  Sharon Stone stretches out in Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, now out on DVD.
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Life as Sharon Stone once knew it is now officially over. The DVD release of Basic Instinct 2 is all the evidence needed to confirm her demise as a bona fide movie star.
Stone should set up shop on Sunset Boulevard and get ready for her final close-up. Where's Mr. DeMille?
It is not just that Basic Instinct 2 is such a dismal movie from British journeyman director Michael Caton-Jones. While it looks all shiny and new, the flick plays tired, like an old and decrepit, recycled thriller.
That's because it is recycled. While the movie relies on cliches of the genre in general, it is, obviously, a sequel to the shocking original, a Verhoeven-Eszterhas film that entered the lexicon as a pop culture reference.
In 1992, mainstream movies did not get more basic than the infamous interrogation scene. Stone, coolly flirting with slack-jawed cops, uncrossed her legs and let them -- and us -- see that she was missing her panties and her shame.
Stone flashes a little less in the sequel. Yet she does have the best middle-aged body that money can buy. There are partially nude scenes galore as she reprises her role as a crime novelist who may actually commit the murders she writes about. Problem is, it seems gratuitous now, not shocking, not even interesting. Stone's performance is fake, too.
The DVD arrived Tuesday in various editions, including a widescreen Unrated Extended Cut pushing the running time to an insufferable 116 minutes. Extras include Caton-Jones' commentary, 10 deleted scenes with commentary, a making-of doc and an alternative ending to the lame one used in the movie. In the alternative, psychiatrist David Morrissey tells Stone something ... but it's still stupid.
SUPER-SIZED REALITY TV: Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock used his charming personality, a guerrilla-style filmmaking technique and his own body to create Super Size Me, a condemnation of the fast food nation.
That gave him the cachet to move on to the 2005 television series 30 Days, one of the few reality TV shows that actually contains anything real. 30 Days arrived on DVD Tuesday in a two-disc set with the six episodes from season one, plus good extras, such as video diaries for each episode.
The premise of the obscure show -- which will greatly expand its audience by moving to DVD -- is even riskier than in Super Size Me. For the premiere, Minimum Wage, he and fiancee Alex move to Columbus, Ohio, to chronicle what it is like to live like the working poor.
The results are, and should be, shocking to anyone who believes that America looks after its own citizens (and, except for health care, there is no reason to believe that Canada does much better, so let's not be smug).
Spurlock may indulge in socio-political agitprop with his stunts, but he also has the guts and the courage to document what is behind his opinions. In another episode, echoing the famous novel and movie Black Like Me, he probes systemic racism by sending a Christian pal to live like a Muslim in an Islamic community in Dearborn, Michigan. Impressive stuff -- and well presented in DVD.
WACKO: English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom knows no boundaries in politics, social commentary, genre or even good taste. So it was no surprise when his name showed up on the historical and occasionally hysterical comedy Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story. The film breaks rules by busting down the fourth wall on two levels. It is a contemporary film about the making of an historical story but the characters can also leave "reality" and talk to the camera or pull incredible stunts, like Steve Coogan shrinking down to the size of a fetus in a womb.
The widescreen DVD was released Tuesday with extras, such as the Coogan/Rob Brydon commentary, that reinforce the odd tone of the self-mocking movie itself. You just have to be in the right mood to enjoy the shenanigans.
