Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Second Season
HBO
SHOW A
SPECIAL FEATURES B-
DVD GEEK FACTOR 8
(OUT OF 10)
The excellent second season of this outstanding comedy about a New
Zealand folk duo got itself nominated for a Best Comedy Series Emmy
this year, and it deserves that nomination. Jemaine Clement also nailed
down a nom for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, and it’s a shame that
Bret McKenzie, his partner in crime, didn’t get the same.
On top of the always-hilarious adventures, each episode contains
great music, with some of it as catchy as it is funny. The first
episode of the second season featured the boys firing Murray (Rhys
Darby) and taking over management duties themselves. Murray gets to
perform an astounding opera number, while the boys put together a
successful jingle for women’s toothpaste. Needless to say, it kicked
off the season on a high note.
SPECIAL FEATURES: A documentary, some deleted scenes and
amusing outtakes.
Fragments
SONY
MOVIE D+
SPECIAL FEATURES D
DVD GEEK FACTOR 3
(OUT OF 10)
Actress Kate Beckinsale gets the straight-to-video treatment again
with Fragments (formerly Winged Creatures), a jumbled
ensemble piece in which producers secured great performers, but forgot
to supply them with a decent script. Beckinsale’s Nothing but the
Truth suffered the same DVD fate, but this one’s plight is a little
more shocking, considering the list of people involved.
Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Forest Whitaker, Jeanne Tripplehorn,
Jennifer Hudson, Guy Pearce and Jackie Earl Haley all labor away in
this sloppy story about a diner shooting and its aftermath. Beckinsale
plays a waitress who witnesses the tragedy and then clings to a
handsome doctor (Pearce) for support. Hers is just the first in a long
line of unfocused, unrealistic characters that make the movie often
hard to watch.
Academy Award-winner Whitaker gets to play the sad-faced guy saddled
with both a gambling problem and cancer. He does a terrible drunk act
that stands as one of the low points of his career. Haley fares best of
all in a small role as the father of a boy (Josh Hutcherson) who
refuses to speak after the incident. At least Haley doesn’t embarrass
himself.
Worst is Fanning, playing another witness of the shooting incident
who starts talking like a religious prophet and demanding that
everybody pray with her in the aftermath. Fanning is capable of good
work, but more often than not, her acting just screams, “I’m acting!”
When she overacts, she makes movies rather uncomfortable.
The movie has a lot of subplots, which means the performers get
shortchanged. I would’ve liked to have seen more of the Haley
character, but he’s forced into the background. I’m thinking there
might be a three-hour cut of this thing somewhere. If it exists, I
don’t want to see it.
SPECIAL FEATURES: Director Rowan Woods provides a
commentary.
Sunshine Cleaning
ANCHOR BAY
MOVIE B
SPECIAL FEATURES B-
DVD GEEK FACTOR 6
(OUT OF 10)
Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are terrific as sisters who start a
crime-scene-cleanup business while knowing little about the trade they
are entering. This dark comedy stumbles a bit at times, but the two
actresses are so solid that any inconsistencies can be tolerated. Plus,
Alan Arkin plays their dad, and his presence is never a bad thing.
Rose (Adams), a former head cheerleader in her high school days, has
fallen on hard times. She’s a single mom, carrying on an affair with
Mac, a married cop (Steve Zahn), and working as a cleaning lady. When
Mac discovers that people who clean up crime scenes make a ton of
dough, he tells Rose, and a business is born.
Enter Norah (Blunt), who makes Rose’s life look like Easy Street.
She’s never found a way to cope with the death of her mother; she works
dead-end jobs, smokes a lot of pot and always lets her sister down. She
begrudgingly agrees to go along with her sister’s business venture, and
soon finds herself scraping brains off of walls and illegally dumping
soiled mattresses in dumpsters.
Whenever the story focuses on Adams and Blunt, it works; ditto the
subplot with Adams and the reliable Zahn. But a side story involving
Mary Lynn Rajskub as the daughter of a dead mother who the two sisters
clean up after is a waste of time.
The movie also manages to be funny, and considering the subject
matter, that’s no small feat. A scene in which Adams is attending a
baby shower and must explain to her former classmates the details of
her job is one of the best things that Adams has done. She and Blunt
make all of their scenes together work; they are very believable as
sisters. Arkin has a few good laughs as a hapless man trying to peddle
canned popcorn and shrimp to make a quick buck. Overall, this is
definitely worth a rental.
SPECIAL FEATURES: A director’s commentary and an interesting
interview with a couple of women who actually own a business similar to
the one depicted.
This article appears in Aug 20-26, 2009.
