Romantic-comedy spoof is a bad date movie
"Date Movie" (20th Century Fox): Another sign that sometimes anything goes in Hollywood, which managed to eke a minihit out of this lame romance romp. Though boasting "two of the six writers" of the horror spoof "Scary Movie," this parody of romantic comedies musters few laughs as it mimics and mocks such films as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Wedding Crashers" and hurls tired zingers at such pop-culture figures such as Paris Hilton. Alyson ("This one time at band camp") Hannigan of the "American Pie" flicks leads the cast as a young woman looking for love, who should have gone looking in a better movie. The DVD is available in the PG-13 theatrical version or an unrated edition. Extras include 12 deleted and extended scenes.
"Freedomland" (Sony): Hollywood executive Joe Roth ("America's Sweethearts") returned to directing with this misfire. Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore star in the drama about a white woman who claims her young son was abducted in a carjacking. The movie wastes the talents of Jackson and Moore, whose performances are strained and strident, while the film has nothing fresh to say about black-white relations. The DVD contains no extras.
"Platoon" (Sony): Oliver Stone's finest hour came with this unflinching portrait of war's insanity, savagery, camaraderie and rivalry. The 1986 Academy Award winner for best picture and director, the film gets a DVD makeover in a two-disc 20th-anniversary edition whose extras add insights and background from Stone and his cast. Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger lead the troops' dark saga of an idealistic Vietnam volunteer whose tour of duty lands him in an emotional tug of war between two platoon sergeants whose heroism and blackheartedness are two sides of the same coin. New DVD extras include deleted and extended scenes with commentary by Stone, plus documentary segments with interviews by the director and Vietnam veterans. The set also has previously available commentary from Stone and the film's military adviser.
"The Bette Davis Collection: Vol. 2" (Warner Bros.): Two Davis favorites — "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and "Jezebel" — arrive in new DVD editions and three others make their DVD debuts in a seven-disc set. Co-starring Joan Crawford, 1962's "Baby Jane" is the story of a war of wills between two aging sisters — one a former child star, the other an invalid ex-screen celebrity. The film comes in a two-disc set. Four other Davis classics arrive as single DVDs: "Jezebel," which earned Davis an Academy Award as a Southern belle going to extremes to land her fiancé (Henry Fonda); "Marked Woman" (with Humphrey Bogart), about a call girl who testifies against the mob; "The Man Who Came to Dinner," adapted from George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's stage comedy about a pompous critic (Monty Woolley) creating havoc in a Midwestern household; and "Old Acquaintance," about the tempestuous relationship between two writers. DVD extras include commentary and vintage short films and cartoons. The films also are available separately; the boxed set includes a Davis documentary narrated by Susan Sarandon.
TV on DVD"Numb3rs: The Complete First Season" (Paramount): Rob Morrow stars as an FBI agent who enlists his math-whiz brother (David Krumholtz) to solve crimes. Judd Hirsch and Peter MacNicol also star. The four-disc set has the first 13 episodes, along with cast auditions, a couple of featurettes and commentary.
"Poirot: Classic Crimes Collection" (A&E): David Suchet is back as Agatha Christie's dapper Belgian detective Hercule Poirot with a four-disc set packing four feature-length tales: "The Mystery of the Blue Train," "Taken at the Flood," "After the Funeral" and "Cards on the Table."