Tuesday, April 20, 2004

This Week In Video

Memo to Future Blockbuster Patrons: YOU ARE DUMB.
But that's OK. Because I'm here to help you. Yes, it's time for Yet Another New Feature. It's Tuesday, and that means a whole slew of new movies come out on DVD. The Anglophiles, Oscar-whores, and cineastes are already in line at Best Buy for their copies of The Office Season 2, Master And Commander, and the Ingmar Bergman collection, so they're set, but what about the masses? How will they know which of this week's asinine releases is best for them to rent this weekend? Ideally, they will turn to me, because I alone can help them.
For example. Say you've been living under a rock for the past ten years, and happened to be watching Access Hollywood, when you heard that John Travolta, who you thought did a lovely job in that Punisher movie you went to see this weekend, is a big fan of Dianetics. Now, you've never heard of Dianetics before, but you are feeling like you could lose a few pounds. Dianetics: A Visual Guidebook is for you! Just make sure you hurry, because if you don't, a strange man with a vacant stare and a copy of Battlefield Earth under his arm will buy all three copies from your Suncoast and you'll have to wait until next week to start your low-thetan routine.
Dilemma #2. You haven't had a date in three years. Your last four online conversations have mentioned that "women don't like nice guys". You desperately need to masturbate, but a storm has knocked out your broadband and you don't have the wherewithal or fortitude to rent real porn. HAVE NO FEAR. Wild Things (Unrated Edition) and the direct to video sequel, Wild Things 2 are now available! And nobody need ever know how long you pause on the Kevin Bacon full-frontal.
Many people cannot get enough of Tom Hanks. Many people long for a simpler time, when movies were about people hitting balls with bats, not people hitting each other in the balls with bats. And even though it's got that whore Madonna and that big lesbo Rosie O'Donnell in it, they're all modest and purtied up and like boys like they're supposed to in A League Of Their Own: Special Edition. Pop it into your Clearplay DVD player, sit back with some microwave popcorn, and for somewhere between 112 and 128 minutes depending on content filter settings, you can sit back and pretend that life has not passed you by.
For years, the entertainment industry has ignored the vital needs of masochistic narcoleptics in basement apartments without cable. But no longer! Now you can experience the same mediocrity the rest of us get to see two to three times a day in local strip syndication, thanks to The King Of Queens: Season One. Now you can free yourself from the tyranny of broadcast TV and enjoy moderately successful second-rate lesser-network sitcom stylings whenever you want. Ain't technology grand?
Has it been thirteen years since you've heard someone say the "F-word"? Think it's about time you heard it again? Then let me recommend Dice Rules!, the concert film that lets you relive those whimsical, care-free early 90's when filthy nursery rhymes got you on the cover of People magazine, along with four to six question marks.
And finally, what week wouldn't be complete without a lovely family film for people who aren't racist at all, yet still clutch their purses tightly and check their wallets whenever they're on an elevator with someone browner than they are. The Haunted Mansion is from Disney, after all, and now that Eddie Murphy has stopped wearing leather and picking up transsexual hookers and doing comedy routines about how his people wouldn't stay in a haunted house for more than about 20 seconds, you can watch him be scared of ghosts in a haunted house for 5,920 seconds longer. And he's funny, and he's on the TV, and he's not threatening at all. You may want to reserve a copy in advance!