 |
 Isla Fisher is entranced by the perfect purple gloves in the romcom Confessions of a Shopaholic, based on the bestselling books. |
It's summer. Time to get silly on DVD. Start with Confessions of a Shopaholic.
New to widescreen DVD and Blu-ray last week, Confessions is a throw-back to the era of Hollywood's screwball comedies.
The trick in screwball is to exaggerate everything just enough to feel wacky but not overdo it so much that it seems stupid.
Meanwhile, central characters in the inevitable romance have to be lovable. The story can be routine but fresh twists are welcome.
This movie, directed by Australian ex-patriate P.J. Hogan, does not quite get there. Hogan fails to infuse it with the bittersweet spirit he created in his first success, Muriel's Wedding.
Instead, the lightweight Confessions is frayed around the edges. It is based on two breezy novels, Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic and Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, both about a young woman obsessed with shopping on her credit cards.
|
But the movie plays like a regurgitation of other overplotted movies.
Yet it harbours a treasure -- Isla Fisher.
Roger Ebert compares Fisher to Lucille Ball, not for her red hair but a mastery of physical comedy, a disappearing artform.
It is not about being clumsy. It is about being the Queen of Klutz without losing a flirtatious sexiness. While she plays an absurdly incompetent journalist, Fisher earns our empathy as a person.
No wonder Sacha Baron Cohen loves this girl, just as Hugh Dancy falls for her in Confessions. Dancy is paid handsomely to co-star; Cohen has his perfect comic match in real life.
The DVD for Confessions of a Shopaholic is a two-disc job. But that is misleading.
The main feature is packaged with scant few extras, among them bloopers.
Disc two is the digital copy for portable devices.
As for Blu-ray, Confessions is not the kind of visual spectacle that demands high-def. But the movie's lurid colour palette looks good in this format.
INKHEART
Speaking of flawed films, Iain Softley's Inkheart is an ambitious fantasy that misses its mark in its special effects-driven genre. Yet it also has appealing elements that make it worth a look, with reservations.
Inkheart, based on the Cornelia Funke novel, arrived on widescreen DVD last week.
It is the implausible story of a man (Brendan Fraser) with the rare ability to make characters from books come alive in the real world if he reads aloud.
But he is haunted by a catastrophe: His beloved wife disappeared into a book called Inkheart when characters from the novel crossed over. Accompanied by his daughter, he devotes his life to trying to find the out-of-print book again to read her out.
However audacious the idea, the execution is as plodding as Andy Serkis' villainy in the role of Fraser's arch enemy.
Yet you don't turn away. Inkheart is just odd enough to entice you to watch to the end.
The DVD has a unique extra. Eliza Bennett, who plays the heroine daughter, reads one of her favourite passages from the novel -- a scene that is not in the movie -- with Funke's illustrations dressing it up.
CROSSING OVER
More frustrations, another flawed film.
In the drama Crossing Over, South African-born filmmaker Wayne Kramer brings an outsider's point-of-view to the vexing issue of illegal aliens in the United States.
Kramer offers parallel stories to illustrate different kinds of victims and victimizers in the clamour for the holy grail -- a green card. The technique is very similar to the Oscar-winning Crash, but without the subtle sophistication.
Yet Crossing Over does have its attributes. Harrison Ford plays a humanist troubled by his work as an agent for the immigration service. Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Alice Eve, Alice Braga and Jim Sturgess are part of the ensemble.
Kramer boldly addresses how American bureaucracy and paranoia can turn a country cruel.
Yet individuals can salve the moral wounds.
But the film goes beyond preachy. And the DVD has no extras to explain anything.
LAST WEEK: Inkheart - Confessions of a Shopaholic - The Pink Panther 2 - Dog Eat Dog - Crossing Over - Revolution Revisted
NEW JUNE 16: Friday the 13th - One Week - The Diary of Anne Frank: 50th Anniversary Edition
NEW THIS WEEK: Stone of Destiny - Two Lovers n M Butterfly
COMING SOON: The Knowing (July 7) - Coraline (July 21)