LITTLE ROCK — Recent DVD releases:
Armored (PG-13, 88 minutes) An initially promising old-fashioned heist movie that gets tripped up in a ridiculous plot and uninspired conclusion, Armored features Matt Dillon, Jean Reno and Laurence Fishburne as officers at an armored transport security firm who embark on the ultimate heist - against their own company. Bonus features on the Blu-ray and DVD include producer and cast commentary, making-of featurettes featuring cast and crew interviews and choreography of action sequences.Blu-ray includes a digital copy of the film.
Grade: 79
Astro Boy (PG, 94 minutes) While Osamu Tezuka’s original anime series (which aired on American TV in the early 1960s) was an oddly powerful work that anticipated the Spielberg film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence with its themes of an ageless robot child and its rejection by its human “family,” this version is more a straightforward animated action movie about a high-tech superhero. It’s not horrible, but it’s for kids only. With the voices of Nicolas Cage and Freddie Highmore.
Grade: 81
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (Unrated, 80 minutes) The directorial debut of John Krasinski (The Office, Away We Go) is a misbegotten attempt to bring the lacerating short story collection by David Foster Wallace to the screen. Why exactly that was such a bad idea is difficult to say, but the proof is in the existence of this enthusiastically acted but ultimately pointless catalog of male misbehavior. With Timothy Hutton, Bobby Cannavale, Christopher Meloni, Chris Messina, Will Arnett, Frankie Faison and Krasinski as the interviewees,and Julianne Nicolson as the interviewer.
Grade: 77
Broken Embraces (127 minutes) An unmistakably giddy movie that makes wonderful use of Penelope Cruz, Pedro Almodovar’s current model of womanliness (this marks their fourth collaboration), as it restates (and to a degree re-purposes) the director’s familiar obsessions with genre, glamour and glossy red lipstick. If it seems like minor Almodovar, it’s nevertheless full-throated Almodovar, alive with his tics and fetishes - a platinum wig here and a staircase there - and a convoluted plot that resists encapsulation. It’s another movie about making movies and buried secrets, and it’s reminiscent of Woody Allen’s midperiod masterpiece, 1989’s Crimes & Misdemeanors, inits use of vision metaphors.
Grade: 87
Did You Hear About the Morgans? (PG-13, 103 minutes) A depressingly mediocre movie, which might have been cast by a focus group, that demonstrates a frightening lack of chemistry between leads Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker. Successful New Yorkers with a dissolving marriage, they’re thrown together when, after witnessing a murder, they’re relocated to Wyoming as part of a federal witness protection program. Both thuddingly predictable and bizarrely random, the affect is made a bit more bearable by the centering presence of Mary Steenburgen. The DVD and Blu-ray versions include deleted scenes, bloopers, four featurettes, and commentary by director Marc Lawrence.
Grade: 75
Ninja Assassin (R, 99) Korean pop idol Rain is a ninja assassin who bears a grudge against the secret society of ninja assassins that trained him. There will be blood.
Grade: 72
The Fourth Kind (PG-13, 109 minutes) Purportedly a “true story,” this pomo sci-fi thriller relies on verite-like videotape to convince us Milla Jovovich is an Alaska-based psychotherapist investigating rumors of alien abductions. Good actors Elias Koteas and Will Patton lend some ballast to a pretty silly enterprise.
Grade: 82
The Princess and the Frog (G, 95 minutes) Old-school Disney princess movie with a lot of the old heart and values, and some great vocal acting by the likes of Keith David as the evil Dr. Facilier. Special features include deleted scenes, commentary from the filmmakers, a Princess Portraits game and Ne-Yo’s tiedin music video.
Grade: 86
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (PG-13) Despite an obvious drop-off from the first installment, the kids still seem engaged by the romancebetween mortal Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).
Grade: 81 pmartin@arkansasonline.com
MovieStyle, Pages 39 on 03/19/2010
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