Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters arrives on DVD on May 13th in a two-disc collector’s edition, which, coincidentally enough, recently arrived in my mailbox. I’m pretty sure Bob and Harvey Weinstein personally wanted me to review this DVD.
The movie itself was pretty good, despite looking like a dozen other inspirational teacher stories. With good acting from the young cast, as well as Denzel and Forest Whitaker (how often do you get to see those two together?), The Great Debaters entertains and educates simultaneously. While you can tell plenty of elements are dramatized for the sake of storytelling, Denzel does a good job of diving into the era and setting, depicting racism, relationships and family in a very authentic way. The Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture was a bit overkill, but The Great Debaters was one of the better movies of 2007. You can read my full Great Debaters movie review here.
Thankfully, The Weinstein Co. has given The Great Debaters pretty good DVD treatment. There are enough special features that some are actually included on the first disc; usually, bonus features are relegated solely to the second. Anyway, the DVD offers a wide array of featurettes that examine various aspects of the production, from the historical relevance to the score, costume design, production design and more. All of the featurettes are interesting in their own right, and thankfully are just the right length; they aren’t promotional and they aren’t ridiculously long, either. Several feature interviews with living people who are portrayed in the film.
The best of the featurettes is a behind-the-scenes look at debate camp. Apparently, Denzel wanted his actors to be authentic in the art of debate, so he stuck them all into a real debate class. The featurette is fun because you get to see the actors out of their element, getting critiqued and so on and so forth.
Other special features include an examination of Forest Whitaker (which contains a lot of, “Oh, Forest is so great!” remarks), some deleted scenes and a couple of music videos.
If you like behind-the-scenes videos, The Great Debaters provides some pretty good insight into the production of the film. It doesn’t given you director’s commentary, strangely enough, but if you want to get the low down on the film without spending several hours of your time, this one is definitely a worthy purchase.
Ah, there’s nothing like a toothy vagina. Especially one that bites off anything that disturbs it.
Such is the premise for Teeth, the new horror-comedy out on DVD that stars Jess Weixler as a sexy but naively innocent abstinence poster child who discovers that she’s not the same as other girls. She may look the same, she may feel the same, but she is definitely not the same. You see, her vagina has teeth, and when it gets angry, things aren’t pretty.
I’ve posted two movie reviews for Teeth on FilmJabber.com. The first one, by me, is pretty basic and to-the-point, whereas Robert Bell’s, I must admit, is a thousand times better. It’s definitely the funniest movie review you’ll read in a while, so read our Teeth movie reviews now.
Speed Racer is almost upon us, whether you like it or not. I, personally, am going to see it just to make sure it’s as bad as it looks. My friends feel the same way (though many won’t even go see it). Others, however, are actually looking forward to this Wachowski Brothers film, so it will be interesting to see fan reactions over the next few days. More interesting, however, will be to see how well it does in theaters… will it beat Iron Man in its second week? I’m not so sure.
As cinema gradually evolves, it becomes increasingly clear that storytelling is becoming less of a priority. Glossy hyper-stylized images and hackneyed, insincere emotional catharsis are the wave of the future, as are indecipherable frenetic action sequences designed to overwhelm the senses with an almost orgasmic glee. Hollow excess and easily digested “wow” moments give a desensitized audience the homogenized escapist crap they so desperately seek; unwilling and unable to pause or reflect on anything with meaning. It’s only logical, given the rapid take-no-prisoners, pop-a-pill-to-stifle-unwelcome-feelings culture we have become. Everything we do is designed to escape from reality: our entertainment, dream vacations and misguided career focus are all just filler, despite the requirements of emotional development, which need downtime and personal reflection in order to find a personal purpose and reason. Then again, isn’t it that much easier to just quash away all of those feelings of confusion and inadequacy by accepting the ideologies and distorted moral codes of the majority? It is. And if we distract ourselves long enough while going through the motions of expectation, we may not even notice how utterly stupid and frivolous our surface driven lives are. Then again, happiness is defined by the individual, and maybe designer sneakers and a fancy new refrigerator is all one needs to feel satisfied in this world.
I’ve hated him since week one. It probably doesn’t help that I hate dreadlocks. Why would you want unruly, smelly hair when you could just buzz your head and have the same low maintenance? Regardless, Jason Castro has to go. He’s never been a good singer, and he never well be (yes, he can sing better than I, but I’m not in a competition to sell hundreds of thousands of records). Sure, he’s pulled out – let me count – two good songs over the course of his short-lived career, but that’s not much at all.
Castro should have gone weeks ago, but this week he just has to go. American Idol doesn’t deserve the guy for another week. Syesha has been doing all too well to go home, and it would just be wrong for one of the Davids to go home already. Please, American Idol voters, please! Send Jason Castro – a.k.a. Dreadlocks – packing ASAP.
I just watched the new Bagheadmovie trailer (embedded below), and I must say this movie has promise. It starts out looking like a slasher film, and then turns into a romantic comedy of sorts. A woman has a “dream” about a guy with a bag over his head watching her from the woods, and she and a group of friends – who are spending a few days at a cabin in the middle of nowhere – decide to make a movie about it. One guy has the hots for one of the women, and uses his role as her boyfriend in the film to make a move on her. That’s cute.
And then, back to horror movie! What if it wasn’t a dream that the woman had? What if there really was a stalker roaming around that wears a bag over his head? What if he gets angry?
At the very least, I’m curious. At the most, Baghead could be good fun. This kind of film can be tricky to pull off, however. First, having seen pictures and posters for the movie, I had no idea that the film was a horror flick. Even the trailer isn’t conclusive to the fact that there really is a bad person running around. So is it or is it not a horror film? If not, Sony Pictures Classics needs to make that clear. If it is, they also need to make it clear. If it is a comedy-horror film, then balance it out a little bit. It’s hard to tell, and that could spell disaster.
First off, WTF. Have you seen the teaser trailer for Beverly Hills Chihuahua? This movie looks so bad it’s not even funny. This is the kind of movie parents dread with a passion; it is a guaranteed hour and a half of mind-numbing, death-inducing terror. I would want my kids subjected to something more worthwhile.
Regardless, the teaser trailer talks about the chihuahua’s heritage as coming from the Aztecs. However, when they say “Aztecs,” the teaser trailer pans over a shot of Machu Picchu in Peru. Having just been there, I’m pretty sure that the Incas built and lived in Machu Picchu, not the Aztecs. It’s a completely different civilization.
Aren’t there enough Aztec ruins to desecrate without ruining a second civilization?
I’m Not There, the acclaimed drama that stars Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin all as Bob Dylan, arrives on DVD this Tuesday. Considering that Franklin is a young black kid, Gere plays a version of Billy the Kid and Blanchett is female, one can only imagine that the movie is not exactly a literal biopic, and in fact is one of the most unique and complicated movies I’ve ever seen.
Director Todd Haynes, amazingly, was not nominated for an Oscar for his masterful work here, and, almost equally shocking was the fact that Cate Blanchett, who turns in the best performance of her career, didn’t win for Best Supporting Actress.
Regardless, for all of you who didn’t see I’m Not There in theaters, the Bob Dylan movie is now available on DVD. Here is my I’m Not There DVD review:
The DVD review is for the two-disc collector’s edition, a surprisingly weighty release for a movie such as this. The environmental side of me questions why this release is on two discs other than to market it as such; there are tons of special features, but quantity over quality is the name of the game.
The first disc contains I’m Not There along with a director’s commentary from Todd Haynes, along with some on-screen tie-ins to the songs.
The second disc is where the meat is, and contains such features as:
Deleted scenes
Alternate/extended scenes
Outtakes
Auditions
A Conversation with Todd Haynes
Making the Soundtrack
The Red Carpet Premiere
The deleted scenes are what you’d expect, nothing too substantial or memorable. With this type of film, where the story is essentially organized chaos, it’s hard to watch a single scene and appreciate it on its own. The outtakes are humorous but nothing spectacular. The auditions are interesting; it’s always nice to see actors in raw format and how they went about landing the part. “A Conversation with Todd Haynes” is pretty good, and basically is about the co-writer/director talking about how the movie formed in his mind – and how he made sense of it all. At times, it sounds like he didn’t even know what he was doing. The “Making the Soundtrack” featurette is also pretty interesting and offers up some good Dylan songs for a second listening.
Included on the second disc is also a “Tribute to Heath Ledger,” though it looks like it was put together at the last minute.
Ultimately, the I’m Not There Two-Disc Collector’s Edition DVD has some decent features, though of the ones they list on the back of the box, only a couple are really noteworthy. Still, this is the kind of the movie that, due to its complexity, requires some further explanation, and there is just enough here to satisfy that requirement.
The DVD set is good, but not great. However, the movie itself makes up for any deficiencies on the DVD.
Iron Man, the Robert Downey, Jr.-starring action movie, made $32 million on Friday, May 2nd to conquer the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. Since it’s 8pm opening on Thursday, the movie has made $38 million, meaning it that it is going to make a ton of money by the time Sunday closes.
Made of Honor, the only other major release this weekend, came in second, earning $5.4 million on Friday. I guess counter-programming paid off in this case.
While I was disappointed that the new Batman movie trailer didn’t premiere with Iron Man, I was delighted to see a new, longer and much better movie trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull before the comic book film.
Some people complained that the last preview was a little too goofy and comical; apparently, someone was listening, because this new trailer has almost no humor whatsoever. That’s a good thing. The trailer starts off with a little more explanation about the myth of the Crystal Skull – essentially more information about the plot than anyone has heard about before (the Crystal Skull is believed to be some relic that, when returned to a sacred temple, the person who is responsible for its return will be able to control its power any way he or she sees fit). Beyond that, the movie trailer digresses into an action montage, some of which we’ve seen before as well as a few new tidbits.
Overall, the new Indiana Jones movie trailer is much more cohesive and really gets you pumped up, whereas the teaser trailer was entertaining but not particularly motivating. With only a few weeks left before its release, this trailer made me just a tiny bit more excited.
I just got back from Iron Man (a 10:15 Thursday showing), and it was pretty cool. Here’s my full Iron Man movie review. And, I can easily say, Iron Man is the best movie of the 2008 summer season. Yes, I know it’s 1am on May 2nd and no other summer movie has reached theaters yet… but I’m not lying!
Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters arrives on DVD on May 13th in a two-disc collector’s edition, which, coincidentally enough, recently arrived in my mailbox. I’m pretty sure Bob and Harvey Weinstein personally wanted me to review this DVD.
Iron Man
While I was disappointed that the new Batman movie trailer didn’t premiere with Iron Man, I was delighted to see a new, longer and much better movie trailer for 
