Another Tuesday, another batch of DVDs thrown at the consumer to purchase. Ah, capitalism.
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Just in time for Halloween, it’s three scary movies! There’s Monster House for the kids, Slither for the gut-busters out there and, scary enough to make anyone wet themselves, Nacho Libre!
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Film:
Monster House – You may have read last week’s column when I declared Over the Hedge to be the best animated film of the year. This was a sloppy statement, because I had completely forgotten Monster House. Erie, unnatural and with a bit of sophomoric humor (Mountain Dew bottles are used to store . . . similarly colord liquids,) it was a perfect realization of how a The Twilight Zone movie for the whole family would look like. Another plus of the film is the look – instead of jumping on the bandwagon of making everything look more real in CG movies today, House went for style. Instead of having every character’s hair blow gently in the breeze, this one just glues the hair down to the head, in a style not unlike claymation. And best of all, it never ascends PG-rated frights, making House a great way to introduce your kids to scary movies. Alan enjoyed the ride too, as you can read by kindly clicking here.
Nacho Libre – I love Jack Black. I loved Napoleon Dynamite. So, naturally, when I heard that Black and the director of Dynamite, Jared Hess were making a movie together called Nacho Libre, I was very content. One year later, I was somewhat less content while in a theater watching Nacho. Why? Because I never perceived that a Jack Black vehicle could be so mind-shatteringly dull. As hard as this film tries to be so obscure and silly that it gives the viewer a wave of giggles; Nacho only has one scene that inspires chuckles, every other shot is just of Black and friends being weird. Aaron didn’t exactly disagree in his short review
Slither – 2006 has been a good year for comedy. It’s given us Little Miss Sunshine Borat, Strangers With Candy and Little Miss Sunshine – all delivering laughs in high abundance. But even in such a successful year for humor, Slither has a good shot of being the funniest movie of the bunch. A send-up of horror a la Shaun of the Dead, Slither takes up the particularly simple (and easily achieved) task of pointing out everything mindless about a horror movie. Shaun and Slither will find an identical audience, with the only differences between the movies being that the latter is less romance-oriented, and a lot scarier. Scary enough, with its red and shriveled man-eating slugs, to be the creepiest movie put out in at least the last year. If justice is alive, then Slither will find an audience on DVD.
Special Edition:
Reservoir Dogs: 15th Anniversary Edition – Hot off the heels of the 10th Anniversary edition comes this third edition of those ear-cutting Dogs to DVD. Compared with the long line of Special Features from the last edition, 15 doesn’t have much to offer. It scraps off just about everything from that edition except deleted scenes, while adding a couple of docs and . . . get excited . . . ENGLISH SUBTITLES! A purchase for the die-hardiest of die-hard fans.
Television:
Batman Beyond: Season Two – Okay, nothing’s ever going to top the Bruce Timm-produced Batman from the 90s. It’s just not going to happen. Having said that, Batman Beyond is not a complete waste of time. One of the first cartoons to embrace a jagged, straight line-oriented look that has come to dominate action cartoons today, Beyond was carefully designed and written to keep it from falling into just being a kids show, with solid plot lines that could appeal to any nine-year-old boy and his dad.
SNL: The Best of Saturday TV Funhouse – The Ambiguously Gay Duo? Ex-Presidents? As someone who watched and studied Will Ferrell era SNL throughout middle school in the hopes of becoming funnier, the Robert Smigel helmed short cartoons hit close to home. The crude animation paired with obscurely silly humor worked better than many of the live-action skits on SNL, and with voice actors like Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert what reason don’t you have to check this out?
The Swan – You’re kidding me. I mean really, you’re kidding me, right FOX? I still have a hard enough time believing there was ever a show like The Swan, a reality show where they turn the less attractive members of our society into beauty queens, and torture the contestants by not letting them within sight of a mirror while they undergo plastic surgery liposuction and recovery from such procedures, but now you’re putting it on DVD so it can live on forever? Really?
That’s My Bush! – Before I was allowed to watch South Park, my parents and I would make an occasion of every Wednesday night to watch That’s My Bush!, a live-action show about George W. that mocked the average American Sit-com just as much as the American President, created by the same guys that gave us South Park. With the annoyingly perfect neighbor, a catch-phrase that ended every episode (“Oh Laura, one of these days, I’m gonna punch you in the face!”) and even a traditional, couch dominated Sit-com living room set that occupied the White House, Bush somehow managed to be hilarious regardless of your feelings on the namesake of the show. With only 13 episodes, it left office early but used its time wisely.