If Super Bowl frenzy feels too intense, Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson is offering a little comic relief.
It is his movie The Game Plan, new this week on DVD in separate full and widescreen editions.
As family-friendly, Disneyesque silliness, The Game Plan layers in shmaltz, melodrama, Elvis worship, kids' ballet and men's football action.
Johnson plays the star quarterback for the fictitious Boston Rebels, a team heading toward the championship (Super Bowl is never mentioned). One crazy catch: The egomaniacal quarterback's 8-year-old daughter, a girl he never knew existed, suddenly shows up at his door, planning to move in for a month. Hijinks and sentimental entanglements ensue.
The football is actually convincing, on a superficial level. The Rock, who did play U.S. college football and had a brief flirtation with the CFL before ending up in the wrestling ring, has the physique, the mannerisms and the moves to pull it off.
The emotional stuff is another manner. The Game Plan is cornball and everything in Andy Fickman's movie is done by chick-flick formula. All the characters are off the shelf, including Johnson's.
Nothing is a surprise.
Except that Johnson's natural charm, and his chemistry with pint-sized co-star Madison Pettis, lets him get away with it.
The extras on the DVD take the routine making-of approach, although they do include guest contributions from Marv Albert and ESPN announcers Stuart Scott and Sean Salisbury. Best insight is The Rock's confession on how he shaped his ego-driven character, Joe Kingman.
"There's a lot of Joe Namath in Joe Kingman in terms of his entertainment ability, in terms of his charisma, in terms of his athletic ability," Johnson says.
America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions
For the real deal on Super Bowl lore, the best bet is still America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions. This stunning 40-disc set arrived just in December as a prime-time prize for football fans. It is worth mentioning again as Super Bowl XLII looms.
This set is beautifully packaged and well presented. It covers the first 40 Super Bowls, keying on the winners from the Green Bay Packers of the 1966 season to the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 2005 season.
Naturally, early on, there is Broadway Joe Namath, the legend of 1968. As with each of the other discs, NFL Films chose three surviving stars of each team to tell the tale with the wisdom of age. The new interviews -- in this case with quarterback Namath, defensive end Gerry Philbin and receiver Don Maynard -- are spliced into vintage interview clips and highlights of that season's games.
In Namath's case, the saga goes through his tumultuous 1967 season when his playboy antics -- which were even more extreme and irresponsible than The Rock channelled into The Game Plan -- almost ruined his career.
The fascinating part is how Philbin still holds Namath accountable, while Namath is clueless on how his behaviour impacted his teammates. Witness their opposing accounts on how Namath was elected team co-captain.
Narrator Alec Baldwin pitches the 1968 saga perfectly while extras add to the lore, as they do for each of the 40 Super Bowls in the set.
John Frankenheimer Collection
Director John Frankenheimer was known for his adroit ability to wrestle with big issues without compromising the pace of his socio-political thrillers.
This box set, new this week, recycles four of his most interesting films, one a true American classic. The titles are: The Young Savages (1961), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The Train (1964) and Ronin (1998).
Manchurian Candidate is the obvious classic. The least known title is The Young Savages, with Burt Lancaster as a prosecutor handling an incendiary case of teen-gang murder.
The Young Savages has no extras but the others all have a Frankenheimer commentary. Candidate is the only DVD with other extensive bonuses. Each film is shown in proper widescreen, although Ronin has a full-screen option, too.
