How to Spend $20

By Eric Hughes

May 27, 2008

Who needs the Shoney's Breakfast Bar?

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For people who agree with John Cusack that the Bush administration is "depressing, corrupt, unlawful, and tragically absurd" (yep, he said that): Grace Is Gone

John Cusack disagrees with the Pentagon's policy - and the Bush administration's enforcement of it - that bans media coverage of America's war dead returning to U.S. soil. So what does he do? He stars in a film that shows what happens when the coffins hit close to home. In Grace is Gone, Cusack plays a man who delays telling his children that his wife (and their mother) was killed in service in Iraq.

This is one of those films that I just never got around to seeing. And the rest of America is surely with me on this one, too. The John Cusack-starer earned a paltry $50,000 at the domestic box office, and never reached more than a handful of theaters in its brief run that began at the tail end of 2007. Weinstein Company even shelved Grace is Gone, winner of the Audience Award for Drama at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, in the incubator for a few months in hopes of landing possible Oscar nominations. Turns out it didn't matter in the end. At all. Either way, the film may finally get its due on DVD.

Disc includes: A conversation on Grace, inspiration for "Grace is Gone," profile of TAPS (a Tragedy Assistance Program), theatrical trailer.




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For people who actually enjoy the late '90s Eddie Murphy: The Eddie Murphy Comedy Collection (Set)
What has two thumbs and misses the Eddie Murphy who was on the top of his game about ten or so years ago? This guy. (The visual, unfortunately, is rather essential in the telling of that joke). But it's not me who should be laying down the funny, but in fact Eddie, who hasn't really been in anything lately. (Well, unless you're counting The Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care or The Adventures of Pluto Nash - because I'm not). Instead, the average consumer ought to check out a new collection of Eddie Murphy comedy, which puts together the best of late '90s Eddie, who I even prefer to the late '80s Beverly Hills Cop/Coming to America/post-SNL Eddie that others may argue was, in fact, his prime. In this collection, you get both Nutty Professor movies, Life and my personal favorite, Bowfinger, about a desperate film producer (Steve Martin) who secretly films a major movie star (Murphy) in his picture. Once this whole Shrek thing passes over - are they seriously making a fourth? - maybe, just maybe, Eddie will pick up a good comedy script and return to form.

Disc includes: Bare bones.

For people who think TV remakes typically lead to disaster: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

The classic story of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (originally an 1886 novella by Robert Louis Stevenson titled Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde) is one of those rare stories that is not only retold again and again, but also allows each generation to claim its very own adaptation of the story, given the countless remakes Stevenson's tale has undergone. The original features a physician who becomes the devil after drinking a mysterious potion, possibly a stand in for prohibition. A later remake, released around the time evolution was being debated in court, shows Mr. Hyde looking more "monkey-like" in his appearance each time he takes a swig of the drink. Other adaptations star the comedy team of Abbott and Costello (1953's Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) or a man who transforms himself into a woman (1995's Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde). But the remake that brings basically nothing new to the table is this one, a U.K. import that doesn't even try on a brand new cutesy title like the movies before it. Shameful.

Disc includes: Bare bones.


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