NEWSThe PhilmGuy's DVD Review: 'The Lincoln Lawyer'; 'Rango'
Jul. 12 2011, Published 10:20 a.m. ET
The Lincoln Lawyer – Matthew McConaughey stars as a constantly-in-motion lawyer who does the police department's work for it, spending much of his time working in his car while his driver takes him from one death-defying investigation to the next. His client and nemesis, played by Ryan Phillippe, is a duplicitous playboy charged with murder. The potboiler drama works on the level of a TNT legal drama. The Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy combo includes three featurettes and deleted scenes.
Brother's Justice – C-list star Dax Shepard makes a faux-documentary about his tongue-in-cheek efforts to reinvent himself as a martial arts star in the vein of Chuck Norris. He pitches a ludicrously awful project to his Hollywood pals, including Ashton Kutcher, Jon Favreau, Bradley Cooper and Tom Arnold, and stays determined to succeed despite few signs of possible success. The Blu-ray/DVD combo includes deleted scenes and interviews with Shepard and Cooper.
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Entourage: Season 7 – HBO's latest season of its feel-good dramedy about a band of friends making their way in Hollywood starts off with a few clunkers before hitting its stride. Severe schisms develop in the group as its core, the full-of-himself, drug-addled movie star, Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) spins out of control. This is the second season of the series available on Blu-ray, so here's hoping HBO can do the same for seasons one through five. Cast and crew interviews, as well as a featurette about guest star Sasha Grey highlight the extras.
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Robot Chicken Star Wars III – The riotous Adult Swim series, which satirizes pop culture with crude stop-motion and silly voiceovers, goes to the Star Wars well for the third time and finds ample room to mock George Lucas' cinematic phenomenon, with Seth Green, Seth McFarlane, Rachael Leigh Cook and Zac Efron lending their voice talents. If you're looking for insight on the sexual hangups of characters, this is your film. Featurettes, deleted scenes, cast interviews, commentaries and inside looks at the animation process fill out an impressive slate of extras.
Thundercats: Season 1, Part 1 – Lion-O and his abnormally muscular crew of anthropomorphic feline space warriors once again leap to DVD, in what appears to be a re-issue of the 2005 set. Twelve episodes are included in the two discs -- a decent amount of content, but it's disappointing that the six years that have passed since the last DVD release haven't yielded any remarkable extra features.
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Yo Gabba Gabba: Party in a Box – Three four-disc episodes of the nonsensical yet arresting toddler-aimed show come in a box set, with Elijah Wood, Erykah Badu and The Ting Tings among the celebrity guest stars. My lone complaint is with the packaging. There's no reason this little content needs to be spread across three separate boxes. You'd think they could cram the episodes onto two or three discs in one regular-sized case.
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Rango – Due out Friday, this eclectic animated film has to be considered the early front-runner for the best animated film Oscar. Johnny Depp stars as a pet chameleon who longs to be a heroic adventurer. He gets his chance when he stumbles into a dusty town that cowers under water-hording authorities. Inventive visuals and a zany narrative keep things interesting. The Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy combo includes filmmaker commentary, making-of featurettes, deleted scenes and a look at the real-life animals made into characters in the film.
