
When 30 Rock won the Emmy for outstanding comedy series again this year, those of us that know and love the show cheered and nodded in approval. The rest of the world shrugged their shoulders and said to themselves “Oh yeah, I keep meaning to watch that.” Well get with it people, because in the end, no amount of awards is going to make up for paltry ratings and shows like this are few and far between. And frankly, I can't handle anymore shows about balding middle-aged fat guys and their gorgeous, way out-of-their-league wives (The King of Queens, According to Jim, Grounded for Life) that have no substance to their comedy but still somehow manage to come back season after season.
I’d rather watch a show about Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), the independent, albeit frazzled and possibly crazy head writer of a network sketch comedy show that deserves her high-ranking position despite her constant self-doubt. I want to see what happens when she shares the screen with a rich republican exec, the equally crazy Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), who gives Lemon helpful advice and the viewer general words to live by. “Never go with a hippy to a second location” he tells us and let’s be honest, who hasn’t made that mistake before? People, I need the supporting cast of misfits like Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski ) to add to the mayhem. And where would I be without Kenneth (Jack McBrayer), the impossible to resist, naive NBC page? "I don't drink coffee, sir. I don't drink hot beverages of any kind. That's the devil's temperature!"
Is every episode a complete work of genius? Well, no, sometimes they are a little off. But there is at least one moment of brilliance in every episode (I can not say the same for most of the crap on network T.V.) and sometimes it’s perfect from beginning to end and you get the sense that creator Tina Fey's vision is being fully realized.
Is the second season DVD worth the price? Yes. The show comes with a slew of bonus features that nerds like me eat up. There’s a table reading of the "Cooter" episode with the actual script running on the bottom half of the screen as well as behind the scenes footage of Fey hosting SNL, although I would have preferred to see a bit of collaboration between Fey and writers and get a peek inside that big brain of hers. There is also a live presentation of a 30 Rock episode at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater in New York. And while all that is fun, it’s the episodes, in all their commercial-free glory that make it worth the price.
So please America, I'm begging you. Tune in for an episode or two and get yourself hooked. The new season starts Oct. 30 but in the mean time, get started with season two.
30 Rock: Season Two. $27. Universal Studios. Release date, Oct. 7.
Topics: DVD

As a child, I regularly watched The Munsters after Saturday morning cartoons and it didn’t matter that I wasn't totally following the story lines because an enormous Frankenstein was crashing around on the screen making me laugh. As a teenager, I tried to watch it again and this time I followed the plots but found it to be incredibly stupid, deemed it for children and vowed never to watch it again. In my early twenties, after much cajoling from my boyfriend, I watched it stoned out of my mind and what do you know? It was hilarious. The story line was once again lost to me but that big Frankenstein crashing through walls and breaking couches got me laughing harder than Friends ever has, intoxicated or not. Recently, I sat down to watch it completely sober and you know what? It wasn’t that bad—pretty good actually.
The Munsters ran for two seasons from 1961-1963 and produced a staggering 70 episodes. The unconventional 60s sitcom family is made up of Herman, (played impeccably by Fred Gwynne) an enormous reanimated corpse that terrifies the neighborhood but is actually afraid of his own shadow and Lily, his sassy vampire wife who I always thought was beautiful and greatly admired her sense of style (it wasn't until last night that I realized her coat, which I wanted very badly as a girl, was made out of coffin lining—I still totally want it). They're joined by Eddie, their werewolf son, and Grandpa, Lily's vampire father. Their niece, Marilyn, the “black sheep” who the family looks at with a certain degree of pity because she is so odd (although gorgeous by anyone else standards) rounds out the family. The newly released series box set has every episode including the unaired pilot, two full-length movies, Munster, Go Home and Munsters Revenge plus the episode "Family Portrait" in full color.
If you have no experience with The Munsters and the nostalgia factor isn’t there, I’m guessing you won’t like it. The slapstick comedy probably isn’t going to reach a generation that's grown up on pop culture references and sexual humor. Unless you fell in love with the kind of laughs derived from a man who is so frightened by Herman his toupee flies off and lands on the head of the guy sitting next to him, early in life, you probably won't even muster a chuckle. But if you already have a soft spot for the family from 1313 Mockingbird Lane, and enjoy it without any sort of enhancers (and it looks like a lot of you do, Amazon's are already back-ordered) I say pick it up.
The Munsters: The Complete Series. $52. Universal Studios. Released, Oct. 7.
Topics: DVD

To the extent there's a Judd Apatow backlash, it probably began, unfairly, with the April release of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yes, Apatow (Superbad, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) was a producer, but Sarah is entirely the spawn of writer-star Jason Segal. The reviews, including ours, were generally dismissive—just another movie about oafish boy-men who won't grow up.
New on DVD this week (Universal Home Ent., $34.98), Sarah is quite a bit better than that. What first draws comment—particularly on this unrated disc set—is that Segal's schlubby musician hero gets dumped in the buff by his TV star g.f. (Kristin Bell). And he gets naked again in this comedy of humiliation, after enduring the holiday humiliation of checking into the same Hawaiian resort where Sarah has shacked up with her new b.f., a louche, self-involved English rock star. (Comic Russel Brand is so good in this role that he and Segal have built a forthcoming movie around the character: Get Him to the Greek, scheduled for release next year.)
But our sympathies are always squarely with the tall dorky Segal as he mopes around paradise. He can't bring himself to hate his ex, or her new flame, and he remains ambivalent event about the hot hotel clerk (Mila Kunis) who takes a shine to him. Segal reminds me of Adam Sandler without the infantile rage, the simmering suggestion of misogyny. His character genuinely likes both women, and his nerdy fixations—like puppets—are innocent without being regressive. Segal, a musician who plays piano here and wrote Brand's lewd power ballads, is the kind of guy who weeps, heartbroken over the theme to The Muppet Show. And he has the kind of American decency to take affront at the Brand character's bed-hopping. "This isn't Europe!" he sputters.
Among the several DVD extras, Billy Baldwin is superlative—there's a sentence I'd never thought I'd write—in the cop show send-up of David Caruso on C.S.I. (where Segal apparently had a few small guest roles and took notes). Bell's character and Baldwin trade inane, steely eyed patter like pros. I'm surprised these fake teasers and scene grabs from Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime aren't all over YouTube.
Topics: DVD

Editor's Note: Sarah Jewell, an extraordinary classified ad sales rep here at SW, loves Sex and the City. The long-awaited movie version, which came out this May, is now on DVD (Warner Home Video, $28.98, $34.99 for two-disc set, $35 for Blu-Ray). Here's her appraisal...
The Men, the Saga, the SHOES!
By Sarah Jewell
Every woman I’ve spoken to about this Sex and the City craze will tell you they are a mix of Carrie and (insert favorite character here). Favorite character out of the way, we move on to the never ending debate - who was/is the right guy for Carrie? Love or hate me – I’m in the Aiden camp. He was tall, handsome, rugged man and truly kind, but forced Carrie to realize she would have to change her lifestyle completely to stay with him – marriage and children would be a must. Eventually the pressure got to her and she fell into the bed of a married Big. In my opinion, Big was/is an asshole, only remorseful for his actions when Carrie is pushed to breaking point – hell, in the first hour of the movie he leaves her at the altar in the gorgeous champagne colored Vivienne Westwood gown.
Continue reading "OMG! SatC on DVD!"
Topics: DVD

...but the script is so bad that I almost walk out. Made of Honor, a romantic comedy that splits its time between New York City and Scotland, is like the casing to the latter’s famous dish, Haggis: thin and bloated. At least it’s nicer to look at.
Patrick Dempsey is Tom, a wealthy inventor with an elaborate series of rules for limiting emotional intimacy with the many beautiful women who throw themselves at him. Michelle Monaghan is Hannah, his platonic best friend, an art historian and the one woman who has resisted his charms (in college, when he crawled into her bed wearing a Bill Clinton mask, carrying a cigar, and calling her Monica).
They spend every Sunday traipsing through an idyllic New York City, eating cake and discussing his sex life. Of course, we see right away that they’re in love, but Tom doesn’t realize it until she leaves for Scotland on a six-week business trip. His newfound readiness to commit is thwarted when she returns with a fiancee, a Robert Burns-quoting, whiskey magnate, donkey-dong Scottish Duke named Colin. She asks Tom to be her maid of honor, and a painful pun of a title and a series of badly executed cliches ensue.
Topics: DVD
Tina Fey is the Bud Abbot to Amy Poehler's Lou Costello—or she should be. Greg Kinnear is a lovable everyman—or he should be. Unfortunately they are all none of those things. Fey and Poehler, normally unafraid to launch themselves shamelessly into a role (remember Poehler letting the chihuahua chew her fake tits in Mean Girls? Hilarious!), seem as uninterested in their characters as we are. And Kinnear's smoothie maker taking on "the man" aka Jamba Juice, is mostly whiny and pathetic.
Basically Tina Fey wants a baby, but is barren. Amy Poehler is faking a pregnancy as a surrogate. Kinnear father to a noticeably absent pre-teen, who doesn't believe in surrogacy, or something. And Dax Shephard gets billing on the DVD case for reasons I can't possibly imagine. Everyone ends up procreating but I'm not really convinced any of them should.
The high point is Steve Martin's PCCesque exec. He brings to mind a certain someone here at the Weekly who is equally enamored of all things contemplatively universal and harmonious. Martin's few scenes are scattered through the movie making it perfect for watching while you knit your first sock. There was plenty of time to reread the instructions and yell at the yarn while the "plot" unfolded, with welcome interludes courtesy of the Uptight, er, Martin.
Baby Mama releases today on DVD from Universal Studios, retailing at $29.98 ($39.98 for Blu-Ray, I have no idea what that means, but apparently it's, like, way more awesome.)
Topics: DVD

When Grey's Anatomy came on the air several years ago, it was love at first sight for me on Grey's Anatomy — not because the show was overwhelmingly good, but because the show was set in Seattle, and I was living in St. Louis and prone to spurts of homesickness. For the show's first three seasons, it was reliably quirky and featured a slew of hot thespians on both sides of the gender aisle. But then came Season Four, which no longer featured Doctors Addison and Burke (pictured together above). And by this point, the amorous tug of war between McDreamy and Dr. Grey had gotten really stale, as had the predictable chick-folk soundtrack.
The shows weaknesses are what they've always been: an overzealous affinity for melodramatic plotlines and unrealistic, narcissistic dialogue. As Alec Baldwin mentions in this week's New Yorker, the show is an SNL spoof waiting to happen, in which each character delivers a self-important monologue before pulling his or her nearest co-worker into the hospital utility closet and fucking his or her brains out.
That said, how can anyone not like the kid from Can't Buy Me Love, Patrick Dempsey, who for some of us will forever be the high school dork who overcame the aesthetic odds to grow the thickest head of hair this side of Snoqualmie Pass? And it's impossible not to root for George, the Chief, and Bailey. I don't watch Grey's Anatomy with any regularity anymore now that I'm back home, but when I was away from home, it was a lifeline of sorts, however artificial (very little of the show is actually shot in Seattle, after all). And for that I'll be forever grateful.
Grey’s Anatomy: The Complete Fourth Season. Walt Disney Studios Home Ent. $59.99.
Topics: DVD

Many films that play the festival circuit never get an official release. Or, if they're lucky, maybe they play a week in New York to pick up a few more critics' blurbs for the DVD box. And some unlucky titles never even make it to disc. But generally that sorting process only takes a year or less. So I noted with a tiny twinge of pride that our SW SIFF Guide cover girls from 2003 have finally made the passage to Scarecrow and Netflix. No Blood No Tears was made in 2002 by South Korean director Ryoo Seung-wan; it played SIFF the following year; now it's on disc at last (Genius, $24.95). That's a six year lag for a nifty little crime flick that deserved better.
Starring Jeon Do-yeon as a meek gangster's moll who gets regularly slapped down for her backtalk and Lee Hye-yeong as the tough female cabbie who takes the bruised girl under her wing, No Blood is kind of a Korean underworld version of Thelma and Louise, though with a more comic, less tragic, spin. There are no good men in the picture: the cops are all fools; politicians are uniformly corrupt; and the gangsters are sexist blowhards to a man. (Every other word of their dialogue is "bitch.") Our heroines are basically cast together by fate (or car crash, that favorite cinematic device) in a male-dominated milieu, and they never ask men for help. Especially when they, and a half-dozen other interested parties, begin chasing after bookie's stolen bag of cash. "We both live shitty lives," says the gangster's moll, who always wears dark glasses to hide her black eye; why shouldn't they grab at their chance for the loot?
Director Ryoo infuses the movie with plenty of winks and action sequences nodding to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Quentin Tarantino. But notwithstanding all the action, like QT, he's got a thing for the ladies. Strong ladies (think Pam Grier and Uma Thurman). Since the 2006 "The City of Violence" made his rep (it's already on disc), I'm willing to bet that Tarantino and others—perhaps including some American actresses looking for good, kick-ass roles—are angling for a remake of No Blood.
And if that ever happens, I wonder if we'll see it at SIFF.
Topics: DVD
Editor's Note: to commemorate the Sept. 9 release of the special "10th Anniversary Edition" of The Big Lebowski on DVD (details below), we asked our genius IT guru Paul Jensen to compose one of his server reboot warnings Lebowski-style. A professional musician by night, Jensen is also the Lebowski-est guy we know around the office. Enjoy, and keep reading through the jump...

Server Reboot Wednesday: Lebowski Edition
The Dude and Walter are getting ready to bowl. The Gipsy Kings’ version of “Hotel California” plays softly in the background. Donny enters, excited:
Donny: They posted the next round of the tournament!
Walter: When do we play?
Donny: Wednesday. Tonight.
Walter: Well they’ll have to reschedule – I told that Kraut at the league office a thousand times I don’t roll on Wednesday.
Donny: It’s already posted.
Walter: Well they can f**king UN-post it!
Dude (sipping on a White Russian): Who gives a shit, Walter?
Continue reading "Big Lebowski Reboot"
Topics: DVD

The political and campaign DVDs just keep coming. Next in our election year stack is Recount (HBO, $19.98), which tells how electoral confusion in the Sunshine State led to the presidency of George W. Bush. He, like Democratic rival Al Gore, is only seen here on TV. The rueful drama's real stars are the political footmen, real historical figures of both parties portrayed by Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt, Denis Leary, Laura Dern, Ed Begley Jr., and others. But they're also history's footnotes. We see images of Bush and Gore, hear their voices mimicked on telephone calls, and those are the guys who go on to reap the accolades, and scorn, of the media. Recount is interesting precisely because it gives voice, and a precious little bit of dignity, to those we haven't heard from the in the last eight years.

Every fall I go on the hunt for the perfect pair of boots and try as I might, I can never find them. Well last night I finally did—on Karl Lagerfeld. During Lagerfeld Confidential the camera panned down to a shot of his feet and there they were: rounded toe, two-inch heel, snake skin, knee-high boots. Not too masculine, not too feminine, perfect. Damn you Karl Lagerfeld for not only wearing my perfect boots, but for looking fabulous in them, too.
If you don’t know who Karl Lagerfeld is (iconic fashion designer for the likes of Chanel, Fendi or, that guy with the fan) then you probably won’t like this movie. If you sort of do, you’ll probably struggle through it. If you love him, this one’s for you. But don’t expect to learn much about his personal life, his rise to fame or the fashion world in general. Instead be prepared for the directionless glimpses director Rodolphe Marconi offers as he follows Lagerfeld around the house, to various photo shoots and parties. There is a lot of interview time with Lagerfeld in which he drops some amazingly witty remarks and observations all while keeping the details of his adult life frustratingly private. He does talk openly about his childhood, specifically his German mother as well his love for photography—he shoots all of Chanel’s ad campaigns. He always looks nothing short of stunning and at one point he wears a floor length full pleated skirt with a fitted blazer over a starched white shirt and a tie and fuck he looks chic. I wonder if I could get away with that?
Confidential offers tiny peeks into Lagerfeld's past collections and glimpses of a very glamorous jet setting life which he claims isn’t important to him. “I love change; I’m attached to nothing,” he expounds. I don’t believe him. He has more than half a dozen iPods, bowls of rings of which he wears several daily and drawers full of starched collars. But it is all cast around a cluttered Paris apartment that is filled mostly with books so it’s clear there is more to his life than material possessions. And despite being constantly surrounded by his entourage, he claims that he can’t stand people that can’t be alone and that "solitude is a victory.". Where the persona Lagerfeld has created ends and the actual man begins is unclear. But isn't that fashion? If it isn't a bit eccentric then it isn't that interesting and who wants boring clothes from a boring designer?
Unfortunately despite the designer's best efforts, the film ends up a bit boring with very little of his sumptuous fashions to liven things up. Lagerfeld however is likable and in many ways enviable because not only is he intelligent, rich and a creative genius, but he owns the single most perfect pair of boots in the history of the world.
Lagerfeld Confidential. $29.98. Koch Lorber Films. Release Date: Sept. 2.
Topics: DVD

It’s a dramatic year for the paper pushers at Dunder Mifflin, as the sitcom has reached that perilous point where so many plot twists revolve around a small group’s swapping of romantic partners. In lesser hands, this would be a surefire shark-jumping, but The Office: Season Four plugs along on the strength of its characters.
Mindy Kaling continues to delight as Kelly Kapoor, the motormouthed customer service rep obsessed with celebrity culture and her ex, Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak), the one-time Scranton temp who has been promoted to the New York office. Ryan has an affinity for hard partying, MBA buzzwords, and referring to himself as a “wunderkind.” When the wunderkind denies her advances, Kelly tells him that she’s pregnant and soon thereafter scores a rebound at the Scranton branch.
Season Four is not smooth sailing for Regional Manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Assistant thereto Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), as each must navigate the choppy seas of his own failing romance. (Dwight gets himself in trouble via his unconventional views on animal welfare; Michael, on the other hand, has chosen to date the not-entirely-stable Jan Levinson-Gould.) Meanwhile, Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beasley (Jenna Fischer) continue their long arc to the shared happily-ever-after that will likely occur at the series’ end, whenever that comes. For now, they settle for being the first customers at the "agritourism" bed and breakfast run by Dwight and his idiot cousin Mose at Schrute Farms.
If you’ve seen the first three seasons, you know it’s good stuff. (When I told my friend Sujan I was reviewing it, he said, “That’s like reviewing a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.”) The occasional inconsistencies in character are easily forgiven in light of the consistently strong performances and gags. At fourteen episodes (plus deleted scenes for each that add up to mini-episodes themselves), there’s plenty of material to mine for analogies to get you through your own workday.
The Office: Season Four. $48.96. Universal Studios. Release Date: September 2nd.
Topics: DVD


In DVD-land, they're always looking for a way to sell us the same damn product all over again. From VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray to myriad permutations of the "special gold star bonus collectible feature edition" variety, studios try to monetize further worth out of their vaults. Thus the "Election Year Edition" of Oliver Stone's 1995 Nixon (Hollywood Pictures, $29.99; more for Blu-Ray), released last week. But which election year are we talking about? Nixon was made within the safe confines of the Clinton era. But it looks back, of course, to 1968 and 1972, when Richard Nixon earned his two terms in the White House. The film leaps back and forth in time as he audits his famous, illicit tape recordings from the Oval Office, which triggers flashbacks to 1960 (when Kennedy, Stone's great love, beat the vice president) and beyond. This makes the film—already too long, and now 28 minutes longer—way too scrambled in its structure. Stone is so intent on rewriting history (as in JFK) that can't get a grip on the narrative or the man (played by Anthony Hopkins, who earned an Oscar nom) or his wife (Joan Allen, ditto).
Still, it's a fascinating, flawed film, a big paint-splattered canvas that's surprisingly sympathetic to its protagonist. Nixon, in Stone's Shakespearian rendering, is by turns petty, grand, paranoid, heroic, bold, cowardly, vulgar, and noble. He's everything but loving, this man who—as Stone tells it—grew up in a poor California grocer's family that was incapable of love. It's a tragic vision of a man who could've been great, of a president who could've ended the Vietnam War if (Stone argues) his flaws (i.e., Watergate) didn't get the better of him.
But the real election year to which Nixon is pertinent is the current one. Bush I was a loyal, moderate Republican under Nixon (himself a moderate who did much for the environment and health care). And it was the subsequent failure of Bush I that gave rise to the hard right turn of his son, Bush II, whom we're now about to replace. And this DVD's release is surely occasioned by Stone's forthcoming biopic W (due here Oct. 17), which casts Josh Brolin as the errant, drunkard Yalie frat boy who found God, put down the bottle, and trumped his father (and Clinton) by earning two bold terms in office.
Nixon is tragedy. W looks to be farce. In nearly 20 movies, I can't count a single comedy in the Stone oeuvre. But the two films are surely related, like Henry IV and Henry V. I just wonder if, among the fools of this Bush II project, the fallen king will figure in the clown-prince's progress to the throne.
Topics: DVD

As summer lurches toward the Labor Day weekend, there are hardly any good movies to see. That holiday is a traditional dumping ground for studio orphans like Medellín, the Pablo Escobar biopic so near and dear to star Vincent Chase and director Billy Walsh. I guess we'll have to wait for season five of HBO's Entourage to find out whether Medellín receives such an ignominious release, or goes straight to DVD, or gets recut by the evil Harvey Weinstein-like studio boss who's circling our guys, scissors in hand.
For now, Entourage: The Complete Fourth Season (HBO, $39.98) is a pretty good substitute for most of what's at the box office...
Continue reading "Final Cannes-tasy?"
Topics: DVD

...and forever in my heart.
It is impossible to resist the charms of Amy Adams—I dare you to try.
She first caught my eye with her role in Junebug (which won her an Oscar nomination) and after I saw Enchanted, I was officially in love—and also a tiny bit hurt. It’s always a little hard when a favorite actor gets their due credit and suddenly everyone knows their name. Like when your favorite local band goes national. It just stings a little.
But I digress.
Based on a novel by Winifred Watson that was first published way back in 1938, Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day is an amusing little movie that would have been DOA if it weren’t for the magic of Adams. It stars Frances McDormand as Guinevere Pettigrew, a dowdy, down-on-her-luck, religiously raised governess who finds herself employed by the promiscuous flibbertigibbet Delysia Lafosse (Adams). She is at first shocked by Lafosse’s wild ways but is soon won over by her allure and ends up discovering happiness and love along side her flighty new friend over the course of a single day.
All of that storyline pushed into a one day time line could easily have turned this movie into a mess but it whizzes along in a mere 92 minutes so you don’t really have time to get bored or confused. The love, uh, square I guess as there are four lovers involved, doesn’t offer you the option of which guy to root for because it’s pretty obvious. But the film is clever in that it’s not obvious to Lafosse. And you actually see why. Life was tough for a gal in the thirties—she didn't have a whole lot of options. So who can blame her for using her assets to get ahead? Not me, not when it’s Amy Adams.
The film does a particularly good job of posting this lavish, indulgent world against the backdrop of an impending war reminding the viewer that times change, eras come to an end, and love is the only thing that matters. Awwwww. Not being a fan of romantic comedies, that sort of drivel usually has me running for the hills but throw in some period costumes and cast Amy Adams and I’m in.
Look, I’m not saying it’s a great, ground-breaking movie or anything but it’s a fun movie for the dames. And for the fellas who aren’t afraid to like movies for the dames.
Oh, and did I mention Amy Adams? She’s in it too.
released on DVD August 19
Topics: DVD