DVD Round-Up!

A little late, but better than never...

DVD Releases for November 17, 2009

Star Trek

It's like they handed the keys of an old, beat-up franchise to J.J. Abrams and said, "Hey, have fun, kid." Except this franchise wasn't just old and beat-up. It was a mutilated, stinking corpse that was beyond saving. True, the last Star Trek film, Star Trek Nemesis, made a little over $60 million dollars - but then again, it only cost about $60 million dollars to make. There wasn't much juice left to squeeze (or some other equally awkward metaphor) from this franchise. The cast was old and no one cared. But in comes Abrams. Pretty much everything he has touched turned to gold in both television and films. He scored television success with Lost and Alias. Cloverfield was a nice, little hit. Paramount Pictures thought it wise to invest $150 million dollars into his new Star Trek project. They gambled and it paid off.

With a fresh-faced cast, some pretty impressive special effects and a new vision of an old story, Abrams revitalized the Star Trek franchise with a big-time summer blockbuster. To this point, the film has raked in over $380 million and it's sure to be a DVD smash as well. To put this film's triumph into some kind of perspective, I'll use myself as an example: I never liked Star Trek - the TV shows or the movies. They always looked boring to me and I just kind of decided (without actually thinking about it) that I was a Star Wars kind of guy and that was it. But when I heard that Abrams was involved, I got interested. The early previews looked good, and as time went by and more extended trailers were released, it looked better and better. Out of nowhere, Star Trek became a must-see movie. And I know I'm not alone. I think Abrams hooked a whole new generation.

And I wasn't disappointed. This film is great. The story is good; the characters are well-developed and interesting; the action is relentless; and the end makes you want to see more. I highly recommend this one. If you haven't seen it yet, now is your chance.

Bruno

Sasha Baron Cohen's movies - other than being hilarious and often shocking - are really just little portrait's of mankind's shortcomings. In Borat, he showed us our inability to handle anything or anyone foreign. With Bruno, it's homosexuality that freaks people out. But of course, with both characters, Cohen is way over the top and sometimes just plain makes fools out of people. Regardless of whether or not you believe that there is in fact a message buried somewhere in these films, they're still going to make you laugh and probably feel a tad uncomfortable. That's what Cohen does best.

In the end, Bruno is a very funny, very raunchy movie, however, it never quite lives up to its predecessor. While the end of the movie proves to be the ultimate display of the hatred that exists in people's hearts, topping anything accomplished in Borat, Bruno just isn't as funny. Still good... just not as good.