The scenes from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” which didn’t make the final cut certainly deserved their fate.
It’s one of the lessons gleaned from the extras-laden DVD package of the hit spring comedy.
“Marshall,” the best of the recent films from the Judd Apatow assembly line, actually improves on second viewing.
The supporting players register better, and you can marvel anew at both Russell Brand’s take on the addled rock archetype as well as Jason Segel’s terrific lead performance.
As for the extras, well it’s a case of sifting through the clutter to find the gold.
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Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Two buds flat out broke
Lights, camera, nudity
Rom-com makeover
Changeling
Jolie loses kid
Dirty cops try bait and switch
Clint fumbles true yarn
RocknRolla
Cockney crime caper
Ritchie’s double crosses rule
Third “Smoking Barrel”
(Photo: Thandie Newton slinks her way through the new Guy Ritchie film “RocknRolla.”)
Gotta hand it to Guy Ritchie of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” fame. What other writer/director can forge an entire career without creating one reasonable facsimile of a character?
Don’t get me wrong. Ritchie’s films are chock full of Characters, no doubt.
But they never come anywhere close to resembling real people. They’re just a collection of tics and poses who just so happen to look like famous actors.
Ritchie is at it again in “RocknRolla,” his latest Cockney crime caper.
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Writer/director Kevin Smith must be just as fed up with modern romantic comedies as the rest of us.
So he implodes the formula with his latest raunch-fest, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”
The results aren’t pretty.
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Did you kill my son?”
“That’s not my child!!”
“What did you do to my boy??”
Sound like a fun way to pass two laborious hours? Then step right up and see “Changeling,” Clint Eastwood’s mopey melodrama that bungles an amazing true story.
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The Stephen King thriller “1408″ earned its sleeper status the easy way - the film’s title is about as uninspring as any horror film could have.
Look past the generic name and you’ll find a surprisingly taut thriller with a star-affirming turn by John Cusack.
The actor plays a cynical author who writes about haunted hotels. He doesn’t believe a word of what he writes, but it’s a living.
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How’s this for a lousy horror movie pitch?
We’re gonna remake a hokey ’50s movie whose only claim to fame is it launched the career of a young Steve McQueen. And to top it off, we have no stars and we kill off the apparent hero in the first 15 minutes.
No wonder the public yawned when 1988’s “The Blog” hit theaters.
Yet “The Blob” defied the odds to become one of the decades best horror sleepers.
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Before “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan busied himself by giving Al Pacino the best role of his golden years.
“Insomnia” casts Pacino as - yawn - another cop, but this time he’s chasing a killer across verdant Alaskan grounds, not the Big Apple.
Pacino plays Will Dormer, an L.A. detective invited to the 49th state on behalf of an old police pal (Paul Dooley).
A local teen was beaten, killed and left on a garbage dump, and it’s up to Dormer, a fellow LA cop (Martin Donovan) and local officer (Hilary Swank) to find the killer.
The chase leads the officers to the girl’s unsavory group of friends as well as a novelist (Robin Williams) who may be connected to the crime.
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I confess. I’ve got a soft spot for horror comedies.
So here’s my tribute to “Slither,” the best intentionally goofy horror film since “Tremors.” And very few folks paid to see it during its 2006 release.
“Slither” falls squarely in the “an asteroid fell to earth and carried with it something really nasty” genre.
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If you only take one of my sleeper recommendations to heart, make it “The Descent.”
I’ve been tirelessly cheerleading for this movie since it came out three years ago. Good horror demands fan support, or we deserve every mindless slasher film and horror remake we get.
“The Descent” follows a group of six athletic women who decide to check out a local cave. The spelunking trip takes a nasty turn when they realize the cave they expected to explore isn’t the one they find themselves in.
And much, much worse, they’re not alone.
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