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If you want to experience one of the worst movies ever made, "Gamer" is hard to beat. This $50 million Gerard Butler vehicle was designed to appeal to shut-ins who think with their joysticks and have difficulty with the concept of a coherent narrative. Butler is Kable, a death row inmate who is given a second chance at freedom by agreeing to fight other inmates in a simulated multi-player computer game environment called "Slayers." If Kable can make it to 30 games without being killed, his sentence will be commuted and he can walk.
Kable is doubly motivated to beat the odds in "Slayers" because his wife (Amber Valeta) and daughter are in the clutches of Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall), the game's wealthy and sadistic creator. "Slayers" is televised live around the world, so the audience grows with each installment. Castle intends to hook as many people as possible to Kable's drama so that he can gradually take over the world by controlling the thoughts and actions of his passive viewers. Meanwhile, Kable escapes from his deadly environment and begins a search for Castle and his family. He leaves a trail of blood and sorrow everywhere he goes.
"Gamer" could have provided the writer/director team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the duo behind the "Crank" franchise, an opportunity to say something truly subversive, or at least interesting, about our society's addiction to computer-generated fantasy. Instead, they've made a big, stupid videogame that wastes the considerable talents of actors the caliber of Hall and Kyra Sedgwick. Only Terry Crews playing a hulk of a prison goon seems to be having any fun in this depressingly bad offering of recycled plot points.
Since "Gamer" is a stylistic mess, the DVD extras do a public service by featuring Neveldine and Taylor in interviews explaining their intentions. The problem is that it's hard to care about any aspect of "Gamer" because the overall package is such a fraud. Rent it at your own risk.
-- Tony Norman, Post-Gazette staff writer
Artie Lange's latest stand-up DVD "Jack and Coke" is for Howard Stern fans only. The problem is most Stern fans have heard these bits already.
Lange, a longtime stand-up comedian and actor, has been Stern's radio sidekick since 2001 and taped this gig at New York's Gotham Comedy Club last spring. It's a stinker, filled with tired jokes about 2005's "Brokeback Mountain," smelly New York cab drivers, Rosie O'Donnell and the New York Jets. And drugs. Lots and lots and lots of jokes about drugs.
Drugs are the only thing that makes the 87-minute DVD interesting, although in a painful way -- Stern fans know of Lange's longtime bout with heroin addiction and his current leave from the satellite radio show, which included a reported suicide attempt early this month. That the DVD starts with a joke about Heath Ledger's drug overdose ("I'm glad Heath Ledger died and I'll tell you why") jump-starts the awkwardness, as do his thanks at the end for the family and friends who "saved my life."
• "Whiteout"
Kate Beckinsale is the lone U.S. marshal assigned to Antarctica and investigating the continent's first murder in this adaptation of the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. Cast includes Gabriel Macht and Alex O'Loughlin.• "Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball" : Direct-to-video prequel to the 2007 film stars Tom Berenger.
• "The Keeper": Steven Seagal plays a former L.A. cop trying to solve a kidnapping in New Mexico.
• TV on DVD: "Dallas: The Complete Twelfth Season"; "Defying Gravity: The Complete First Season"; "Fraggle Rock: The Complete Animated Series"; "The Game: The Second Season"; "Girlfriends," final season and complete series; "Jonathan Creek: Season 4"; "Waking the Dead: Season Four"; "Weeds: Season Five."
Extras include interviews with Lange fans before and after the show, some behind-the-scenes banter, outtakes and hecklers, his opening acts and a DVD theme song.
-- Tim McNulty, Post-Gazette staff writer
"Passing Strange" is an acclaimed, Tony Award-winning Broadway musical that most of us have probably never heard of. Shame on us. Director Spike Lee seeks to remedy this gap in our education with a high-energy adaptation of the final performance of this semi-autobiographical rock opera about a middle-class black teenager in 1970s-era Los Angeles named Stew Rodewald, who discovers his gift for rock 'n' roll in the black church.
Stew himself narrates this raucous tale of his musical and personal enlightenment and the twisted path it took him from Southern California to Europe. On stage, Stew is represented by "Youth" (Daniel Breaker), a young man whose experience of sex, drugs and debauchery in Amsterdam and Berlin provides "Passing Strange" with its forward momentum. Breaker and co-stars De'Adre Aziza, Elisa Davis and Coleman Domingo reprise their Broadway roles in this filmed version of their stage musical. The film was a big hit at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, but it never made it to any screens in Pittsburgh.
"Passing Strange: The Movie," like Spike Lee's previous stage documentary "The Kings of Comedy" will introduce a larger audience to a fascinating slice of popular culture still under the radar. Rock operas with all-black casts are about as rare as it gets. The DVD includes a backstage tour of the production and thoughts from cast members. Lee has done us all a favor by documenting this fascinating experiment in music and storytelling.
-- Tony Norman
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