart from some mild cussing and a bit of skin, there would have been no reason Soul Food not to added to a network's schedule. Among the many TV-to-DVD packages arriving ahead of the Emmys and the 2007-08 season are the enchanted teen soaps, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch: Season 2 and Charmed: Final Season; the fourth stanza of Nip/Tuck, which moves west to the Land of Milk and Silicone Boobies (Beverly Hills) in season five; the final-series of Everybody Loves Raymond; and the sci-fi dramas Babylon 5: The Lost Tale and Voyagers: The Complete Series. -- Gary Dretzka
The Muppet Show: Season Two From the Henson puppet factory comes the 24-episode second-season of The Muppet Show. Being 1976, the roster of guest performers will be more familiar to Boomer parents than their Boomlet offspring, who will delight mostly in the timelessness of the puppets. Each week, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and a menagerie of other Muppet regulars competed for laughs and stage time against the likes of Don Knotts, Bernadette Peters, Dom Deluise, George Burns, John Cleese, Bob Hope, Steve Martin, Julie Andrews and Elton John. It was also the season Kermit introduced his trademark ballad, It's Not Easy Being Green. The four-disc set also contains Muppets Valentine Special, from 1974, the music video of Keep Fishin' and interview segment, The Muppets on the Muppets. -- Gary Dretzka