Disc Reviews

Back in 2009 comedian Jo Koy had his first comedy central special Don’t Make Him Angry and it made him a comedy star.  I had caught his previous special on comedy central and had seen him do spots on the late night circuit, so I somewhat knew what I was getting into.  I have to say, though, I was more than a little surprised how much he’s improved with time.  Not to say he needed improvement before , but it seems with Lights Out he’s hit his stride and has polished himself, and he simply just knows how to work a room.

He comes onto the stage, and instead of coming out swinging with joke after joke he engages his audience with stories about his Filipino family and life.  A good portion of the show involves the relationship he has with his mother.  Whether she’s warning him about “ruppies” being given out at the bar or not helping him find his keys, Koy is able to find the humor in the story and run with it.  Some of the stories with his mother seem a bit over the top, especially one revolving around her grabbing his penis, but it is impossible not to laugh at the horror and awkwardness of the story.

Miramax and Lionsgate have released two film collections starring American actresses who from time to time talk with British accents, Gwyneth Paltrow and Renee Zellweger. Lionsgate is flying high now with the gigantic success of The Hunger Games shooting its stock price through the roof. It’s time to visit the vault and relive some past successes. Renee Zellweger is one of those actresses that is hard to pin down. She seems award-ready coming out of the gate making a great splash in the movie Jerry Maguire. She had already starred in some low-budget films including Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation with college buddy Matthew McConeghy.  I mean you can’t get any more low-rent than that and films like Love and a .45. Then she could move to exquisite character pieces like The Whole Wide World and A Price Above Rubies, and she didn’t seem out of place in either milieu. I think she carries that quality throughout her career. She has an ordinary and real quality. Her career seems peppered with variety.

The films in this collection are Bridget Jones’s Diary, Chicago, Cold Mountain, and New In Town.

Miramax and Lionsgate have released film collections starring American actresses who from time to time talk with British accents, Gwyneth Paltrow and Renee Zellweger. Lionsgate is flying high now with the gigantic success of The Hunger Games shooting its stock price through the roof. It’s time to visit the vault and relive some past successes.

Gwyneth Paltrow had a big early rise to the top and was the golden girl for quite a while, basking in the glory of being Brad Pitts fianceé. It’s been a long time since those days, and now she is spending much of her time being a mom to Chris (Coldplay) Martin’s kids. She also has been doing more and more singing in movies like Country Strong and the TV show Glee. She has even been doing cooking shows with Mario Batali  (though there is some controversy about a cookbook she has written).

To just look at the cover of this DVD you would expect this would be your average run-of-the-mill talking animal kids’ film.  Instead Animals United comes off as a call to arms for children to save the planet before it is too late.  I could say how this movie suffers from having a weak script filled with the same characters we’ve seen from dozens of children’s films before, but that would just be too easy.  Instead I want to praise this film, for while it lacked originality I appreciate the boldness of the message they are trying to send.

The film introduces us to several animals spread out across the globe and how their environment is simply being destroyed around them.  There is a polar bear that falls through the ice as the ice shelves crumble around him.  A pair of turtles need to flee their home after a tanker crashes spilling oil onto the shores of their island.  A kangaroo and Tasmanian devil barely escape a brush fire started from a biker’s disregard for his trash.   The main focus of the story revolves around a family of meerkats in desperate need of water after all the water in the savannah has seemed to have dried up.  We meet them all in the opening minutes of the film, and already I was depressed and felt the need to recycle more.