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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:15:29 -0800

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue.

Nip/Tuck: Season Five
Season five finds Sean McNamara and Christian Troy making the leap from Miami to Los Angeles. While the new city provides a welcome change of scenery, the satisfaction is for the viewer only as business isn't exactly booming at the McNamara/Troy office. In fact, the two men find themselves without any clients at all and must resort to hiring a publicist to get their practice rolling. The publicist (played by Lauren Hutton) tells the duo that they must perform surgery on celebrities to create buzz. Guest actors that pop up in this DVD include Portia de Rossi and Oliver Platt.

Special features include unaired scenes and a gag reel titled "Severed Parts."

One more up next so

Buzz News Roundup, 11/17

BuzzSugar — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:30:27 -0800

Monk has been renewed for an eighth — and final — season. — Variety
ABC's official midseason schedule adds Scrubs and The Unusuals to Wednesdays — and drops Life on Mars and Pushing Daisies. — The Futon Critic
Aaron Eckhart will star in the action film Battle: Los Angeles. — ComingSoon
CBS has ordered more episodes of Gary Unmarried and Worst Week. — The Hollywood Reporter
Maya Rudolph will guest-star on Kath and Kim. — TV Guide
50 Cent's album release has been pushed to January. — Billboard
Nigel Lythgoe and Michael Flatley are bringing a new dance competition show to NBC. — Zap2it
NBC is developing a comedy based on the life of Criss Angel. — Variety

Photo courtesy of USA

Towelhead: Sad, Disturbing, Just Like the Book

BuzzSugar — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:30:33 -0700

There's been some controversy and outrage surrounding Alan Ball's adaptation of Alicia Erian's novel Towelhead, which I might understand more if I hadn’t read the original work. People are calling the film "abhorrent," "ethically reprehensible and irresponsible," and "gratuitously offensive." And yet, this isn't really Ball’s fault. His adaptation is completely faithful to the novel — I don’t think there’s even one line of dialogue or one bit of action that isn’t in the book — so why wasn't there this reaction to the novel?

The story is shocking and disturbing. It’s a coming-of-age tale focusing on a young woman (Jasira, played poignantly by Summer Bishil in the film) who is half-Lebanese and half-white, living in a largely white Texas community with a strict father and a leery older male neighbor. Everything Jasira does (from using tampons to dating a black boy) seems to anger her father and disappoint her mother (played by Maria Bello). So, Jasira confuses the attention she gets from her leery neighbor (Aaron Eckhart) with a kind of true affection, which he easily exploits. Jasira's young sense of self and her burgeoning understanding of sexuality get all mixed up with abuse and humiliation and — occasionally — pleasure. This is just the tip-top of the iceberg, so

The Dark Knight Smashes Box Office Records

BuzzSugar — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:15:23 -0700

Many thought that breaking Spider-Man 3's record for the biggest opening weekend ever would be difficult, even for The Dark Knight. But the much-hyped and critically adored sequel to Batman Begins shattered many records over the weekend — including Spidey's.

Earning an estimated $155.4 million, Bruce Wayne and gang smashed box office records for the biggest single-day gross in history and the biggest opening weekend for an IMAX release.

According to Variety, Mamma Mia! also broke records by "narrowly beating Hairspray to become the top opener for a musical," earning $27.5 million over the weekend.

That is a lot of money that people spent at the movies this weekend. What did you see? And how many times?

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:30:29 -0700

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the titles below you can also rent the complete fifth season of Reno 911 as well as the Raven-Symoné comedy (and that's being generous) College Road Trip.

The Bank Job
I wouldn't be surprised if you missed The Bank Job while it was in theaters because it may have been written off as yet another bank heist flick. Now that it's out on DVD I think it deserves your rental/Netflix queue consideration.

Like I said before, it's an entertaining movie that is supposedly based on a true story. It centers around a group of crooks led by Terry Leather (Jason Statham ), who catches wind of a vulnerable vault of safe-deposit boxes. Little does Terry know, however, that the heist will end up having much farther-reaching implications involving several parties with a keen interest in this particular vault. It's not rocket science, sure, but it is a whole lot of fun and smartly directed. I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.

Special features include commentary with director Roger Donaldson, actress Saffron Burrows and composer J. Peter Robinson, and an "Inside The Bank Job" featurette.

Two more fun picks, so

Movie Preview: Towelhead

BuzzSugar — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:31:05 -0700

Towelhead (which also goes by the title Nothing Is Private) was one of the movies on my to-see list at Sundance that kept getting edged down by other movies, partially because of other priorities, though I also worried that it would be really disturbing. Now the film, based on the novel by Alicia Erian, has a theatrical release date of August 8 and a trailer that has only made me more uneasy about watching the movie — though also more curious, too.

The story is of the coming-of-age variety, though this one features a 13-year-old girl (Summer Bishil) whose Caucasian mother (Maria Bello) sends her to live with her Lebanese father (Peter Macdissi) in a small suburban town. She begins to explore her awakening sexuality, spending time with a boy from school (Eugene Jones III) and befriending a neighbor (Aaron Eckhart) whose intentions are far from pure. Her home life with a strict and sometimes abusive father only further drives her curiosity about her identity, her sexuality, her place in the world.

Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under, tries his hand at directing with the movie, and it seems to bear his signature marks of examining the darkest corners of the human soul while offering glimmers of humor and redemption. I'm both interested in and slightly afraid of this film. To check out the trailer,

Movie Preview: Aaron Eckhart, Jessica Alba in Meet Bill

BuzzSugar — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:30:00 -0700

Have you heard anything about this movie? Me neither! I recently stumbled upon the trailer for it and became intrigued, mostly because I have come to adore Aaron Eckhart and would watch him do most anything. The premise for Meet Bill (not to be confused with Eddie Murphy's Meet Dave, mind you, though both these Meet ___ movies star Elizabeth Banks) is also pretty cute: Bill (Eckhart) is your average schmo with a mundane job and, he soon realizes, a cheating wife (Banks). When he mentors a rebellious high school kid, he learns a few things about being proactive. Alba plays a woman enlisted by the kid to help Bill with his love life.

Meet Bill is scheduled to open in limited release this Friday April 4. To check out the trailer and tell me what you think,

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:30:00 -0800

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the titles below you can view the thriller We Own the Night starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg. Also on DVD today is Romance and Cigarettes, a musical that's definitely not for the High School Musical set.

Gone Baby Gone
For his directorial debut, Ben Affleck brings together a talented ensemble cast that includes his brother Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris and Amy Ryan. The film is set in the Affleck brothers' hometown of Boston and is adapted from a novel by the author of another dark Boston tale, Mystic River.

Casey plays Patrick Kenzie, a private detective hired to help bring home a missing 4-year-old girl. In the process, he discovers a complex and disturbing underworld based on the broken dreams of families living in one of the country's toughest neighborhoods.

Relative newcomer Amy Ryan earned herself an Oscar nomination for her portrayal as the little girl's drug addict mother, and our very own Boston native Molly really enjoyed this heart wrenching flick so it's a pretty safe bet for your Netflix queue.

A little depressing? Two more lovey titles are next so

Jennifer Aniston, Aaron Eckhart Traveling Together

BuzzSugar — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:30:00 -0700

These two cast in a movie together, titled Traveling.
Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart will star in Traveling, a drama that will be Brandon Camp's first directorial project. So, maybe this is what Jen and Aaron were discussing when these pictures were taken.

There's no pair of jeans that fits both of them but...
The story follows "a floral designer [Aniston] who works in a Seattle hotel where a charismatic self-help guru is conducting a weekend seminar on coping with grief. As they get to know each other, she factors heavily into the guru's realization that he practices none of the principles he teaches."

Busy, busy Aniston.
Aniston's career is chugging right along these days, as she films He's Just Not That Into You followed by Management, with Steve Zhan. She was planning on doing a film adaptation of the book Marley and Me alongside Owen Wilson, but that project has been put on hold.

Source

No Reservations: A Pleasant Surprise

BuzzSugar — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:30:00 -0700

In No Reservations, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a hard-headed, controlling chef who refuses to let people into her heart. Going into the screening for No Reservations, I felt a little bit like Kate — prematurely wary that this movie would leave me feeling burned, so to speak. To my astonishment, it wormed its way into my heart by the end, gentle and sweet as a raspberry sorbet.

The sentimental drama (which is a remake of the German film Mostly Martha) begins with Kate talking to her therapist — about food. She's been ordered to see a therapist by her boss, the no-nonsense (but exceedingly accommodating with customers) restaurant manager Paula (Patricia Clarkson). As the story unfolds, we sporadically attend therapy along with Kate, who gradually opens up to her therapist. Structuring the story around these visits is a seemingly simplistic device that works exceptionally well to make the audience feel safe and satisfied. This way, there's a definite progression we can make with Kate as she begins to trust her therapist — along with herself. Yet therapy isn't the only aspect to this movie, so

Movie Preview: No Reservations

BuzzSugar — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:36:42 -0700

In No Reservations, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a perfectionistic chef who becomes responsible for her young niece Zoe (Abigail Breslin) after Zoe's mother tragically dies. Meanwhile, a hot new sous chef (Aaron Eckhart) starts to move in on Kate's territory and, I'm assuming, her heart. YumSugar, PartySugar and I are going to see this together this week, so here's hoping we don't end up gagging on the massive amounts of cheese this movie seems to be serving up (i.e. "I wish there was a cookbook for life!"). Check back for my review this Friday July 27 when the movie opens, and in the meantime you can check out the trailer if you

Top 10 Boys of Summer

BuzzSugar — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:55:09 -0700

With this nice new crop of summer movies coming out, we have plenty of opportunities to enjoy our favorite men. I've rounded up my personal "top 10 list," giving props to the men I'm most excited to watch this summer. Who would be on your list?

No. 10: Paul Rudd
Often the bit part player, Rudd adds a little something special to every movie he's in, and while I know he's not a mainstream heartthrob, I totally adore this guy. I mean, is there any girl out there who didn't have a little thing for him, even sporadically, since he was so unconventionally dreamy in Clueless? This summer's super-hyped Knocked Up will be the perfect chance to see him on the big screen again (and again and again -- I have a feeling this may be one of those I see more than once).

To see the others,

Buzz News Roundup, 2/19

BuzzSugar — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:12:24 -0800

In totally awesome radio news, satellite providers XM and Sirius are merging, reports Variety.
Aaron Eckhart will play a villain in the sequel to Batman Begins, writes the Hollywood Reporter.
The Washington Post breaks down a week in the life of an "American Idol" contestant.
Nascar and Harlequin partner for a series of romance novels, says the New York Times.
Pitchfork reports that actress Jena Malone (Donnie Darko) is recording an indie album.
The Associated Press remembers Robert Adler, co-inventor of the remote control.
The creator of "Nip/Tuck" has signed a deal for three more years with FX, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
NME reports that The Jam will reunite — without Paul Weller.
NBC is tinkering with its schedule by putting "Crossing Jordan" on Wednesdays and "Deal or No Deal" on Sundays and moving "The Apprentice" to 9 p.m., reports Zap2it.
Spike TV will start broadcasting competitive eating events, according to the Futon Critic.
On Variety's Oscar buzz front, Children of Men wins the cinematographers' society award and the costume designers chose Curse of the Golden Flower.

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