Green Day DVD!
Green Day:
Bullet In A Bible
Reprise Records
O.K., raise your hand if a couple of wholesale jerseys years ago you thought that Green Day were dead and buried. Perhaps you thought that they were a band that would never be able to match the success of the billion-selling Dookie, and whose lasting impression on the world would be “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life),” destined to be the theme of every prom from here to Schenectady. Yeah, me too.
Now keep them raised if you felt like an absolute moron for that carton kind of thinking when you heard American Idiot, last year’s bombshell the band dropped on an unsuspecting public. Yeah, me too.
Easily the best and most mature album Green Day have produced, American Idiot found the band all grown up, and not liking the world they see.
As with many bands following up a major release, a live album is put out as a stop-gap between actual new material. Usually, CDs with an extra DVD aren’t given much heed in this column, and from the set’s packaging you’d think that’s exactly what it was. But Bullet In A Bible is no mere place holder. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The film runs almost two hours, and it could hold its own as a big screen release. It shows the band riding their greatest success to date, playing to an adoring crowd, and not taking a minute of it for granted. In other words, it’s the film Rattle And Hum should have been. Shot over two nights in London, the band came ready to roll and in top form.
A great aspect of the film is that although the concert set is broken up with interviews and random bits of Green-foolery, the songs themselves aren’t cut into. Nothing is more annoying than a director barging into a great live moment to have the drummer talk about his cats or whatever.
There’s only one special feature — a photo gallery — but with all that is included in the main feature, you don’t need anything else.
Film: ****
DVD Features: **
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
20th Century Fox
I have to go ahead and say it, although it might offend some people and get the political correctness police on my tail: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are mutant freaks of nature. Either that, or they’re from some place else.
Seriously.
No two people can look that good in any situation without some form of genetic engineering or experimentation. You wouldn’t mind so much if they had no talent, but the fact is they both have proven to be quite good at what they do.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith finds them as a married couple who both happen to be assassins without the other’s knowledge. When their respective employers send them out on the same hit, they find themselves targeting each other. Explosions, car chases, and mayhem ensue. It really is that simple.
The film is directed by Doug Liman, whose previous work includes The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy, so he knows his way around an intelligent action flick. While this one falls short of the two Bourne films, the crispness of the dialog sets it above standard action fare, and Vince Vaughn‘s few scenes all but steal the whole thing.
The disc features commentary by Liman and a host of technical crew, but no cast members, a making of a scene feature, and three useless deleted scenes.
If you’re applying some sort of litmus test to the logic of the film, or paying attention to just how large the plot holes are, Smith doesn’t really pass muster. However, it is a good flick to turn off the brain, let the action happen, and try to figure wholesale MLB jerseys out what planet the two leads are actually from.
Film: ***
DVD Features: **
Also Available . . .
THE WHITE SOX ARE WORLD CHAMPS! I’ve been waiting a while to write that. So now that it has come to pass, you want to get every scrap of memorabilia, and you think that you just might have succeeded. Well here’s one last thing you could be tempted to pick up: Journey: Live In Houston 1981 Mice Escape Tour (Columbia). Now you may be a December little sick of “Don’t Stop Believin’” after the last couple of months (especially after awkward cheap NFL jerseys karaoke versions with professional athletes,) but Live In Houston comes from a different time — you know, a time when Steve Perry was actually with the band. Granted, it’s a bit of a stretch to fill out your World Series collection with this, but if you can’t get enough of arena rock theatrics and extended solos from every member of the band, then this set is for you.
— post Timothy Hiatt
