On DVD: June 30, 2009

Reviews of Do the Right Thing, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and Eastbound & Down

Do the Right Thing: 20th Anniversary Edition
Universal
$20
Blu-ray: $30

Plot: A block in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy ‘hood erupts in violence at the end of a hot summer day.

Opinion: Quick - name your favorite scene from Do The Right Thing.  Is it Radio Raheem’s impassioned soliloquy about love and hate?  How about the part where Buggin Out confronts Sal over the absence of any black faces from his Wall of Fame?  If you’re having a hard time making up your mind, that’s because Spike Lee’s 1989 is overflowing with memorable moments that are just as hilarious, relevant and thought-provoking today as they were twenty years ago when the movie set off arguments outside of cinemas all over pre-Giuliani NYC. Lee wasn’t the first filmmaker to tackle the subject of racism, but few had done so in such a fearlessly (or, as the film’s critics argued, recklessly) incendiary fashion. Despite being passed over when awards season rolled around, Do The Right Thing’s commercial success–it banked $26 million, four times what it cost to make–caused the major studios to sit up and take notice of its outspoken director, who was subsequently able to produce provocative films like Jungle Fever and Malcolm X on Hollywood’s dime.  And once Lee opened that door, a new class of young black filmmakers (including John Singleton and the Hughes Brothers) followed him through it. Much has changed in twenty years, but in the words of Ruby Dee’s Mother Sister, Do The Right Thing is still standing.

Bonus Features: Most of the extras on this two-disc release are carried over from the Criterion Collection edition released in the ’90s.  However, the first disc does offer a few new goodies, including a freshly-recorded commentary track by Lee, a half-hour retrospective doc with new interviews from the cast and crew and an interesting batch of deleted scenes.

Verdict: Buy It

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Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Fox
$30
Blu-ray: $40

Plot: Everyone’s favorite Street Fighter character (no, not Ryu) gets her own feature film (in which she’s played by ex-Smallville star Kristin Kreuk), which shows how she transformed from a sheltered daddy’s girl into a butt-kicking warrior.

Opinion: If you thought Hollywood couldn’t possibly produce a Street Fighter movie worse than the 1994 flop starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, guess again.  While The Legend of Chun-Li isn’t quite as racist and jingoistic as its predecessor, it is just as dumb and even more unintentionally hilarious.  The movie is filled with laughable narrative inconsistencies and huge gaps in logic, the best of which include bad-guy Bison’s unexplained Irish accent and Moon Bloodgood’s police-officer attire, which is more suited to a strip club than a precinct.  Best of all is Chris Klein’s tone-deaf performance as rugged (re: sleazy) Interpol agent Charlie Nash.  Storming around the set yelling lines like “Nash out” and looking like he just woke up from a three-day bender, Klein is so awful, you almost have to wonder whether he’s in on the joke.  Of course, for that to be the case, he’d actually have to have a sense of humor.

Bonus Features: Considering the film bombed at the box office, Fox has assembled a surprisingly extensive roster of extras, beginning with a commentary track featuring the director and producer as well as some of the cast, all of whom are much too proud about being in this piece of crap.  Kreuk doesn’t participate in the commentary, but she does pop up in a 20-minute making-of featurette.  Other extras include a bunch of deleted scenes and storyboard comparisons between the game and the movie.

Verdict: Skip It

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Eastbound & Down
HBO
$30

Plot: A washed-up major league pitcher (Danny McBride) returns to his hometown, where he makes life miserable for his relatives and the girlfriend he left behind.

Opinion: Going into Eastbound & Down, I still wasn’t entirely sold on the genius of its co-creators, director Jody Hill and actor Danny McBride.  The two had first generated major buzz for the indie comedy The Foot Fist Way, an overlong one-joke picture that wore out its welcome after fifteen minutes.  Hill’s recent mall-cop comedy Observe and Report was considerably better, but suffered from casting Seth Rogen in a role clearly intended for McBride.  With this six-episode series though, the duo finally find their groove.  McBride is consistently hilarious as the foul-mouthed Kenny Powers and Hill’s dark sense of humor is genuinely funny here instead of simply mean.  Conceived as a standalone series, HBO recently announced that Eastbound would be back for a second season.  Color me intrigued.

Bonus Features: McBride and his co-writers discuss the ins-and-outs of the series on commentary tracks that accompany three episodes.  There’s also a gag reel, several deleted scenes and two commercials for the town’s car dealership, owned and operated by a wig-sporting Will Ferrell.

Verdict: Buy It

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Also on DVD:

Two Lovers (Magnolia, $30) is supposedly Joaquin Phoenix’s farewell to acting and whether he’s telling the truth or if it’s all just an elaborate hoax (which seems increasingly likely), there are worse way to retire from the acting game—just ask Sean Connery, who ended his career with the hideously bad would-be blockbuster The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  In contrast, Phoenix is going out the same way he came in: by giving a solid performance in a good, if not exactly groundbreaking, indie drama. An admirable, but unsuccessful attempt to marry down-home blues music with a classic film noir visual palette, Dark Streets (Sony, $25) has plenty of style, but it’s missing any substance.  Clunky writing and amateurish acting dilute the mix, but the soundtrack, which features legendary musicians like Etta James, Dr. John and B.B. King, helps make this bitter pill slightly easier to swallow.  Jada Pinkett-Smith makes her directorial debut with The Human Contract (Sony, $25), a largely incomprehensible character study enlivened by the stunning Spanish actress Paz Vega.  Even Smith can’t stop talking about how hot her leading lady is on her otherwise information-free commentary track.  John Cena tries and fails once again to follow Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s path from wrestler to movie star with 12 Rounds (Fox, $30), a Die Hard knock-off directed by Renny Harlin…the same guy that made Die Hard 2.  Believe it or not, HBO’s Entourage is still on the air even though it ran out of good stories at least two seasons ago.  Entourage: The Complete Fifth Season (HBO, $40) collects the last batch of episodes you didn’t bother to watch just as the series returns to the network this summer.