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Video / DVD: New releases
A city slicker and her kinfolk
By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 6, 2003
Sweet Home Alabama (PG-13)
[Photo: Touchstone Pictures]
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Reese Witherspoon returns to the South to divorce high school sweetheart Josh Lucas in Sweet Home Alabama.
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In the New South, all the men love Southern rock and dressing up to re-enact Civil War battles, all the women are fashion-challenged, the streets are filled with baying bloodhounds and every other residence is topped with a Confederate flag. But it's all oh-so-lovable.
That, at least, is the impression conveyed by director Andy Tennant (Anna and the King) and screenwriter C. Jay Cox in Sweet Home Alabama, one of those romantic comedies about the laughs that ensue when a sophisticate goes back home, only to shrink in comic horror from the funny ways of kinfolk and old friends.
Reese Witherspoon, touted as America's sweetheart, is a terrific screen comedienne, as demonstrated in 1999's inspired Election and the lesser Legally Blonde, released two years ago. And she's about the only redeeming feature in her latest movie, which also stars Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey and seasoned actors Fred Ward, Mary Kay Place, Jean Smart and Candice Bergen.
Witherspoon does her best as New York fashion designer Melanie, engaged to a handsome, wealthy, high-profile city boy (Patrick Dempsey) but suddenly back home in Pigeon Creek, Ala., on a mission to divorce the dashing, confident country boy (Josh Lucas) she married while still in high school and subsequently abandoned.
Will Melanie forgo the bright lights, and, most likely, a fulfilling career in favor of down-home living and a good-hearted man? The suspense isn't exactly killing, but Witherspoon does have her charms.
DVD extras: Tennant's commentary, eight deleted scenes, an alternate ending and SHeDAISY's Mine All Mine music video.
Rent it if you enjoy: Witherspoon; city-meets-small-town comedies, including Doc Hollywood; TV's Green Acres.
Igby Goes Down (R)
Kieran Culkin (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, The Cider House Rules), the 19-year-old younger brother of the Home Alone star, again comes off as an actor worth watching in this uneven comic drama about a troubled child of privilege.
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Claire Danes plays an older love interest for Kieran Culkin in Igby Goes Down.
[Photo: United Artists]
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Culkin shines as the title character, a possibly bright but decidedly bored teenager, unable or unwilling to fit in anywhere, a sort of Holden Caulfield.
Igby, unlike Holden, apparently has barely half a heart buried under that veneer of bratty bad behavior. He's full of sarcastic one-liners lobbed at his pill-popping mom (Susan Sarandon), disturbed father (Bill Pullman), womanizing, cash-grabbing stepfather (Jeff Goldblum) and smug big brother (Ryan Phillippe).
Burr Steers, an actor in Pulp Fiction and The Last Days of Disco, in his directorial debut follows Igby's misadventures in New York, where he alienates practically his entire circle of family and friends, a group that includes two older love interests (Amanda Peet and Claire Danes). It's to Culkin's credit that we come to care for his character in the least.
DVD extras: A commentary with Culkin and writer-director Steers, a making-of-the-movie featurette, deleted scenes.
Rent it if you enjoy: The Catcher in the Rye, other tales of rich little lost boys.
Little Secrets (PG)
Life is nearly perfect in the America of Little Secrets, where all the well-dressed kids live in big, beautiful suburban homes, ride around in SUVs and play in well-manicured yards. But there's a dark underbelly: Emily (Evan Rachel Wood), the neighborhood's budding financier, is making a small fortune by keeping secrets, for a small fee. Feel the pressure.
The little capitalist, also a dedicated violin student, additionally is having difficulty coping with the imminent arrival of a new sibling and feeling the pangs of first love. Wood does an admirable job of holding the center in an unobjectionable kid-oriented flick also featuring David Gallagher and Michael Angarano as the new boys next door and Vivica A. Fox as a sympathetic violin teacher.
DVD extras: The filmmakers' commentary, comic outtakes, a behind-the-scenes featurette, a bonus soundtrack CD.
Rent it if you enjoy: The Princess Diaries, Harriet the Spy and other fare centered on young female characters.
Ultimate X: The Movie (PG)
The thrill-a-minute exploits of skateboarders, bicycle motocross riders and street lugers are on display in this documentary about athletes gathered in Philadelphia two years ago for ESPN's Summer X games.
The movie, originally made for IMAX theaters, features appearances by Tony Hawk, Mat Hoffman, Travis Pastrana, Bucky Lasek and other extreme-sports stars. The death-defying action is accompanied by the music of Fatboy Slim, OPM and Sum 41.
DVD extras: The 40-minute film is augmented with short profiles of athletes, music videos and a segment on extreme-sports injuries.
Rent it if you enjoy: Dogtown and Z-Boys, XXX.
Classics on DVD
Thelma and Louise (R), the 1991 road trip movie starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, is back in a souped-up DVD edition. The supplements on the double-sided disc include two commentaries -- one by director Ridley Scott and a newly recorded one featuring screenwriter Callie Khouri and the two stars -- plus a 45-minute multipart documentary, an alternate ending, 30 minutes' worth of deleted scenes and Glenn Frey's Part of Me, Part of You music video.
The Warner Bros. vaults have been raided for special-edition DVDs of three Oscar-winning dramas. Bruce Beresford's Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy (PG), released in 1989, and 1965's A Patch of Blue, starring Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters, touch on race relations. Joan Crawford made a career comeback as the determined title character in 1945's Mildred Pierce, a gripping murder mystery adapted from a novel by noir writer James M. Cain.
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