Mike Prince

Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 3
The log line “Will Ferrell hears narration” can conjure up a number of scenarios in one’s mind, some glorious, but most misguided and painful. Thankfully, Stranger Than Fiction turns out to be a rather subtle and charming “meta” comedy. Ferrell plays Harold Crick, a straight-laced, borderline-obsessive-compulsive IRS auditor who begins hearing the dulcet tones of narration. This sets in motion a chain of events that covers the broad spectrum of life, death, love, loss, and all creative endeavors, fictional and non.

Video: 3
Audio: 2
Extras: 2
Augusten Burroughs’ memoir Running With Scissors (the memoir that Oprah didn’t put on her book club, then rip the author a new one after learning it was fake) finally makes its way to the screen courtesy of Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy. For those unfamiliar, Burroughs had quite a bizarre upbringing. His mother (wonderfully played by Annette Bening) is a narcissistic, delusional dreamer who thinks her poetry is amazing and that she is someone important. Sadly, she neglects her son (Joseph Cross) to pursue her dreams, leaving him under the care of her eccentric therapist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), and his twisted family (including Jill Clayburgh and Gwyneth Paltrow) in a house packed to the gills with knickknacks, clutter, and junk. To call this boy’s upbringing dysfunctional is an understatement.

Video: 2
Audio: 2
Extras: 3
Ah, the joys of high school: acne, proms, SATs, vengeance. At least that’s what John Tucker Must Die leads me to believe. See, John Tucker is the BMOC, the basketball captain, and a playa with the ladies. Unfortunately, three of John’s ladies (all WB girls, I think) have found out about one another and enlist the help of the new girl, Katie, to enact revenge. Hijinks and female empowerment ensue.

Video: 4
Audio: 3
Extras: 4
Aaron Eckhart owns the screen as tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor in Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking, an acerbic and wickedly funny view of spin control in the modern age. A star-studded cast fills out this comedy, but it’s Eckhart who commands your attention as Naylor tries to soften the image of tobacco in this health-conscious day and age. Whether convincing Hollywood to embrace smoking again, raising his young son, or going up against the U.S. Senate, Eckhart keeps the film together in a delicious performance.