Disc of the Week (3/6/12)

Of all the weeks where we get lots of movies coming out on DVD and Blu-ray, this is definitely one of them. There are some solid rentals out there, but nothing that makes me all that excited. In fact, you know this week isn’t very exciting when I say the best movie coming out is probably Craig Brewer’s remake of Footloose. You know, that ’80s movie about a small town that bans dancing. Nothing about that premise would suggest a good movie—and I’m not particularly crazy about the original—yet Brewer was able to take an absolutely ridiculous premise and turn it into a darn entertaining movie. It’s too faithful to the original and sometimes the silliness gets in the way, but it succeeds far better in the arena of character development and storytelling. The best thing I can say about it is that I was always interested in what was happening, but let’s face it: it’s about a small town that bans dancing. There’s kind of a ceiling on how good this movie can be.

There are a ton of other movies coming out, but I’ve only seen two of them. The better of the two is Immortals, the Tarsem Singh film that has one of the most idiotic scripts in recent memory yet some of the most beautiful CGI imagery of last year. The problem with watching it at home is that the beauty may fade into the background and all you’ll be left with is a dumb story. Immortals was pretty great in 3-D, but home on your couch or on your phone? Forget about it.

Here’s a movie that stinks no matter the size of the screen: the Adam Sandler comedy Jack & Jill, recipient of my first annual Last Airbender Memorial Award for Special Achievement in Terribleness. I don’t have a whole lot more to say on the matter except: yikes.

Here are the options I haven’t seen: the indie romantic comedy Like Crazy, the complete first season of Game of Thrones, and the acclaimed documentary Senna. Most importantly, there is a new direct-to-DVD sequel to the Dwayne Johnson vehicle Tooth Fairy. Guess who stars in this one? Larry the Cable Guy, star of such acclaimed films as Witless Protection and Delta Farce.