So I’m learning that in the summer the DVD industry goes through the same dead zone that the box office goes through during the first 3 months of the year. If I had brought my impressive brain skills to bear I could have figured that out quite a while ago (B.O. Burial Ground + 4 Months = DVD Burial Ground), but my grey matter has been busy, you know, solving world peace and whatnot. Things looks up briefly next week with In Bruges and Persepolis, but until then you’re stuck with Matthew McConougheyhey (or however you spell his name) and Martin Lawrence. Joys.

Be Kind Rewind -
Ok, so it’s not all bad. Jack Black and Mos Def in a Michel Gondry film? In any other universe it would be pure bliss, but in our plain-jane Milky Way it’s an average affair that never quite lives up to its stellar promise. Which is sad because I idolize Gondry. If you haven’t seen it, you need to immediately go out and purchase his music video collection from PALM. I have it sitting next to me on my desk and I watch it incessantly. As a filmmaker myself, I can honestly say that no other working director has influenced my style as much as Gondry has. His gift for cinematic illusion is unparalleled and I still can’t figure out how he created a few of his videos, even after having watched them dozens of times. Oh, yeah, the film in question. Black plays a magnetized video store clerk that inadvertently erases every tape in the store, forcing him and his co-clerk Def to reenact classic works (such as Ghostbusters and Driving Miss Daisy) by themselves. Hijinks ensue.

Recommended if you worship the ground Michel Gondry walks on. If you don’t, you should. Immediately. As in now. As in stop drooling on your keyboard and get his music video collection.

Caramel
This is my #2 pick for the week, simply because of the generous critical reception it received. A Lebanese female ensemble comedy about a beauty parlor doesn’t exactly hit me smack dab in the demographic, if you know what I mean, but I’m nothing if not open-minded. For those of you going through *cough* Sex and the City *cough* withdrawals this might do the trick, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Nothing. At. All.

Recommended if you liked Steel Magnolias, wished Sex and the City had been more ethnic, or have an unhealthy obsession with candied apples.

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Fool’s Gold -
Luke and I see eye to eye most of the time. Name any significant picture of last year and we’ll rate it comparably. When it comes to guilty pleasure flicks, however, we could not be more different. I like ludicrous explosions and body counts. Luke likes cheeseball comedy and contrived romance. I guarantee I would rather gut myself with a spork than sit through this entire film. Luke, however, granted it 4 stars, a not-too-shabby rating (for comparison, I’m sure he would have eagerly welcomed the aforementioned spork-sepuku rather than see The Incredible Hulk this past weekend). So, if rom-coms are your drug of choice, toke up on this candy coated doobie.

Recommended if you liked How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days

Under the Same Moon
Much like the Iraq war, on a scale of 1 to 10 my interest in films about immigration registers around -245. I am fully cognizant that this is a crucial issue, one that affects nearly ever facet of our future melting-pot of a society, but I like to get my “crucial issues” from CNN (or at least The Daily Show). Actually, I take that back. I’ll gladly jump into any heavy-handed social-issue-aware picture as long as the critical reception is good. In this case, it wasn’t, so the chances of me watching this are nearly nil. Daniel Getahun at a Getafilm had a nice write-up on this one, so I’ll direct you in his direction for further info.

Recommended that you see El Norte instead.

Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins
Martin Lawrence, please stop. My brain hurts. Also, the babies are crying. All of them.

Recommended if you can’t afford a real lobotomy.