Disc of the Week (4/5/11)

Jim Carrey is a better actor than the general public may give him credit for. Sure, he shows up in stuff like Ace Ventura from time to time, but he’s utilized his skills for good more times than some may be aware of. Even if you aren’t a fan of his psychotic work in The Cable Guy there are other, more indisputably great films like The Truman Show in which he’s able to strut his stuff. Not convinced yet? How about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless frickin’ Mind?

Shoved into theaters at the end of 2010, I Love You Phillip Morris is a film that uses Carrey’s more cartoonish tendencies to its advantage. He plays Steven Russell, a flamboyantly gay con man who ends up in prison. It is there he meets the man of his dreams: Phillip Morris, played by Ewan McGregor. And so begins a story about a man who will go to any lengths to be with his beloved. All of this is played out with an appropriately dirty sense of humor thanks to the writer/director team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who are most well-known for writing Bad Santa.

It took I Love You Phillip Morris a long time to find its way to the big screen, thanks to a ridiculous controversy surrounding the fact that the protagonists are, you know, gay. Ultimately, it was released so far under the radar that not many had a chance to see it. Well, here’s your chance.

Another possible choice this week is Tron: Legacy, which isn’t quite as bad as you might have heard. Still, it’s not very good. A visually dazzling and relatively exciting first half is undercut by a second half which slows the film to an absolute halt. This was an opportunity to take the premise of the original Tron and add some extra polish to the action, but instead the movie decides to care a little too much about the uninteresting characters at its center. As a result, it becomes a bore.

Also, there’s supposedly a Blu-ray of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver out this week. That one’s pretty decent.