Happy Birthday, Agnes Moorehead

DVD Debut: Angels & Demons, Funny People

DVD Debut gives Dan Brown a puff of white smoke over at VH1.com.

The pope is dead, his four eligible successors have been kidnapped, and there’s a ticking bomb somewhere in the Vatican. Who you gonna call? Tom Hanks, of course. After making peace with the papacy, ancient manuscripts are dug up and soon he’s racing all over Rome to stop the ancient city from becoming a crater. There’s a nice surprise for audiences, too. This Da Vinci Code prequel-gone-sequel is devilishly good fun, with Ron Howard providing Grand Guignol flourishes worthy of fright-meister Dario Argento.

DVD Debut: Star Trek, Bruno

DVD Debut circumnavigates Bruno’s Uranus whilst boldly going where the stale Star Trek puns reside.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat twitted America’s isolationism and prejudices. Bruno takes on bigger game–what we get up to in the bedroom. Armed with dildos and bondage gear, the flamboyantly homosexual Austrian raises serious hackles, infuriating suburban swingers, redneck hunters and even Ron Paul. While Borat exposed our Moral Majority’s underbelly, though, Bruno’s snide assault on L.A.’s celeb culture feels too much like using an elephant’s wang to molest a mosquito.

DVD Debut: Up, The Ugly Truth

It’s up, up and away with DVD Debut over at VH1.com.

If life had turned out different, square-jawed Carl Fredrickson might have been a jungle explorer like the heroes of his youth. Now the modern world is closing in on this retired balloon-seller. Then one day his house takes to the skies with the help of a few thousand inflatables. That’s the beginning of a wild adventure into the tropics, where Carl and a stowaway both have lots to discover. It’s Pixar, so as well as talking dogs and breathtaking vistas, there’s an emotional wallop packed away in the suitcase, too. Bring a hankie.

New DVD Debut: G.I. Joe, Pelham 1-2-3

The latest DVD Debut is live on VH1.com:

Anybody old enough to remember playing with Hasbro’s action figures will recall how hard it was coming up with compelling storylines. You had your elite strike force, you had their fascist chic foes. You’d make them shoot each other or wrestle in a manner which wasn’t at all indicative of latent homosexuality. This action flick follows the same pattern. Cobra and their maniacal leader Destro—who seems angry about his bad “och aye” Scottish accent—blow sh*t up. Joe to the rescue! KA-BOOM! The end … or is it?

New DVD Debut: Ice Age, Orphan

The new DVD Debut is up at VH1.com:

Behind every great horror movie is a bad idea. Like adopting a spooky Russian kid when you’re a recovering alcoholic. Kate (Vera Farmiga) is also trying to rebound after delivering a stillborn child in the film’s messy opening. Soon she suspects that disturbing little Esther may have been ripped straight from Satan’s womb. Maybe it’s the pigtails. As Kate guarantees herself a trip to crazy-town, Esther shows her true colors, doing for movie brats what Jaws did for marine life.

New DVD Debut: Transformers, Cheri

The new DVD Debut is up at VH1.com:

It’s easy to sneer at director Michael Bay’s penchant for blowing sh*t up. It’s also easy to pooh-pooh this movie’s racial stereotypes and ogling of Megan Fox. But it may just be those things that have turned the ‘80s toys into a mega-successful summer blockbuster franchise. Shia LaBeouf goes to college, only to discover that everything from the first film is coming back bigger, badder, louder, dumber and—in Fox’s case—curvier than before. That crackling sound in the background? It’s your brain cells sizzling.

New DVD Debut: The Proposal, Drag Me to Hell

A new DVD Debut is up at VH1.com:

Or The Devil Wears Prada gets married. As ball-busters go, Sandra Bullock’s book editor is mildly pushy. When she needs to get hitched fast to avoid deportation, assistant Ryan Reynolds realizes he’s got her where he wants her. Their differences are ironed out during a family reunion in Alaska, which is populated by mild eccentrics and only has dial-up internet. This is lightweight fare, but it’s fun to see Bullock playing something other than a ditz—and romance a stud some 12 years her junior.

New DVD Debut: Year One, My Life in Ruins

The latest DVD Debut is up at VH1.com:

Jack Black and Michael Cera play two cavemen, dimwitted and neurotic by turns. Cast out from the tribe after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, they make their way to Sodom, home of sexy slave-girls and pervy priests. Writer-director Harold Ramis has been responsible for great comedies like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day. Here he’s content to churn out quick-fire Biblical spoofery. At least it’s not Epic Movie.

New DVD Debut: Monsters vs. Aliens, The Wizard of Oz

Tuesday brings us a new DVD Debut over at VH1.com:

As high concepts go, it’s a better idea than Cats & Dogs. A meteorite turns Susan Murphy into the 49-foot 11-inch woman just as she’s about to walk up the aisle. Dubbed Ginormiac, she’s taken to a top secret government installation and joins a posse of monsters dating from the 1950s. The blob-like B.O.B., Insectosaur and the rest are called to comedic arms when a giant robot menaces San Francisco. DreamWorks’s 3D CGI extravaganza features the voices of Reese Witherspoon and Seth Rogen.