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Review: The Ruins (DVD and Blu-Ray)

The Ruins is a surprising movie in that it is rated R in theatres and is released in an unrated version, and yet contains virtually no nudity and surprisingly little profanity, even in the unrated version. The movie comes by its R/unrated rep the old fashioned way: violence and disturbing imagry.

As a high-tension suspense flick with a supernatural edge, it delivers equal measures of psychological terror and pure gross-out. It’s the kind of movie that may not make you scream a lot, but may give you some sleepless nights or, in the case of this movie, make you get nervous every time you feel an itch…

The set-up is typical of the latest spurt of torture-horror flicks as you have a group of attractive college kids lured to a remote location. Only this time, instead of a cold, dour European setting, it’s Mexico and instead of a bleak hostel, it’s a Mayan Temple that is the location they are lured to.

The young group goes to the ruins in search of some archeological adventure, but once they get there and set foot on the pyramid, some locals show up and become violent about letting them off it, and show a willingness to use lethal force to prevent any escape.

As a psychological mind-pluck, though, the film’s only getting started and things get even more disturbing quite quickly. Boasting some great cinematography and lots of creep-out horror without resorting to having sex perverts cutting the kids to ribbons for kicks, The Ruins is one of the first truly disturbing movies I’ve watched in a while, and whenever I get an itch, the memories of this film come flooding back, unwanted.

With great special features on both DVD and Blu-Ray (click here for online coupons), as well as a nice alternate ending, this is one DVD/Blu-Ray package that delivers the goods. Not for the faint of heart, but certainly entertaining for folks who prefer to be creeped out, rather than grossed out.

Review: 27 Dresses (DVD)

I didn’t expect to like 27 Dresses. Truth be told, I picked it up more for my wife’s sake than my own. So imagine my surprise when I found out it was watchable, entertaining, even enjoyable. Of course, the film does star Katherine Heigl, whose work I’ve enjoyed in the old WB drama, Roswell, as well as those Jeanette Oke novels that Michael Landon Jr.’s directed, like Love Comes Softly. And although I don’t watch it, I understand she’s done well on Grey’s Anatomy.

Surrounded by Edward Burns and James Marsden as romantic foils, Heigl shines in this mass-market romantic comedy that did so well, there’s talk of her leaving Grey’s Anatomy to devote herself to her film career. In 27 Dresses, Heigl plays an administrative assistant with a crush on the founder and owner of the company she works for, but who is essentially a pro at being a bridesmaid/maid of honor at nearly every wedding any of her friends or acquaintances has ever had.

While pining away for her boss, she meets up with Burns, a social page journalist who’s trying to move up into harder news journalism but needs a shot at writing a decent feature to prove himself to his newspaper bosses. He targets Jane (Heigl) as his feature story, but as these romantic comedies go, we know he will end up falling for her before too long, and she for him.

The concept isn’t entirely bad, though it’s certainly not that fresh on the heels of similar films over the past couple years, including such efforts as The Wedding Planner and My Best Friend’s Wedding and about a dozen others. What makes the film fly, though, is Heigl’s performance and charm as the put-upon eternal bridesmaid.

I wish I could say better things about the DVD, but it’s just not as jam-packed with special features as one might hope. Included are three deleted scenes, a handful of making-of featurettes, and a short documentary about “The Running of the Brides,” an annual bridal gown sale. No audio commentary track, which is a disappointment since Heigl, Burns, and Marsden could have had great fun with that.

The movie is a thumbs up, but the DVD extras left me as mild as a North Carolina health insurance agent.

Review: The Jewish Americans (DVD)

Long before the History Channel, Biography, A & E, or Discovery, PBS proved itself pretty effective at doing documentaries. They still make them, and this six-hour DVD focusing on American Jews proves they can still pull out a decent documentary from their taxpayer supported rumps every once in a while.

Thanks in large part to its six-hour length, The Jewish Americans has a chance to really go in-depth in their study of this people and culture, unlike the other documentary I recently reviewed, NFL The Leaders: Breaking Racial Barriers In the NFL, which brushed over much of the depth of detail that one desires in a good documentary.

The Jewish Americans, however, gets its style down just right; the approach is Ken Burns-esque, mixing solid narration provided by Liv Schreiber with well-edited interviews with prominent American Jews of all ages, as well as old footage, newspaper clippings and other methods of presenting the historical information at hand, most notably through beautiful photography. But the emphasis here is on telling stories – real stories about real Jews and their experiences throughout their history in America.

One aspect that surprised me was how the documentary related the pre-World War I and World War II tensions between German Jews, who seemed eager to immigrate and blend into America other than inside their own homes, and the Eastern European Jews, who held on more tightly to their heritage and had a lesser desire to “blend in.”

While there are plenty of Jewish folks in entertainment, and actor Fyvush Finkel is interviewed throughout, the documentary, to its credit, does not focus overmuch on just the entertainment community Jews. Instead, the net is cast wider to encompass tales of Jewish folks who came to inhabit all levels of society, be they a family that ran a market in a frontier town, a mayor of some village, or even a tailor who would go on to spawn the Levi Strauss & Company brand of denim jeans.

The two-disc set is brief on extras, but with six hours of history-filled stories to explore, there’s plenty to like about this package even on the merits of its four episodes only. More than just a cursory treatment, The Jewish Americans is a significant and well-detailed coverage of the topic it tackles, and delivers some information that is sure to inform nearly every viewer of some new fact they didn’t know previously. Was the creator of billet grilles or the founder of Lehmann Brothers Jewish? This documentary is long enough to give you at least one of the answers to that question.

While I’m not exactly ready to make PBS-watching a regular habit in favor of History, Biography, A&E, or Discovery, any network that released a package like this would have a solid documentary to air. This one will stay on my video shelf for a long time to come.

Review: Family Guy – Blue Harvest (DVD)

Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane explained the rationale behind making an all-Star Wars episode the best way possible: “We were doing so many Star Wars jokes that some of the network people were worried about getting sued by George Lucas, so we set up a meeting with him.” As it turned out, Lucas was a nice guy who loved the cartoon and got on board with the Blue Harvest concept pretty quickly, apparently.

Family Guy: Blue Harvest is the big, hour-long Star Wars retelling the show opened the season with last fall. There are several guest voices that range widely and even include such obscure celebrities as radio host Rush Limbaugh, who basically plays a version of himself as a pro-Alliance, pro-Darth Vader establishment-loving radio talk show host. Other cameos are more mainstream, like Judd Nelson, Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo, among others.

The show adds some gags they were unable to fit into the one-hour episode that aired on Fox, mostly stuff that was cut due purely out of time constraints. All the familiar Family Guy cast members appear, with mostly obvious takes on their Star Wars alter egos. For example, Stewie is Darth Vader, Quagmire and Cleveland are C3PO and R2D2, and Lois is Leia and so on.

What’s amazing about the episode is that it packs just about the entire two-hours-plus plot of Star Wars: A New Hope into about 40 minutes of satire without cutting much. The obligatory screen-crawl gag-text to open the episode had grown old by now, but McFarlane punches some freshness into it by getting about as nasty as network censors would allow, including talking an awful lot about Angelina Jolie’s kissing habits in general, and in the movie Gia especially.

But anyone who’s seen the episode already knows what it contains, basically; what’s added is what makes the DVD presentation special, and that includes a hilarious commentary track led by McFarlane, a making of documentary, a “conversation” with George Lucas himself, and a load of other, minor features. Special collector’s edition disc are also available that pack in some Family Guy/Star Wars-related collectible goodies, like t-shirts, 3D glasses, trading cards and the like.

While hardly an original concept, it is how the episode was pulled off and melded with the Family Guy characters that makes this one unique. If you’re not into Family Guy, this might not be the episode to convert you – unless you’re a Star Wars fan, perhaps. Loaded like most Family Guy episodes with lots of pop culture references, from a Deal Or No Deal tribute to nonsequiter punchlines about seemingly random topics, like small business phone systems or the lke, Blue Harvest – like most Family Guy video releases – has it’s trademark humor intact, as well as plenty of extras and features to make the purchase well worth it.

Review: Simple Life Goes to Camp (DVD)

I’m over the whole Paris Hilton-Nicole Richie thing. The Simple Life was goofy fun the first season and went downhill from there, but when I had a chance to see the E! Channel-exclusive fifth season DVD, I figured why not. Even if it’s a tired concept by now, made so by the one-joke nature of the show, at least it’s some brainless fun on a boring Sunday afternoon.

Well, I was wrong on a couple of counts. First, I didn’t watch it on Sunday afternoon; my wife and I watched it together over a couple of weekday nights to fill time left void by the writer’s strike – even though it’s resolved, the airwaves are hardly filled with new content quite yet.

The second thing I was wrong about was assuming it would be too stupid, boring and repetitive to be worth the time invested. Were the pranks of Nicole and Paris silly, stupid and worn out? Well, for the most part, yeah. We’ve seen the “brainless bimbo” routine they pull on this series too many times now.

But what captured me were the small touches of charm, mode possible mostly by the non-celebrity cast members. Having the girls become camp counselors at a summer camp provided plenty of variety without tons of travel, and a core supporting cast who weren’t always completely shocked and Paris and Nicole’s narcissistic obsession with themselves. That provided a by-now-jaded viewer like me with some characters to relate to on the show.

The show throws Paris and Nicole some curves, from a weight loss camp to a couples camp to an actors camp and more. Through it all, the prankish hijinks Paris and Nicole devise are the most annoying part of the show; but when one of the male camp counselors starts falling for an allegedly newly-unattached Paris, the show provides some real moments.

The guy isn’t fooling himself; he admits to a fellow male camp counselor-buddy that he doesn’t expect the flirtation to last beyond the summer camp experience. There is a poignant moment, however, when his friend asks him, “I know you’re ready for that. But are you ready if it really does become something more?” The guy replied, “That’s a good question,” and it was.

Foolishly, the guy relies on Nicole for advice in capturing Paris’ eye, and being the devil she is, she misleads him consistently down paths that will humiliate him. While that works the first time to a degree, when she’s still doing it by the eighth episode, it just gets frustrating on a couple levels. First, why does the guy keep turning to Nicole, who’s never led him right once; and second, is it even remotely possible for Nicole to have an on-screen moment as real as the two male camp counselors had?

Sure, the show is pure put-on and one of the least-real of all reality shows; but this season as much as any shows why the show is so limited in appeal that it was booted off Fox to E! Namely, that Paris and Nicole’s adopted personas on the show are too flat and limited in their emotional range to either demonstrate any real acting ability, or to hold the interest of viewers who never see their on-screen characters grow or grow up.

Review: Good Luck Chuck (DVD)

Considerably classier than American Pie: Beta House is the latest Dane Cook comedy, Good Luck Chuck; of course, that’s like comparing some really effective, high-tech agricultural manure to plain ol’ pig droppings. Although wrapped in a far more talented cast, Good Luck Chuck is unfortunately wallowing in the same pigpen of blue, low-brow humor as Beta House.

At least the cast lifts the dreck-filled, male fantasy script to a somewhat watchable level. Of course, get out your pens and write this down: if you’re going to make a sleezy sex comedy, at least cast the talented and attractive Jessica Alba in a starring role. Alba, who started her career with the respected Fox series Dark Angel and has since burned up the silver screen in mass-appeal movies like Fantastic Four and critically acclaimed movies like Sin City, must have decided to slum it a bit this time around.

Caught in a role that seems written more for some uber-tramp party girl like Lindsey Lohan, Alba does her best to class the role up, even though much of the movie is written at a hormonal, high school sophomore level of humor. You know, where women only exist to act the way a horny teenage boy wants them to, and everyone thinks fart jokes and fat jokes are the entertainment of royalty, rather than crass, cruel and largely unfunny.

The concept is this: anyone who dates Dane Cook’s character, Charlie Logan, long enough to sleep with him, marries the next guy she meets after they break up. This ludicrous concept is not only treated far too seriously in the film, but the script has the audacity to paint Charlie as the good guy for engaging in a series of one-night stands, using women desperate to get married as sex objects. The fact that this impossible concept is carried out as a reality in the film, with possibly as many as a couple dozen women sleeping with him and ending up married shortly thereafter, is where the “male fantasy fulfillment” comes in. Never does a single woman fault him for taking advantage of them; they all tell him, “You did a good thing, Charlie.”

Yeah, right.

Charlie’s only challenge comes in the form of Alba’s character, Cam Wexler, who he meets far too early in the film to excuse all his indulgences with other women, for her to be the love of his life. All improbabilities aside, including the complete absence of real-life consequences for such behavior like paternity suits, STDs or even a few hard feelings, the movie takes on a bit of charm when Charlie and Cam are on screen together; they pull of a charm that seems genuine, and during their scenes the coarseness of the movie in general is out of sight and out of mind.

Unfortunately, it always comes back to that juvenile, sex-starved level of humor, and only manages to produce laughs because the stars in this film – unlike American Pie: Beta House – actually have talent. The DVD has a generous supply of extras, but a couple of them are cringe-inducing, focusing on the raunch content rather than the thinly drawn, but well-acted love story at the core. In the end, Good Luck Chuck is more like the original American Pie trilogy, rather than the direct-to-DVD dreck that followed.

Review: America Pie Beta House (DVD)

Although crass, rude and crude at times, the original American Pie trilogy, concluding with American Wedding, had a redeeming quality to it: talented actors. Despite the scripts’ flaws, stars Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan ultimately proved likable and the sort of characters you want to root for. Masquerading as a crude-and-rude comedy, the original American Pie trilogy was ultimately a somewhat twisted, but ultimately good-hearted love story about how those two characters found each other.

Since then, the series has gone south. Way south. Long gone are the classic gang that included such up and coming stars as Chris Klein, Eddie Kay Thomas, Sean William Scott, Shannon Elizabeth, Menu Suvari, Tara Reid and Natasha Leonne. In fact, the only star desperate enough to still be found in each and every American Pie is Eugene Levy – Lord knows why.

Instead, the cast of American Pie: Beta House reads more like a list of one-hit wonder bands; you keep on asking, “Who?” It’s no surprise that even behind the camera, original writer Adam Herz and co-directors Paul and Chris Weitz are also long-gone. The “big star” in Beta House is supposed to be Steve Talley as Dwight Stiffler; here’s some of Talley’s co-stars… stop me if you’ve heard of any of them, or expect to in the future: John White, Jake Siegel, Meghan Heffern, Pilar Cazares, Joe Eigo, Nick Nicotera, Christine Barger, Jonathan Keltz, Angela Besharah, Tyrone Savage, Jaclyn A. Smith, and Robbie Amell.

And of course, then there’s Eugene Levy, who’s still playing “Jim’s dad” even though Jim is nowhere to be found. Someone buy the poor man a meal so he can stop flogging his career into obscurity in this sad series, OK? The man’s an SCTV alum. A relative needs power of attorney over him to choose better movies for him; did Christopher Guest stop making independent comedies where Levy could hang out with Parker Posey? The writer’s strike is over, people, rescue your fallen comrade!

Of course, the female members of this cast of never-will-be actresses are more than willing to go nude to extend their 15 seconds of fame to a minute or two, which is unfortunate, since their sacrifice will go mostly unnoticed in this filmed radioactive waste.

American Pie: Beta House is the latest in a series of three direct-to-DVD chapters in the destruction of this series’ reputation. The crimes began with American Pie Presents: Band Camp, continued with American Pie: The Naked Mile and, unfortunately, doesn’t seem likely to conclude with American Pie: Beta House. The series has become a brand name, much like National Lampoon, except, well… most of the National Lampoon movies were somewhat funny, at least when Chevy Chase was still starring in them.

American Pie: Beta House has plenty of DVD extras; the only downside is most of them are too embarrassing to play with your wife or girlfriend in the same room… or even alone. What started out, in the Biggs-Hannigan trilogy, as an edgy sex comedy with a good heart under a lot of filth has been transformed into a worse pile of filth, but the heart already removed and transplanted in some other poor soul who at least has a fighting chance to live. Lowest recommendation possible. Lose this one in the audio racks.

Review: License to Wed (DVD)

I was familiar with the movie License to Wed before it debuted on DVD; my wife and I saw it less than a year into our marriage and we were happy to get the chance to own the film on DVD. The set-up’s simple. John Krasinski of The Office and Mandy Moore play a couple who want to get married, but to do so, they have to take Rev. Frank’s marriage preparation course. The problem is, Rev. Frank is Robin Williams.

It’s as simple as that, really. While there were a couple moments that made my wife and I smile, having been through premarital counseling only a year before seeing this movie. But while amusing, the real disconnect set in when Robin Williams, as he always does, took the character way over the top and, rather than playing a somewhat boundary-pushing and eccentric pastor, he spends most of the film playing… Robin Williams.

Once a high-energy, zany comic, Williams has become increasingly politicized, opinionated and boorish in his comedy over the three decades or so since he first appeared as Mork from Ork on a Happy Days episode, launching his career to superstardom. When he left Mork and Mindy to do films, his first director on The World According to Garp had to put in a yeoman’s effort just to reign Williams in to get an accurate line delivery out of him instead of all the nonsensical ad-lib in which he specializes.

That was a long time ago, and Williams has only become harder to reign in over the years, especially when cast in a comedy rather than a dramatic role. While License to Wed has Williams delivering some laughs, it’s no Good Morning Vietnam, aside from the fact that Williams is again playing an antiestablishment type who bucks against expectations.

Of course, that kind of blunts the surprise factor of many of the films’ jokes. When Rev. Frank gets suddenly and surprisingly frank with Krasinski’s character about sex, it’s supposed to be a huge laugh as a line coming from a man of the cloth; yet given Williams’ reputation for blue comedy, the laugh was muted because such shocks are no surprise at all coming from Williams. It’s a lot like watching your local insurance agent in a play in which he plays a pastor who suddenly asks someone about their individual health insurance policy; it’s no surprise at all because of who is playing the role.

As for the DVD package, there’s not as much bonus material as one might wish; the audio commentary involves only the director, Ken Kwapis, which misses the boat; in a Robin Williams movie, you at least want to hear Robin Williams banter with the director. But no, it’s just Kwapis reminiscing, which just isn’t anywhere near enough. One minor “ask the choir boy” special feature is a novelty at best.

The selection of special features simply leaves a lot to be desired in this package. If you’ve seen it in theatres and loved the movie, grab this, unless you’re expecting more than is being offered here. The dedicated DVD-phile will find this package to be lacking in the bells and whistles department.

Review: Shattered (DVD)

When it comes to playing bad guys, Pierce Brosnan – my personal favorite 007 actor and shut up all you old-fogy Sean Connery fans – is not the first name that brings to mind. Yet he slips into the mold quite well in this R-rated thriller. The story focuses around a couple who are taken hostage in their own car by a fellow whose motives for wanting to control them – and destroy their lives – are initially murky.

The couple in question, played by Maria Bello and Gerard Butler, seem like the perfect upper-middle class, affluent Chicago couple, with a seemingly idyllic life that probably includes vacationing at a Hilton Head rental. As in any good Hitchcockian thriller, however, all is not as it seems. Their abductor seems to know both of them quite well and seems to have a personal vendetta he is pursuing, but even those preconceived notions will be challenged by the end of the twist-filled plot that offers plenty of entertaining, keep-em-guessing head-fakes before the big reveal.

One of the aspects of this thriller that pleased both my wife and me is that despite the R rating, there’s very little by way of course language and although there is plenty of implied and threatened violence, there’s not much in the way of actual violence. That makes for good suspense, since the threat of violence is always more tension-inducing than the actual act itself. As Hitchcock once said, you can show the audience a bomb ticking under a table that the hero is unaware of, and give them a thrill as the seconds tick down… but you can’t actually explode the bomb and kill the hero, or the audience will hate you.

Such thriller mathematics is understood and at play in Shattered, which turns out to be a surprisingly strong performance by Maria Bello. Bello, who probably will remind you of several sitcom actresses even though she’s never been in one, has been on a hot streak since appearing in A History of Violence back in 2005. Since then, she’s been toughening up her image in a real Diane Lane / Linda Fiorentino kind of way; not as young as she once was, Bello is staying relevant in a youth-obsessed Hollywood culture by taking rougher roles that highlight her pure acting ability rather than her feminine charms. She’s come a long way since her Coyote Ugly days.

Shattered is a movie that ought to cement Bello alongside Lane and Fiorentino in that regard, delivering impressive acting chops in this role that stands side-by-side with her work in A History of Violence. The film was quiet at the box office but is one of those that could flourish on DVD as word of mouth spreads about the quality of the film.

The special features are slim but substantive, providing only a couple featurettes and a slim selection of alternate and deleted scenes. There is a director and writer’s commentary track for the film, but it would have been far more intriguing if the main three actors, Brosnan, Bello and Butler, had also been involved. Still, not a bad package for a film that didn’t make a big splash on the big screen.

Review: The Invisible (DVD/BluRay)

While The Invisible falls into the general category of supernatural thriller, and although a couple of the people involved were also involved in the classic standard-bearer of this genre, no one will be confusing The Invisible with The Sixth Sense any time soon.

The Invisible tells a bit of an implausible tale of a young writer, Nick Powell, who is brutally attacked and left for dead. Next thing he knows, Nick’s a ghost but only the gal primarily responsible for his murder can see him. Then Nick finds out his body’s still alive and if he can get someone to find it in time, he still has a chance to live. That, unfortunately, means having to deal with the street-hardened young woman who put him in the whole predicament in the first place.

The implausibility of a potential murderer helping to save her victim is glossed over by a rather contrived romantic connection the two develop as he haunts her. Which is explained by the idea that they used to be friends in elementary school. Or something like that. It gets a bit too convoluted for most viewers if you let the details of the plot matter much to you.

What this all boils down to is that screenwriter Mick Davis isn’t quite in the same league as M. Night Shyamalan as a storyteller. That said, a cast made up predominantly of unknowns does as well as they can with the material at hand and manage to keep the film watchable. Veteran director David S. Goyer performs well but, like Davis, does not fare well in comparison to Shyamalan. Still, give the man a Rolex Submariner for a decent effort that ultimately falls short of its goal.

The Blu-Ray package is sharp, offering the full 1080p experience for those who are equipped to take full advantage; however, the Blu-Ray package isn’t exactly taken advantage of by the studio, as it features only the exact same special features as the regular DVD, just in 1080p rather than standard definition. It would be nice, just once, to see some studio take advantage of all the extra storage space on a Blu-Ray disc to load up on a bunch of extra features the standard DVD lacks or needs a second DVD in order to include it.

All in all, it’s a decent package, but unless you’re planning on getting a 1080p system, or already have one, the standard-edition DVD is a bit less expensive. Fans of supernatural thrillers will probably enjoy this film, although it’s unlikely to convert those who only like this sort of film once in a while into a fan of the genre. Most folks with want to rent before they buy.

Review: Garfield Gets Real (DVD)

Over the past 3-5 years, two live-action movies (with a 3D CGI Garfield) have been made from Jim Davis’ comic strip, Garfield. While Brecken Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt aren’t exactly my idea of an all-star cast, Bill Murray’s voiceover work for Garfield was entertaining enough and the movies made for good, light-hearted fare that was safe for the while family to watch.

Now along comes Garfield Gets Real, a direct-to-video movie. If you were expecting another Meyer-Love Hewitt-Murray outing, you will be sorely disappointed in Garfield Gets Real. The title would seem to suggest a blending of live action and CGI animation, but all that’s here is a poor man’s imitation of Toy Story-quality CGI. There is no “real” in Garfield Gets Real.

If you have kids who have seen the live action Garfield movies, they may find the concept of Garfield Gets Real to be a bit confusing and disconcerting. In this film, which takes a post-modern approach, Garfield is aware of the real world, aware of his status as a comic strip star. It’s how he makes his living. And that’s a concept that even the comic strip hasn’t played around with, as far as I know.

The plot is bordering on being incomprehensible and is, at minimum, very slow-paced. The story meanders around showing off Dagwood of the Blondie comic strip in one scene, a generic superhero flying by in another. The upshot, when they finally get to it, is that there’s a hole between Garfield’s comic strip reality and the “real world,” and those who cross over never get back.

This is where the decision to go 100-percent CGI is so disappointing. We could have been treated to a Wizard of Oz in reverse situation, where the beginning and end take place in Garfield’s brightly colored world, but when he lands in the real world, everything becomes drab, dull and less full of life; but by having both worlds in CGI animation, that opportunity was missed entirely.

So of course, Garfield and others do get trapped in the real world and the remainder of the film is spent concerned with getting them back to comic-strip land. The paper-thin plot is simply uninspired and does not stand up to comparisons with other CGI movies like Toy Story or The Incredibles.

The loopy, “let’s toss this into the mix” design of the plot makes one wonder if perhaps a few creative types out in Hollywood need to brush up on their business performance management skills. Just saying.

Despite being a relatively brief film, clocking in at under 80 minutes, the DVD is rather light on the special features; in fact, it’s one of those auto-play DVDs that doesn’t take you to a menu screen, but just starts playing the previews, FBI warning and then the movie itself.

All in all, Garfield Gets Real is a reel disappointment; the cleverness of the two live action/CGI movies is absent and the plot is, simultaneously, both hard to follow and yet not very engaging due to its shallowness. One has to wonder if Jim Davis was involved at all; while the film is still family friendly, Garfield Gets Real won’t hold up to repeat viewings, even among die-hard fans.

Review: Smallville The Complete 6th Season

You can tell when a series like Smallville is winding toward its ultimate resolution. When the show began back in 2001 – the same season 24 premiered – they made viewers some specific promises. No capes. No costumes. No flying. Just plenty of the human story of Clark Kent, the Superman-to-be coming into his own. A peek behind what made him and those around him who they were.

Actually, Smallville was sort of the second pitch of its kind entertained by the then-WB Network. A year before, a series pitch had set Internet message boards ablaze that promised a very similar treatment of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Whether the deemed the show too dark, or whether it was because the Chris Nolan-directed Batman film was already in pre-production or whatever, The WB never greenlit the pilot. A year later, the same “Superman: The Early Years” concept got the go-ahead and became Smallville.

Basically, the show was Dawson’s Creek with superpowers and the element that soon became the show’s signature was the unique early friendship – which everyone knew was doomed – between a young Clark Kent and his rich pal, Lex Luthor. Seeming to remember the central lesson of all comic books, and the M. Night Shyamalan movie Unbreakable, the show reformulated the Superman mythos so that the two men destined to become the bitterest enemies would start out as friends.

In season six of Smallville, that friendship is now in tatters as Lex is evolving into the villain he is destined to become, and the shows creators are having fun bringing foreshadows of his future into his present. The biggest addition this season was the casting of the Oliver Queen hero Green Arrow, who played prominently in forming a nascent version of the Justice League of America, something mentioned only as a insider joke in season five when Aquaman was featured and was attempted to be launched as a spinoff show, Mercy Reef.

During the season, there was some talk of a JLA spinoff show, but it came to nothing. Still, all the fireworks provided comics fans so serious thrills over the course of the season as Smallville began to look a bit more like a comic book and a bit less like Dawson’s Creek. But a sense of the series winding down continues to hang over the show.

With the Justice League formed, the Clark-Lex friendship beyond repair, Johnathon Kent long dead from season five and Supergirl headed into the picture in season seven, there are serious questions about how much longer the show can go on and maintain its roots; most of the show now takes place in Metropolis rather than Smallville and it just plain feels like the season that comes after this collection, this year’s season seven, could be our final ride, unless the WGA Strike messes things up.

This full-season collection has all the requisite special features one has come to expect from such things; there are episode commentaries, though unfortunately usually by writers and directors rather than Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, Kristin Kreuk, Allison Mack and the like. Those are the people most series fans want to hear comment on a favorite episode.

Personally, I would have enjoyed more behind-the-scenes features, but the scattering found here is better than nothing. Then again, I’m usually all about the special features when it comes to collecting series on DVD.

Unfortunately, too many of the special features found in this season collection were actually available on the CW Web site for the show during the season and are only being collected here, rather than being original content in and of itself. Of course, for those folks who don’t subscribe to Verizon Wireless, some of this content will at least seem completely new.

Whether facing off with Phantom Zone creeps or rescuing Lana from a fire while trapped behind fire glass, this collection is a solid addition for series completists. However, while the show is still entertaining, the days when the opening strains of Remy Zero’s “Save Me” really stirred emotions are indeed starting to fade. It’s been a good run; let’s hope they end it classy and before the show really starts to go downhill.