Paul Blart: Mall Cop brings Kevin James to the silver screen in a leading role for the first time. Sure he shared the credits with Adam Sandler in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, but this is his first time out there on his own. Not satisfied with the leading male role, he’s also gone for producer and writer as well!

For those that aren’t that aware of Kevin James, he started out his career as a stand up comedian and moved to TV sit coms from a few appearances in Everybody Loves Raymond to his own vehicle King of Queens. It was only a matter of time before he took a swing at Hollywood. His first role was quite a successful turn in Hitch as the hapless Albert Brennaman and the role of a chunky guy, hopeless with affairs of the heart is essentially the role that he’s repeating here.

Paul Blart is a chunky middle aged single father. He’s a security guard at a local mall, but has ambitions of becoming a state trooper. For the last eight years he’s taken the entrance exam and for the last eight years he’s failed the physical. Will this year be lucky number 9? Weeelllll……..No. Paul suffers from hypoglycemia and literally stumbles a few inches short of the finishing line after a stellar performance. It seems that Paul is destined to shepherd people around shops in a dead end job.

Dead end it may be, but Paul approaches his job with diligence and a seriousness that his fellow colleagues don’t share, they’re essentially clock punchers, while Paul genuinely feels he has a duty to maintain order within the mall.

On a day like any other in the mall Paul comes across Amy (Jayma Mays) for the first time. She’s just opened a hair extension stand in the mall and it’s love at first site (for Paul that is). Reasonably successful initial flirting is followed by a disastrous bar incident that leaves Paul thinking he stands no chance with Amy at all. What he doesn’t reckon on, is the mall being taken over by an armed bunch of X-gamer bandits and Amy being taken hostage. Paul is the only other person left free in the mall. He’s the only man who can foil the crime and rescue the girl. Is he man enough for the task? Will his sugar levels hold out? Watch and find out.

Financially Paul Blart was a cinematic success with a worldwide gross of nearly $183 million from a $26 million budget. Critically it was pretty universally panned and I really can’t see why. No, there’s not too much depth here and as a comedy it won’t have you rolling in the aisles, but I thought it was pretty entertaining and definitely had enough funny moments to make it a decent comedy. Kevin James made the character of Paul Blart slightly too much of a sad case for me (I think he could’ve still generated the sympathy for the character without making him quite as pathetic as he is), but this is a small issue and easily forgotten. The rest of the cast are pretty good Jayma Mays seems to have ‘extremely cute girl’ roles pretty much nailed. If there’s a role that requires a girl to be extremely cute it’s pretty much a straight fight between her and Amy Adams. There are a few other faces in there that you’ll recognize (a happy Madison regular in Erick Avari amongst others) and the X-gamer bandits (BMX riders, skateboarders and free runners) are all real sportsmen and women, not actors at all, which I only found out during the extras, so they can’t have done that bad a job (they did have very limited lines though, most of the time they were doing what they do best chasing Paul around the mall).

The picture quality of this Blu Ray version was pretty damn good. Presented in 1.85:1 MPRG-4 1080p that is clear with good whites, blacks and colours, very little grain and no real digital artifacts to mention it’s pretty much as good as you could hope for for a comedy. We’re also treated to a full Dolby True HD soundtrack which holds its own as well. In a pretty empty mall there isn’t really that much call for a booming soundtrack so I can’t really say that it’ll rock your house or push an HD surround setup to its fullest but it does its job well and the audio is always crisp and clear (always vital in comedies lest you miss the jokes).

The extras on this disc are pretty much the usual fare. There’re the now obligatory deleted scenes (and you can generally see why they hit the cutting room floor), the commentary with Kevin James and Todd Garner and a whole load of featurettes that cover the stuntwork done by the X-gamers.

If you’re in the mood for some light hearted, easy to follow, won’t tax your brain too much, feel good comedy then look no further. Worth a watch in my opinion.

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Paul Blart: Mall Cop Blu Ray Review

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a film from an up and coming director starring up and coming young comedy stars. Peter Sollett puts in a credible stint directing Michael Cera and Kat Dennings in a rambling journey of discovery of two young teens across Manhattan in search of a secret gig.

Nick (Cera) is as mixed up as the next teenager. The fact that he’s recently been unceremoniously dumped just adds to his angst. In a bid to win back the woman he thinks he loves Nick composes a series of ‘mix CDs’ trying to convey his feelings. What Nick doesn’t realize is that his ex is such a callous b*?&h that she’s been binning the CDs.

Norah, another insecure teen has been retrieving said CDs and has marveled at their composure, whilst totally ignorant of the identity of the creator. The scene is therefore set for this little lot to come together in freakish coincidence. The place in question is at a gig for his high school band the Jerk-Offs. The rest of the band convince Nick to stop wallowing in self pity at his parents’ house and go play the gig. He does have an ulterior motive though, his favorite band ‘Where’s Fluffy’ (don’t know which is worse, the Jerk-Offs or Where’s Fluffy!) are playing a secret gig somewhere in Manhattan and Nick intends to find out where.

At his own gig Nick sees his ex, Tris, in the crowd with another guy and at the same time Norah is in the crowd with her eye on Nick. Norah, not knowing that Nick is Tris’s ex-boyfriend, asks him to be her boyfriend for five minutes to prove to Tris that she’s dating someone. When Norah kisses Nick Tris gets jealous. Norah’s friend Caroline then appears hideously drunk and needs taking home. Nick’s band mates offer, as they saw the kiss between Nick and Norah and think it might be healthy for Nick to spend some time with her. Nick and Norah then leave to find the elusive Where’s Fluffy gig while Nick’s friends manage to loose the paralytic Caroline. The rest of the film chronicles Nick and Norah’s quests across Manhattan to find the gig and also find Caroline. Whilst looking for these things will they also find love?

If you’re after a plot driven story that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat then look elsewhere. What we have here can be described with words such as ‘sweet’ and ‘nice’. It’s a romantic comedy for the youth of today. The plot ambles about a bit at times, but this film isn’t about the plot, it’s about the characters, it really doesn’t matter what the journey is, just that it happens and over the course of it they find each other after having both had bad relationship experiences.

Peter Sollett seems to have raided Judd Apatow’s gang of actors for the main roles here. Both Cena and Dennings put in subtle but endearing performances. There aren’t any onscreen fireworks between the two, but they manage to convey a connection that grows between them over the course of the night. In terms of a romantic comedy the onus is more on the romance than the comedy, but it does have its moments.

The picture on this 1080p Blu Ray is pretty good, if not reference standard. Detail is pretty strong throughout, whilst there is a bit of inconsistent grain. Blacks and contrast are pretty solid, which is good for a film shot entirely at night and the colour pallet, while a little limited, conveys a New York neon night quite well. For the sound we get a very nice Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track. This is a character driven film, not action driven, so dialogue presentation is all important and there are no problems here. The rears don’t get too much of a workout, but do convey the crowd noise of New York at night. This is a film that, other than the characters, is dominated by music and some excellent indie tracks appear throughout the film and sound pretty damn good.

We get a nice selection of extras on the UK Blu Ray as well. There’s an interesting commentary where the main protagonists (director and star actors) draw over the screen with marker pens to highlight what they’re saying. I found it quite interesting for about the first ten or fifteen minutes, but it got a bit annoying after that. Other than that there’s an interactive playlist that pops up little facts about the film now and again. There’s a 5 minute puppet version of the film voiced by Kat Dennings which is a bit weird, but all in good fun. There’s a short behind the scenes video diary which is probably worth a look and the usual deleted scenes footage.

All in all if you’re in a mellow mood and want a slow paced, character driven story about two lonely souls that find each other then you could do much worse than to put this in your Blu Ray player.

Film:	★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Video:	★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Audio:	★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Extras:	★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Overall:	★★★★★★★☆☆☆

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Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Blu Ray Review

If I were a schoolteacher I would bring John Hamburg (Writer/Director) to the front of the class and slap his legs. Not only has he copied other peoples work, he has failed to add anything original of his own. Every joke, set piece and character in this film has been done a million times.

The cast of this film should also be doing better for themselves. I think there may have been some agents fired after the watching of this puppy. Ben Stiller playing a Ben Stiller role; slightly neurotic, sensitive, geeky type who is involved in a lot of physically painful comedy. The character he actually plays (Reuben Feffer) is a risk analyst for an insurance firm. Thus he lives his life by balancing risks in everything he does. At the start of the movie he marries Lisa (Debra Messing) who then cheats on him on the first day of their honeymoon with Claude (A buff looking Hank Azaria), who is a native of St Kitts and a scuba instructor. Heartbroken he returns home to be comforted by best friend Sandy Lyle (not the golfer but actually Philip Seymour Hoffman). He then embarks on the singles scene where he meets childhood schoolmate Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston).

The film is supposed to be about opposites attract I suppose because the two main characters couldn’t be more different. Reuben doesn’t do anything that he thinks may harm him, which includes eating nuts at a bar. Polly is supposed to be flighty, quirky and a bit like Goldie Hawn circa 1975. The fact she likes salsa dancing proves just how wacky she is! The way the film plays out neither of these two could possibly like each other never mind fall in love. If I went on some of their dates I’d have a restraining order against me!

The sad thing is there are two very funny characters in the film that aren’t used anywhere near enough. Stan Indursky (Alec Baldwin), who is Reuben’s’ boss is excellent. When he is trying to cheer Reuben up by telling him his wife is nothing but a “dime store hooker”, and to get over her, is priceless. Baldwin is on top form and that’s not something that leaves my lips without careful consideration! Sandy Lyle (Hoffman) is also very funny in parts. His advice is usually misadvised but ultimately proves to be good comedy. He is a washed up child star who is living off one role years ago and still likes to think of himself as a star.

Ultimately this film is just too much of a caricature to succeed. It is badly paced and under scripted. All involved would be best advised to forget as soon as possible, that’s what I’ve done!

The DVD itself wasn’t up to much either. The picture quality was average and was presented in Widescreen 1.85:1. The sound quality, again was no more than average, was in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS.

The extra features were on a par with the film. Nothing new, nothing memorable. The y consisted of a commentary by the director John Hamburg. This was standard fare and nothing to tell the kids about.

There was the original opening with optional commentary. Thank the Lord this never made the cut. Must have been the worst opening to a film ever.

Deleted scenes with optional commentary. A selection of scenes which are best watched with the commentary as at least you know why they weren’t in the cut. Most were refused because it affected the films pacing! Are you kidding, the poor editing man could have ended up with a half hour sitcom pilot if he was worried about pacing!

Rodolfo goes to hollywood. This is a spook interview with Rodolfo, the ferret in the movie. Guy turns up hoping to meet star of film, ends up with ferret, probably about right.

The outtakes weren’t up to much either I’m afraid. I don’t think I laughed at any of them.

Theatrical teaser trailer. This was a U.S. trailer of the film, and was pretty much all you had to see really.

Making of featurette. This was a lot of back slapping. “Ben is so great”, “Jennifer is so great.” All the main cast and the director and producers explain their ‘vision’ of the film. Avoid.

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Along Came Polly, DVD Review

As an Owen Wilson fan Marley & Me was one of those films that I had down on my cinema watch list that I just never found the time to see. It doesn’t seem all that long that it was on at the cinema either, but it’s release on DVD and Blu Ray has just been announced for the 6th of July (see press release below for details).

Marley & Me

The Heartwarming Story Starring

Academy Award-Nominee Owen Wilson & Emmy-Winner Jennifer Aniston Arrives on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on 6th July 2009
 

From the director of the Devil Wears Prada and based on the best-selling novel by John Grogan, Marley & Me leaps onto Blu-ray and DVD on the 6th July 2009 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment .  Featuring an A-list cast that includes OscarÒ-nominee* Owen Wilson (Night at the Museum) and EmmyÒ winner** Jennifer Aniston (The Break-Up) the film tells the hilarious tail of a family who learn some important life lessons from their adorable, but naughty and neurotic dog. 

When newlyweds John and Jenny Grogan (Wilson and Aniston) leave the snow of Michigan for the beaches of Miami, they decide to test-drive their parenting skills by adopting an energetic yellow Labrador retriever named Marley.  However, it’s not long before their adorable 12-pound puppy transforms into a highly-strung, boisterous and uncontrollable 100-pound troublemaker. From flunking obedience school, chewing through dry wall, and taking a bite out of the sofa Marley causes absolute chaos wherever he goes.  Despite the mayhem he generates, Marley sees the Grogans through the ups and downs of life and the countless challenges that come with it and soon they discover that Marley, “the world’s worst dog,” somehow brings out the best in them.

The delightful comedy adventure features a supporting cast that includes OscarÒ-winner Alan Arkin (Best Supporting Actor, Little Miss Sunshine), Eric Dane (“Grey’s Anatomy”) and Golden GlobeÒ-winner Kathleen Turner (Best Actress, Prizzi’s Honor).

Go fetch Marley & Me on 6th July!

Blu-ray and DVD Special Features:

Featuring fun and love for the entire family, Marley & Me includes the following special features on both the Blu-ray and  the DVD:

·         Digital Copy – transfer an entire copy of the film to a portable device such as the family’s Laptop, iPod or iPhone
·         Finding Marley – a look at the process of finding and training the 20 plus dogs that feature in the film
·         Gag Reel 

Blu-ray Exclusive Features:

·         Dog Training Trivia Track – Picture-n-Picture feature
·         Dog Training 101 featuring BonusView video
·         Breaking the Golden Rule – the “Golden Rule” being ‘never work with children or animals’. In this piece the cast and crew discuss breaking that rule and the fun they had working on the film
·         On Set with Marley: Dog of All Trades – we “talk” to Marley and learn about his hopes, dream and aspirations
·         When Not to Pee – what it takes to recreate an “accident” that occurred on set during filming
·         Animal Adoption – a discussion about the benefits of adopting a dog from an animal rescue centre and the importance of doing your research before getting a pet of any sort
·         Deleted Scenes – with commentary from Director, David Frankel  

Product Details:

Release date:                       Monday 6th July 2009
Running time:                      115 mins
Format:                                  DVD & Blu-ray
Certificate:                            PG
Price (DVD):                         £19.99
Price (Blu-ray)                    £24.99

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Marley & Me News

Kate (Tina Fey) is a 37 year old career woman. Up until now she’s taken her career over her personal life, and done very well at it, but her biological clock isn’t just ticking anymore, it’s Big Ben New Years Eve midnight bonging!

Trying to find a man at short notice hasn’t gone well. They don’t tend to like it when babies are the topic of conversation on a first date. IVF with sperm donors hasn’t been successful either, in fact Tina has tried almost everything and is eventually told that, due to a T-shaped uterus, she has a one in a million chance of conceiving herself.

The timing isn’t that bad though, Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver) has a surrogate agency that’s just starting to come into its own. The price is a bit steep at $100,000 a pop, but Kate is desperate. The next stage is then finding a surrogate mother willing to carry her baby. Kate has an interview with Angie (Amy Poehler), who turns out to be an ignorant, obnoxious, white-trash girl, with an even dumber boyfriend. Not ideal, but she’s willing to carry Kate’s baby. Did I mention that she’s desperate?

Initially all seems to be going well. Three of Kate’s eggs, fertilized with donor sperm, are implanted into Angie and low and behold, she becomes pregnant. Normally the surrogate Mum would carry on with her life and then at term hand the baby over to the biological mother. In this case, things go a bit awry when Angie finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her and decides to leave him. With nowhere else to go she turns up on Kate’s doorstep to move in for the duration. This is not a good mix, educated, driven career woman with ignorant, lazy white-trash. There may be trouble ahead!

Many of us in the UK may not recognize Tina Fey. This is her first time headlining a film, but she does have some cinematic experience behind her. The eagle eyed teen chick flick fans amongst you may recognize her from Mean Girls. The American TV comedy watchers may also recognize both her and Amy Poehler from Saturday Night Live. In both films I’ve seen her in (the aforementioned Mean Girls and now Baby Mama) Tina does an excellent job at portraying a very natural, easy going character. She doesn’t go over the top, she doesn’t ham it up, her characters seem like nice, real people. To make an interesting film of it though Angie needed to be the opposite, crash, thick and annoying and at that Amy Poehler also does an excellent job. Almost too excellent though, I found her character just a little too annoying in the first half of the film, although it does get better as her character develops and grows with exposure to Kate.

Other noticeable performances come from Greg Kinnear, who also plays an excellent understated, but very natural character, and Steve Martin as Kate’s kooky boss. For Steve Martin it was a relatively small part, but for me his best performance in ages. Prone to going a bit over the top, his performance was, for him, understated, yet conveyed the right amount of strangeness (you’ll just have to watch it to see what I mean).

The title may lead you to believe we’re firmly in chick flick territory here and you’d be dead right! A year ago this would probably have been a title that I’d have steered well clear of, what with all the baby talk and all, but the arrival of a baby girl in my life means that I’m all loved up babywise! The comedy isn’t fast paced and it won’t have you rolling in the isles, but the interaction between Fey and Poehler is excellent and probably benefitted from their previous work together on Saturday Night Live. The plot may be a bit on the predictable side, but it’s still a nice ride. As feel good, chick flick rom coms with lots of baby talk go, you could do much worse than pop this in your DVD player.

Picture is crisp and clean, sound is a tad limited due to the source material. If you’ve got surround sound it certainly won’t get a good workout here, although the dialogue through the center channel is nice and clear which is all it really needs. Extras are a bit thin on the ground with this DVD release in that there are some deleted scenes, one of which would have been a worthy inclusion in the film (the breast pump scene), and that’s about it.

I hope Tina and Amy get more chances to team up together on the big screen. Their first attempt is a warm and fuzzy chick flick with an all star cast and the right amount of feel good factor.

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Baby Mama, DVD Review

The 2008 film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is loosely based on the autobiographical writings of Toby Young. His book of the same name covers Toby’s five year struggle to make it in America as a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. For the film tha magazine has been changed to Sharps Magazine and a few other liberties have been taken to turn it into a rom-com.

Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) is an independent journalist running his own magazine, largely dedicated to reporting celebrity scandals. He sees himself as a maverick, a journalist who tells it how it is and doesn’t suck up to anyone. With his magazine on the brink of collapse, and his latest escape to infiltrate the glitzy celebrity empire, not only thwarted, but ending in complete disaster, Sidney, amazingly, is offered a job in New York working for the biggest celebrity magazine of them all. Sharps magazine.

Now Sidney doesn’t see his taking the job as selling out. No, he’s going to bring his own uncompromising style to this sell-out of a magazine and shake things up a bit. The editor of Sharps, Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges) is a bit of a hero of Sidney’s. Early in his career he ran a magazine that pulled no punches. It was this that inspired Sidney to set up his own publication and he thinks that he can inspire Clayton back to his old rebellious ways.

After being head-hunted by Clayton, Sidney thinks he’s made it, that he’s the big man in town. In his first meeting with Clayton he finds out that he’s sadly mistaken. He ignores the advice to be nice to people and give them the coverage they want and instead continues his attack on celebrity in general (whilst secretly wanting to be a celebrity himself). In particular he decides to attack the clients of the very powerful publicist Eleanor Johnson (Gillian Anderson) and in the process manages to insult his boss. His only friend is co-worker Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst), who seems to have amazing tolerance as Sidney is by no means nice to her either. Also bizarrely, a young rising star of an actress, Sophie Maes (Megan Fox), takes a shine to Sidney, and it’s this relationship that is the only thing keeping him in a job. Will Sidney compromise his principles and suck up to celebrity to become a celebrity himself? Will he get anywhere with Sophie Maes, who he is a little bit besotted with? You’ll just have to watch it to find out.

I’ll admit that I’m a fan of Simon Pegg’s previous film works. Thankfully with this he left the zom-rom-com and just stuck to rom-com (I’m don’t know that you can add any more to zom-rom-com, but if anyone can then Pegg can!). The original material wasn’t a rom-com so some license has been taken here and unfortunately it shows. Having not read the original material I don’t know if it’s the way the Sidney Young character was written, or whether it’s the way Pegg plays him, but he comes across as a brash, arrogant pillock (note to self, must start to use the word pillock more). It’s difficult to side with him in the early parts of the film, and you certainly can’t see why Alison or Sophie would give him the time of day, never mind be romantically attracted to him. For me, if that’s the way the character was originally written, then in introducing a romantic element to the story, they ought to have changed the character a little, to make him a bit more likeable. Don’t get me wrong, the boy comes good eventually and there’s a happy ending, it just takes too long for the nicer side of Sidney to come across.

As a comedy, there do be laughs here. There’s a nice mix of dialogue driven and slapstick comedy that Pegg handles with his usual aplomb. Kirsten Dunst doesn’t have to deliver too much comedy-wise, that all comes from Pegg, but she puts in an excellent performance as a realistic love interest. I can also say that having seen this film, I now understand what all the fuss is about with Megan Fox. From Transformers it was evident that she’s an attractive girl, but I didn’t see why everyone (most men at least) were going nuts about her. Here she puts in a great performance as the up and coming actress. She portrays elements of innocence, whilst also hinting at the true scheming behind her actions and is pretty easy on the eye whilst doing it (hope my wife doesn’t read this!).

As a film I found How to Lose Friends and Alienate People an entertaining 1hr 50min worth of viewing. It seems that It pretty much bombed at the cinema grossing a total cinematic take of $16 million and I don’t quite know why, it certainly isn’t that bad. It does have some issues and a couple of cringe worthy moments, but overall it’s a funny, entertaining story with a nice happy ending (I’m a sucker for a happy ending). If you’re a lover of a good rom-com then worth checking out.

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How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, DVD Review

Sydney White

Sydney (Amanda Bynes) is about to go college, the same college that her deceased mother went to. Her mother was a member of the Kappa Phi Nu sorority and so Sydney gets to automatically pledge as she’s a legacy. Feeling that she’s following in her mother’s footsteps, becoming a Kappa Phi Nu sister is important to her. Problem is that Sydney was raised by a construction worker father and all his friends and is therefore a bit of a tomboy and the Kappa Phi Nu girls are all girly and prissy.

After arriving on campus and on the way to her first pledge party Sydney meets Tyler Prince, who is instantly attracted to her. His advances are noticed by his ex-girlfriend Rachel Witchburn, president of Kappa Phi Nu and she takes an instant dislike to Sydney. Even though Sydney fulfills all the requirements of pledge week, Rachel finds a way to deny her sisterhood and publically humiliate her. Desperately upset and without a place to live Sydney finds herself at the ‘Vortex’, a derelict old building housing the seven misfits of the university (called the vortex because it sucks in losers). The seven ‘dorks’ offer Sydney refuge and Sydney sets about righting a few wrongs by going after Rachel in the student body president elections.

Now this may all sound very familiar and indeed it is, the plot is highly predictable and clichéd, but elements of the Snow White fairytale are cleverly interwoven with a classical American teen college movie to give us a warm and fuzzy feel good story. Yes you’ve seen it all before and you know where it’s going but it’s still nice getting there. Most of the reason for this is down to the characterization. Amanda Bynes can play the ‘cute tomboy’ character in her sleep and the seven dorks are given enough screen time for you to get a feel for them. Sara Paxton is sufficiently bitchy as Rachel and Matt Long does a good job as Tyler Prince, the cool guy with a heart.

This is a bare bones release with no extras, but then that is reflected in the RRP of £10.99. The picture is clean and crisp and colors are bright and vibrant. There’s a dolby digital 5.1 surround track that is adequate but nothing to write home about.

For the girls that like teen American rom coms for their warm and fuzzy feel good fun then this one worth checking out. It won’t have you in stitches rolling on the floor, but it does have it’s moments. For the guys, if you’re a fan of Amanda Bynes then it’s worth checking out, other than that, with valentines day coming up, this is one to get for your other half. It’ll get you enough credit so you can watch the football for the next month!

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Sydney White and Her Seven Dorks, DVD Review