After the past few weeks with only a few new major studio flicks getting DVD releases, this week we’ve got plenty. Unfortunately, it’s stuff like The Three Stooges. It’s not all bad though -assuming you like movies with Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Jon Hamm, Guy Pearce, Clive Owen, Mel Gibson, Ewan McGregor, Willem Dafoe, Tom Hardy, Jackie Mason, Ben Foster, or that dude who played Balki on Perfect Strangers. That’s right, they are all in new movies hitting DVD this week. Besides those stars, we’ve got flicks about vampires and school shootings and even a found-footage haunted house flick. There’s even Davy Jones’ final film appearance, and how could you pass that up?
The DVDs:
The Three Stooges
Casa de mi Padre
Friends With Kids
Lockout
Intruders
Get The Gringo
Salmon Fishing In The Yemen
4:44 Last Day On Earth
Deserter
Goldberg – P.I.
Here
Virgin Alexander
Girls Gone Dead
Midnight Son
Hidden Rage
Documenting The Grey Man
The only way to know for certain which film features your favorite Monkee is to keep reading on the next page. If you’re more of a Micky Dolenz fan, feel free to skip right to the Netflix suggestions by clicking here.
Remember when this flick was going to star Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Jim Carrey? At least that version of this movie would’ve been watchable in a ‘what-the-f*ck-is-this’ kind of way. Instead we ended up with Will Sasso, Sean Hayes, and that one dude with the Greek name from those commercials for that product and or service I can’t recall because the commercials obviously didn’t serve their intended purpose. The ultimate mistake here was trying to make a Three Stooges movie. That seems, obvious, I know, but hear me out. The whole project -from inception to marketing- hinged upon the assumption that audiences love The Three Stooges. Problem is, love them or hate them, the Three Stooges are comedy icons, and these assholes are not the Stooges. It’d be like having a stand-up comedian record an album of famous George Carlin bits and then attempt to sell it as a George Carlin comedy record. Nobody would buy the album, just like nobody wanted to see this movie. Instead the filmmakers should’ve done an homage to the old-style, physical comedy hijinks of The Three Stooges without ever actually calling their characters Larry, Moe, and Curly. It wouldn’t necessarily be a better movie, but at least it wouldn’t inspire the instant hate that this movie has. If you –somehow- actually want to see this, check out The Fairy instead. It’s another one of today’s new DVD releases, and it’s chock-full of physical comedy. Plus, all of that physical comedy involves a baby repeatedly escaping death. It’s a cartoony comedy centered on the possibly horrible and grisly demise of a helpless infant. Some classic comedy tropes are just timeless, I guess.
This is that Will Ferrell movie that’s in Spanish. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that this flick intrigues me, if only because Ferrell is trying something different and decidedly un-commercial. At the same time, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I haven’t seen it despite my being intrigued. The critics hated this movie (even more-so than they hated The Three Stooges), but what did anyone expect? This is obviously Will Ferrell and his buddies screwing around and making each other laugh, and it was never going to be anything else. But is it funny? I just don’t know. I don’t think I know of anyone who saw it. I know a lot of people who said they wanted to see it, and I know a lot of people who said that they thought it looked like it could be good, but I don’t think I know anyone who actually pulled the trigger and bought a ticket. Here’s hoping it becomes a cult-favorite. It’s not that Will Ferrell needs this to be good; in fact, I’m sure he made it expecting it to be a financial bust, but that’s the point. Will Ferrell doesn’t need to make successful movies anymore. He’s at that place in his career where he can do whatever he wants, and if what he wants is to f*ck around with his friends and film the result, well then I’m glad they’re making strange and possibly amazing flicks like this. After all, we’ve already got one Adam Sandler, and with Grown Ups 2 in production, that seems like one too many.
Jennifer Westfeldt (a.k.a. the woman who actually gets to sleep with Jon Hamm) writes/directs/stars in this comedy about two friends who decide to keep things platonic while conceiving and raising a child. This sounds like it could be terrible, and that’s probably why they filled the cast with people everyone loves like Adam Scott, the aforementioned Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Chris O’Dowd. More to the point, they cast this movie with Adam Scott and people everyone loves from Bridesmaids. Even more to the point, they cast this movie by having Jon Hamm walk around the Bridesmaids set bullying everyone into appearing in his girlfriend’s movie that stars Adam Scott. Rounding out the cast is Edward Burns and Megan Fox. Yeah, I know, that’s f*cking weird. Anyhow, the premise does sound terrible, but the cast is full of enough ringers that they could make it watchable. Plus, I’m sure Westfeldt’s script avoids the obvious and expected outcome that the two friends learn that –despite their best intentions to keep things friendly and simple- they do love each other and are, in fact, a romantic couple. I mean, if it ends with them together, what the hell is that? Every one of these friends-with-benefits movies lately (No Strings Attached, and I forget the name of the other one) ends with the friends becoming lovers and that’s simply not how these things happen. Especially if a kid is involved. You don’t start out with a strictly physical relationship that becomes a romantic one and that’s the end. You start out with a romantic relationship that becomes physical which eventually leads to familiarity and boredom, and maybe kids, but definitely no more sex. It’s a cliché because it’s true. I should know; my ninth wedding anniversary is in two days. Happy Anniversary Honey!
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Lockout
Guy Pearce is a wisecracking bad-ass sent to rescue the president’s daughter from a space-station prison. In Vince’s non-FilmDrunk review (and yes, he occasionally writes for the semi-legitimate press –which is also Vince’s favorite masturbation technique, but I digress…) he writes:
For about 35 minutes, I thought Lockout might be the dumb-fun action movie people tried to convince me Taken was. But it breaks rule one of stupid, simple action movies: Keep it simple, stupid. I want to laugh at Guy Pearce chewing scenery, not keep track of 12 different MacGuffins. First it’s a guy, then it’s a briefcase, then it’s a microchip—STOP IT, NO ONE CARES! Dumb movies are to be laughed at, not confused by. Now I feel like the dumb one.
That’s a shame, too, because the trailer is gloriously dumb-fun looking. I’d like to say that this is a case of the fart-sniffing professional critic looking for something to bitch about, but we’re talking about Vince, and that’s simply not his style. Sure, he loves to sniff his own farts, and lord knows he can bitch, but professional? Not him. After all, he ends his review questioning whether or not the leading lady is banging the producer and he doesn’t even bother to share the answer with his readers. That’s some bush-league sh*t right there. [If I knew I would tell you! -Ed.]
Clive Owen stars in this stupid looking boogey-man picture. This was buried at the box-office and, based on the trailer, rightfully so. Clive Owen’s kid is having bad dreams, and he thinks it’s bullsh*t, but then he sees the boogey-man himself (or in this case the boogey man is ‘Hollowface’), and tries to get help, but everyone tells him that no one is there and that he is crazy. They even have video recordings proving that no one was there, because everyone in these movies tapes themselves in bed each night. If this didn’t have Clive Owen it wouldn’t have even played in the 33 theaters it did. Simply terrible. How much you want to bet that Clive Owen really is crazy and he actually is Hollowface himself? The box cover sure seems to think that’s the case. Anyhow, this co-stars Carice van Houten from Game of Thrones. She’s actually got another flick hitting DVD today, Black Butterflies. It’s about South African poets, or something, and it’s somehow worse looking than Intruders, despite it co-starring Rutger Hauer as a dude named Abraham Jonker, who was an actual person, but I don’t care, that name is ridiculous.
Back in 2010, Mel Gibson tried to rehabilitate his acting career by producing, co-writing, and starring in this flick about an American criminal in Mexico. Problem was -as you may recall- he kept saying and doing horribly racist and misogynistic things in his real life, and it wasn’t exactly the best time to release a Mel Gibson flick. Well, a couple years passed and the people behind this flick realized that there never would be a good time, and in fact, they should get this movie out there before Gibson said or did anything worse, so they cut a trailer that makes it look like the whole film is Mexicans kicking Gibson’s ass. They hoped that everyone would take this as some kind of a mea culpa from Gibson. Of course it isn’t and nobody actually thought it was, but there you go. If you don’t remember this flick that’s because it never played in theaters; for the last few months it was a DirecTV On-Demand exclusive, and if that isn’t a mark of quality, well boy, I just don’t know what is.
When the most intriguing words in your title are ‘In’ and ‘The’, your movie is doomed to suck. The trailer doesn’t help either. Ewan McGregor is a fisheries expert (and god damn it, can we stop with all these movies about fisheries experts?) hired to help a sheikh bring salmon fishing to the desert. Emily Blunt’s there too, but I can never keep her straight with Emily Mortimer, so I’m not comfortable talking about her. Anyhow, McGregor and Blunt undoubtedly find romance, and I’m sure everyone learns a little something about the value of engaging foreign cultures. I haven’t checked, but I would bet money that this is based on a true story. How else could they come up with a premise that lame and expect to sell it to the movie-going public? The only other guess I have is that rich Hollywood producers play a mad-lib style party game creating silly movie titles and then they have to actually make the movie based on the titles they make up. I used to do a lot of mad-libs as a kid, and if they had let me play this game then I can assure you this movie would’ve been called Pooping In The Wiener. Probably would’ve been a much bigger hit, too.
This film from writer/director Abel Ferrara (probably best known for writing/directing Bad Lieutenant: Harvey Keitel’s Penis) examines how two people spend their last day on Earth, which is about to be destroyed in some kind of global apocalypse. In this instance, the two people are played by Willem Dafoe and by somebody you’ve never heard of but I’m sure she’s an amazing actress because she’s Ferrara’s real-life girlfriend and only got the part because she’s so good at acting. The two characters seem to spend their last day on Earth watching TV and having lots of sex. When they aren’t having sex, Willem Dafoe is impotently shouting from the rooftop. (Which, to be fair, could just be documentary footage of Dafoe. That dude is weird.) For real, that seems to pretty much be it for this movie. Did the world need yet another ‘people-coping-with-the-imminent-end-of-the-world’ flick? Of course not, they are getting just as common as vampire flicks or zombie movies, but this one is from a respected independent filmmaker and it stars a respected serious actor, so we are supposed to assume that it has something profound to say about the fleeting nature of human existence or something. The only message I’m getting from this trailer is that if I were to spend my last day on Earth with Willem Dafoe he would constantly be trying to f*ck me. Which I already kind of assumed would be the case with any day I might spend with the actor, regardless of any global apocalypse. Like I said, that dude is weird.
Here we have a British film from a decade ago, suspiciously getting a United States DVD release only now. Hmm, I wonder what could prompt this decision? Well let’s see what we’ve got. The box cover has a giant Tom Hardy head, and it says ‘Featuring The Star Of Bronson, Inception, & Warrior’. Now, it’s true that he’s in this and that he was in those movies as well, but I feel like there must be some other reason, like that Tom Hardy happens to be playing the villain in what’s expected to be this summer’s biggest blockbuster and that that very same blockbuster is coming out in just a few days. The obvious point being that this flick is shamelessly trying to hitch itself to The Dark Knight Rises. Besides the film being 10 years old, Hardy’s not even the main character –not that you would know it from the box art. Hell, they’re so bent on trying to steal Christopher Nolan’s thunder that they named their releasing company Inception Media Group. They even included the following tags on their YouTube trailer: Batman, Bane, Dark, Knight, Rises, Christopher, and Nolan. To their credit, they didn’t limit their piggy-backing to just the Caped Crusader; other tags include: This, Means, War, Reese, Witherspoon, Star, and Trek. (Hardy was in Star Trek: Nemesis.) Incidentally, this movie is a true story about dudes in the French Foreign Legion. I’m sure it’s great, despite everything about it indicating that it’s a pile of crap.
Oh my goodness gracious, I have so many thoughts about this movie. First off, I had no idea Jackie Mason was still alive. Second, did they base every stereotypical Jewish character trait on Jackie Mason, or did he model his persona on these pre-existing stereotypes? Third, why did they change the title from Jackie Goldberg Private Dick? Also, why did this film require three directors? How could it require that much man-power? Are Jackie Mason’s arms permanently stuck out in front of him and bent at the elbows like a cheap action figure? Because I think they are. Why is the tag-line under the title, “That’s Private Investigator…you Schmuck!” What else do people think ‘P.I.’ stands for? Why is ‘Schmuck’ capitalized, or more specifically, why is ‘you’ the only word in the phrase that isn’t capitalized? Also, who is the intended audience for this movie? Does Jackie Mason still have a huge following? Did he ever? Were people clamoring for a new Jackie Mason vehicle? Lastly why does the official synopsis feel compelled to tell me that this is Davy Jones’ final movie appearance? Just like Mason, are there tons of Davy Jones fans who really wanted to see their favorite geriatric dead teen idol appear in a movie? And while I’m on the topic of Davy Jones, did they really just have him say that Jackie Mason’s character looks like Jackie Mason? Is that supposed to be a joke? The Julia Roberts gambit didn’t work for Ocean’s Twelve, and it’s not going to work here. This whole thing looks more confusing than it looks awful, but with that being said, it does look awful…you Schmuck! (Did I do that right? I’m so confused.)
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Here
Ben Foster plays a cartographer in this serious and seriously boring looking romance/drama/road movie. Trust me, this looks more boring than the title would indicate, and that is one boring title. However, I would like to commend the film makers for choosing to make the protagonist a cartographer, because nothing is more exciting than a guy who makes maps! For real though, at least this isn’t yet another movie about a fisheries expert. (We get it, Hollywood; fisheries experts are sexy and fun. Try to be creative for a change.) Anyhow, I’ve tried watching this trailer a few times, and I can’t really focus on anything besides Ben Foster’s head. I don’t know if he’s developed some kind of Joss Whedon-style head giganticism or what, but all I can think about is that if he were to shave off his hair and beard, he would look exactly like Elmer Fudd. Watch this trailer (or try to) and tell me I’m wrong.
Everything you need to know about this movie you can get straight from the box cover. First there’s the title. So, Alexander’s a virgin. Got it. Secondly, there’s the tag line: ‘What Is Your Definition Of A Pimp?’. So, despite being a virgin, Alexander opens some kind of escort service or whore house. How wacky! Now I see the ‘Risky Business meets Bottle Rocket!’ near the top. So, yes, it is about a wacky whore house. Great. Also, the way the two people are sitting on the bench, one of the whores likes him, but he’s oblivious because he’s eccentric and or autistic or both. Fair enough. I’m sure they’ll end up together. Also, one of the stars is Bronson Pinchot, who is still trying to ride the Perfect Strangers wave, so the movie can’t be very good. I literally assumed all of this from the box cover alone, and all of it is completely accurate. The only details that the trailer adds is that Alexander has to open the brothel in order to raise funds to keep his house, and that he likes to play the piano. Now not only have I saved you trouble of having to watch the trailer, I’m willing to bet I’ve saved us all the trouble of having to watch the movie.
Yup, it’s a horror-comedy send-up of the Girls Gone Wild videos. There’s lots of tits and gore in the trailer, so you’re fairly warned. Just to be clear, isn’t just shots of girls flashing the camera and then getting gutted; there is an actual plot about the people involved in making those videos –and the psychos who murder them. There’s one dude who wants to become a Girls Gone Wild Crazy Girls Unlimited cameraman. You can tell he’s committed to his art because he’s constantly carrying around a video camera, as all great cinematographers do. Look, this flick is exactly what you expect it to be. For example, when you watch the trailer and begin to wonder if Ron Jeremy will make a cameo, BANG –Ron Jeremy makes a cameo. It’s that type of situation. You like tits? You like over the top violence? You’ll like Girls Gone Dead. It certainly isn’t a pretentious film. If you want pretentious, check out another one of today’s new DVDs, Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse. It’s ostensibly about the heaviness of human existence, but in reality it’s a black and white foreign film about a f*cking horse. It’s 146 minutes long and there’s only 30 different camera takes, so it averages to about five minutes for each shot. Of a damn horse. Watch the trailer if you want, but I don’t think it’s any secret why I’m featuring the one with tits and gore instead.
Here’s this week’s obligatory straight-to-DVD vampire flick. The funny thing -and I never thought I would say this- is it’s a straight-to-DVD vampire flick that I would watch. It’s got a relatively original premise: the vampire dude drinks blood, but he isn’t necessarily running around with fangs biting people or turning into a bat or a sparkly emo douchebag, he’s just sick and drinking blood helps him feel better. Sure he eventually realizes he’s a vampire, but you get my point. I’m guessing part of what makes this film look better than the rest of its ilk, is that it isn’t actually made by amateurs. The writer/director has worked on visual effects for movies like Sleepy Hollow, and the cast –while certainly not A-list- has people you recognize like Tracey Walter (Bob from the 1989 Batman), and Larry Cedar, who most of you will recognize as Pierce’s dad on Community, but to me he will always be the red-headed dude from PBS’s Square One TV. That show taught me how to do math and laugh at the same time. In conclusion, we have here a non-vampire movie about a vampire who really isn’t a vampire and he is hunted by a police detective who is probably really good at math, and that synopsis actually makes this look good, relatively speaking.
We’ve got two’ for-Christians/by-Christians’ flicks hitting DVD this week. One’s called Saving Faith and it’s about a dude who causes a car accident that kills his daughter and he learns to have faith in God because God loves him because why else would God take his child away in a grisly death? God causes us to kill our children so that we may better understand his love for us. Makes perfect sense. The other flick is this one, Hidden Rage, and it is pretty f*cked up for a Christian flick. It’s basically a school-shooting flick. What’s strange is the trailer never really inserts any sort of Christian message. If not for my research confirming that this was a church-funded/produced flick, the only real clue is the ‘The God Of Moses Entertainment’ logo at the top of the trailer. (And how crazy and threatening is that logo?). Anyhow, the whole trailer is basically kids pulling guns on each other at school and then other kids running in terror and then the SWAT team arriving. Oh, there’s also a seemingly unrelated shot of a ghetto-land drive by shooting that kills a toddler. The only pseudo-Christian message that this movie might possibly be making is that if you go to public school (or if you live in the ghetto, I guess) you will die a horribly violent death. As someone who spent 13 years attending Christian parochial schools, that actually seems pretty much on par with what we were taught.
Every single thing about this flick is derivative. It’s a ‘true story’ found-footage film about a family being haunted by demonic forces and the film crew that thinks it is all a joke until they find out that it really isn’t. The official synopsis mentions that this is the footage the cops found left behind. Now, never minding the fact that if cops did find footage the last thing they would do is allow ‘Camp Motion Pictures’ to sell copies of it on Amazon, at least half of the trailer isn’t even found footage! There are scenes of the ‘documentary’ crew talking about making this film. When you aren’t distracted by the horrible acting, your mind races to remember the names of the films in which you’ve seen this all before. For real, I bet you could take every single shot of this trailer and find a pre-existing film with that exact same shot –including identical dialogue. Even the box cover is lifted directly from The Last Exorcism, and that wasn’t exactly an original flick itself. It’s as if this movie is possessed by the spirit of other sh*tty movies, and with that observation I have shown more creativity and originality than any aspect of Documenting The Grey Man. Now here’s hoping I haven’t given any asshole would-be film makers an idea for their next flick.
As usual, pretty much none of this week’s new DVDs are also streaming. There is one of them, I guess, but it’s The Fairy -that foreign-language slapstick flick with babies in peril- and I only kind of mentioned it in passing, so I’m not sure if it really counts. Luckily, Netflix has added some older flicks we’ve discussed in the past: Stuck Between Stations, Creature, and 11-11-11. Okay, maybe not so luckily after all. Anyhow, I’ve got your streaming needs covered nonetheless:
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Y Tu Mamá También
This sexually charged Mexican road movie from Alfonso Cuarón stars Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal who are both in Casa de mi Padre. In fact, this might make a good double-feature with Will Ferrell’s flick. You know, Mamá and Padre, that sort of association. Just don’t watch this with your parents. Unless your parents like seeing penises on film. If that’s what they’re into then definitely show this to them. There’s some penises in this movie is what I’m saying. [One of my favorite movies. -Vince]
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The Cider House Rules
Despite directing the awful looking Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, Lasse Hallström has directed a few decent flicks and at least a couple are available via streaming. His adaptation of John Irving’s The Cider House Rules was nominated for seven Oscars and won two. Plus it co-stars Paul Rudd and Heavy D. If you’ve already seen it, check out Hallström’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which was that Johnny Depp movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a mentally handicapped teen. Of course, it doesn’t have Paul Rudd, but at least it has John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover. You really can’t go wrong either way.
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Bad Lieutenant
I mentioned this Abel Ferrara film in my write-up of his 4:44 Last Day On Earth. To be clear, I was joking earlier: there is no ‘Harvey Keitel’s Penis’ subtitle on this film. At least not officially. Keitel definitely does show his penis, though. So, maybe you should watch it with your folks. Or don’t. I don’t know what your parents like. I’m just making suggestions related to this week’s new DVD releases. It just so happens that a lot of these movies happen to feature full frontal male nudity.
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Rampart
Let me just get it right out of the way: I have no idea if this movie has any cock-shots in it. What I do know is that it co-stars Here’s Ben Foster. As I’m sure you’ll recall, this is that Woody Harrelson movie that got him into so much trouble during his Reddit AMA. As I said when the DVD released, I hear it’s supposed to be pretty good. If nothing else, it’s something to watch while you wait for Shame (that flick starring Michael Fassbender’s huge wang) to join the streaming selection. In summation: I assume everyone who subscribes to Netflix instant streaming does so in order to catch a gander at some celebrity schlong.