new on DVD: ‘The Astronaut Farmer,’ ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’ ‘Georgia Rule’
See it:
• The Astronaut Farmer [buy it]. From my review:
To say that they don’t make movies like this anymore -- splendidly, quietly angry in a folksy, old-fashioned kind of way -- is to prove its point, that we seem to have lost something in the American spirit in our era of overlording corporatism and stifling groupthink. Over at Film.com, I called this “The Right Stuff meets Field of Dreams,” and that’s not an unfair characterization, but really, the film The Astronaut Farmer is most like is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, full of fire in its belly for the injustice of the basic qualities of independence and integrity and ingenuity that have been so misplaced that we’ve even forgotten we’ve misplaced then.
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Seasons 1 & 2 [buy it]. Man, this is some wickedly funny stuff, a biting sendup of casual middlebrow bigotry that pulls no punches and doesn’t dare ask you to feel sorry for its protagonists -- don’t call them “heroes” -- when they get everything they deserve.
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Skip it:
• Georgia Rule [buy it]. From my review:
Well, I thought director Garry Marshall, Enemy of Women, couldn’t sink any lower, but here we are. From the man who brought us the beloved fairy tale about the world’s most spritely hooker (Pretty Woman), the beloved fairy tale about an adorable overgrown lass who treats men like disposable Kleenex (Runaway Bride), and the series of beloved fairy tales about how a woman’s job is subsume her personality and independence for the good of everyone else (the Princess Diaries movies) comes the first goofy, glossy Hollywood comedy about child sexual abuse.
