This week: The return of Ricky Gervais.
Extras - The Complete First Season
The hilarious return of Ricky Gervais to serial television, Extras takes a look at, well, tv and film extras, Ricky Gervais and Ugly Betty co-star Ashley Jensen among them. Guest stars playing themselves each week usually pick apart their off-screen personae. Particularly fun are Ben Stiller as a maniacal director and Patrick Stewart as just plain creepy.
The making-of extra on Extras is called "The Difficult Second Album."
The Illusionist
If you see only one movie about turn-of-the-century magicians, splurge and see two anyway. The Prestige has the brooding, but this one has the romance — and Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti to boot. The real acting revelation here, however, is Jessica Biel, mostly because between Blade III and Stealth she hasn't had a chance to strut her stuff (well, her acting stuff) on film. Well worth a look.
Extras include commentary by writer/director Neil Burger.
Idiocracy
After mishandling the marketing of Office Space to the point where executives didn't even know it was one of their top-selling DVDs, you'd think 20th Century Fox would have learned their lesson when it comes to writer/director Mike Judge. No such luck. Not so much as a trailer accompanied the blink-and-you'll-miss-it theatrical run of this tale of an average Joe (Luke Wilson) who wakes up in a future where he's the smartest man alive. The reigning conspiracy theory holds that corporations like Starbucks, who take quite a drubbing in the film, were displeased and used their influence to quash the release.
In terms of extras, looks like Fox is still trying to give Judge the short end. All you get are some deleted scenes.
Quinceanera
This tale of the drama surrounding a young Hispanic girl's 15th birthday celebration has the rare distinction of winning both the Audience and Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. That's all I got. Extras include directors' commentary.
Crank
This is what would happen if Maxim made a movie. Ostensibly about a hitman (Jason Statham) poisoned in such a way that he can only stay alive by keeping up his adrenaline, the film really just gives its main character a license to be a prick and as mysogonistic and racist as time allows. It has its moments, and the frenetic direction doesn't hurt (usually), but it might leave you with a bad taste in your eyes.
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Article comments
1 - Paul
Any chance you might start listing what movies are coming out each week on blu-ray/hd-dvd? Thanks.