DVDs In Brief: October 14, 2009

The Proposal

by The A.V. Club Staff October 14, 2009

Is nothing sacred? It seems like only yesterday—if yesterday was, say, 20 years ago—that the Andie MacDowell/Gérard Depardieu rom-com Green Card walked off with America’s heart, and now the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Proposal (Buena Vista) has come along to steal its “immigrant marries to stay in the country but improbably falls in love” premise. For this sly piece of counter-programming, summer audiences rewarded Bullock and co-star Ryan Reynolds with a sleeper hit. But we will never forget you, Green Card!…

Following the bellicose third entry in his Spider-Man franchise, Sam Raimi’s horror-comedy Drag Me To Hell (Universal) proved the perfect revitalizing tonic, a giddy throwback to the Evil Dead movies that launched his career. Raimi’s tale of supernatural hokum aims for nothing more or less than to pummel the audience with cheap shocks and outrageous comedy, and he succeeds beyond all reasonable expectation…

Not even the comedy pairing of Will Ferrell and Danny McBride could save the dire Land Of The Lost (Universal), which adapts the Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday-morning staple so faithfully that it underlines the dubious value of fidelity. The film never stops trying to be funny once it crosses over into special-effects hell, but Ferrell and McBride lazily fall back on past triumphs: The former riffs with Ron Burgundy-like bluster, while the latter does his angry-redneck routine…

There are many layers of meta to Every Little Step (Sony), a middling documentary about fresh-faced up-and-comers auditioning for a part in A Chorus Line, the famed musical about fresh-faced up-and-comers auditioning for a Broadway show. The individual stories are as thinly evoked as a Fame subplot, but its documentary veracity at least makes it a significant improvement on the Hollywood treatment from the ’80s…

The earnest TV-movie-like American Violet (Samuel Goldwyn) is guilty of putting the message before the medium, but the message remains powerful. The false arrest and incarceration of a poor single black mother in Texas on drug charges inspires an exposé of a system where innocents are forced to accept plea bargains and help local police and justice officials who get government money for juking the stats. Fine performances by Tim Blake Nelson and Alfre Woodard drive the point home, but there’s nothing subtle about it.