for Oct 9 DVDs

  • COUPLES RETREAT

    Vince Vaughn and Kristin Bell star in this “adult” comedy about healing marriages with a retreat that is mostly … well .. sex.  The back-story is interesting – director is Peter Billingsley … he played the little boy with the big glasses named Ralphie in 1983’s “A Christmas Story.”

  • 1. YEAR ONE:

    Jack Black and ill-advised Canadian actor Michael Cera star in what I found to be less a movie, and more a teenage boy’s sniggering series of toilet humour and poorly executed sex jokes.  Audiences agreed as this film was a box-office bomb.  It’s the story of supposed cavemen who end up in Biblical times, and somehow in Imperial Rome and other non sequiter places.  Bad movie, very, very offensive to me. Rated 18A.

  • 2. MY LIFE IN RUINS:

    Winnipeg’s Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) stars here in what is not a very well-made film, one that tanked at the box office, and one that I enjoyed just because of my loyalty to Vardalos, and my respect for what she has achieved in showbiz.  She’s a prof in Greece on an exchange program who is laid off, and takes a job as a tour bus guide to pay the bills.  There are some funny moments with Richard Dreyfuss as a passenger with a secret, but mostly, I just hoped it would get better.  Rated PG.   

  • 3. IMAGINE THAT:

    Another box office bomb, this time with Eddie Murphy as the stereotypical divorced dad with a daughter who can sort of wish things into existence.  It’s got a cute cast with Thomas Hayden Church and Vanessa Williams, and is okay for its family audience – kids will find it okay – for adults, a yawner. Rated G.

  • 4. MY LIFE IN RUINS:

    The first Hollywood movie to be allowed to film at The Acropolis since 1957 … and worth it just for the spectacular visual travelogue of Greece.
MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING (2002):     

I know it’s not a “classic” in the truest sense, but it is one of the most successful films financially of the past decade, and there’s a great back story about how Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson saved the day for this great idea.

  • THE INVENTION OF LYING  

    Ricky Gervais in a slightly uneven, but charming rom-com about people who can only tell the truth.

  • CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY

    Michael Moore in an overly long flag-waver that gets the job done, but just barely.

  • ZOMBIELAND

    Funny stuff with Woody Harrelson … but crude too!

  • WHIP IT

    Ellen Page is still cute as a button as a roller derby queen.
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