COMING ATTRACTIONS
Friday, October 13, 2006; Page WE35
Notable DVDs available Tuesday include:
· The Break-Up (PG-13) Vince Vaughn plays Gary, an average guy who loves the Cubs, video games and hanging out with his boys. Somehow he ends up in a relationship with Brooke (Jennifer Aniston), a gallery dealer who spends most of the time befuddled and exasperated by his behavior. As the title makes clear, there's rough waters ahead. Unfortunately, watching it can be a little choppy as well as it weaves between comedy and unexpected seriousness. If you like Vaughn and Aniston, then your odds of enjoying this flick increase dramatically. If not, you may want to look elsewhere. Extras include a commentary track with Vaughn and Aniston, an alternate ending (many critics panned the ending that was used), deleted extended scenes and featurettes.
  Jennifer Aniston stars as a woman fed up with her boyfriend in "The Break-Up." (Universal Studios Home Entertainment) |
· Over the Hedge (PG) This animated feature is packed full of jokes as it pits a band of woodland creatures, including a scheming raccoon named RJ (voiced by Bruce Willis), against a homeowner who hires an exterminator to rid the neighborhood of the critters. Other voices in the cast include Steve Carell, Garry Shandling, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte and Thomas Haden Church. Extras include a commentary track, a new animated short, featurettes and DVD-ROM features.
· American Dreamz (PG-13) This is a broad-brush attempt at satirizing something that's almost self-parody -- a challenging task. Post film critic Desson Thomson says: "To drive up the poll numbers of conservative President Staton (Dennis Quaid), his Svengalian chief of staff (Willem Dafoe) finagles a guest spot for the president as a judge on 'American Dreamz,' the country's popular TV amateur talent show, run by snotty Brit Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant). Quaid's halting-doofus shtick doesn't even reach one-dimensional, and Dafoe is so mean-spiritedly drawn, he's almost painful to watch. Grant's spin on 'American Idol' judge Simon Cowell is blunt, obvious and -- worse -- never funny."
· Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up (Unrated) Written by David Schow and directed by well-known horror filmmaker Larry Cohen, "Pick Me Up" wonders what would happen if a serial killer (Michael Moriarty) who preys on hitchhikers offered a ride to a hitchhiker (Warren Kole) who kills anyone who gives him a lift. Extras include the featurette "Working With a Master: Larry Cohen," "The Making of 'Pick Me Up' " and commentary by Cohen.
· The Omen (R) This remake follows the path of the original fairly closely with Liev Schreiber taking the father role, Julia Stiles playing the mother and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick playing the spawn of Satan. Elaborate deaths take place early and often. Extras include unrated extended sequences, an unrated alternate ending and featurettes.
· Only Human (R) This Spanish film is a screwball culture-clash comedy, written and directed by the married team of Dominic Harari and Teresa De Pelegri. Leni (Marián Aguilera), the much-loved daughter of a Spanish Jewish clan, brings home her fiance, Rafi (Guillermo Toledo), who happens to be a proud Palestinian. Her family, which is pretty eccentric in a variety of ways, reacts as you might expect. Toss in Rafi having an accident with a huge container of frozen soup, and things only get wackier.
· Feast (R) This horror flick is the product of the third season of television's "Project Greenlight" reality show about making a movie.
· Reds 25th Anniversary Edition (PG) Written, directed, produced by and starring Warren Beatty, this film, which tells the story of a radical American journalist in the middle of the Bolshevik revolution, received 12 Academy Award nominations and won three, including Best Director for Beatty. The cast also included Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Edward Herrmann, Gene Hackman, Paul Sorvino and Maureen Stapleton. Extras include segments on how the project came about plus features on the locations, sets, editing, scoring, release and reaction to the film. Also, there are new interviews with Beatty, Nicholson and composer Stephen Sondheim.
· The Big Black Comedy Show Box Set (Unrated) Get your laugh on with this five-disc set that gathers the first four volumes of the series along with a new volume. It features more than seven hours of some of the most popular African American comics working today, including Mo'Nique, Joe Torry, Michael Colyar, Wanda Smith, Tony Tone, Alonzo Bodden and John Witherspoon.
-- Curt Fields
