Notable New Releases
30 ROCK: SEASON 2 (Universal) The digs at NBC are toothless and some of the more overly self-reflexive gags stick in the craw, but this is still probably the funniest show on network television. At its best, 30 Rock achieves the wobbly velocity of a live-action cartoon, with Tina Fey as the show’s (and the show within the show’s) mostly sturdy anchor. The second season appropriately peaks with its final episode, featuring Matthew Broderick as a meekly demented FEMA employee dealing with dripping ceilings, a crippling pen shortage and not one but two embarrassing Dubya-approved nicknames: “Cooter Burger? What do you think I am? A cartoon dog? The President named me that.” Extras: “Cooter” table read, deleted scenes, live performance of “Secrets and Lies,” “Tina Fey Hosts Saturday Night Live,” Q & A, cast/crew audio commentaries.
Also This Week:
THE HAPPENING (Fox) No list of the decade’s strangest mainstream films could be complete without mentioning M. Night Shyamalan’s spectacularly maladroit thriller, which posits apocalypse via a conspiracy of trees. Highlights include Mark Wahlberg’s high school science teacher lecturing his students on the inadequacy of science to explain nature’s mysteries (the only instance of intelligent design in the whole movie), a guilt-ridden Zooey Deschanel proclaiming in moment of crisis that “[we] can’t just stand here like uninvolved bystanders!” and an ending in which Shyamalan inexplicably sticks it to France — the last place on Earth where he’s still taken seriously. Oh, and three words: lion cage scene. Extras: featurettes, making-of, deleted scenes (with introductions by Shyamalan), gag reel.
THE SIMPSONS: THE COMPLETE ELEVENTH SEASON (Fox) The decline of the Best. Show. Ever. is undeniable by 1999, but there are still plenty of good episodes, like the one with Mel Gibson (which oddly anticipates Mel’s shift towards gore-porn), the Flanders-as-werewolf Halloween vignette and the frankly awesome “Behind the Laughter” season-ender (“The Simpsons were on a wing and a prayer… but the wing was on fire, and the prayer had been answered… by Satan!”). Extras: commentary tracks, deleted scenes, etc.
YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (2 DISC UNRATED EDITION) (Sony) I think I underrated this one when I reviewed it in the summer: the political commentary may be juvenile (Israelis and Palestinians should just get along and hit the discotheques) and Adam Sandler’s self-satisfaction can seem toxic, but the non-sequitur jokes have got some legs (just try not to laugh at the feline-hackey-sack scene). Extras: multiple featurettes, deleted scenes and alternate takes.
Out Oct 14
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Mongol, War Inc. and the extended cut of
Terrence Malick’s awesome-at-any-length The New World.