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Forgetting Sarah Marshall on DVD

/ / Home Video, Theme Week
  • Title: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
  • IMDB: link

“Maybe the problem is that you broke my heart into a million pieces and so my cock doesn’t want to be around you anymore.”

After a hard break-up with his girlfriend Sarah (Kristen Bell), Peter (Jason Segel) mopes around so much his step-brother (Bill Hader) puts him on a plane to Hawaii in hopes he’ll be able to move on.

His attempts are thwarted when he arrives at a swanky resort only to find Sarah and her new beau, ridiculous musician Aldous Snow (Russel Brand), also as guests.  The sole bright spot in Peter’s personal hell is a beautiful hotel cleck (Mila Kunis) who, along with other members of the staff, attempt to get Peter back on his feet.  For more on the story of the film you can check out Ian’s original review.

The script, although it contains many fun moments, is deeply flawed.  Of all the characters only Peter, Sarah, and Rachel (Kunis) seem real.  The rest of the cast is a group of characters created solely as one-joke characters, and almost impossible to take seriously.

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Stone

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Stone
  • IMDB: link

Odds are you missed Stone in theaters. And, sadly, odds are you’re going to want to pass it up on DVD and Blu-ray as well.

The film focuses on retiring parole officer Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro) and one of his last assignments – an incarcerated arsonist named Stone (Edward Norton). What follows is a twisted tale of Jack being seduced by Stone’s wife (Milla Jovovich) in order to help facilitate his release.

Stone is a bit of a mess. It has its moments, including a strong opening which sets up the personality of De Niro’s character, and several interesting pieces, but the script by Angus MacLachlan never puts the whole story together in an engaging or believable way.

The most troubling aspect is that the movie can never quite decide how smart the title character is supposed to be. At times (even in scenes alone with his wife) he seems just dimwitted and desperate enough to offer up his wife to Mabry in this last ditch effort at early release.

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Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
  • IMDB: link

Based on the fantasy series by Kathryn Lasky, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is something of a mess. To be fair, it’s a beautifully rendered mess, but a mess nonetheless.

The film follows the adventure of Soren (Jim Sturgess), a young owl abducted with his brother (Ryan Kwanten) by owls known as “Pure Ones” led by the evil Metalbeak (Joel Edgerton) and his mate Nyra (Helen Mirren). How exactly these other owls are pure, or what makes them pure, is just one of the scripts many unanswered questions.

Soren escapes, and with his new friends Gylfie (Emily Barclay), Twilight (Anthony LaPaglia) and Digger (David Wenham), travels to find the legendary Guardians to help stop the “Pure Ones” from kidnapping young owls in order to bolster their army and take over the world.

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Inception still dreamy on DVD

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Inception
  • IMDB: link

“All that we see or seem,
Is but a dream within a dream.”
–Edgar Allen Poe

I thoroughly enjoyed Christopher Nolan‘s Inception in theaters earlier this year (read the review). His exploration of dreams within dreams and a journey of one tortured soul (Leonardo DiCaprio) to make his way home by implanting a single idea into the dream of a stranger (Cillian Murphy) resonates as well on DVD as it did on the big screen. Out next week on DVD and Blu-ray it’s a great addition to your library.

The one-disc DVD is a little scant on extras (to put it midly). It does contain four short featurettes (averaging three minutes a piece) which include snippets from Nolan, DiCaprio, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas, editor Lee Smith, cinamatopraher Wally Pfister, and stunt coordinator Tom Struthers, examining the aspect of dreams and the possibilities of the human mind, the japanese castle sequence, the paradoxical pemrose stairs, and the freight train barreling down the the middle of a busy street. Each of these is quite good but not quite enough to satisfy.

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Luther

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Luther – The Complete First Series
  • tv.com: link

DCI John Luther (Idris Elba) is a brilliant detective but a flawed man. As the series begins Luther allows a child killer (Anton Saunders) to fall to his death rather than save him. The killer survives in a coma, and after a lengthy suspension and investigation Luther is allowed back on the force.

While working a different case every week Luther must also deal with his estranged wife Zoe (Indira Varma) and her boyfriend (Paul McGann), and the attentions of psychopath Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) who takes a shine to him after he is unable to prove she killed her parents.

Created by Neil Cross Luther is a character driven procedural drama that works because of the flaws of our main character. He’s intelligent, driven, but also moody, reckless, and far too likely to put himself in the line of fire by offering himself as a target (a decision which triggers his unusual relationship with Alice). The final two episodes take a dark turn involving his close friend (Steven Mackintosh) and the fallout over a robbery and kidnapping gone horribly wrong.

The two-disc set includes all six episodes of the first season but not much in the way of extras. Still, for those who like cop dramas with a twist, and a fair share of strong performances, Luther is worth a look.

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