Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Fri., Dec. 19th:
“Here we go again,” sighs Brendan Fraser’s intrepid adventurer in “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” as he travels to China to battle Jet Li, the scheming tyrant who built the Great Wall and sought immortality.
Don Cheadle stars as a U.S. Special Forces explosives expert in “Traitor,” a top-notch, intelligent espionage thriller that slipped in under the wire without much fanfare; it’s filled with a dramatic sense of ambiguity, reminiscent of “Syriana” and “Babel.”
In “House Bunny” when Anna Faris gets booted from the Playboy Mansion, she teaches clueless Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority girls about makeup and men; in turn, she learns a sense of individuality. It’s a bawdy twist on the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold formula, fused with the dumb-blonde-who-has-smarts.
Documentary filmmaker Nanette Burstein spent 10 months following five high-school seniors in Warsaw, Indiana, to make “American Teen,” focusing on their conflicts about feeling judged, not fitting in and not being good enough.
Mia Goldman’s “Open Window” is an intimate, honest portrayal of what happens to a young woman (Robin Tunney) who has been raped; while that brutal crime has a tragic impact, her road to recovery is inspirational.
The “Columbia Best Picture Collection” boasts 11 Oscar-winning films in one star-studded box, like “It Happened One Night,” “You Can’t Take It With You,” “All the King’s Men,” “From Here to Eternity,” “Bridge on the River Kwai,” “On the Waterfront,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Gandhi,” “Oliver!” and more.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan star in “Mamma Mia!”- the infectiously fun ABBA musical; for those fans who didn’t get their fill of frothy songs, the dvd includes “The Name of the Game,” cut from the film but heard on the soundtrack, along with other deleted scenes and amusing outtakes.