How to Spend $20
By Eric Hughes
May 27, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
PICK OF THE WEEK
For people who have a high tolerance for extreme body counts: Rambo (Special Edition)
Close your eyes a sec, and answer this question: How many people die in 1982's Rambo: First Blood, the first of four (so far) films in the Rambo franchise about a mentally unstable war vet who hunts down an abusive small town police force? One. Yes, one. Hard to believe, right? Well, of course it is when you're force-fed the 200-plus deaths in the series' gory fourth entry, Rambo, about the vet's attempt to rescue kidnaped Christian aid workers in war-torn Burma.
This is a film that broke a 20-year Rambo dry spell and revived a thought-to-be-dead franchise, much like its star Sylvester Stallone did not too long ago with 2006's Rocky Balboa. And don't think this man is done yet, either. Stallone is already scripting Rambo V. And he swears it will not be another war movie.
Disc includes: Audio commentary by Sylvester Stallone, six featurettes, deleted scenes.
For people who missed Brooke Shields ever since she quit being Susan (and sudden): Lipstick Jungle: Season One
Making TV shows out of popular novels seems to be all the rage on the broadcast networks lately. (Well, besides shortchanging its writers so much that...well, better not get into that one). In 2006, NBC adapted H.G. Bissinger's 1990 novel, Friday Night Lights, to run as complementary programming with Sunday Night Football. A year later, ABC brought James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series to the small screen, but to little fanfare. ABC, which only broadcasted the series' original 13-episode order, officially axed the program earlier this month. And earlier this year, it was again NBC, which found moderate success in Lipstick Jungle, a series based on a novel of the same name by Candace Bushnell about the lives of three New York career women. The show's star, of course, is Brooke Shields, who carried the show just enough to afford the program a second season. Good news for NBC, the network most in need of a gigantic hit. (Because as we all know, American Gladiators will never, ever return a network to prominence).
Disc includes: Deleted scenes, previews for other NBC Universal shows like Battlestar Galactica, Law & Order and Monk.
For people who think Hilary Swank looks more like a Holly Kennedy: P.S. I Love You
It's not too often that you hear a film actually living up to its literary predecessor. Although in the case of P.S. I Love You, attracting mixed-to-negative reviews was a fairly simple task when considering the novel from which it was based. Cecilia Ahern's P.S. I Love You (2004) was called "overhyped," "predictable" and "full of stock characters." The film adaptation received similar criticism, being dubbed "lame" and "sappy." Los Angeles Times critic Carina Chocano even had this to say: "You could go see P.S. I Love You, or you could hit yourself on the head with a meat mallet." Yikes. Now, at least, you can judge for yourself, without having to fork over ten bucks for admission. (You'd better rent this one - just to be safe).
Disc includes: Additional scenes, "A Conversation with Cecelia Ahern," "Same Mistake" by James Blunt (music video), "The Name of the Game is Snaps": Learn How to Play.
For people who agree with John Cusack that the Bush administration is "depressing, corrupt, unlawful, and tragically absurd" (yep, he said that): Grace Is Gone
John Cusack disagrees with the Pentagon's policy - and the Bush administration's enforcement of it - that bans media coverage of America's war dead returning to U.S. soil. So what does he do? He stars in a film that shows what happens when the coffins hit close to home. In Grace is Gone, Cusack plays a man who delays telling his children that his wife (and their mother) was killed in service in Iraq.
This is one of those films that I just never got around to seeing. And the rest of America is surely with me on this one, too. The John Cusack-starer earned a paltry $50,000 at the domestic box office, and never reached more than a handful of theaters in its brief run that began at the tail end of 2007. Weinstein Company even shelved Grace is Gone, winner of the Audience Award for Drama at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, in the incubator for a few months in hopes of landing possible Oscar nominations. Turns out it didn't matter in the end. At all. Either way, the film may finally get its due on DVD.
Disc includes: A conversation on Grace, inspiration for "Grace is Gone," profile of TAPS (a Tragedy Assistance Program), theatrical trailer.
For people who actually enjoy the late '90s Eddie Murphy: The Eddie Murphy Comedy Collection (Set)
What has two thumbs and misses the Eddie Murphy who was on the top of his game about ten or so years ago? This guy. (The visual, unfortunately, is rather essential in the telling of that joke). But it's not me who should be laying down the funny, but in fact Eddie, who hasn't really been in anything lately. (Well, unless you're counting The Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care or The Adventures of Pluto Nash - because I'm not). Instead, the average consumer ought to check out a new collection of Eddie Murphy comedy, which puts together the best of late '90s Eddie, who I even prefer to the late '80s Beverly Hills Cop/Coming to America/post-SNL Eddie that others may argue was, in fact, his prime. In this collection, you get both Nutty Professor movies, Life and my personal favorite, Bowfinger, about a desperate film producer (Steve Martin) who secretly films a major movie star (Murphy) in his picture. Once this whole Shrek thing passes over - are they seriously making a fourth? - maybe, just maybe, Eddie will pick up a good comedy script and return to form.
Disc includes: Bare bones.
For people who think TV remakes typically lead to disaster: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
The classic story of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (originally an 1886 novella by Robert Louis Stevenson titled Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde) is one of those rare stories that is not only retold again and again, but also allows each generation to claim its very own adaptation of the story, given the countless remakes Stevenson's tale has undergone. The original features a physician who becomes the devil after drinking a mysterious potion, possibly a stand in for prohibition. A later remake, released around the time evolution was being debated in court, shows Mr. Hyde looking more "monkey-like" in his appearance each time he takes a swig of the drink. Other adaptations star the comedy team of Abbott and Costello (1953's Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) or a man who transforms himself into a woman (1995's Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde). But the remake that brings basically nothing new to the table is this one, a U.K. import that doesn't even try on a brand new cutesy title like the movies before it. Shameful.
Disc includes: Bare bones.
May 27, 2008:
Absolutely Fabulous: Absolutely Everything (Limited Edition)
The Air I Breathe
Alfred Hitchcock Collection: Blackmail & More
Alfred Hitchcock Collection: Sabotage & More
All Hat
American Drug War
Born to Kill (Widescreen)
The Brandon Teena Story (Collector's Edition)
Cassandra's Dream (Widescreen)
The Chair (Widescreen)
Churchill: Life & Speeches
Cleaner (Widescreen)
Come Drink with Me (Widescreen)
Company
Contested Streets
Cory In The House: Newt & Improved Edition
Daphne (Widescreen)
Darfur Now (Widescreen)
Deadliest Catch: The Complete First Season
Degrassi: Season 6
Diary of a Spider
Drive In Madness
The Eric Liddell Story
Four For Texas
Frisbee: The Life & Death of Hippie Preacher
Good Chemistry
Grindhouse Experience Presents: Eye On Horror (Set)
Grizzly Park
Gunsmoke: The Second Season, Volume 2
Hell's Kitchen: New York Neighborhood
High Society (Collector's Edition)
Honeymooners in Color: Collection 3 (Set)
If Love Hadn't Left Me Lonely
Interstate
Intervention: Season 1 Then & Now
The Invaders: The First Season
Jim Elliot Story
John Bunyan Story
Just Business
Little Family Conversation
Madama Butterfly
Millennium Dragon
Minutemen
Monster Quest: The Complete Season One
Most High
Nathalie Granger
Next Year in Jerusalem
Noriko's Dinner Table
Nova: Four-Winged Dinosaur
One Piece: Season 1 The First Voyage
Operation Arsenal
Plum Role
Rambo: The Complete Collector's Set (Collector's Box Set)
Red Ribbons
Segal: American Still Life
Shelter (Widescreen)
A Simple Promise
Stonewall
Street Racer
Super Heroes Volume 1
Suspension
A Thousand Women Like Me
Trouble In Store
Twister
Typhoon (Widescreen)
UFC 81: Breaking Point
The Untouchable
Van Damme Action Pack (Quadruple Feature)
The Walker (Widescreen)
Wedding
What Would Jesus Buy?
The William Tyndale Story)
Winterbeast