Your Mid-Week Guide To DVD And Streaming: Jeremy Renner Eats Matt Damon’s Table Scraps

We’re getting closer to Christmas, and Hollywood has something for everyone to stuff in their stocking this week, assuming everyone wants The Bourne Legacy, Ted, or Ice Age: Continental Drift. If those titles don’t get you excited, there are plenty of other options that didn’t get the theatrical releases those films did.  We’ve got flicks with Jesse Eisenberg and James Van Der Beek.  We’ve got films about child sex-slaves and shaving and puppeteers.  There’s bigfoots and zombies and hipsters and hobbits.  There’s even a film so FilmDrunk-approved, its theatrical run was literally presented by FilmDrunk.

The DVDs:
The Bourne Legacy
Ted
Ice Age: Continental Drift
Why Stop Now
Backwards
Miami Connection
Trade Of Innocents
Mansome
Rehearsal For A Sicilian Tragedy
Dreams Of A Life
Insane Clown Posse & Twiztid’s American Psycho Tour Documentary
Night Claws
The Life Zone
Upon A Midnight Clear
Nesting
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
Age Of The Hobbits
Osombie
Creep Van
Halloween Party

Streaming: Check out your choices here.

Can’t remember which flick has FilmDrunk’s coveted blessing?  Continue reading to find out.  Want to find out if the film about child sex-slaves and the film about puppeteers is the same film?  Continue reading. Want to know which films I fairly arbitrarily suggest you watch on Netflix?  Click the streaming link above, but be aware: one of this week’s DVDs is targeted at Juggalos, and you won’t know which one it is unless you continue reading without skipping right to the last page.
The Bourne Legacy

This latest re-boot/sequel/spin-off of a film trilogy that really didn’t need another flick (like most film trilogies) is now on DVD.  Matt Damon’s out this time, and Jeremy Renner’s in because “THERE WAS NEVER JUST ONE”.  Or more likely because Damon had the good sense to know not to push his luck on a series that was only getting more and more confusing and convoluted with each sequel. Or maybe not.  This flick received middling-to-good reviews, and did OK-but-not-great at the box office, but that’s enough for another sequel to be in the works, so such is life in Hollywood.  If a film re-boot/sequel/spin-off does well, they milk it.  If a film re-boot/sequel/spin-off does poorly, they simply re-boot it again. For what it’s worth, most word-of-mouth I’ve heard is positive, and I am looking forward to catching this on cable somewhere down the line. The ‘Legacy’ of the title isn’t that Jeremy Renner’s character is another super-soldier-gone-rogue like Jason Bourne, it’s the sinking realization that Universal has decided that this is their James Bond franchise, so we might as well accept it.


Ted

Speaking of milking proven formulas, Universal also gives us Ted.  Seth MacFarlane stretches his creative wings by giving us a comedy about a man living with a talking teddy bear. This is a step up from MacFarlane’s TV work, which thus far is comprised of a show about a family living with a talking dog, another show about a family living with a kooky alien, and yet another show about a dude whose family lives next door to a talking bear. That creative wing-stretch?  It’s because this is live-action/CGI instead of 2-D animation.  Also they can swear because it’s a movie and not TV.  Now I know it sounds like I think this movie looks like crap, but to be honest, I really don’t.  In fact, this is right up my alley.  When I was a kid, I transferred my Disney “Read-Along-with-the-Books” 45s to cassette, and then dubbed profane jokes over the narration and dialogue. I desperately wanted a Teddy Ruxpin bear so I could have him saying things like “Cinderella showed up to the ball in the finest go-NAKED WITH BIG TITTIES HANGING OUT.”  I never did get a Teddy Ruxpin; probably because I was 17 at the time, but still.  I like toys that swear is what I’m saying, so Ted looks fine by me.


Ice Age: Continental Drift

This is the fourth film in the on-going series that makes no attempt at exposing children to factual information about pre-history but instead wantonly misinforms them about it, and I couldn’t be happier that it is out on DVD today.  No, I don’t want to see it (but I will; my kids have terrible taste in cinema).  So why am I happy?  Because this is the only film hitting DVD this week with the Dove Seal of Approval! This is a rare feat for such a mainstream film, but Dove doesn’t let things like it actually being a movie people have heard of before stop them from giving it a full 5 out of 5 Doves. That endorsement doesn’t mean the film is perfect, however.  Dove warns us of the following: “SEX: Sid kisses Diego accidentally. LANGUAGE: Childish name calling such as stupid, looser [sic], freak etc.; Holy crap. VIOLENCE: Several slapstic scenes; Fights with weapons but no-one gets hurt; the earth shifts causing mountains to climb and/or fall. DRUGS: One character eats a berry that paralyzes him for a short time.  NUDITY: None.  OTHER: Father/Daughter tensions.”  I have to be honest, I never would’ve guessed that the Dove Foundation would approve of something made by Hollywood heathens.  I just assumed they would take offense that the animals were talking but not praying or that they’d be upset by the fact that the animals are naked (despite the Dove analysis that indicates otherwise). I just couldn’t figure out what Dove would find so appealing about this film, and then I remembered the whole teaching kids to ignore science, reason, logic, and empirical evidence thing, and suddenly I figured it out.


Why Stop Now

Hey it’s relatively popular actors Jesse Eisenberg, Melissa Leo, and Tracy Morgan headlining a film that only played on three screens and made a grand total of $2432 at the box office!  I know what I’m not watching ever.


Backwards

This James Van Der Beek flick about competitive rowing made $61,465 playing on nine screens.  That’s how bad Why Stop Now is.


Miami Connection

I won’t say that this film was made specifically for the enjoyment of FilmDrunkards, as its existence pre-dates FilmDrunk by a good twenty years, but until Vince and Burnsy get funding for their Danny Trejo-and-Gary Busey-are-frat-brothers-who-start-a-dog-grooming-business movie, it’s as close as we’re gonna get.  In case you’ve forgotten, this is the 1987 film about a martial arts rock band and their quest to clean up the streets of Orlando that was lost until Drafthouse Films bought a 35 mm print of it off eBay, recognized its majesty, and made sure the world knew of its majesty as well.  FilmDrunk co-presented this film in a series of screenings (with a couple more in Miami Connection’s hometown of Orlando –no, I don’t get it either, and I’ve seen the movie –this Friday and Saturday) and that’s saying something.  Seriously, if you haven’t already, see this movie.  It has everything you could hope for from a movie about best friends who were all orphans and are now black belts in Tae Kwon Do who live together and play in a rock band together while battling motorcycle-riding ninjas, rival rock bands, and their female lead singer’s evil brother.  It even has tits. Weird, floppy, 1980s biker-chick tits. It’s transcendent.


Trade Of Innocents

Mira Sorvino and Dermot Mulroney star in this film about the child sex-slave industry of Southeast Asia. Don’t confuse this with Mira Sorvino’s previous work on this topic, 2005’s Lifetime TV movie, Human Trafficking.  Also don’t confuse it with her next outing with Mulroney, the family film Space Warriors, directed by Sean McNamara. McNamara has nothing to do with Trade Of Innocents, but this picture tells me that, even so, he’s probably no stranger to the child sex-slave industry.


Mansome

Morgan Spurlock –the guy who made Super Size Me and who has a One Direction doc as his next project- gives us this documentary that explores the psychology and trends behind male-grooming. He gets a lot of famous dudes to talk about it, and Will Arnett and Jason Bateman get extra attention because they produced this flick.  The only reason this looks remotely watchable is because it isn’t any of the following worse-looking documentaries also hitting DVD today: Unraveled –another doc about a rich Wall Street assh*le stealing millions of dollars. Because these guys deserve the sense of entitlement that comes with having a film made about you. Mississippi Juco –a football documentary that features absolutely no footage of football in the trailer. Y.E.R.T.: Your Environmental Road Trip –F.U.C.K. N.O.: I don’t need to use an asterisk because of the periods between the letters. After Kony: Staging Hope: White Americans ‘help’ adult veterans of Joseph Kony’s child army by having them put on a play, and they even made a documentary about how wonderful they are. This is why the world hates us.


Rehearsal For A Sicilian Tragedy

In this documentary, the guy who played Jesus in The Big Lebowski travels to Sicily so he can learn to be a puppeteer.  For real.  Now I know John Turturro’s career has other highlights besides his role in The Big Lebowski, but he made this doc between filming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and voicing a car in Cars 2, so he should just get comfortable with being most fondly remembered for playing a pederast in a cult film from 14 years ago.


Dreams Of A Life

Now all kidding aside, this documentary looks fascinating.  The synopsis:

DREAMS OF A LIFE is an imaginative and multilayered quest to go beyond the newspaper reports and solve the mystery of who thirty-eight year old Joyce Vincent was and why she lay undiscovered for three years after her death in one of the busiest parts of London. Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit above Shopping City in Wood Green. Nobody noticed. Nearly three years later, her flat was forced into by authorities due to lack of rent payment. Her skeleton was found surrounded by Christmas presents that she was in the process of wrapping. Her television was still on.

HOW THE F*CK DOES THAT HAPPEN?  You’d think at least one of the intended gift recipients would’ve been looking for her. Or for their gift, at least.


Insane Clown Posse & Twiztid’s American Psycho Tour Documentary

This spot was either going to go to this ‘documentary’ or to a French film called Beloved Beloved stars French icon Catherine Deneuve, her daughter Chiara Mastroianni, Oscar-winning director Milos Forman, and even Paul Schneider -that guy who used to be on Parks & Rec, but left before the show got good.  The whole thing is very French and they sing a lot. So, obviously, I ended up going with Insane Clown Posse.


Night Claws

There are two Bigfoot flicks hitting DVD today.  One, Bigfoot County, is a found-footage flick and looks super boring.  The other, Night Claws, features a laughably bad bigfoot creature in the trailer, has a bit of gore, and co-stars Sylvester Stallone’s brother Frank.  The decision of which bigfoot film to feature was a very easy one to make.


The Life Zone

Three pregnant women who had planned on getting abortions find themselves kidnapped and held prisoner by crazy pro-lifers –led by Robert Loggia!– who will make sure that these women stay put for the next seven months and give birth just as God intended. How will our heroines find a way to escape their captors and rid themselves of those pesky fetuses that got them into this mess in the first place?  I have no idea, but the official synopsis mentions a ‘mind-blowing climactic twist’ that will keep audiences guessing.  My guess?  The three pregnant women all end up having babies that are half black; that’s why my mom made my sister get an abortion when she got herself ‘in a family way’.


Upon A Midnight Clear

Frost Allicaster, an orphan girl who is bullied by the other kids at her prestigious private school, starts receiving text messages on her iPhone from God, who tells her he will grant her three wishes to change her life. Now here’s a good message for a family film to impart: If you feel alone and vulnerable, respond to unsolicited text messages from people claiming to make all your dreams come true; after all, they may actually be from God!


Nesting

The synopsis:

Neil and Sarah used to talk about bands they love, now they talk about gift cards. They are, in short, in the transition from hipster to yuppie, and they’re asking themselves that universal question of all thirty-something married couples: How the heck did that happen? In an attempt to find out they go back to where they shared an apartment in their twenty’s but end up relying on their grown-up resources to avoid serious consequences.

Aw, horsesh*t! The very fact that the filmmakers think that being a hipster is desirable and that all thirty-something married couples ask themselves that ‘universal question’ of what happened to their hipsterdom really tells you all you need to know about this utterly maddening piece of crap film.  First of all, that question isn’t universal; many thirty-something married couples know exactly how ‘that happened’: they grew the f*ck up and couldn’t be happier about it.  You know where I never want to go back to?  The goddamn apartment my wife and I shared before we bought a house.  It was tiny, and the people above us f*cked very loudly.  We were thrilled to yuppie it up by moving to the suburbs.  We can –and do- still drive into the city daily because we can afford not one, but two reliable cars. Which is to say nothing of the inevitable conclusion that the characters will reach –namely that being a hipster is stupid and having a stable life is f*cking awesome.  Guess what, assh*les: most people don’t need to ‘realize’ this, and they certainly don’t need a sh*tty movie to tell it to them.  Also, it’s ‘twenties’.  Learn the proper use of apostrophes and go f*ck yourselve’s.


Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

There are few things in life as disappointing to a heterosexual male than a ‘lesbian movie’ made by and for actual lesbians. This DVD comes out on Saturday because why should they conform to our male-defined conception of so-called “industry standards”?  P.S. -“the pavement matches the concrete” doesn’t even make any sense.


Age Of The Hobbits

Overheard in the offices of The Asylum:

“Oh…my….god.  Guys, you’ll never believe this: New Line has no legal claim on the word ‘hobbit’.”

“Bullsh*t.  They must. Otherwise we could just make our own movie and actually use ‘hobbit’ in the title.”

“It’ll take a lot of work to make a movie that looks like those Peter Jackson films, though.”

“Nonsense.  We’ll just have people run around, drop a dragon or something in there and call it done.  Boom.  Call it Age Of The Hobbits, go home and f*ck our wives.”

“WE’RE GONNA BE RICH!”

Update: Nevermind.


Osombie

Yes, this is that Osama Bin Laden-is-a-zombie flick.  How very provocative.


Creep Van

It’s been over 16 months since FilmDrunk last published a post with the ‘RAPE VANS’ tag, and I’m featuring this movie this week simply as an excuse to use that tag once again. Not only does this movie look like it could be possibly dumb fun, but posts about rape vans oftentimes lure enraged vanners into the comments section and extra comments are all right by me.  At any rate, watch the trailer, but be sure to stick around afterwards for the 35 seconds of hot and steamy ‘Textless Video Elements’.


Halloween Party

This cost $1 million to make.  Merry Christmas.

There are only a couple of new streaming additions to point out: Alps and The Adventures of Tintin.  You know what though?  There may be more; I’ve been kind of lazy with keeping up with the Netflix additions this past week, so if you’re aware of others, do share them in the comments. As for this week’s DVDs, Mansome is streaming, so hooray for that.  If you’d rather not spend your time watching men talk about their body hair, here are my Netflix suggestions, hand-picked just for you:

Rounders

Edward Norton –who co-stars in The Bourne Legacy– co-stars with Matt Damon, who wasn’t in The Bourne Legacy, but is still the titular Bourne nonetheless, in this poker flick.  It also co-stars John Turturro of Rehearsal For A Sicilian Tragedy.  If only this flick had Shaggy 2 Dope in it, it would be the perfect Netflix suggestion for this week.

Red State

Reading Chareth Cutestory’s Kevin Smith article yesterday and seeing the comments section explode with Smith’s defenders, I knew I’d have to find a way to try to bait those same commenters with my weekly DVD post. I’m happy to report, therefore, that Why Stop Now’s Melissa Leo is also in this Kevin Smith movie.  Of course I haven’t seen this movie, and I never will, because Kevin Smith is a fat, talentless, hack whose only reason for existing is to single-fat-handedly make sure that the hockey jersey industry doesn’t buckle under the weight of the NHL lockout. It’s buckling under the weight of Smith’s enormous ass instead.

Human Trafficking

This is that Mira Sorvino TV movie that isn’t Trade Of Innocents, but might as well be.  Actually, this is probably better because instead of Dermot Mulroney, it has Donald Sutherland and Robert Carlyle.  You could watch this nearly three-hour movie about people being kidnapped and forced into prostitution every December and make it a holiday tradition.  Beats watching that overrated Will Ferrell movie Elf for the 100th time.

Barton Fink

As much as he probably doesn’t mind the attention his role of Jesus in The Big Lebowski gives him, Rehearsal For A Sicilian Tragedy’s John Turturro’s real Coen Brothers showcase is this film in which he has the title role. The film starts off slowly, but eventually picks up –and I don’t want to say any more than that.  Also, I can only imagine I’m not the only person who first discovered this movie as a kid as a direct result of the Simpsons clip above.  The difference is, I liked it even as an 11-year-old.  Probably because John Goodman’s character reminded me so much of my brother. Oddly enough, that brother and I don’t really talk much these days.  Oh well.

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