DVD New Releases today, July 29th 2008. It’s NASCAR day!
Shine A Light (8/10): The Rolling Stones and Martin Scorcese make a great film. It isn’t the best Stones film, or the best Scorcese music film, but it IS amazing.
Never Back Down: A kid tries to impress a girl and defeat a bully by joining an underground mixed-martial-arts Ultimate Fighting ring. That sounds delightful!
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (3/10): Harold and Kumar pick up after their trip to White Castle to make a movie that is much less funny, much less clever, and disappoints all around.
Lost Boys: The Tribe: An homage to the cult favourite 1987 movie The Lost Boys. A brother and sister move to a California town and get mixed up with a bunch of surfer vampires. Uhhhh….
The Band’s Visit: A small Egyptian Police band arrive in Israel to play a show, but are left stranded at the airport. They try to make their own way out, through a small desert town. Apparently it’s quite good.
War Games: The Dead Code: Amazingly this is actually a sequel to that Matthew Broderick movie War Games from more than 20 years ago. A computer hacker inadvertently starts World War III.
Finishing the Game (4/10): A mockumentary imagining a casting search for a Bruce Lee stand-in to finish the incomplete movie Game Of Death. It sucks, but it’s better than Game of Death.
Twin Daggers: An underworld hitman in the 1930s is hired by a woman to avenge her parents’ death at the hands of her twin sister. Why the 1930s? I guess we’ll have to watch to find out.
The Hills: First, Second and Third Seasons (5/10): Four hot chicks hate each other from afar in an irritatingly staged, obviously not “real” reality show that is stupid, loud, obnoxious and totally addictive.
Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin’ With The Godmother: Despite it’s amazingly awesome title, this may be fairly bad. A cocaine dealer gets in over his head when he gets in tight with the “Black Widow” cocaine godmother.
Dora The Explorer: Catch The Stars (5/10): Dora The Explorer appears to have serious myopia. She needs ME to point out everything around her. It’s an irritatingly participatory show for kids.
Go Diego Go! The Iguana Sing-A-Long (4/10): A spin-off of Dora The Explorer that is even MORE participatory, but much less satisfying. It’s more about mimicry than about helping. Annoying!
Beverly Hills 90210 Season Five (4/10): What was once the biggest show in the world is now staggeringly dated. Not just the hair or the acting or the overage actors. But also the aw-shucks quaintness in retrospect.
3 (8/10): A made-for-TV movie about Dale Earnhardt’s life, with a gigantic amount of special features on a second disc. Stars Barry Pepper, and is actually worthwhile for even those (like me) who are not giant NASCAR fans.
SportsCentury Greatest Athletes: Dale Earnhardt (4/10): A solid documentary, but with 3 coming out the same day, this DVD is basically useless.
SportsCentury Greatest Athletes: Dale Earnhardt Jr (5/10): Again, a solid documentary, but I’m confused as to what makes Dale Earnhardt Jr. one of this century’s “Greatest Athletes”.
Jeff Gordon: Inside Access (6/10): A DVD from ESPN and Alliance with a massive amount of information about Jeff Gordon. Just about everything ESPN has ever had that involved him in any way. Which makes some of it useless.
Girlfriends Season Four (3/10): A sit-com rip-off of Sex And The City that isn’t funny enough to be a good comedy, well-acted enough to be a good drama, or sexy enough to be a good soap opera. Which means it isn’t a good show.
Also out:
Marigold
Vengeance
Stargate: Continuum
Next Week:
Doomsday
Nim’s Island
The Counterfeiters
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder
Queen Sized
Watching The Detectives
Duck
Triloquist
Ben 10: Season 4
My Brother is an Only Child
Tai Chi Master
The Wager
Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest
The Pledge
The Unwinking Gaze