Paradise (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Just about every year some entertainment writer (who's not laid off yet) announces it's the "Year of the Woman" in film or TV because Tina Fey has another magazine cover shot, or something. I always love that: `Year of the Woman.' Notice that it's never Year of the WOMEN. Like, there can be only one at a time. "Move over, Kathryn Bigelow, you're done, crone. This Catherine Hardwicke is the hot new... Oh, get out of here, Catherine Hardwicke, Kristin Wiig is the It Girl right now. Oh, Kristin Wiig, take your wrinkly, menopausal self out of our sight, we like Lena Dunham now." By the time this review runs, some other fresh meat will get Lena Dunham's premium parking space.

Diablo Cody was a hot property with her celebrated script for JUNO, catapulting her to majors, nabbing her a column in Entertainment Weekly, and gaining her a director's chair. But Cody's much-anticipated followup was the teen-horror semi-satire JENNIFER'S BODY...Which wasn't even bad, in my opinion, especially by the gutter standards of most teen-horror. But it was still ungood enough to cost Diablo Cody the Dorothy Parker esteem that the media had briefly bestowed upon her. That and maybe daring to get a year or two older than she used to be. The bitch.

Arthur

Review by Bob Ignizio

I know I saw the original 1981 ARTHUR starring Dudley Moore in the title role around the time it was originally released. I'm also pretty sure I thought it was funny at the time, but I was eleven, so who can say for sure. Such nostalgic memories of my youth tend to be suspect as I recently learned the hard way watching LOVE AT FIRST BITE for the first time in decades. I'll probably ignore this lesson and watch the original ARTHUR again sooner or later, but for now, my poor memory allows me to assess this 2011 remake strictly on its own merits.

Arthur (Russell Brand) is the completely irresponsible and terminally sloshed heir to the Bach family fortune. To what degree he can, he squanders his wealth doing things like buying the Batmobile and giving money to strangers. It's his way of getting back at his mother Vivienne (Geraldine James) for never being a true parent to her son. The closest thing Arthur has to real friends and family are his driver Bitterman (Luis Guzman) and his nanny Hobson (Helen Mirren).