And neither “Fringe,” “Supernatural” nor “Nikita” are household hits, despite being enjoyable TV. Perhaps Blu-ray and DVD releases of their last seasons will boost viewership in the new seasons. In the case of “Fringe,” being allowed to operate under-the-radar, as it were, has been to its creative benefit, altering and manipulating its own DNA, experimenting […]
DVD reviews
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The Sleeping Beauty
It’s also schizophrenic and messy, but that’s beside the point. In the French film (if you saw “French” and immediately thought, “nudity,” thumbs up), a newborn princess named Anastasia is cursed by the fairy (witch?) Carabosse (Rosine Favey, “Frontier(s)”) to die when she hits her sweet 16, “her hand pierced by a yew spindle.” Meanwhile, […]
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A Little Help
She plays Laura, a dental hygienist who all but ignores her only child, Dennis (Daniel Yelsky, “Meet Monica Velour“), with her overworked hubby (Chris O’Donnell, TV’s “NCIS: Los Angeles”), with whom she argues who checked out of their marriage first. Doesn’t matter, because he dies of a heart attack while on the receiving end of […]
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7 Faces of Dr. Lao
Although Randall primarily stars as the Chinese circus owner Dr. Lao, he also appears as Medusa, The Abominable Snowman, a horned goat man, a blind fortune teller and — in one, don’t-blink scene — a stupefied circusgoer. Lao rolls into a Western town on the verge of collapse, thanks to a drought. His mysterious and […]
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South of Heaven
Nope. Nobody told the filmmakers behind “South Of Heaven,” a crime comedy from Synapse Films release that has its heart in the place, but no story to back up its ambition. Obviously low-budget — note the reliance on fake backgrounds, seemingly borrowed from a high school drama department — the movie tries to get by […]
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The Traveling Executioner
With an old-timey setting that belies its subject matter, this odd-as-oddball black comedy casts Keach in the title role, traversing early 20th-century America in his Dutch-boy haircut and portable electric chair, going wherever the death-penalty gigs take him. Rather than be menacing, he sends his clients off to death with — well, yes, a fatal […]
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Mr. Nice
Here, the switch from mere Oxford student to corrupt bad boy is flipped with one look at the stunner Elsa Pataky (“Fast Five“) and a taste of cannabis. From there, the path of Marks (Rhys Ifans, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1”) is marked with marriage, divorce, the IRA, MI-6, LSD, hashish, arrests, […]
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The Last Circus
Having seen his P.O.W. father murdered during an escape attempt decades before, Javier (Carlos Areces, who looks like ’70s TV staple Ray Buktineca with oversized glasses) joins a circus in 1973 Madrid to follow his family destiny as a clown. Because he was denied a proper childhood, Javier follows his dad’s wishes and becomes a […]
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Page One: Inside The New York Times
No such problem exists with the Times’ own Michael Kinsley, who panned it as “a mess,” but don’t listen to him — I’m guessing most Oklahomans pay no mind to NYT, anyway — because it’s an enormously entertaining work. As the title suggests, this is a fly-on-the-wall look at the inner workings of what is […]
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Good Neighbors
Awkward, geeky Victor (Jay Baruchel, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”) moves into a Montreal apartment builder and is eager to befriend the other young residents who aren’t nearly as ecstatic: the cat-crazy, Chinese restaurant employee Louise (Emily Hampshire, “Earthsea”) and the wheelchair-bound, smirking Spencer (Scott Speedman, “Barney’s Version“). Maybe they’re skittish because there’s a serial rapist/killer on […]