First Sunday DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: DVD Features Cube and Katt in Demeaning Minstrel Show

When a movie resuscitates this many offensive African-American stereotypes, you half expect somebody to be passing out watermelons and barbecuing ribs right in the lobby of the theater. I had problems with virtually every aspect of First Sunday, starting with its basic premise. The plot revolves around a couple of petty thieves, Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), who hatch a plan to rob a house of worship after overhearing that its congregation had had finally collected enough money to break ground on a new church.
It’s bad enough that these creepy heathens wouldn’t hesitate to steal from the Lord, but what’s worse are their reasons for needing the money. Durell is $17,342 behind in child support to his ex, Omunique (Regina Hall). Meanwhile, LeeJohn is on the run from Rastafarians because of a deal in contraband gone horribly wrong.
First Sunday is a crass minstrel show laced with demeaning dialogue. Most offensive among the characters is Rickey (Katt Williams), the First Hope Community Church’s flamboyant choir director. This ignoramus blurts out inane non-sequiturs and malapropisms, such as confusing “affecting” with “infecting.” While being held hostage, he behaves cowardly (“This isn’t even my church. I just saw this on MySpace.”), he feints, and generally behaves like a buffoon (“I’m gonna need therapy!”).
The self-hating antics of co-stars Tracy Morgan and Ice Cube aren’t any better as the bumbling burglars. Only if you like to laugh at the sight of a black man in a dress, at lines about nappy hair (“Your hair looks like an S.O.S. pad!’) and at African-Americans pretending to be mildly retarded, are you apt to find this flick hilarious.
A cringe-inducing, cinematic tribute to the Golden Age of Minstrelsy!

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity, sexual humor and drug references.
Running time: 94 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Deleted scenes with optional director’s commentary, outtakes reel, gag reel, director’s wrap speech, director’s commentary, and cast and crew featurette.

Showstoppers DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Sister Sorors Get Their Chance to Step Dance in Degrading DVD

A Year Ago, Stomp the Yard, a movie about step dancing competitions among African-American fraternities, was a surprising #1 hit at the box office. In Showstoppers, we have a similarly-themed straight-to-DVD adventure starring Tamala Jones, Clifton Powell and Dorian Gregory. But instead of revolving around brothers’ routines, this flick showcases the choreography of sisters in sororities.
The story is set at the mythical Virginia National District University, where the pat plot pits Destiny (Faune Chambers) against Pam (Angell Conwell) in a bitter rivalry to lead Lambda to the National Step Championship Competition. And a sexy sidebar has Destiny torn between dating a player (Fredro Starr) and nice guy Fabian (Bryce Wilson).
Unfortunately, the execution of the story leaves a lot to be desired. The script is laced with degrading jokes in which the women teasing each other about having nappy hair, and for being “ragheads,” “tramps” and “skanks.” Since Don Imus’ disgusting remarks about the young women on the Rutgers Basketball team, this sort of humor falls flat, even when coming from the mouths of African-Americans.
Even worse than the dialogue is the dancing, especially in the film’s finale, a sloppily-staged showdown against cross-town rival Virginia Downs University. This take the money and run production looks more like a college student project than a completed full-length feature which deserved to be released.
Stomp the DVD!

Poor (0 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 95 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Extras: A documentary about the more than two million African-American women who are currently members of sororities.

Funny Games

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Naomi Watts Wasted in English Language Remake of German Snuff Flick

Obviously, director Michael Haneke wasn’t satisfied merely with having made Funny Games in German for the kinky S&M enthusiasts in his native Deutschland. No, he was apparently so self-impressed with his disturbing snuff flick that he had to shoot a virtually-identical, English-language version, ala Gus Van Sant’s scene-for-scene, line-for-line remake of Psycho.
But while that Hitchcock classic may have been very worthy of an homage, Funny Games is just a disturbing headscratcher likely to leave an audience feeling more abused than entertained, and also wondering how an Oscar-nominated actress of the caliber of Naomi Watts (for 21 Grams) ever agreed to the project. Equally-ponderous is the question of why it ever got greenlighted in Hollywood in the first place
Nonetheless, the picture has been released in theaters, which makes it my job to warn you of the morally-objectionable content of this inappropriately titled indulgence in bloodlust. For Funny Games has nothing to do with either fun or games, unless you consider lingering scenes of bondage, torture, animal cruelty, splatter, sexual assault and eroticized violence fun and games. If there were truth in advertising, its title would be Gruesome Murders.
This whodunit might best be described as an endurance test during which the director all but directly dares you to walk out of the theater. For instance, he’ll have his villains occasionally break the proverbial fourth wall to comment on their latest diabolical deed. And on one occasion, he even lets a creep rewind a fight scene to change the outcome.
Superficially, the set-up reads like a stock plotline ripped right out of the psychological thriller script book. As the film unfolds, we find the Farber family, Anne (Watts), George (Tim Roth) and George, Jr. (Devon Gearheart) on their way to spending their summer vacation at their sprawling country estate which shares a lake in an upscale community comprised of the idle rich.
Before they get a chance to settle into the house there’s a knock, and the Mrs. is asked by an overly-polite, handsome young stranger (Brady Corbet) if he might borrow a few eggs for their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Thompson. Despite his manners, there’s something odd about Peter, and it’s not just the fact that he’s wearing white gloves.
He creates diversions for a few minutes until his pal Paul (Michael Pitt), also clad in white gloves, arrives and finds further excuses to dilly-dally. When asked to leave, the rude pair finally informs the Farbers that they’re being kidnapped, and apparently for kicks.
The preppy psychopaths then proceed to kill the dog, break George’s kneecap with a golf club, make Anne strip naked in front of her son, and worse. Without divulging any specific subsequent developments, let me say that, at this juncture, the movie defies convention and degenerates into further displays of anti-social behavior, sadly sans consequences for the crooks.
Naomi Watts might want to fire her agent for attaching her to this infuriating fiasco. Walk-out bad.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated R for terror, partial nudity, profanity graphic gore and eroticized violence.
Running time: 107 minutes
Studio: Warner Independent

Doomsday

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Team of Specialists Sent to Quarantined Scotland in Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Adventure

Neil Marshall’s previous movie, The Descent, a harrowing horror flick which kept you on the edge of your seat, was good enough to earn the #6 spot on my 10 Best List for 2006. So, excuse me for expecting more from his latest offering than a sloppily-edited rehash of sci-fi clichés which look like they were thoughtlessly slapped together by Edward Scissorhands. But that’s exactly what we have in Doomsday, a soulless rip-off which shamelessly recreates a host of memorable scenes from such post-apocalyptic adventures as Resident Evil, Mad Max, 28 Days, Escape from New York, I Am Legend and others.
The story is set in Great Britain in 2035, a quarter century after the deadly Reaper Virus had contaminated Scotland and turned most of its citizens into a race of cannibalistic zombies. This led to the entire country’s being quarantined behind a giant wall, a precaution which was thought to have worked, at least until the new outbreak that has just been discovered in London.
Urgently in need of an antidote lest he lose England to the scourge, too, Prime Minister Hatcher (Alexander Siddiq) decides to dispatch a rescue squad over the wall to retrieve Dr. Kane (Malcolm McDowell), a scientist who stayed behind to try to develop a vaccine. He’s rumored to have succeeded, since there are still some Scots not infected.
When ordered to send in his best man for the job, Police Chief Nelson (Bob Hoskins) taps a woman, Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), a cool, calm and collected gunslinger every bit as attractive, as she is fearless. She proceeds to lead a hand-picked team of crack commandos into an unrecognizable Scotland which has degenerated into a lawless, desolate environment. The landscape is swarming with gangs ranging from omnivorous ghouls feasting on barbecued human flesh to big-breasted biker chicks with major attitudes to neo-Native Americans with Mohawks and war paint to skull-and-cross boned creeps who look like they wandered in from an Oakland Raider tailgate party.
How these foreign groups have invaded, formed and flourished in the of absence of any infrastructure is never adequately explained, since there’s no time for anything but slaughtering wave after wave of each successive thundering herd. Forget about trying to follow the preposterous plotline, unless you want to laugh.
There are only two reasons to recommend Doomsday. One, that the token black character, Norton (Adrian Lester), doesn’t die first, the only surprise in a flick riddled from start to finish with shopworn screen conventions. Second, Rhona Mitra, the mixed East Indian and British actress, is pleasant to watch playing the invincible heroine, even if in service of a dreadful script.
Still, Neil Marshall should be ashamed for foisting such a disappointing follow-up to The Descent on his fans. For this lame excuse of a movie is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with an I.Q. anywhere above cretin.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated R for profanity, nudity, sexuality and graphic violence.
Running time: 105 minutes
Studio: Rogue Pictures

Dan in Real Life DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Cruel Sitcom Features Steve Carell as Grieving Love Guru

Sometimes a film’s premise is too farfetched to believe it for a second. Such is the case with this tawdry tale of betrayal masquerading as a heartwarming romantic comedy. Steve Carrell stars as Dan Burns, a widower with his hands full trying to raise three daughters on his own.
One would think that as a relationship expert he’d know better than to become embroiled in a love triangle with his brother’s girlfriend. But that’s exactly what he does during the Burns clan annual reunion being hosted by his parents, Nana (Dianne Wiest) and Poppy (John Mahoney), at their home located along the Rhode Island shore.
The plot thickens right after Dan and the girls arrive from New Jersey, when he ventures into town for a break from all the estrogen. At a local bookstore, he locks eyes with Marie (Juliette Binoche), a fey beauty with an ethereal air about her.
The two strike-up a casual conversation which ends up lasting hours. Despite the obvious chemistry, they reluctantly part company, unaware that they will be spending the weekend together. Turns out she was invited to the gathering by her boyfriend who just happens to be Dan’s brother, Mitch (Dane Cook).
Back at the house, neither lets on that they’d already met. Instead, they opt to compound their dilemma with an increasingly deceitful cover-up as they continue to share some stolen moments.
The problems with this morally-reprehensible premise are plentiful, starting with the fact that Dan is secretly stealing Mitch’s woman and from right under his bro’s nose. Plus, there’s the question of what sort of example he’s setting as a role model for his young daughters, and what type of relationship guru would behave in such an unethical fashion.
A truly cruel sitcom celebrating a sordid form of sibling rivalry.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for some sexual innuendo.
Running time: 98 minutes
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Audio commentary with director Peter Hedges, deleted scenes with director’s commentary, outtakes, plus “The Making of” and two other featurettes.

Daddy Day Camp DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Latest Cuba Gooding Dud Out on DVD

Perhaps I spoke prematurely when I suggested in my review of License to Wed that Robin Williams had replaced Cuba “Show me the money!” Gooding, Jr. as the kiss of death on a picture. Not to be outdone, Cuba has staked a claim for a return of his crown as the “King of the Bomb” with Daddy Day Camp, a sorry sequel to Daddy Day Care.
Here, he has taken on the unenviable task of trying to fill the shoes of Eddie Murphy, who opted not to reprise the lead role of Charlie Hinton. It doesn’t help that Cuba has no sense of comedic timing and that he’s relying on an abysmal script of disconnected skits cobbled together by a quintet of hack screenwriters. To make matters worse, the entire cast has been overhauled, with Charlie’s son Ben being played by Spencir Bridges, son of Todd “What You Talking about Willis?” Bridges of Different Strokes fame.
Strangely, the movie opens with a tie-in reminding us about Eddie and company’s wacky antics in the original. Soon enough, we find Charlie and his best friend Phil (Paul Rae replacing Jeff Garlin) escorting their sons to Camp Driftwood only to find the place in foreclosure. Of course, the daddy duo decides to purchase the place and go into the day camp business.
Next thing you know, they have their hands full with gleefully misbehaving little monsters who keep the pair up to their eyeballs in feces, cooties, bus crashes, flatulence, projectile vomit, poison ivy, swift kicks to the crotch, urine balloons and wedgies. Fortunately, Charlie’s no-nonsense father, retired Marine Colonel Buck Hinton.
An utterly predictable, unfunny, infantile test of patience and waste of ninety minutes of my life I can never get back. Show me the exit!

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG for bodily humor and mild epithets.
Running time: 93 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: “The Making of” featurette, an interactive quiz, and more.

First Sunday

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Crooks Conspire to Rob Church in Demeaning Minstrel Show

When a movie resuscitates this many offensive African-American stereotypes, you half expect somebody to be passing out watermelons and barbecuing ribs right in the lobby of the theater. I had problems with virtually every aspect of First Sunday, starting with its basic premise. The plot revolves around a couple of petty thieves, Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), who hatch a plan to rob a house of worship after overhearing that its congregation had had finally collected enough money to break ground on a new church.
It’s bad enough that these creepy heathens wouldn’t hesitate to steal from the Lord, but what’s worse are their reasons for needing the money. Durell is so far behind in child support that his ex, Omunique (Regina Hall), is threatening to move from Baltimore to Atlanta with their young son (C.J. Sanders) unless her deadbeat baby-daddy comes up with $17,342. Meanwhile, LeeJohn is on the run from Rastafarians because of a black market business deal gone bad.
By now, you might have noticed that some of the characters have strange names. LeeJohn explains that he got his because his mother was a tramp who had been sleeping with two men at the time she got pregnant, and she didn’t know whether the father was Lee or John. Omunique’s is pronounced “I’m unique” and is no doubt a throwback to 19th Century minstrel shows when white men sporting similarly silly-sounding names appeared in blackface as caricatures of African-Americans, invariably portraying them as some combination of lazy, cowardly, stupid, immoral, criminal and buffoonish.
Besides reviving ridiculous, minstrel-like monikers, First Sunday is a crass coon show which resuscitates the outlawed genre’s general themes and demeaning dialogue. Most guilty in this regard is Katt Williams in his capacity as Rickey, the First Hope Community Church’s flamboyant choir director.
Rickey is an ignoramus given to blurting out inane non-sequiturs which fail to further the story and whose only apparent purpose is to make the audience laugh out loud. For example, there’s a court room scene where a judge (Keith David) sitting on the bench calls the defendants “miscreants.” Rickey’s response is to sass the jurist by asserting that they’re not miscreants but African-Americans,” the joke being that he obviously doesn’t have a clue what the word means.
He repeatedly employs makes malapropisms, such as confusing “affecting” with “infecting.” While being held hostage, he’s cowardly (“This isn’t even my church. I just saw this on MySpace.”), he feints, and generally behaves like a buffoon (“I’m gonna need therapy!”).
The performances of co-stars Tracy Morgan and Ice Cube aren’t any better as the self-hating antics as the bumbling burglars. In sum, if you still like to laugh at the sight of a black man in a dress, at lines about nappy hair (“Your hair looks like an S.O.S. pad!’) and at African-Americans pretending to be mildly retarded, you’re apt to find First Sunday hilarious.
A cringe-inducing, cinematic tribute to the Golden Age of Minstrelsy!

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity, sexual humor and drug references.
Running time: 97 minutes
Studio: Screen Gems

Bring It On 4: In It to Win It DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Fourth Installment of Cheerleading Franchise Out on DVD

Seven years ago, Bring It On was the sleeper hit of the summer which kickstarted the careers of a couple of relatively-unknown actresses, Gabrielle Union and Kirsten Dunst. The pair squared-off as the captains their high school cheerleading teams, one, all-black and hailing from the ‘hood, the other, lily-white and located in the suburbs.
The film worked by creating a palpable tension between credible characters caught up in a realistic across the tracks drama. And although neither Union nor Dunst would reprise her role, the original was parlayed into a franchise which is presently releasing its third sequel on DVD.
Sadly, this installment is a pathetic rip-off which bears virtually no resemblance to the first, except that it revolves around cheerleading. It actually might have been better titled West Side Story 2, since the two squads have been renamed the Jets and the Sharks, and a boy from the former falls in love with a girl from the latter.
Strangely, despite the fact that during Bring It On 2 the kids entered college, they are somehow back in high school again, here. More curiously, the lead black character has been reduced to a one-dimensional, support role as a stereotypical sassy sister leveling threats like: “I will slice you like government cheese.”
Worse, she boasts about participating in drive-by shootings since she was a child. Then, worst of all, during the denouement, she reveals that she’s “been ‘hood ratting it up” because she’s “really an Oreo, black on the outside, but white on the inside.”
At this juncture, she is offered a shoulder to lean on by her suddenly-sympathetic, patronizing blonde adversary, who advises: “If you want respect that badly, just be a bitch.” I’m not even sure exactly what that exchange is supposed to mean.
The real question is how long will African-American females continue to be portrayed by Hollywood in such an offensive, demeaning, bizarre and degenerate fashion?

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity, crude humor and suggestive content.
Running time: 90 minutes
Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Deleted scenes, “The Making of” and a few additional featurettes.

Fred Claus

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Santa’s Sibling Cause Ruckus at North Pole in Kiddie Holiday Comedy

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Michael Jackson? Even though he’s never been found guilty, pedophilia always pops into my head. For this reason, excuse me to find it first distracting, then disturbing, to hear him singing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” not once, but twice during this movie.
There were certainly plenty of other artists who have covered the popular Christmas song who director David Dobkin could’ve chosen from, if he was dead set on including that particular tune in his picture. So, the inclusion of the Jackson Five version makes you wonder whether the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) might have had a say about the soundtrack.
Let’s be brutally frank for a minute, it’s already a little creepy just thinking about your average Santa, seasonal help plucked from the pools of the unemployed. But if you arrived at a mall, and Michael Jackson was being piped in, you might have second thoughts about letting your kids sit on St. Nick’s lap.
Even if you can get past wacko Jacko’s warblings, Fred Claus is a film with plenty of other failings, ranging from a flawed premise to questionable casting to a dearth of mirth to its lasting way too long. The film stars Vince Vaughn in the title role as Santa’s ne’er-do-well elder brother, opposite Paul Giamatti, who looks a little out of his element as Fred’s saintly sibling.
The kid-friendly plotline is easy enough to follow, as it revolves around Santa’s generously offering his broke brother a job managing his Naughty or Nice Department during the busy holiday season. Recently-bailed fro jail, Fred bids adieu to his practically fed-up girlfriend, Wanda (Rachel Weisz), and to his orphaned next-door neighbor, Slam (Bobb’e J. Thompson), and sets out for the North Pole from Chicago.
But upon his arrival, the slacker only throws a monkey wrench in Santa’s streamlined facility by encouraging DJ Donnie (Ludacris) to play distracting dance music instead of holiday hymns and jingles. Soon, the elves are partying instead of making toys, and Santa falls way behind schedule. Then, nosy Mr. Northcutt (Kevin Spacey), a Scrooge-like efficiency expert roaming the grounds, threatens to shut down the operation entirely.
To top it all off, by Christmas Eve, suddenly sick Santa is worried about the prospect of disappointing all the children around the world eagerly-anticipating the impending arrival of their presents. The solution is no surprise, as he asks his brother to deliver the gifts by sleigh for him. Of course, Fred makes the most of this opportunity to overhaul his loser image, stepping in to save the day for a fairytale finale.
Don’t make the mistake of misreading the tacked-on happily-ever-after ending as a stamp of approval for a mean-spirited production, its PG rating notwithstanding. Among the movie’s tasteless moments is when Santa slides down the chimney and disturbs a Jewish family during Hannukkah dinner. He leaves without giving the children any gifts ostensibly because they’re of the wrong faith.
Equally insensitive is the depiction of African-American characters as reprobates. DJ Donnie, the only black elf, willfully screws up at his job, while little Slam is so morally-unprincipled that he pickpockets Santa on Christmas Day, as if to suggest a genetic predisposition towards criminality. Ha-ha.
Squandered in the service of this often offensive adventure is a talented cast which includes Academy Award-winners Kathy Bates, Rachel Weisz and Kevin Spacey, nominees Miranda Richardson and Paul Giamatti, and cameos by overshadowed, celebrity siblings Roger Clinton, Frank Stallone and Stephen Baldwin, brothers of Bill, Sly and Alec, respectively.
A feel-bad Christmas flick, not exactly the way anybody would want to kickoff the holiday season.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG for mild epithets and crude humor.
Running time: 116 minutes
Studio: Warner Brothers

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Sandler and James Fake Being Gay in Gender-Bending Comedy Coming to DVD

For years, Brooklyn firefighters Larry Valentine (Kevin James) and Chuck Levine (Adam Sandler) have been best friends, at least on the job, even though they lead very different private lives. Away from work, Chuck’s a womanizer while Larry is a grieving widower who’s too worried about the welfare of his kids, Eric (Cole Morgen) and Tori (Shelby Adamowsky), to start thinking about dating again.
Despite their differences, these buddies are absolutely committed to being there for each other, and Chuck proves his loyalty by signing a document saying they’re gay life mates to help Larry get life insurance, never expecting that a nosy inspector (Steve Buscemi) from the city’s Fraud Detection Department might show up periodically to make sure they’re not lying.
With the prospect of prison hanging over their heads, Chuck grudgingly moves in with Larry, rather than risk going to jail. And it doesn’t help that he has to hide the fact that he’s straight from the lawyer (Jessica Biel) he’s falling in love with.
The ensuing awkwardness and embarrassment over having to pretend to be strange bedfellows probably sounds like a zany enough premise to make for a potentially hilarious sitcom. However, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is so insensitively executed that it deserves to be dismissed as a deliberately meanspirited indulgence in homophobia.
Not only are gays repeatedly referred to by slurs but this relentlessly superficial enterprise seizes on any excuse to resurrect stereotypes linking homosexuality with effeminacy. When not trashing gays, the film goes after Asians with impunity, by making fun of their thick accents and eyeglasses, and by portraying Asian females as empty-headed sex objects.
Adam Sandler and Kevin James ought to be ashamed to be associated with the cinematic equivalent of gay bashing.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for nudity, profanity, homophobic slurs, sexuality, drug use and violence.
Running time: 116 minutes
Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Deleted scenes with optional director’s commentary, alternate takes, outtakes, feature audio commentary with the director and co-stars Adam Sandler and Kevin James, plus five featurettes.

Dan in Real Life

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Relationship Guru Lands in Love Triangle in Sordid Sitcom

Sometimes a film’s premise is so farfetched that it’s impossible to suspend one’s disbelief long enough give to give its conceit a chance to take root. This I found to be the case with Dan in Real Life, a tawdry tale of betrayal masquerading as a heartwarming story about a widower’s finding a second chance at romance.
Steve Carrell stars in the title role as Dan Burns, a guy who’s had his hands full trying to raise three daughters on his own since his wife passed away four years ago. By trade, he’s a relationship advice expert with a popular column that’s about to be nationally syndicated. So, one would think that as an expert on love he’d know better than to become embroiled in an incestuous love triangle by falling for a sibling’s gorgeous girlfriend. But precisely such a sordid, Jerry Springer-esque scenario does unfold at the Burns clan annual reunion being hosted by family matriarch and patriarch, Nana (Dianne Wiest) and Poppy (John Mahoney), at their spacious compound on the Rhode Island shore.
The plot thickens right after the long car ride up from New Jersey, during which Dan was driven crazy by little Lily (Marlene Lawston), and his rebellious teens Cara (Brittany Robertson) and Jane (Alison Pill). Leaving the girls with their grandparents, he ventures into town for a break from all the estrogen.
At a local bookstore, he locks eyes from across the shelves with Marie (Juliette Binoche), a fey beauty with an ethereal air about her. Mistaking Dan for the shop’s proprietor, she asks him for a recommendation, and the two strike-up a conversation which ends up lasting hours. Despite the obvious chemistry, the two reluctantly part company, unaware that they will be spending the weekend in the same house. Turns out she was invited to the huge gathering by her new beau who just happens to be his brother, Mitch (Dane Cook).
When they are then formally introduced, neither lets on that they’d already met. And the tension starts to build as they secretly share stolen moments while compounding their initial lie with an increasingly deceitful cover-up, much in the way of your typical TV sitcom episode. The problems with this morally-reprehensible development are plentiful, starting with the fact that Dan is stealing a woman he’s only known for a few hours, and from right under Mitch’s nose. Plus, there’s the question of what sort of example this he’s setting as a role model for his daughters, and what type of relationship guru would behave like such a hypocrite.
Cruel and contrived, Dan in Real Life’s fatally-flawed script is vulgar, but never funny, and simply squanders the services of Steve Carrell who delivers his every line with an utter lack of conviction. The fastest way to clear a theater.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG for some sexual innuendo.
Running time: 99 minutes
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures

License to Wed DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Rancid Robin Williams Romantic Comedy Released on DVD

Sadie Jones (Mandy Moore) always had her heart set on getting married in St. Augustine’s like her parents (Peter Strauus and Roxanne Hart). So, when her boyfriend, Ben (John Krasinski), proposes to her at their 30th anniversary party, she not only says “Yes” on the spot but immediately asks the church’s pastor, Father Frank (Robin Williams), who is present, to perform the ceremony.
He agrees, but informs the lovey-dovey couple that the only open date available is just three weeks away and that they must satisfactorily complete a marriage preparation course as proof that they’re really ready to marry. His unorthodox test involves everything from caring for a couple of robot babies to role-playing exercises in which they have to pretend to be each other.
Nights, the meddling minister, accompanied by a chubby child assistant (Josh Flitter), monitors the pair’s mating behavior, eavesdropping via a bug strategically hidden in their bedroom. If this sort of voyeurism strikes you as unbecoming of a man-of-the-cloth, especially with a pre-pubescent boy sitting at his side, you’re not alone, since the creepy scenario automatically conjures up images of pedophile priests.
Unfortunately, such groan-inducing skits are par for the course in License to Wed, the latest bomb from Robin Williams. Who knows whether the erstwhile comic has lost his talent entirely or merely lowered his standards to foist as many take-the-money-and-run ripoffs on the public till his fans catch on?
Regardless, Williams’ performance is so pathetic that the picture’s funniest scene features Wanda Sykes in a quickie cameo. Looks like Robin Williams has replaced Cuba Gooding, Jr. as the kiss of death on the set of any comedy.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity and sexual humor.
Running time: 91 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Extras: Additional scenes with optional commentary by director Ken Kwapis, plus a featurette entitled “Ask Choir Boy.”

The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Dull Superhero Sequel Still Disappointing on DVD

How do you take a team of beloved, comic book crime fighters with cool superhuman powers and turn them into absolute bores by the time they hit the big screen? That’s a question which can best be answered by Tim Story, director of The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, since he’s achieved that improbable feat twice now. For this surprisingly-flat sequel proves to be just as dull as his first adaptation of the Marvel franchise back in 2005.
Inspired by the classic Greek elements, air, fire, water and earth, the quartet is led by the elastic Dr. Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd). Then, there’s Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), her brother, Johnny (Chris Evans), The Human Torch, and The Thing (Michael Chiklis), a rock-like mutant with incredible strength.
At the point of departure, we find Reed and Sue making last-minute preparations for their impending marriage, blissfully unaware of extraordinary climate changes unfolding. Only after a blackout ruins the couple’s wedding day, does anybody pause to wonder what’s suddenly causing these atmospheric anomalies.
Of course, it isn’t global warming, but the work of The Silver Surfer, an intergalactic traveler on a mission to Earth on behalf of an evil entity that feeds on life-bearing planets. Soon, it becomes clear that it’s going to take a concerted effort to match wits with and to subdue this virtually-indestructible villain bent on world domination.
So, at the suggestion of U.S. Army General Hager (Andre Braugher), the Fantastic Four reluctantly join forces with their recently-revived archenemy, the diabolical Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon). Unfortunately, the tortoise-paced adventure which ensues is an insult to the intelligence which relies on pseudo-scientific claptrap that probably couldn’t even convince a ten year-old of its merit.
The worst comic book adaptation since, well, since the first Fantastic Four.

Poor (0 star)
Rated PG for sexual innuendo, mild epithets, and action violence.
Running time: 92 minutesStudio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

American Cannibal DVD

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Documentary about Ill-Conceived Reality-TV Show Arrives on DVD

What do you think of the idea of a Survivor-style, reality-TV show where the players are starved and losers are not shipped off the island, but expected to fend for themselves in the jungle after being fed the suggestion that one of the contestants is going to be eaten before the series ends? This was the captivating premise of Darwinian American Cannibal, a short-lived program which had been successfully pitched to producers but canceled before it even made it onto the air.
Its Lord of the Flies meets The Most Dangerous Game plotline sounded like a “can’t miss” with today’s voyeuristic television viewers. But, unfortunately, one of the participants fell seriously ill during the filming last autumn, and had to be medevaced back to civilization, collapsing into a coma by the time the helicopter arrived at a hospital. Taping was immediately halted at that juncture, and the television show was cancelled.
Instead all we have left is American Cannibal, the movie, a documentary which is more of an aggravating tease than an informative journalistic enterprise, since it fails to answer any of the obvious questions. Were there really any cannibals on this remote island? And if so, were they the indigenous people, or were the contestants supposed to turn on each other out of sheer hunger?
Who was the woman who almost died? How exactly did she get hurt? Did someone try to devour her? How is she now? Is she suing? How had Darwinian American Cannibal been conducted? What were the challenges? What was going to be the Grand Prize? Who had been ahead when the show was abruptly halted? Etcetera… etcetera…
American Cannibal isn’t so much an examination of the tragic trajectory of an ill-fated reality-TV show but just the biggest hoax since The Blair Witch Project.

Poor (0 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 91 minutes
Studio: Lifesize Entertainment
DVD Extras: Commentary by the directors, commentary by the writers, three interviews, a couple of featurettes, TV spots and a theatrical trailer.

Delta Farce DVD

Delta Farce
DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Unfunny Mistaken Identity Comedy Makes Its way to DVD

Larry (Larry the Cable Guy), Everett (DJ Qualls) and Bill (Bill Engvall) are best friends who ordinarily welcome the periodic male-bonding opportunity afforded them by their service as National Guard reserves on the base where they’re stationed in Chattahoochee, Georgia. For once a month, they make the most of a chance to shoot guns, drink beer, and leer at the waitresses at the local Hooters.
Everything changes, however, the day that the pencil pushers in the Pentagon decide to call up their unit. Hard-boiled Sergeant Kilgore (Keith David) soon arrives to whip them into shape, and before you can say “Be all that you can be!” they’re shipped to for Fallujah.
But a funny thing happens on the way to Iraq, for this ill-equipped trio of misfits unit is accidentally ejected from the plane over a desert in Mexico, where it takes them forever to realize that they haven’t landed in a battle zone. Don’t be duped, if this premise sounds at all appealing, for Delta Farce is easily one of the worst films released this year.
The transparent plot of this action comedy revolves around the heroes’ hapless effort to save a tiny town from the clutches of a bloodthirsty gang. Their awkward antics are reminiscent of The Three Stooges, only not funny.
Don’t even consider this dud, unless you’re the type inclined to laugh at an insufferable sergeant incessantly insulting his men, homophobic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” jokes or offensive cliches about Arabs and Latinos. Equally disappointing in terms of bodily function humor, Delta Farce is stocked with fart, spit, digestive, feces and urine gags, my favorite being when Kilgore unwittingly drinks a glass of fluid excreted from Everett’s bladder.
One of those movies that’s great until the movie starts.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for sexuality and crude humor.
In English and Spanish with subtitles.
Running time: 89 minutes
Studio: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Director’s commentary plus four featurettes

The Darwin Awards DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: DVD Features Fictionalized Accounts of Dumb Ways to Die

Anyone familiar with the endlessly amusing Darwin Awards knows that they have been presented posthumously since 1991 to individuals who have found the dumbest ways to kill themselves. It’s sad to see that a movie sporting the same name and purporting to present fictionalized accounts of the same incidents could be so unengaging and such an unmitigated flop.
The picture pairs San Francisco Homicide Detective Michael Burrows (Joseph Fiennes) with insurance adjustor Siri Tyler (Winona Ryder) as intrepid investigators of these curious fatal accidents. And their efforts at deconstructing each fateful turn of events are monitored by a fledgling filmmaker (Wilmer Valderrama) who tags along to make a documentary.
The Darwin Awards is essentially a series of disconnected skits having in common only the fact that each episode ends with the subject’s demise. Unfortunately, this macabre movie is marked by a fatal flaw, specifically, the fact that it’s based on more unsubstantiated urban legends than authentic Darwin Awards cases. This absolutely undermines the movie’s authenticity right off the bat, since you never know which reenactments really occurred and which were merely dreamed up for the sake of a Hollywood spectacular.
Even such an offense probably would’ve been pardonable had writer/director Finn Taylor at least created a plausible plotl to thread the tragedies together. But because he never bothered to come up with a credible sensible storyline, this flashback-driven snuff flick comes off as just a voyeuristic excuse to watch people die in different ways.
From the British couple who misunderstand the meaning of their RV’s cruise control button to the ice fishermen whose dog fetches a lit stick of dynamite to the loser who decides to test the strength of his high rise’s floor to ceiling glass window, The Darwin Awards is likely to find an audience only in those sickos titillated by gratuitous depictions of fatalities.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated R for profanity, sexuality, drug use and violence.
Running time: 94 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: “The Making of” featurette, cast and crew interviews, plus several trailers.

Kickin’ It Old Skool DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Jamie Kennedy Dud about Dude Destined to Breakdance Due on DVD

Justin (Jamie Kennedy) was left in a vegetative state after landing on his head while breakdancing as an adolescent. Fast forward twenty years and we find his parents (Christopher McDonald and Debra Jo Rupp) pulling the plug on their son’s life support system due to their mounting debt.
Miraculously, the kid recovers, though he is now 32 but still with the mind of a 12 year-old. So, he tracks down the other members of his pre-teen posse, The Funky Fresh Boys, to see if they’re interested in entering a dance contest with $100,000 grand prize.
First, he finds his best friend Darnell (Miguel Nunez, Jr.) who is married but unemployed and gets no respect from his sassy wife, Roxanne (Vivica A. Fox). Though her husband denies that he’s the father of her three kids, she warns him as he leaves, “I don’t want to see your black ass again till you get a whole lot of money or a whole lot of diapers.”
There’s also morbidly obese Hector (Aris Alvarado), and Aki Terasaki (Bobby Lee) whom the others ask to say “booby traps” just so they can laugh at his Asian accent. This sort of bad taste humor is par for the course in Kickin’ It Old Skool, one of the most offensive gross-out comedies in recent memory.
Not one scene of this disgusting shocksploit is either entertaining or funny. The film features a variety of graphically-depicted sanitation issues, ranging from urination to feces to projectile vomiting. And its disgusting dialogue repeatedly resorts to ethnic, gender and other assorted slurs, with blacks, Asians, females, gays and Jews taking turns as the brunt of the joke.
In the future, Jamie Kennedy ought to let a bomb-sniffing dog check out scripts for him.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity, ethnic slurs, sexuality and crude humor.
Running time: 108 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentDVD Extras: Previews and a theatrical trailer.

Perfect Stranger DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Convoluted Crime Caper Starring Halle Berry and Bruce Willis Out on DVD

Until she quit her job, Rowena Price (Halle Berry) was an investigative journalist at the New York Courier. But she left the daily newspaper to preserve her integrity right after her boss (Richard Portnow) decided to kill a shocking story she was about to break about Senator Sachs (Gordon MacDonald), a “family values“ Republican she’d caught in a compromising position with a male intern.
The intrepid reporter’s retirement to her spacious, Christopher St. apartment in trendy Greenwich Village turns out to be short-lived, since she’s soon summoned to the morgue to help identify the body of Grace Clayton (Nicki Aycox), her best friend since childhood. Posthumously, their life-ling bond now proves stronger than any beau, because Rowena opts to investigate the grisly killing without even involving the police.
Instead, she enlists the assistance of Miles (Giovanni Ribisi) in this endeavor, a computer whiz who can barely hide the secret crush he has on his brainy and beautiful colleague. The two quickly discern that Grace was having an affair with Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), a married advertising tycoon with a wandering eye and a very jealous spouse, Mia (Paula Miranda).
Certain that the solution to the mystery is hidden somewhere inside the Hill empire, Rowena adopts an alias and takes some temp work at the ad agency. Her plan is to seduce the weak-willed CEO into making an incriminating admission by sending him flirtatious instant messages from the other side of the office.
If only the balance of Perfect Stranger measured up to this promising premise, but unfortunately, it falls apart soon after this captivating point of departure. The essential problem is that the overplotted production introduces too many suspects, is laced with an abundance of rather obvious red herrings, and takes tons of laughable twists and turns actually which might make you think you’re watching a comedy.
A perfect stinker.

Poor (0 stars)
Rated R for profanity, nudity, sexuality, and disturbing violent images.
Running time: 109 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: “The Making of” featurette.

Daddy Day Camp

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Classic Take-the-Money-and-Run Sequel Featuring Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Perhaps I spoke prematurely when I suggested in my review of License to Wed that Robin Williams had replaced Cuba Gooding, Jr. as the kiss of death on a picture. Not to be outdone, Cuba has staked a claim for a return of his crown as the “King of the Bomb” with Daddy Day Camp, a sorry sequel to Daddy Day Care.
Cuba’s father, Cuba Sr., made his name as the lead singer of an R&B group called The Main Ingredient whose big hit was entitled “Everybody Plays the Fool." While the lyrics to that song read, “Everybody plays the fool, sometime,” it appears that Cuba Jr. has chosen to play the fool all the time since taking home an Oscar for shouting “Show me the money!” at Jerry Maguire a decade ago.
Apparently, Cuba took that character’s catchphrase to heart, given the woeful quality of his subsequent outings, from the dreadful What Dreams May Come to the insipid Instinct to donning a dress for the genderbending Boat Trip to bottoming-out as a hit man who both slept with and murdered his step-mother in Shadowboxer. Now, with Daddy Day Camp, he has taken another fat, seven-figure check to fill the shoes of Eddie Murphy, who opted not to reprise the lead role of Charlie Hinton.
It doesn’t help that Cuba has no sense of comedic timing and that he’s relying on an abysmal script of disconnected skits cobbled together by a quintet of hack screenwriters. Plus, the entire cast has been overhauled, with Charlie’s son Ben being played by Spencir Bridges, son of Todd “What You Talking about Willis?” Bridges of Different Strokes fame.
Still, the movie opens with an unnecessary tie-in reminding us about Eddie and company’s wacky antics in the original. Soon enough, Charlie and his best friend Phil (Paul Rae replacing Jeff Garlin) are escorting their sons to Camp Driftwood only to find the place in foreclosure. Instead of letting the nefarious owner (Lochlyn Munro) of neighboring Camp Canola take title to the property, they choose to purchase it first and to go into the day camp business.
Next thing you know, they have their hands full of gleefully misbehaving little monsters who keep the pair up to their eyeballs in feces, cooties, bus crashes, flatulence, projectile vomit, poison ivy, swift kicks to the crotch, urine balloons and wedgies. Fortunately, Charlie’s no-nonsense father, retired Marine Colonel Buck Hinton (Richard Gant) shows up just in time to get the kids in line and whip them into shape for the annual Olympiad showdown against arch-rival Canola.
An utterly predictable, unfunny, infantile test of patience and waste of ninety minutes of my life I can never get back. Show me the exit!

Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG for bodily humor and mild epithets.
Running time: 93 minutes

Studio: Sony Pictures

The Salon DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: DVD Features Sassy Sisters Trash-Talking Galore at “The Salon”

Ever since the success of Barbershop, Hollywood has been having a love affair with trash-talking black folks’ having their hair done. Besides the brothers in the sequel Barbershop 2, we’ve also seen sisters dishing the dirt in Beauty Shop and Hair Show. And if you’re in need of proof that the genre has been milked dry, may I suggest this derivative flick which is reminiscent of all of the above.
The film opens with an explanation of ghetto grooming ground rules, namely, “Hair is a form of expression in the black community. It doesn’t even have to be your own… Horse hair, camel hair, raccoon hair, whatever. Girlfriend, if you bought it, it’s yours.” Next, we’re introduced to shop owner Jenny (Vivica A. Fox), and the colorful collection of habitués hanging at her hood-based establishment. There’s larger than life Lashaunna (Kym Whitley), a motor-mouthed mama who has nothing nice to say about anybody.
And then there’s D.D. (De’Angelo Wilson), a flamboyant gay, who’s in the picture just to be the butt of meanspirited homophobic threats and teasing. Ricky (Dondre Whitfield) is a player who sleeps with his clients and boasts that he’ll never get caught. Every character is a readily-recognizable, one-dimensional stereotype.
The basic idea, here, is that like a barbershop, a salon is a place where folks feel free to let their hair down, literally and figuratively. Tragically, this translates into referring to blacks by the N-word, to homosexuals by the f-word, and into offensive jokes about Asian accents.
The film bottoms-out when D.D. delivers this cringe-inducing line to another sister: “If you’re going to be a ho, be an ambitious ho. Work uptown.” Despite a talented cast which includes Terrence Howard and Garret Morris, life’s simply too short for slur-ploitation with such lamentably low standards.

Poor (0 star)
Rated PG-13 for profanity, sexuality, crude humor, mature themes, ethnic and homophobic slurs.
Running time: 99 minutes
Studio: Fox Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Trailers and previews.