Movie Reviews

Think being married today is complicated? Try getting hitched in the late 1940s, an era when divorce was simply not what respectable people considered unless under dire circumstances.

The new period drama “Married Life,” now out on DVD, takes that conceit and runs with it rather brilliantly.

Chris Cooper plays Harry, a married man who falls hard for a pretty widow (Rachel McAdams). But how can he marry her without crushing his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson) to whom regular sex is the last remaining vestige of their bond?

Harry decides to kill her - to spare her the pain and humiliation of divorce. What a guy.

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The Lonely Guy” served as a minor family favorite for years, like an inside joke we’d chuckle over while perusing the local video store’s collection. My Dad, never an easy sell with movies, clung to the film’s shtick for years.

Guess I shouldn’t have rescued it from Ross’ discount DVD bin last week.

Steve Martin stars as Larry Hubbard, a greeting card scribe who discovers his girlfriend is sleeping around with every male in their zip code. So he’s suddenly alone, and when he meets a fellow bachelor (Charles Grodin sans artificial turf) he realizes he’s become a Lonely Guy.

You know the type. Desperately single. Talks to plants. Eats dinners by himself in fancy restaurants.

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Seann William Scott used to be Stifler, the ultimate arrested development type who lorded over the “American Pie” franchise.

But in “The Promotion,” out Sept. 2 on DVD, he’s a married man trying to earn enough money to buy his wife their dream house.

Everyone has to grow up, even on screen.

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It’s getting easier and easier to brush off the allegations made in partisan documentaries.

Docs today say some of the craziest things. But “Stealing America: Vote by Vote” got under my skin a bit.

My review at Pajamas Media shares that ambivalence. The film does all it can to insist multiple elections were either stolen or tampered with in significant ways. Some of its tactics are far from convincing, and the film should have done more reporting on several key issues. That doesn’t distract from the number of sources featured in the film who can’t be summarily dismissed.

At the least, it describes an electronic voting process fraught with potential errors, and that’s something people on both sides of the aisle should notice.

The new thriller “Traitor” actually actually acknowledges the terrorist threat facing not just our nation but the world.

It’s ’bout time.

That’s where the good news concerning the new Don Cheadle feature ends.

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The Best Friend character is crucial to any self-respecting rom-com. He/she is the guy/gal our leads need to figure out they’re really in love.

In “What Happens in Vegas,” now out on DVD, the Best Friends do something more - they save the movie from disaster.

“Vegas” stars Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz as a couple who meet, get drunk and find themselves hitched after one bleary-eyed night in Sin City. Before they agree to an annulment, they hit the jackpot - $3 million bucks courtesy of a slot machine.

But when they try to get legally split, a persnickety judge (Dennis Miller) forces them to live as man and wife for six months. Why? Because the judge is sick of these quickie marriages, and a film like this needs an extra layer of gimmickry to exist.

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Who wasn’t eager to embrace Edward Burns when he first burst on the movie scene with “The Brothers McMullen?”

The 1995 film announced Long Island’s answer to Woody Allen - except with better hair. But Burns has yet to match the magic of that indie charmer. His subsequent films attracted some pretty big names, but each movie he wrote and directed seemed inferior to his maiden effort.

Now he’s given us “Purple Violets,” which had the indignity, or the prescience, to debut exclusively on iTunes last year rather than hitting movie theaters. My Donne Tempo review shows the film didn’t deserve a direct-to-DVD fate, but it’s clearly not a return to the writer/director’s earliest form.

(Photo: Selma Blair and Patrick Wilson renew their courtship in the new DVD release “Purple Violets”)

Leave it to the zany minds behind “South Park” to create a fair and balanced assault against the War on Terror.

“Team America: World Police” still stands as the only comedy to mock jingoistic country crooners AND self-important actors. And Trey Parker and Matt Stone do it all via marionettes, a form of puppetry which makes the Muppets look like a CGI effect.

Parker and Stone clearly know their movies. “Team America” mocks with love, even if the boys can’t resist injecting their story with potty-mouth metaphors.

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Wanna see cars blow up real good? How ’bout Oscar nominee Joan Allen slinking around as a prison warden with a heart that wishes it was made of something as warm as steel? Or a shirtless Jason Statham bullying his way across the screen as if it owed him a million-dollar debt?

Then step right up to “Death Race,” a cheese-o-rama that wears its Velveeta with pride.

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