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New DVD Releases: Race to Witch Mountain, Obsessed, The Soloist

Andrew Payne — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:18:45 +0000

A trio of heavy hitters roll on to DVD this week as Race to Witch Mountain, Obsessed, and The Soloist all make their way onto shelves.

TV on DVD comes up a bit light this week, but we do have what could be the worst DVD of the year so far!

Check out this weeks DVD and Blu-Ray releases…

FEATURE FILMS

Race to Witch Mountain

This was it. The first film that The Rock finally made the full transition from his wrestling moniker to simply Dwayne Johnson.

So who’s next? Ludacris has put the Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges up on the marquee but hasn’t gone the whole way yet. Common and XZibit are sticking to their own names, as did RZA when he provided the funniest role in ‘Funny People’.

None seem ready to change anytime soon. So who will be next?

It’ll probably be P. Diddy. If and when he decides to act again, don’t be surprised to see a Sean Combs roll across the credits. He’s shed his need for his rotating nickname. Of course, having a slightly unusual name helps.

Oh yes, this is a DVD article. Race to Witch Mountain can be had as a two-disc extended edition.

Obsessed

This is a film category that is vastly under-utilized: The chick fight genre.

It’s something that appeals to both genders! Because most such fights are caused by romance, there’s always that sort of twisted love story to draw in the female audience, and a their boyfriends are much happier to go when they know two hot actresses are set to slug it out on set.

Picture this movie: Scarlett Johansson plays a young, innocent student who naively begins an affair with her professor. When his wife (played by Diane Lane) finds out, she starts tormenting the young student.

Eventually, Johansson’s character breaks out her shell and fights back – resulting in a massive chick brawl. That movie would rake in the cash.

In the meantime, you can just enjoy Beyonce and Ali Larter beating each other down when you buy the DVD.

The Soloist

There’s a lot of theories on why this movie bombed. Some think the adult drama is dead, and nothing can save them. Others think the film needed amazing reviews in order to succeed, and failed to receive them.

Here’s another theory. That trailer. They only ever made one. They made one trailer for this movie that seemed attached to every single film released. It was on kid’s movies and horror flicks. Art films and popcorn fare. Every single movie.

What’s worse? The movie got delayed 6 months. But they never got rid of the trailer. It ran for almost a year in front of every single movie.

So why does this result in box office failure? Because by the time the movie actually came out, everybody was already sick of it. They were fed up with a movie they hadn’t seen – therefore, they had no reason to actually see it.

If you managed to avoid the incessant trailer you can buy the DVD.

Also:

Delgo – Learn More – Buy Now
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 – Learn More – Buy Now

TV ON DVD

“Labor Pains”

This seems like it should be a Horrible Straight-to-DVD Release, but this Lindsay Lohan vehicle actually debuted on ABC Family.

If anything, this is a bit of a good thing to see Lohan’s career plummet so drastically. It shows that when big stars misbehave there are repercussions. They simply can’t flit about the Santa Monica Police Department in high speed chases and gallavant in any way they choose and expect to remain relevant.

Of course, this is the station that bought us Jon Voight in “Karate Dog” so maybe her career’s actually on its way up.

Also:

“Flight of the Conchords”: Season 2 – Buy Now
“The Love Boat”: Seasons 1 & 2 – Buy Now
“Project Runway”: Season 5 – Buy Now

Horrible Straight-To-DVD Release of the Week

There is no voting this week, because one movie stands out among all others. It is:

The Chaos Experiment

Val Kilmer makes it back-to-back trips to the HSTDROTW dungeon, and this one is a doozy. He plays an ex-college professor who traps some unwitting victims in a steam room and threatens to gradually increase the heat until they die. Why, you ask? Because he wants the local paper to publish his paper on Global Warming.

There are several problems with this premise. First of all, doesn’t everybody know about global warming already? Is one article really going to make much of a difference?

Second, what good is having an article published in a local paper going to do anyway? So maybe 20,000 people can glaze over the headline before they throw it away? Further contributing to global warming?

Finally, really, a steam room? Did we have to be that on the nose with our method of torture. Oh, I get it. It’s getting hotter in there. Just like the planet!

Wow, this is definitely worthy of some sort of Awful-DVD Hall of Fame Enshrinement.

Race to Witch Mountain Review

Matt Hansen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:00:30 +0000

Think of watching Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain as an exercise in mental stability. Not that it’s overly complicated or hard to understand, in fact it’s quite the opposite. The difficulty here is that the film tries to get away with so many things you finally just have to break down and go along for a 98 minute mundane ride or leave the theater.

Dwayne Johnson plays Jack Bruno, an ex-felon turned Vegas cab driver whose trying to stay on the straight and narrow. Enter two young aliens, (Anna Sophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) who crash land on earth and must recover a secret device that holds the key to the survival of their home planet. Throw in Gary Marshall as a know it all UFO expert, Carla Gugino as Johnson’s love interest, and Ciaran Hinds as the ubber baddy government agent and what we have is a Saturday morning cartoon gone awry.

As you may have already guessed by the plot synopsis, the plot really doesn’t matter. Yes this is a movie made for kids, but even young moviegoers deserve more than what director Andy Fickman has dumped into their laps.

***Spoilers ahead*** For instance, if you are aliens and have the dual ability of mental telepathy and molecular deconstruction, it’s mind boggling that a tranquilizer dart would give you the slightest problem. Also, lets say that you have the Neo like power to stop bullets, why then is an underground secret facility so difficult to escape from? Along with some catchy one liners and slightly interesting car chase/explosion scenes, Witch Mountain has all the excitement of a two day old IHOP pancake platter. Even throwing a lovable canine into the mix couldn’t save this one. Oh look! They did that too.

One can only assume that the tears shed in the films final scenes from all the actors were those of joy. Thankful to be done with such a half-hearted script, they happily went to collect their respective paychecks and went on to bigger and better things. At least, that’s the happy ending I would hope for.

If you have kids and are looking to treat them to some movie magic this weekend, have no fear. Save yourself some cash and watch Disney’s much better film Bolt, which is now on DVD. Or if your looking for some nostalgia, track down the original 1975 Escape to Witch Mountain. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid, but I’m sure it’s a better film.

Box Office War: Watchmen vs Witch Mountain

Krystal Clark — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:15:35 +0000

This weekend we’ll have an epic battle of heroes versus aliens when last week’s box office champ,Watchmen takes on Dwayne Johnson and Race to Witch Mountain. The film is a “reimagining” of the 1975 Disney film Escape to Witch Mountain, which starred Eddie Albert. Zack Snyder’s graphic novel adaptation debuted last Friday with 55 million dollars, which some critics saw as a so-so opening considering Warner Brother’s excessive marketing plan. The film will have to stave off Witch Mountain along with two other wide releases to hold on to it’s number one spot. In the words of Watchmen’s Rorschach, “That’s a tall order.”

This is a hard one to call considering Dwayne Johnson has had a string of number one films in the past few years. For the most part his movies have been rated PG-13, which may be the one thing that will hinder Watchmen’s reign. Since the comic book movie is rated R, it isolates a lot of potential viewers and their money. Yet, on the upside they have IMAX screenings to help them compensate for some of their lost revenue. It currently has 124 runs at the unconventional theater, and has been doing quite well.

Other new openings this weekend include the Wes Craven remake, The Last House on the Left, a gruesome horror pic that’s also rated R. The film is expected to debut in third place, but trackers wouldn’t be surprised if it overperformed. The Fox Atomic comedy Miss March, which stars Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore also hits today, but is a primary target for the college aged crowd.

I predict that Race to Witch Mountain will top the box office, followed by Watchmen, Last House on the Left, and Miss March way, way at the bottom of the list. The reviews for the majority of these films have been either mixed or bad so you never know. Paul Blart or Taken may creep their way back into the top 5!

Who do you think will dominate this week’s box office?

Poster: Race to Witch Mountain

Mali Elfman — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:06:24 +0000

Well, you’ve got a lot going on in this poster. Aliens, psychedelic roads, witches, and The Rock. Although the trailer looks pretty cool, the films as a whole is directed at the pre-teen/early teen market, which makes it hard for me to get too excited. It looks like they’ve made a really expensive episode of “Heroes,” which means it will probably make bank, but won’t be breaking any new ground.

Synopsis: For years, stories have circulated about a secret place in the middle of the Nevada desert, known for unexplained phenomena and strange sightings. It is called Witch Mountain, and when a Las Vegas cab driver (DWAYNE JOHNSON) finds two teens with supernatural powers in his cab, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of an adventure he can’t explain. When they discover that the only chance to save the world lies in unraveling the secrets of Witch Mountain, the race begins, as the government, mobsters and even extraterrestrials try to stop them. RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN is a fun and thrilling adventure featuring incredible special effects.

Release Date: March 13, 2009
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Carla Gugino, Ciaran Hinds, Alexander Ludwig, Tom Everett Scott, Christopher Marquette, Cheech Marin and Garry Marshall
Director: Andy Fickman
Writers: Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback and Andy Fickman
Based on characters created by: Alexander Key

What do you think? Are you excited for the film?

ScreenCrave.com » Race to Witch Mountain

New DVD Releases: Race to Witch Mountain, Obsessed, The Soloist

FEATURE FILMS

Race to Witch Mountain

Obsessed

The Soloist

TV ON DVD

Horrible Straight-To-DVD Release of the Week

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Race to Witch Mountain Review

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Box Office War: Watchmen vs Witch Mountain

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Poster: Race to Witch Mountain

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