DVD releases April 14th ON REVIEW

The Spirit - D (Don't Bother)

The Spirit is a disaster of a movie from start to finish. Even though it stars great actors such as Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes and Scarlet Johansson, the acting is absolutely terrible. The writing and direction were both quite terrible. Where director Frank Miller succeeded with Sin City in being a very stylish adaptation of a graphic novel, The Spirit lost much of its promise when it was edited to be only a PG-13 rating. The freedom of having an R rating would have done wonders for this movie as nothing went right. Even the comic relief characters were so irritating (Jar-Jar Binks anyone?) that you were just hoping they’d be killed off in every scene. I say definitely skip this and rent either Sin City or the other fantastic graphic novel adaptation 300.

The Reader - A- (Gotta Rent)

The Reader is another example of Kate Winslet proving that she is the best actress of this generation. Although I thought her performance in Revolutionary Road was better, she still won the Academy Award for Best Actress in this great role about a teenager having an affair with her in post-Nazi Germany. Based off the novel by Bernhard Schlink, the relationship between Winslet and newcomer David Kross is very believable (despite there being a 15 year age difference in real-life) and real. Although there have been many holocaust movies before this, it provides some new insight into the historic atrocity.