DVD Review

Stateside (R)

Mark Deloach (Jonathan Tucker) lived a charmed life of privilege until he seriously injured a priest and a friend driving while intoxicated. Deloach was shipped off by his father (Joe Mantegna) to join the Marines in an attempt to avoid prosecution where his drill sergeant (Val Kilmer) desperately tries to weed him out. Meanwhile, the incident has brought out all sorts of issues for his toothless friend Sue(Agnes Bruckner). She soon finds herself in a psychiatric hospital with a schizophrenic roommate named Dori Lawrence (Rachael Leigh Cook), a musician and actress of some note. She quickly falls in love with the Marine but between her mental illness and his pending deployment overseas, their love appears star-crossed to say the least. This story takes some time to develop, certain things don't really make much sense along the way, and towards the end you have to wonder why Deloach just doesn't sock one to Dori's group leader. (She's a really nasty character.) The movie drags in certain places and, frankly, it isn't very entertaining. CATV

Raising Helen (PG-13)

Cute is as cute does. Kate Hudson's comedic chops can't help but remind us of her mother's (Goldie Hawn) turn on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In. Hudson also possesses the same depth and breadth that help Hawn's career span decades. Garry Marshall, the director, makes the most of the material here by spinning a palpable tale into a something mildly endearing. The fact that this simplistic movie amuses is a testament to Marshall's innate ability both as a storyteller and comedian. While Raising Helen remains predictable throughout, Hudson and the kids (Spencer & Abigail Breslin and Hayden Panettiere) keep us entertained. The end result was more delightful than I anticipated but still short of something original. RENTAL

The Day After Tomorrow(PG-13)

Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal camp it up in this preachy little cautionary tale replete with exaggerated calamity and outlandish cataclysm. This is pretty standard stuff, really; a typical disaster flick all the way. I was really getting perturbed by all the political jabs--a President that does nothing but resembles George W. Bush and a Vice President who strongly favors Dick Cheney and supposedly runs the country long before the President's motorcade gets frozen in ice (which we never get to see, by the way.) As if the global warming issue isn't political enough. There were times in this film where I felt like I'd been gagged and bound to a tree by some obscure leftist faction in the hopes that some stereotypically vicious, ferociously sadistic, money-hording conservative, Bush-voting logger from Hades wouldn't lower an axe to my pleasantly-plump trunk. I don't like my films to be so political and I didn't like much about this film at all. But... The effects are REALLY cool. So I watched it twice. RENTAL