Susan’s DVD UPDATE for week of Friday, Feb. 12th:
Written by the late Adrienne Shelly and directed by Cheryl Hines, “Serious Moonlight” stars Meg Ryan as a high-powered Manhattan lawyer who is touched when she arrives unexpectedly at her upstate weekend house and finds her husband (Timothy Hutton) has strewn it with rose petals. Problem is: he’s laid out the spread for his much younger girlfriend (Kristen Bell) with whom he was planning a secret getaway.
Some books translate well onto the screen. “The Time Traveler’s Wife” doesn’t. This bizarre, often illogical and inconsistent, supernatural romance pairs an elusive librarian (Eric Bana) with an artist (Rachel McAdams) as he involuntarily moves backwards and forwards in time, incidentally losing all of his clothes en route.
Timely but tedious, the romantic comedy “I Hate Valentine’s Day” teams Nia Vardalos (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) once again with John Corbett as two Brooklynites navigating a tricky relationship.
“The Stepfather” is a remake that shouldn’t have been made. Back in 1987, long before he was stranded on the mysterious island in TV’s “Lost,” Terry O’Quinn delivered a memorably terrifying performance as a seemingly nice man who is really a psychopathic killer. In this updated version, Dylan Walsh takes over the villainous role and he lacks the necessary intensity to tap into identifiable fears about a parent’s remarriage.
For preschoolers, “Elmo’s World: Let’s Play” finds everyone’s favorite little red monster joined by his friends to learn about music; “Colors are Fun!” paints a palette of stories featuring Barney, Thomas & Friends, Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam and more; and “LeapFrog: Math Adventures to the Moon” takes preschoolers and their parents on an entertaining, educational trip into outer space.
PICK OF THE WEEK: With “A Serious Man,” filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have crafted a philosophical meditation about their insular, suburban Midwestern upbringing during the late 1960s with a historical prologue involving a Yiddish-speaking husband and wife in a Polish shtetl visited by someone who may or may not be a Dybbuk. Filled with edgy, alienating angst, it revolves around the theme of cosmic injustice.