Audio Video News

DVD: 25th Hour—Buena Vista
Audio: 3
Video: 4
Extras: 3
I'll admit that 25th Hour seemed slow at first. Yet, as it went on, I noticed that, instead of Hollywood's usual mind-numbing blizzard of special effects, this film has something much rarer: a great script. Edward Norton plays Monty, a drug dealer who gets picked up by the cops and sentenced to seven years in prison. The film follows Monty for the 24 hours before he has to go in, raising many interesting questions, the most simple of which is: What do people think about right before they're locked up? Through strikingly realistic dialogue and a refusal to sugarcoat any issue, 25th Hour allows you a fascinating look into the mind of an ex-criminal, ending in a satisfying twist.

DVD: Die Another Day—MGM/UA
Video: 5
Audio: 5
Extras: 5
Forty years, 20 movies, and five Bonds. Technically, Die Another Day is the 22nd Bond film, as MGM/UA doesn't count the unofficial Never Say Never Again and Casino Royale. Die Another Day is one of the best in years, with picturesque locations, great action, and lots of special effects. Unfortunately, the dialogue seems to have been written by a 13-year-old boy. It's heinous and painful. Every line that doesn't directly relate to the plot is a brutally bad sexual innuendo. Not clever, just stupid. The plot is pure Bond, though, as the son of a North Korean general harnesses the sun's power to destroy all of the land mines that separate North and South Korea so that he can take over the country.

DVD: Dark Blue—MGM/UA
Video: 3
Audio: 4
Extras: 3
Director Ron Shelton knows sports movies; so, when corrupt cops gather in the inner sanctum of the Los Angeles Police Department, the scene resembles a Major League clubhouse—or at least a Hollywoodized version of it. The director, known for Bull Durham, Tin Cup and other athletic fare, talks about the similarity between the two cultures in his running commentary that also deals with the Rodney King trial and resulting riots against which Dark Blue's morality tale unfolds.

Norah Jones—Come Away with Me (SACD, Blue Note)
For some reason, I never got around to buying Norah Jones' zillion-selling CD, or maybe I misjudged her talent. Silly me, I thought she was just a hipper Sade. Now that I've lived with the Come Away with Me SACD, though, I'm a believer. I found it impossible to resist Ms. Jones' understated piano and seductive pipes. Her suite of well-crafted originals and cover tunes keeps this disc in heavy rotation in my SACD player.

DVD: The Guru—Universal
Audio: 2
Video: 3
Extras: 2
Are there any excuses for a movie like this? The self-proclaimed romantic comedy The Guru doesn't elicit the faintest smile as it plods through a mediocre storyline that's studded with unentertaining musical sequences. We're forced to sit though the story of Ramu (Jimi Mistry), an Indian guy who dreams of a grand life in the United States buy instead gets stuck working in a restaurant once he arrives. In a desperate attempt at stardom, he takes a job on a porn flick and befriends his costar (Heather Graham), who gives him more than enough sage advice on love and sex. He then turns that advice into a career of his own—a fake sex guru for lonely rich women. Unfortunately, if there's anything entertaining here, I don't see it. They lost me when Ramu stripped to his underwear and did Tom Cruise's Risky Business number in Hindi.

DVD: Animal House: The Double Secret Probation Edition—Universal
Video: 3
Audio: 3
Extras: 4
National Lampoon's Animal House may be a comedy classic that you can watch again and again, but does that also mean you have to buy it again and again? The new Double Secret Probation Edition is the third version of Animal House to hit DVD shelves, and even the gullible girls at Emily Dickinson College wouldn't fall for this scam, would they? There's no denying the greatness of the film itself, but most fans would likely already own the Collector's Edition released in 1998. Is this new version really worth buying Animal House for a second or even a third time? Surprisingly, it is.