Movie Reviews of The Fall, House of the Dead, Baby Mama, The Forbidden Kingdom and many more…

The Fall (Sony, $24.96)

There’s one shot in Tarsem’s long in the making ode to the power of storytelling that I can honestly say I’ve never seen before. The moment begins with a close-up on the pale, white face of a villainous priest who has just betrayed the hero and his lady love in the story-within-the-story to the evil Governor Odious. This image than fades to a shot of the white desert sand, which is spotted with objects that form the image of the priest’s face. The frame remains static for almost two minutes until these objects start to move and the camera pushes in slowly, revealing that they are actually men on horseback headed towards our captured protagonists. It’s the most impressive image in a movie filled with beautiful, memorable visuals shot in parts of the world that are rarely, if ever, glimpsed on film. The visual splendor of The Fall goes a long way towards making up for its rather insipid framing story, which finds a precocious (or, to be more accurate, annoying) little girl befriending a suicidal cripple (played by Pushing Daisies star Lee Pace) in a Los Angeles hospital in the early days of the movie business. In order to get his new friend to do things for him—like say, swiping morphine pills from the hospital pharmacy—the man dreams up the epic tale of a masked bandit, who travels around the world on a quest to slay Odious for killing his brother. The story behind the making of The Fall is in some ways more interesting than the film itself. Tarsem shot the movie over a four-year period in 18 different countries, including India, Bali, South Africa and an extremely remote part of Nepal. So many American films tend to recreate other countries on soundstages or via bluescreen, it’s incredible to have the opportunity to see the real locations in all their splendor onscreen. I just wish the movie didn’t grind to a half every time Tarsem cut back to the “real world.” Here’s a tip: turn off the dialogue track, chapter skip directly to the fantasy portions of the movie and crank up some of your favorite instrumental tunes (I’d recommend Peter Gabriel’s score from The Last Temptation of Christ or anything by Mozart) and just let the music and images wash over you. That’s the best way to enjoy a film that’s heavy on style, but light on substance.

Extras: Tarsem’s commentary track is a must-listen, even if his ego can be a bit hard to take. If you’re at all curious how this film was put together, he walks you through all the far-flung locations the production journeyed to and what scenes were filmed when during the multi-year shoot. The second commentary track, which features Pace as well as the film’s producer and co-writer, is okay, but far less informative. A few deleted scenes and two behind-the-scenes featurettes round out the set.

House of the Dead Director’s Cut: Funny Version (Lionsgate, $19.98)

The idea of Uwe Boll making a new, funny version of his 2003 zombie flick House of the Dead is in and of itself laughable because the theatrical version was already one of the most hilarious movies released that year. Ineptly made, indifferently acted and impossible to watch with a straight face, House launched Boll’s career as the Most Hated Director in Hollywood, a title he seems to take some kind of perverse pride in, even as he rails against all the “critics on the Internet” who he claims are always hounding him. For this new cut of House, Boll has edited bloopers, outtakes and pop-up jokes into the original film. This all feels more than a little desperate—an attempt by the director to prove he can have a laugh at himself, even though he’s notoriously thin-skinned. Worse still, none of the added material is particularly funny. In fact, I chuckled harder at the scenes that hadn’t been tampered with. Now Alone in the Dark on the other hand…that’s a Boll film that could use some laughs!
Extras: The main attraction here is Boll’s new commentary track, where he takes aim at his Internet bashers, makes fun of his cast, praises his directorial flourishes and answers a number of cell phone calls. The guy may be a true blue bullshit artist, but he’s fun to listen to—provided you’re not in the same room with him, of course. Don’t bother with the two featurettes also included on the disc—they already appeared on an earlier edition and are complete wastes of time…much like the movie.

Baby Mama (Universal, $29.98)

I’d happily watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler read Moby Dick for two hours, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I mostly enjoyed Baby Mama, the duo’s first big-screen collaboration after years of working together on Saturday Night Live. The movie casts Fey as Kate Holbrook, an uptight businesswoman who desperately wants a baby, but is unable to conceive thanks to a T-shaped uterus. After exhausting all other options, including adoption and artificial insemination, Kate turns to an agency that will set her up with a surrogate mother. The woman turns out to be the trash-talking, Arena Football-loving Angie (Poehler), who agrees to carry Kate’s child despite their obvious personality differences. Once that premise is established, all writer/director Michael McCuller really needs to do is sit back and let his two stars riff off each other. Unfortunately, he goes out of his way to impose an actual plot on the proceedings, revealing that Angie may not actually be carrying Kate’s baby. This results in a series of complications that sometimes steals too much attention away from the comedy. Luckily, Fey and Poehler are too good at their jobs to let their star vehicle devolve into a Lifetime TV-movie. Whether they’re rocking out to a karaoke version of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” or arguing about who put gum under a fancy coffee table, these actresses are a gifted comedy team. They’re backed up by a nimble supporting cast that includes Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear and Steve Martin, who scores some big laughs as the spacey CEO of an organic food company. To be honest, Baby Mama is basically a sitcom disguised as a movie, but that means it plays better at home than it did on the big screen.

Extras: The best and most substantial extra here is a lively commentary track featuring McCuller, Fey, Poehler and a largely quiet Lorne Michaels. Learn which of the kids in the background is actually Tina’s real-life daughter Alice. Learn that Amy calls Tina “Betty” for some unexplained reason. Learn that Richard Gere was originally considered for the Steve Martin role, but wisely dropped out. Less interesting is a four-minute featurette about the comedic legacy of Saturday Night Live and a standard-issue making of documentary.

The Forbidden Kingdom (Lionsgate, $34.98)
Fist of Legend (Dragon Dynasty, $24.95)

If you want to understand why this spring’s The Forbidden Kingdom disappointed so many hard-core martial arts movie fans, you only have to check out Fist of Legend, the 1994 flick that catapulted Jet Li and choreographer Yuen Wo-ping to international stardom. A loose remake of Bruce Lee’s The Chinese Connection, Legend features some of the best hand-to-hand combat scenes you’ll see in any Hong Kong flick. The story, as always, is absurdly simple. Li plays a kung-fu fighter extraordinaire who returns to his homeland to avenge his murdered master. The main attraction here is seeing a never-better Li beat up dozens of opponents before the climactic battle royale with the big bad guy. Compare to the simplicity of Legend with the ridiculous plot of The Forbidden Kingdom, which finds a dorky white kid time-traveling to ancient China, where he has to return a magical staff to the long-missing Monkey King, with the help of a silent monk (Li) and a drunken warrior (Jackie Chan). Billed as the first time Chan and Li square off onscreen, the movie really only gives us one sequence where the two get to show their stuff. Other than that, they’re mainly on hand to lend some authenticity to this Hollywoodized version of Hong Kong martial arts epics, which was outsourced to Haunted Mansion director Rob Minkoff. Whatever his enthusiasm for the genre, Minkoff is decidedly not the ideal director for this material and that comes across in the film’s choppy battle scenes. If The Forbidden Kingdom gets young kids interested in exploring real Hong Kong movies, than maybe its existence will be justified. As its own movie though, it’s a major missed opportunity.

Extras: Kingdom comes with five featurettes, a blooper reel and two commentary tracks, as well as a bonus disc with a digital copy of the film. Legend is accompanied by a yak track with HK movie lover Bey Logan, four short documentaries and an appreciation of the film featuring comments from critic Elvis Mitchell and director/fanboy Brett Ratner.

Also on DVD
Released just before Kevin Smith’s similarly-themed Zack and Miri Make a Porno hits theaters on October 31, the British comedy I Want Candy (Magnolia, $26.98) follows two film-school buddies who decide to make a flesh flick in order to jumpstart their movie careers. In order to secure the financing though, the lads have to somehow convince Candy Fiveways (Carmen Electra)—the biggest porn star in the world—into appearing in their super low-budget movie. And if you think that’s improbable just wait until Candy starts to fall for her much-younger director! Filled with recognizable Brit faces like Eddie Marsan and Mackenzie Crook (one of the stars of the original Office), I Want Candy is entertaining enough, but here’s hoping Smith’s version of the story comes with bigger laughs. Speaking of big laughs, the Coen Brothers’ 1998 stoner flick The Big Lebowski: 10th Anniversary Edition (Universal, $19.98) has emerged as one of the great cult comedies of all-time. I know I’m risking my film buff card by admitting this, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the movie. It’s just a little too smug and self-satisfied for me to completely embrace. That said, Jeff Bridges is absolutely marvelous and John Goodman does some of the best work of his career as well. It’s a movie I’m always willing to watch again, just to see if I’m ready to change my mind. This 10th Anniversary Edition comes in a standard two-disc set as well as a limited edition gift package where both discs are enclosed in a mini bowling ball. Extras include a retrospective documentary with new cast and crew interviews, a look at the movie’s surreal dream sequences and a trip to The Lebowski Fest, an annual meet-up for the movie’s most devoted fans.

A pair of vintage ’80s horror flicks celebrity their twentieth anniversary this week, Child’s Play: 20th Birthday Edition (MGM, $14.98) and Pumpkinhead: Collector’s Edition (MGM, $19.98). Of the two, Child’s Play remains the best-known, largely because the pint-sized killer doll Chucky is a genuine a fright movie icon. Chalk that up to novelty value as well as Brad Dourif’s awesome vocal performance. Dourif and the other principal actors (including female lead Catherine Hicks who went on to star in the considerably more wholesome 7th Heaven) appear in a new making-of documentary and on a commentary track, while Chucky himself can be heard yakking over four select sequences. The directorial debut of recently deceased effects guru Stan Winston, Pumpkinhead stars Lance Henriksen as a grieving father who has a witch summon an evil spirit to wreak vengeance on the teens that killed his only son. Not quite as extras-laden as the Child’s Play disc, Pumpkinhead still comes with a commentary track and five featurettes.

I haven’t had a chance to check out the new Spider-Man animated series that’s currently airing as part of the Kids WB! animated line-up on The CW, but based on the direct-to-DVD cartoon The Spectacular Spider-Man: Attack of the Lizard (Sony, $19.94) (which strings three episodes back-to-back into a loose “feature”) it seems like this is a worthy successor to the classic ’60s animated series as well as the version that ran on FOX Kids during the mid-’90s. Updated to the 21st century and focusing entirely on a teenage Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man makes room for dozens of familiar Spidey faces, from Gwen Stacy (recast here as Pete’s geeky science buddy) and Eddie Brock (the future Venom) to Flash Thompson and Curt Connors a.k.a. The Lizard. All in all, this show does a good job satisfying comic-book purists while also appealing to younger viewers who only know the movie version of Spider-Man. Finally, ABC is ramping up for the fall season by releasing a slew of TV-on-DVD titles this month, beginning with two of their biggest hits, Grey’s Anatomy: Season 4 (Disney, $59.99 and Ugly Betty: Season 2 (Disney, $59.99). Now you can see for yourself whether Katherine Heigl storylines in Grey’s fourth year were as bad as she claims and if Ugly Betty fell victim to the sophomore slump after an acclaimed, award-winning freshman season.