DVD and HD DVD reviews

By Curt Schleier

In a week that thus far has been filled with unattractive patients, Jake and Amy hit a new low.  He is angry, insecure, rude and surly.  She is a manipulative liar.  And they’re married.  Now IN TREATMENT really gets interesting.

Jake (Josh Charles) is on time for his appointment with Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne), but his wife -- as is apparently her norm -- is late.  He is fuming, in part because he thinks she’s having an affair with her boss.  When she finally does arrive, he notices she has a different outfit on than the one she left for work in that morning.  She just says she spilled coffee on the one she’d been wearing and purchased new clothing.

It’s not like Jake doesn’t have a reason to be angry and suspicious.  For one thing, she cheated on her first husband with Jake.  Also, they spent five years going through fertility treatments, and now that Amy (Embeth Davidtz) is finally pregnant she wants to get an abortion.  She claims she had post-partum depression with their other child.  “I won’t be able to take care of this child,” she says.  “I won’t be able to love him.”

She has tears in her eyes as she says this – and both Paul and Jake are uncomfortably silent; they don’t know what to say.  Then Amy stops crying and says, “So, is that convincing enough.”  Later she apologizes for playing a part.  “I’m sorry.  I made all that up.”

In her defense, Jake is such a big a-hole, he’s almost proud of it; he’s rude to everyone around him, including the doctor, trying to make some sense of the couple’s constant bickering.  And frankly who’d want to have a baby with a husband as obnoxious as hers?  But Jake doesn’t want him to dissect the couple’s problems.  He claims they did not come to him for marriage counseling.  They just wanted his opinion on whether or not they should go ahead with an abortion.


It seems odd to go to an outsider for an opinion on something so personal.  But I guess whenever you see a TV therapist, it’s best to have a flamboyant problem that needs solving. Paul attempts to explain that he can’t give them an answer.  All he can do is to try to help them work through their problems so they can come up with an answer of their own.  But that’s not good enough for Jake, who badgers the doctor for an answer until Paul finally says Amy should have an abortion.  Both Jake and Amy are taken aback by that response.

Jake calls Paul a murderer and storms out.  Amy sits quietly for a minute and then leaves, too.  Paul clearly is not happy with what he said and immediately calls his former mentor/therapist, because he needs someone to speak.  But she’s not in.  But I bet she will be for the next episode.

By Sabrina Cognata

Last time we visited with Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) they played Christmas massacre with two Christmas warlocks that needed to feed back from yesteryear.  This time we’re confronted with this cute African-American lady that comes back from a dinner with her beau and she goes into the bathroom.  While she starts brushing her teeth there is a cut to another woman doing some sort of satanic ritual by slicing her hand and pouring her blood on the woman’s toothbrush.  Suddenly, the woman’s teeth begin falling out of her head.  Her boytoy comes running up, as she’s screaming with blood pouring out of her mouth, but when he gets to the bathroom the door mysteriously locks and the woman dies.

When Sam and Dean get to the scene they interview the boyfriend, Paul, and he is evasive and says that no one hated Janet.  Too bad while Dean is talking with him Sam finds a hex bag under the sink in the bathroom.  Sam and Dean deduce that this is the doings of a witch, and a good one versed in old magic.  Cut to a woman busily running into her home and her friend asks her why she missed their book club last night due to the bandage on her hand, I am going to guess this bitch is the witch we’re looking for.  She opens up her oven and inside there’s a maggot mesh and I puke a little in my mouth. 

Next Paul is attacked in his car when he finds maggots in his food.  Sam and Dean are there and find another hex bag.  Paul tells them that he recently ended a torrid affair with a complete nut job.  Sam and Dean head over to Amanda’s house, but when they show up they find her dead. After inspecting the scene, the Winchester brothers find another hex bag hidden inside the woman’s living room.  Sam says he’s afraid that the inner witchery hit is the result of a coven.  Next we realize that the book club neighbor, Elizabeth, is a part of the coven and that the book club is actually witch club.

Sam and Dean approach Elizabeth, asking about Amanda’s satanic rituals.  In the middle of their interview the other two witches show up and interfere, cutting off the conversation. Sam and Dean realize that Elizabeth and her two cohorts are the coven.  They believe the coven killed Amanda to manage appearances and deal with the fact that she was a nut job, which isn’t far off.  Since they are toying with black magic Sam says they need to be stopped, as soon as Dean agrees with him Ruby appears and tells them they have to leave town.  She says that these witches serve a demon and it lives in the town and is bigger and badder than Sam can manage.  In the middle of all this Dean makes the move to shoot Ruby, but Sam interferes and the bullet goes astray.  When they look back Ruby is gone. 

Sam and Dean continue to argue over Ruby.  Finally, Sam tells Dean this is more than just hunting because mankind is at war with the demons.  Dean says he’s worried that Sam isn’t acting like himself and Sam blames Dean for selling his soul to the devil and now that Sam knows he’s going to be alone he has to get tougher.  Suddenly, Dean starts puking up blood everywhere and Sam takes off with the colt to shoot the coven of witches.  While he’s gone Ruby shows up and saves Dean’s life with a concoction that Dean says tastes like ass.  Meanwhile, Sam’s with the coven and has narrowed down the demon, Tammy.  He goes to shoot her, but she stops the bullet and everyone knows he’s in trouble.  Especially Sam. 

Tammy is hell on wheels.  She kills Rene when she disagrees with hurting Sam and then she goes into a diatribe about how she manipulated book club to get those women to worship her.  Tammy says that she doesn’t believe Sam is the Messiah and that some other demon is.  That demon hates Sam and wants him vaporized or something.  Tammy starts to smoosh Sam into the wall and Dean shows up.  Then Ruby appears and Tammy says something about Ruby making it out of the gate.  Ruby asks to serve Tammy again and says she brought the Winchesters to Tammy as a gift.  Ruby goes to stab Tammy, but Tammy expects it.  GIRL FIGHT!  Tammy tells us in Ruby’s former life she was a witch, and one of her followers.  While she yammering on Elizabeth starts performing a spell on her and Tammy barfs up pushpins.  This gives Dean just enough time to attack Tammy with the dagger, killing her. 

Later, Ruby gives Dean a heart-to-heart in being a demon, telling him that most demons were once humans that forgot what it was like to be alive.  Dean asks if he’ll turn into a demon and forget about his life on earth, and she says he will.  She also says that she cannot save him from hell.  Ruby tells Dean she needs him to help her get Sam ready to fight the war without him, but Dean wants to know why Ruby wants them to triumph over evil.  Ruby says she’s not like the rest of the demons because she remembers what it’s like to be human. 

By Faith McQuinn

Tonight was the season four premiere of LOST. This was, by far, the most anticipated premiere of the year for me. And now, I have a boatload (pun intended) of questions.  But first, a quick summary for all the forgetful viewers out there.

It’s been eight months since the last time an original episode of LOST aired, and I’m sure some of you need a recap. When we were on the island last, a woman named Naomi parachuted in and said she had a rescue boat off shore. Convinced that Desmond’s girl Penny sent the boat, Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) head to an underwater hatch to unblock the radio signals to the island.

While the guys are swimming, Jack (Matthew Fox) takes on the role of Moses and leads his band of survivors to the radio tower. Meanwhile, Bernard (Sam Anderson), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) stay behind to blow up the Others. They succeed…sort of. Hurley (Jorge Garcia) runs over the ones that are left, and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) takes out Mr. Friendly (M.C. Gainey).


So, Charlie drowns. Jack beats up Ben (Michael Emerson). Locke throws a knife in Naomi’s back and runs away. But Jack still calls the boat and they’re all going home. Oh, and Jack and Kate successfully get off the island thanks to that ingenious flash-forward. All is well.

Not so fast.

Now for this week and all those damn questions. Usually on LOST, at least one question is answered. I mean, granted, about a dozen are brought up, but still questions get answered. In the season four premiere, however, I didn’t get anything answered.

The episode picks up where the season three finale left off. Jack has just called the boat, and the guys are on their way to rescue them. Hurley and company are still on the beach when they hear the good news. Hurley, realizing that he will finally be free of all of his money troubles, cannonballs into the ocean.

His happiness is soon stomped upon when Desmond brings news of Charlie’s death. Right away, Hurley becomes Locke’s biggest supporter and decides that they need to get to Jack before Jack gets to the beach to meet Not Penny’s Boat.

In the flash-forward, Hurley gets himself into a mental institution because, turns out, he’s seeing Charlie. But Charlie’s dead, right? Right?! Yeah, he’s dead. Charlie even says so. Then why is Hurley seeing Charlie? And to whom is Charlie referring when he says, “They need your help”? And when Jack and Hurley are talking, what does Jack want to make sure Hurley’s not going to tell? And the hell are the other three in the Oceanic Six?!

Back on the island, Hurley’s already begun to see things. When he gets lost in the jungle, he happens upon Jacob’s creepy shack. When he turns to run, low and behold, there’s the shack again. Is the island playing tricks on Hurley, or is he really losing his mind?


Whatever is, one thing is for certain. Hurley is hurting from the loss of Charlie. In honor of what his friend sacrificed, Hurley is the first to join Locke in escaping the supposed rescue party. Claire (Emile de Ravin), Sawyer, Ben, Rousseau (Mira Furlan), Alex and Karl follow suit. Jin, Sun (Yunjin Kim), Rose (L. Scott Caldwell), Bernard, Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Kate stay with Jack. Sides have been chosen, but who’s right? Is there a right?

If you are not a fan of LOST, you may actually think I didn’t like this episode. But you are so wrong. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what good television is. I may be frustrated by all the damn questions, but that’s what keeps me watching. Every week, I find some other aspect of the show to love. I may have had had to wait 251 days (yeah, I counted), but they were worth it.

LOST is back. The stakes are higher, and writers’ strike or not, I’m in for the long haul.

By Curt Schleier

THE AIR I BREATHE received scathing reviews following its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.  It seemed almost as though the critical establishment had a grudge against Jieho Lee, the young Korean-American director and screenwriter making his directorial debut.  So I wasn’t expecting much and, frankly, was even tempted to skip the screening I’d been invited to.

Luckily I didn’t, because the film is an unexpected surprise. THE AIR I BREATHE is not only an interesting and at times exciting, it features sharply etched characters and proves intellectually satisfying as well.  It is also a daring enterprise for the first-time filmmaker – one he comes close to succeeding at.

The film’s conceit (and ultimately its downfall) is that it was supposedly inspired by a Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four key elements: happiness, sorrow, pleasure and love.  To start with, it seems there are far more basic human emotions than four; does greed ring a bell? What about anger and lust?

That aside, there are four inter-related vignettes, each featuring a cast member who is supposed to embody one of the emotions; the problem is that they don’t.  Brendan Fraser’s Pleasure enjoys little during the film.  Trista’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) primary emotion is terror, not the sorrow she is supposed to symbolize.  And Forest Whitaker enjoys little happiness as a hapless and timid banker who bets everything he has on what is supposed to be a sure thing – and loses it all. 


Even Kevin Bacon’s Love is unrequited.  He plays is a surgeon in love with his best friend’s wife.  It seems Lee went a long way to make his story fit with the fable, when that was entirely unnecessary.  The stories are actually fascinating on their own -- more so when they all come together in an exciting climax – and probably would have been even better if Lee hadn’t felt the need to mold them to fit the saying..

The unifying thread is Fingers (Andy Garcia), a hoodlum who earned his nickname because of his tendency to remove digits from those who don’t pay their debts in a timely manner.  Garcia is brilliant, and his leering presence elevates the film.  He’s so good an actor, he makes it look easy and I think that’s the reason he rarely gets the credit he deserves. 

Pleasure is Fingers’ enforcer.  He also has psychic power and can see into the future.  But he has a troubled soul because she was unable to use his powers to save a childhood friend.

Happiness is a milquetoast who hears colleagues talk about a fixed horse race.  He decides now is his time and places a large bet at Garcia’s emporium.


Trista also has a troubled past; she saw her father killed in an automobile accident.  Her manager depleted her financial accounts and gave her contract to Fingers in order to keep his own.  She is now his property.

Love needs to get a transfusion for the love of his life; the only person who has the rare blood type is Trista.

Lee does a really good job of weaving these disparate threads together.  It’s hard to believe that this is his first film.  The plot becomes a tad convoluted not only to fit within the framework if the proverb, but also to make the denouement work.  But all in all, it’s a very satisfying movie.  Lee has the potential to be big, and you can say you were there at the beginning.

One of the joys of reviewing movies on video is getting the chance to discover diamonds in the rough -- the "small" movies that play for a weekend in two art theaters in Peoria, and that I would never...

By Kofi Outlaw

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, based on the 2002 memoir by bestselling author Augusten Burroughs, tells the story of a young man (Joseph Cross) whose divorcee mother (Annette Bening), an eccentric, borderline schizophrenic poet, abandons him into the care of her equally unhinged therapist (Brian Cox).

The home of Dr. Finch turns out to be more of a loony bin than the broken home young Augusten shared with his crazed mother and alcoholic father (Alec Baldwin). The Finches are a group of over-analyzed, over-medicated cuckoos, including a “perfect” older daughter, Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow), who enjoys cuddly animals, and making stews from cuddly animals; rebellious younger daughter Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood), who enjoys flaunting her budding sexuality and practicing for her career as a future movie star; Finch matriarch Agnes, a beaten down, disheveled woman whose face is frozen with perma-shock; the family’s elder adopted son, Neil, a schizophrenic artist who was also abandoned into Dr. Finch’s care; and the doctor himself, a maniacal and controlling old wolf, cloaked as a shepherd.

As Augusten tries time and again to escape the Finch madhouse and reunite with his loony mother, his life begins to unravel strand by strand. The young boy finds first-love in the arms of Neil, a man twenty years his senior, while constantly contending with Dr. Finch’s dubios assessments of his mental state, and officious prescription of mind-bending pills. Augusten does find some companionship in Natalie, who, like him, has dreams and ambitions that extend far beyond the Finch sanitarium. There is also Agnes, who in Augusten discovers one semi-normal child she can effectively mother. It is ultimately Agnes’ tender care, and financial support, which allows Augusten to break from his mother and move to New York City, to pursue his dream of becoming a writer—which, of course, we know he succeeds in doing.


RUNNING WITH SCISSORS was directed by Ryan Murphy, the creator of the plastic surgery series, “Nip/Tuck.” Murphy tries to infuse Burroughs’ oddball life-story with the kind of irreverent humor that has made “Nip/Tuck” so popular. However, what works for TV doesn’t quite translate to the screen. So concerned are Murphy and co. with presenting us with “the weirdness” of Augusten’s life, that other staples of storytelling—character development, plot arch—quickly fall by the wayside. It’s kind of like leafing through a photo album and being reminded of old anecdotes: “Remember that day, oh that was weird. Remember that other day? That was even weirder.” However after an hour or so, as weird anecdote, after weird anecdote, is seamlessly rolled out, the story as a whole loses focus, point, and cohesion, and becomes as random, weird, and ultimately forgettable, as the anecdotes it’s made of.


The DVD offers a few features, mostly the usual behind the scenes, making the film, interviews with cast and crew. But hearing actors talk about their characters can quickly become a long-winded bore. I had high hopes for the interview segment with the real Augusten Burroughs describing how closely the film mirrored his experiences—but at five minutes long, with mostly shallow commentary from the acclaimed author, those hopes were quickly dashed. Guess we have to buy his books to find out what he’s really thinking.

Bottom line: Read RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, but skip the movie. Some stories just get lost in translation.

Bandai Visual says it will bring the penultimate installment in the popular anime series 'Freedom' to HD DVD this April. Originally presented as a six-part series in its native Japan, Bandai has retained...

Dependable Lord! It’s one crappy image after another. In the past couple of weeks I’ve been subjected to trash like Head Over Heels, The Wedding Planner and Valentine. I hoped that Chris Rock would be able elevate a movie out of this horrible funk. Unfortunately, this remake of Heaven Can Waitress (which is a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan), isn’t able to cash in on the considerable wit and gift of Rock. In Down to Earth, Rock plays a stand up comic (go figure) who wants nothing more than to make it in the field he loves. His plans are cut short when he is hit by a omnibus. Due to an error committed by angel Eugene Levy, Rock is given another chance at life. Of course there is a catch. Rock must dwell the body of a andrew D. White business tycoon with a ugly reputation. What follows is a typical fish out of h2O story in which Rock must alter people’s perception of his new identity. This leaves the plot open for all as well obvious situations. The film was directed by Chris and Paul Weitz (the squad that brought us American Pie). In a lighthearted way, they try to touch on themes that were dealt with in stronger fashion in Warren Beatty’s brilliant Bulworth. The problem with Down to Earth is that I never bought half of the scenarios that Rock is plunged into. Most notably, the romance with Regina King. It just seems absurd. In Bulworth, you have a much more realistic chemistry between Beatty and Halle Berry. And if Promised land Can Wait, the chemistry between Beatty and Julie Christie was Oscar worthy. Down to Earth is full of moments that just don’t hold water. To top that turned, this picture isn’t funny. Last year, Rock seemed to be headed in the right direction with his turn as a cynical hitman in Nurse Betty. Here, he finds himself in an unfunny hole that he can’t seem to get out of. Chazz Palminteri shows up as a sort of handler of the afterlife, and regular he can’t breathe life into this dull, disjointed, ill conceived disaster of a remake. On an uplifting note, Down to Earth clocks in at a mere eighty-seven transactions, but it’s a long lxxxvii minutes. It should also be noted that I enjoyed the Crocodile Dundee in L.A. trailer that preceded the film more that Down to Ground itself. That’s pathetic. You know what’s really sad? I hold yet to see Sweet November or Saving Silverman. I’ve heard nothing but bad things around both of those pictures. I sure hope that movies catch better. If things continue as they are, I welcome this big strike I keep hearing about.

Vanguard Cinema has announced its latest high-def release, bringing the indie film 'Animal Room' to HD DVD this April. Starring Neil Patrick Harris and Matthew Lillard, the dark crime thriller 'Animal...