Punch Drunk DVDs

The Bounty Hunter
When I first heard about this movie it had me completely snookered. Gerard Butler as a bounty hunter? Awesome! Then I found out Jennifer Aniston was in it and it was immediately clear this one was going into rom-com Hell. Butler is perhaps the most infuriating actor working right now because on one hand he'll do a couple of awesome masculine roles which suit him...then he'll serve up this lollypop right here.







Chloe
Somewhere between Veronica Mars and Big Love, Amanda Seyfried became Hollywood's new "It" girl when an unconventional beauty is needed for a prissy romance or a comedy. Chloe has the actress taking a different path entirely, as a sultry seductress willing to go to any lengths sexually to get what she wants. Surprisingly, she pulls it off even if the film is more of a guilty pleasure than tense drama. Director Atom Egoyan obviously read the notes I sent him and gave us some Seyfried frontcourt and backcourt nudity, plus some hot girl-on-girl with the still beautiful Julianne Moore.






Our Family Wedding
Let's be frank, if you really want to see a smart comedy exploring the commonalities between African-American and caucasian families, go rent Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.  In a talent disparity as wide as the San Andreas Fault, Forrest Whittaker and Carlos Mencia star as two warring fathers who's children are about to tie the knot. You wanna know how bad this is? Guess Who stomps all over this piece of junk.







Greenberg
Shaky nerves and neuroses are things Ben Stiller is perfect at capturing, and he uses this skill to the fullest in the first real indie flick he's starred in for years. He plays Roger Greenberg, a brilliant but mentally broken down guy looking for a fresh start in Los Angeles. Probably not the best idea. At least not until he meets Florence(the awesome Greta Gerwig), another troubled soul looking for an emotional connection. They form an awkward relationship that's equal parts hilarious and painful to watch. While Stiller is good, the scene stealer for me was Gerwig, who I just wanted to jump through the screen and protect.




The Greatest
A movie that blew out of theaters like the wind, The Greatest features a phenomenal cast(Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon, Carey Mulligan, Aaron Johnson) in this Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee. Sarandon and Brosnan play parents who lose their son to an accident. Before they have time to grieve, they're introduced to the girlfriend they never knew he had, and discover that she's pregnant with his child.







Saint John of Las Vegas
Somehow I think this attempt to transplant Dante's Inferno to Albuquerque is trying to skirt by on the strength of its quirky cast alone. Steve Buscemi plays a down on his luck gambler who flees Vegas in search of a normal life. He takes a job as a fraud investigator, but reluctantly must embark on a road trip back to where all his troubles began. On the way he meets a bunch of off-beat characters. This sounds like the kind of movie I generally can't stand, but with Sarah Silverman, Peter Dinklage, John Cho, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Buscemi it's hard to ignore.





Terribly Happy
Emulating the style of the Coen Brothers grittier work is pretty much par for the course nowadays, but perhaps no other film does it quite as well as Terribly Happy. A Dutch comedy/mystery set in the  town of Jutland about a disgraced cop sent there as a form of exile, but finds that small town life can be just as dirty and complicated as the big city.