This week: Thor and some dwarves save emo Snow White. Plus, the stretch run for 30 Rock begins, Spielberg’s TV slump continues with Terra Nova, and it’s time to go back to Titanic (bring your 3-D glasses).
► Not sure why fairy tales are all the rage suddenly, but if you had told me earlier this year a flick called SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN would just miss being in the Top 10 biggest hits of the year, I’d swear you were Dopey’s cousin Dopier. Charlize Theron is the evil witch, Kristen Stewart is Snow White, but it’s Chris Hemsworth and his gang of dwarves who own the flick (to the point Stewart apparently hasn’t been asked back for the sequel).
► Ridiculous cash grab or unique way to re-experience a classic? A 3-D edition of TITANIC may be pushing it, but James Cameron’s attention to detail ensured this wouldn’t be a rush job. Necessary or not, it’s still cool to see the wreck in the underwater footage early on creep out at you, and if you can get through the cumbersome mid-section, the climactic, effects-heavy final hour is still majestic moviemaking. Blu-ray includes two new documentaries (‘Reflections of Titanic’ and ‘Titanic: the Final Word with James Cameron’) along with 30 deleted scenes.
► Jennifer Lopez in a movie about screaming brats and shitty diapers? Three of my favourite things! Actually, the second I saw the trailer for WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING, I leaned over to my girlfriend and told her “I think I would honestly rather get shot in the head than see this movie.” And no, they aren’t fooling me with Brooklyn Decker, Anna Kendrick and Elizabeth Banks either. Based on a friggin’ advice book (?), it follows several couples as their lives suddenly stop and revolve around babies. “My wife loved it so much because she is pregnant right now!,” raved some poor soul on Amazon.
► Oh look, more kids! Basically the TV version of ‘What to Expect …’, UP ALL NIGHT stars the normally awesome Will Arnett and Christina Applegate as a couple adjusting to life with a newborn, leaving behind their life of partying with best bud / talk show host Ava (Maya Rudolph). Season One guests included Jason Lee, Megan Mullally and … Stevie Nicks? Sean Hayes joins the cast for Season 2.
► Television really is Steven Spielberg’s Temple of Doom. If ‘Smash’ and ‘The River’ didn’t suck enough last year, Fox’s TERRA NOVA left no doubt his quality control for TV shows is broken. An expensive flop from the start (each episode cost about $4 million), it offers the tired premise of people from the future going back to the dinosaur era via a time portal after the world becomes uninhabitable. Ratings went south soon after the premiere and it wasn’t renewed. Adding insult, it doesn’t even have a Blu-ray release, just DVD. How is that still happening at this point?
► Emily Blunt has quietly put together a fantastic year, capped by the indie fave YOUR SISTER’S SISTER. A year after her ex-boyfriend’s death, she offers her family’s cabin as a summer getaway for his brother (Mark Duplass), who is still struggling with grief. While there, he has an awkward encounter with Blunt’s sister (Rosemarie DeWitt), a lesbian recovering from a break-up. Things get weirder when Blunt shows up and a confession is made.
► The long goodbye has begun for 30 ROCK, and to be honest, I’m amazed NBC is bringing it back for one last year after Season 6 finished a brutal 130th in the ratings. Nice to see a network which can’t do anything right show some loyalty to a show which won them a shitload of Emmys. For the second-to-last campaign, Liz starts to mature, Jack tries finding his wife in North Korea, and Jenna becomes a megastar by judging on a reality show. The last season starts Oct. 4.
► In a fair world, ‘Parks and Recreation’ or ‘Community’ would be TV’s highest-rated comedy. Not THE BIG BANG THEORY. The show’s continued success baffles me, since media-savvy geeks are presumably the show’s core audience, and they’re a generation which would respond more to the unheralded brilliance of those other, far better shows. Oh well, at least it kicked ‘Two and a Half Men’ out of the top spot.
Also out this week:
CLICK HERE FOR A FULL LISTING OF ALL THE COOLEST DVD RELEASES OF THIS WEEK AND THE REST OF THE YEAR!
SO WHAT DVD/BLU-RAYS ARE YOU GUYS STOKED ABOUT THIS WEEK?!