Admittedly, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the British TV dramas on PBS since Prime Suspect ended. Every year during the Golden Globes ceremony, I'd feel momentary guilt that I'd never checked out Cranford, but it would quickly pass. So when I tell you that Downton Abbey (now on DVD and Blu-Ray from PBS Home Video, and streaming on Netflix) is one of the must-see TV events of the last several years, I'm not saying so with my head resting on an antimacassar and my knee supporting a china teacup filled with lapsang souchong.
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Otherwise known as Your Honors Student Will Sacrifice His Livelihood For Porn. Holler, 2004! The Girl Next Door is one of the last horndog comedies to eschew parody and go for realism -- but barely. It lives in a post-Shannon Elizabeth universe where the untouchable hottie (Elisha Cuthbert) has to be a porn star because all other options are exhausted/boring. How stupid! I'm game! And so is Timothy Olyphant, the I Am Number Four/Justified star, who plays a sleazy porn producer here. We hope to answer the following questions with today's Bad Movie We Love: 1) Why do we like this scummy flick for oily masturbators? 2) Why is Emile Hirsch such an unconvincing loser? And 3) Most importantly: Why does Mr. Olyphant act like he's still in Scream 2?
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One of the things that made Unstoppable (now on DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment) so completely fun to watch was how much it called to mind all those other great disaster movies over the years involving planes, trains and automobiles (to name just a few methods of travel) turning into killing machines. So once you've watched this entertaining movie and scoured its many Blu-Ray extras, check out some of our other favorite man-vs.-machine epics:
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Heaven knows, Hollywood keeps churning out the pixie-ish leading ladies for its romantic comedies, but pretty much no one in the history of American cinema has succeeded in out-gamine-ing Audrey Hepburn, the Belgian-born superstar who has become the standard for, well, just about everything for subsequent generations of starry-eyed women. So whether you're dating, married, or sitting out this V-Day, let Miss Hepburn be your guide.
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Since Adam Sandler already bumbled his way into a Gary Cooper role with Mr. Deeds, his remake of Frank Capra's classic Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, it's clear that the comedian is unfazed about tackling the work of his betters. And while Cactus Flower (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) is no unassailable masterpiece, this clunky 1969 farce feels like Feydeau when compared to Sandler's latest atrocity, Just Go With It.
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You don't have to go to Armond White-ian lengths to be a contrarian; watch enough movies over the course of a year, and at some point you're going to veer away from popular opinion. Whether you love a movie that's roundly despised or completely miss the charms of the feel-good film of the season, it's inevitable that the regular moviegoer will divert from the vox populi. Which brings me to one of my favorite films of 2010, Tamara Drewe (out this week from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment).
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One of the most-anticipated movies among what's left of this country's audience for foreign films is the corporate comedy Potiche, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu and directed by François Ozon. And while Ozon is a big deal in his home country of France, his films generally get noticed Stateside only when they feature big names like Charlotte Rampling (Swimming Pool) or Isabelle Huppert (who stars alongside Deneuve and six other towering stars of French cinema in 8 Women). If you haven't already discovered the greatness of Ozon, start with Hideaway (Le Refuge), out on DVD this week from Strand Releasing Home Entertainment.
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There's many a slip twixt the page and the screen -- just ask fans of Ntozake Shange's powerful 1975 theater piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf who recently had to suffer through Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls (on DVD and Blu-Ray this week from Lionsgate), a ham-handed and tone-deaf adaptation that managed to drain almost all of the poetry, wit, and majesty from a great play. But Perry is just the latest filmmaker to obliterate a great work of art by turning it into a dreadful movie; Other examples abound. Such as...
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While the appeal of televised sports has generally eluded me, I do understand how events like the Super Bowl provide much-needed emotional release for football fans. Whether you're cheering your team to victory, yelling at that stupid ref, or keening over a botched play, it's a way to release tension and bottled-up feelings in a socially acceptable way. I get the same purgative experience with a good tearjerker, so if you're not into football, watch those commercials later on Hulu and curl up with a good three-hanky DVD instead.
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Some movies are deadly accurate about capturing the way people really talk while others have an ear for how we wish everyone spoke all the time. And you can definitely sign me up for a world where the quips fly as fast, and the bitchery is as crisp, as in All About Eve (Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment). Sixty years after this Broadway-backstage comedy-drama snagged a Best Picture Oscar, it remains a sterling example of American movies at their smartest and most entertaining.
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Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass have been catnip for filmmakers ever since the earliest days of the cinema, and over the years we've seen everything from silents to cartoons to soft-core porn versions of a little girl's adventures in a surreal parallel universe. And while no one has made the leap from episodic tale (with specific elements of late-1800s political and cultural satire) to three-act screenplay, it's Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland (now available in a 60th Anniversary Edition from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment) that's the most satisfying to watch.
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Horror movies have gotten maximum mileage out of spooky children over the years. Seeing a tot with a grim visage and no fire in his or her eyes is a quick way to give audiences the willies, and Let Me In (new this week from Anchor Bay Entertainment) effectively uses young Chloe Moretz -- giving a grim, chilling performance -- as a centuries-old vampire in the body of what appears to be a pre-adolescent girl. (Moretz is following in the capable footsteps of Lina Leandersson from Let Me In's superior predecessor, Let the Right One In.) Who are some other movie kids you wouldn't want to babysit without garlic, holy water, and an AK-47? Glad you asked!
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Screenwriters, we are often told, rarely get the credit they deserve when a movie becomes a classic. Fans heap praise on the stars and director but rarely get around to giving the ink-stained wretches their due. Of course, blame tends to follow the same path, with those visible targets getting the loudest raspberries when a movie tanks. So in discussing Lucky Lady (making its DVD debut this week from Shout! Factory), let's put aside its sterling cast of Liza Minnelli (in her follow-up to Cabaret), Gene Hackman, and Burt Reynolds, and its legendary director, Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain, Charade). Let's talk about the writers.
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There are those DVDs you throw in at the end of a long work day to decompress, turn off your brain, and have a few laughs. Three new titles out this week don't fall anywhere near that category. Trust me. Two of them will bombard you with sights and sounds that are like almost nothing you've ever seen before, and the other one is a disturbing and twisty dysfunctional family story that somehow snuck past the Academy gatekeepers and scored a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination.
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If you long for the days when actors routinely slapped pipes out of their co-stars' faces and cups out of each other's hands, for dialogue where the last word gets wildly accentuated (e.g., "I don't need your CHARITY!" or "He gives me nothing, and nothing is what he GETS!"), then it's time to ferociously stub out your cigarette, throw a shot glass against the wall, and snap up Warner Archive's new DVD of Two Weeks in Another Town.
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