New Blu-Ray and DVD Releases for December 22, 2009
December 22, 2009
All About Steve
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Phil Traill
Screenwriter: Kim Barker
Movie Website: AllAboutSteveMovie.com
Actors/Actresses: Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, Bradley Cooper, Ken Jeong, DJ Qualls, Katy Mixon, Howard Hesseman
Plot Summary: Crossword puzzle constructor Mary Horowitz (Bullock) is smart, pretty – and a natural disaster that shakes news cameraman Steve (Cooper) to the core. Set up on a blind date with Steve, Mary thinks the chemistry is undeniable and just knows she’s found her soulmate. She decides to do anything and go anywhere to be with him.
Mary’s escalating infatuation is encouraged by the self-serving actions of news reporter Hartman Hughes (Church) who enjoys torturing his insolent cameraman at every opportunity. As the news team crisscrosses the country covering breaking news stories, Steve becomes increasingly unhinged as Mary trails them.
But when the overzealous Mary becomes embroiled in the news story of the year, Steve and Hartman begin to see her differently. Hartman is plagued by guilt knowing his game of one-upmanship with Steve has placed her squarely in harms way while Steve is feeling his own pangs of remorse at his callous behavior. Despite the media storm surrounding her, Mary with her upbeat unaffected manner not only brings everyone together but finds her own oddball friends and discovers her true place in the world.
District 9
Genre: Sci-Fi
MPAA Rating: R
Movie Website: District9movie.com
Studio: TriStar Pictures (Sony)
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Screenwriter: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
Actors/Actresses: Sharlto Copley, David James
Plot Summary: 28 years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in South Africa’s “District 9″ as the world’s nations argued over what to do with them.
Now, patience over the alien situation has run out. Control over the aliens has been contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens’ welfare – they will receive tremendous profits if they can make the aliens’ awesome weaponry work. So far, they have failed; activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA.
The tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when an MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA. Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable – he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9.
Extract
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: Miramax Films
Director: Mike Judge
Screenwriter: Mike Judge
Movie Website: Extract-the-movie.com
Actors/Actresses: Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck, Mila Kunis, J.K. Simmons, David Koechner, Clifton Collins Jr., T.J. Miller, Beth Grant, Gene Simmons
Plot Summary: In “Extract,” writer/director Mike Judge (”Beavis and Butt-Head,” “King of the Hill”) returns to the fertile territory of the American workplace, rotating his perspective away from the white collar cubicle warriors of “Office Space” and towards a blue collar boss – a small business owner – who employs an odd cast of losers, loners and misfits in his flavor extract factory.
To the outside eye, Joel Reynold (Jason Bateman) seems to have everything. After all, being the owner of a business he built from the ground up – with its patented brand of culinary extracts – should make the “Extract King” a happy man.
However, if Joel hasn’t reached his front door by 8 o’clock, he’ll find his wife, Suzie (Kristen Wiig) cinching up her sweatpants – and about as interested in him as he is in her mastery of supermarket coupon design. Sexually frustrated, Joel confides in his best pal, Dean (Ben Affleck), a barkeep – and soon finds himself wrapped up in a convoluted scheme to make Suzie cheat on him first with a dim-witted gigolo (Dustin Milligan) – thereby allowing him to pursue beautiful new employee Cindy (Mila Kunis) with a clear conscience. Unbeknownst to Joel, the object of his affections is a con artist/sociopath – just one step away from having her parole revoked.
Meanwhile, Joel and his second-in-command, Brian (J.K. Simmons) have entered negotiations for a buyout of Reynold Extracts by General Mills. All they need to do is keep things tidy, quiet and moving while waiting for the final offer. Of course, this fails to take into account the employees on the factory floor: Step (Clifton Collins, Jr.), a machismo-ridden doofus and self-proclaimed “fastest sorter” with lofty aspirations of rising to Floor Manager; Rory (T.J. Miller), a goth-rock geek who spends more time passing out flyers for his band than shuffling extract bottles; and Mary (Beth Grant), a fanny-packed, bitter slouch at the end of the assembly line who’d rather fold her arms and shake her head than keep life at Reynold moving along – which is exactly what she’s doing when a bottleneck occurs on the line, resulting in a chain of accidents that cost poor Step a portion of his manhood.
Seeing a big payday, the con-artist temp woos the otherwise-loyal Step, convincing him to sue for millions, engaging bus bench lawyer Joe Adler (KISS’s Gene Simmons) to “fight for his rights” – regardless of the fact that doing so will cost Joel the factory.
With his dry wit and remarkable ear for character and dialogue, Mike Judge brings his trademark “flavor” to these seemingly disparate threads, tying them together into an antic comedy about life in the middle.
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