It’s frustrating to watch Disney’s increasingly mercenary tactics for wringing money out of its dutiful audience, which is already expressing outrage over the way Up (Buena Vista) is being released: The latest CGI film from hit factory Pixar (Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, etc.) is available on DVD in a standard-issue $20 disc or deluxe two-disc $30 edition (the extra $10 mostly gets you a digital copy to download onto portable media), but Blu-ray fans will have to cough up a whopping $45 for a four-disc edition. (Weirdly, one of those discs is just the film again, but on DVD.) With the holiday season approaching, Disney has to know that a lot of people will grumble but shell out: Up will no doubt be a highly sought-after Christmas present. The latest from Monsters, Inc. co-director Pete Docter and Nemo co-director Bob Peterson starts out with a heartbreaking character sketch as nuanced and sensitive as anything Pixar has ever done, then heads off into a crazy, unpredictable adventure. It’s a must-see, and even at $45, for a lot of people it’ll be a must-have…
Katherine Heigl plays an uptight TV producer who can’t find love. Gerard Butler plays a womanizing alpha-male who brings his barbaric advice segment to her local news show. They hate each other… or do they? The Ugly Truth (Sony) has the unsurprising answer to that question, along with a vibrating-panties gag that blatantly rips off When Harry Met Sally, and takes around two reels to set up…
Far better than its reputation and box-office performance might suggest—while also being a few stops short of good—Spread (Starz/Anchor Bay) is a rare tribute to/examination of male beauty, starring Ashton Kutcher as a professional cad who’s somewhere between Warren Beatty in Shampoo and a Bret Easton Ellis character. It’s the perfect role for Kutcher, who struts like a vainglorious peacock through the bedrooms of Los Angeles’ lonelyhearts, and David Mackenzie (Young Adam) directs with admirable explicitness. But once love comes into the picture, the film softens into pudding.