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Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP’s look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: Paranormal Activity demonizes Halloween, Katherine Heigl acts cute and Wes Craven drops a bomb.

Pick of the Week

For people who like surveillance cameras: Paranormal Activity 2

For a good long while, Halloween would come ‘round, and Lionsgate would release a Saw movie. Didn’t matter what year it was. It’d just be a year later, the franchise would tack on a different Roman numeral to the end of its name and people - those who enjoy watching people unrelated to them get tortured and ripped to bits - would show up in droves. In every case, the latest Saw would earn back its budget over opening weekend (if not on opening day alone), and then another chapter in the series would get greenlit.

It was all quite amazing, really, and I don’t know that the franchise would have completed itself - or so they say! - had it not been for the phenomenon that was Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity embarrassed Saw in more ways than one, be it over the weekend they first went head to head (PA: $21.1 million, Saw: $14.1 million), or, a year later when Paranormal Activity 2 grossed $40.6 million in three days, a feat Saw failed to do after seven tries. Even 3D-inflated ticket prices left Saw 40% shy of PA’s second round.

No longer the phenomenon, but still edgy and cool - more so than Blair Witch 2 ever was - Paranormal Activity 2 picks up around the time of its predecessor. Instead of a handheld, it’s a home equipped with surveillance. And yes, Katie is still possessed by a demon.

Disc includes: N/A





For people who don’t know how to change diapers: Life as We Know It

Right away - like, requiring zero post-trailer digestion time - Life as We Know It looked like a hilarious way to squander money on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Are you with me? I know a few people who weren’t, including my dear mother who assumed Life as We Know It to be the Next Great Hollywood Romantic Comedy (or something like that). I told her it’d be a waste of time and the rest of it, but alas, my opinion fell on deaf ears. I tasted sweet redemption, though, when I heard back from mother not too long after she decided to go. (“Man, Eric, that was a waste of time.”)

I don’t know. I do find it interesting how some moviegoers - romantic comedy “enthusiasts” in particular - have what may be an innate inability to discern the good from the bad. This isn’t to say I’m perfect at this, because I’ve certainly had my fair share of miscues. But I feel like, with anything, time and practice leads to better decision-making, and, hopefully, a better movie going experience that “next time.”

I do think, though, that a movie like Life as We Know It gives us a chance at least to rattle Katherine Heigl’s feathers a bit. I mean, the actress spurred a boatload of reaction when she cursed Judd Apatow and his supposed sexist screenplays. This, of course, coming from the head of an actress who, post-Knocked Up, went on to star in such acclaimed masterpieces like 27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth. It’d be like if TMZ publicly slapped the New York Times on the wrist for not beefing up its coverage on current affairs in Egypt.

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