American Loser (2007/Lionsgate DVD)/The Big Game (1995/VCI DVD)/Henry’s Crime (2010/Fox Blu-ray)/The Living Will (2011/Lionsgate DVD)/Lost Heritage (2011/Cinema Libre DVD)/Love Wedding Marriage (2011/IFC/MPI Blu-ray)/Putt Putt Syndrome (2011/Cinema Epoch DVD)/Son Of Morning (2011/E1 DVD)

 

Picture: C+/C/B-/C+/C+/C+/C/C     Sound: DVDs: C+/Blu-rays: B-     Extras: C/D/D/D/C/C-/C-/C-     Films: C/C/C/D/C/C/C-/C-

 

 

The following comedies were rarely funny, but some of them had potential while the rest tried to follow trends and found themselves not too effective.

 

 

Tod Harrison Williams’ American Loser (2007) is loosely based on the troubled life of real life comedian Jeff Nichols who had everything until learning disabilities, emotional issues and alcoholism nearly destroyed his life.  Seann William Scott plays him and does an interesting job, but the film wants to be more funny than introspective (I wish this had been bolder like Lenny) and lands up being a sadly disjointed affair from its script down to its hit and usually miss jokes, trying too hard overall.  Gretchen Mol is terrific as his potential girlfriend who has an older suitor and fiancée, but this gets lost early on and never recovers.  Kevin Conway and Jeff Garlan also star.  Extras include still sand a behind-the-scenes featurette.

 

 

Bob Keen’s The Big Game (1995) is a telefilm with an amusing idea that becomes formulaic and boring as old friends play a Monopoly-like game for increasingly high stakes to the point it is not fun anymore and all go overboard.  Too bad the teleplay beats them too it as the makers forgot to treat the game as a character and not make this like a bad poker movie with a board game in place of the cards.  There are no extras.

 

Malcolm Venville’s Henry’s Crime (2010) is a sad mix of Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga and James Caan (all of whom I like) in a heist comedy in which the men come out of prison to steal form a bank that has a secret tunnel connected below it to a stage theater she works at.  The plot is too similar to the far funnier Woody Allen comedy Small Time Crooks (2000) which this looks like a very tired carbon copy of.  There are no extras.

 

 

Matthew Lauyer’s The Living Will (2011) would have never been made without the success of The Hangover films (a supposedly funny guy with more facial hair than the original G.I. Joe is always a bad sign) as one of two best friends passes away, but comes back form the dead to ruin the living friend’s life.  Grating, boring and unoriginal, I was not impressed.  Co-star Ryan Dunn passed away in real life according to the case.  Bam Margera and April Scott also star.  Extras include Outtakes, Deleted Scenes, a Dunn tribute, Slate Gags and Behind The Scenes featurette.

 

 

Christian Lara’s Lost Heritage (2011) wants to be a film form a far off land and originates from Africa, but tries so hard to be a Hollywood-like comedy that it implodes on itself as a man travels to the land and falls for a young lady who is tied to actual African royalty.  Too bad this was only mildly amusing at best and it also tended to be limited in showing off that land.  A featurette on Lara’s films and intro by the President of the Pan African Film Festival are the only extras.

 

 

Actor Dermot Mulroney tries directing a romantic comedy with Love Wedding Marriage (2011) pairing the always appealing Mandy Moore with newcomer Kellan Litz (another star of those Twilight films, but not a malnourished or bored looking) that fails to produce much chemistry despite the best efforts of all involved.  One problem is Litz is constantly shot more favorably (note the light) than any of the other actors, leaving Mulroney overboard in making a “woman’s film” and in the Twilight tradition, Litz can’t seem to keep his shirt on while Miss Moore is overly clothed to the detriment of us all.  James Brolin, Jane Seymour and Christopher Lloyd also show up, but cannot make this any better.  Time to file for a divorce.  A trailer is the only extra.

 

 

Jason London and David Chokachi co-star in the life crisis comedy Putt Putt Syndrome (2011) as the one who is not happily married tells the one who is that his life is a lie and when he lets himself be brainwashed by this, disaster follows.  Writer/Director Allen Cognata makes this a surface comedy when this could have been much more dealing with unhappiness more deeply, which would have made this funnier instead of going for the obvious and tired jokes.  Extras include a Trailer, Premiere Sizzle Reel and Behind The Scenes featurette.

 

 

Finally we have another Heather Graham vehicle that goes nowhere, Yaniv Raz’s Son Of Morning (2011) where her reporter character somehow thinks advertising executive (and a mad man indeed!) Joseph Cross is somehow a religious savior as a natural solar disaster approaches.  What?  Yup, that is the premise and it just gets sillier, dumber, worse and worse.  Jamie-Lunn Singer, Lorraine Bracco and Danny Glover even show up, but nothing can save this silliness and if the idea was to try and create a cult film in advance, that is a failed miscalculation.  An interview with Graham is the only extra.

 

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 AVC @ 21 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer on Crime is easily the best picture performer here despite being a little soft in detail more than I would have liked, though I expected the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Wedding to be at least as sharp, but it is much softer than expected throughout and only very slightly better than many of the DVDs here by a very slight, narrow margin.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Loser and Heritage have more troubles than they should as well, though Heritage had more color range to save it from being even softer with aliasing issues.  The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Will is also dull and soft, again disappointing for a recent production.  The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Putt and anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 on Son are even worse and shockingly soft throughout to the point of sometimes being hard to watch, as well as not being much better than the 1.33 X 1 image on the Game TV which is not good.  Blu-rays of some of these DVDs might offer improvements, but not in all cases.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Crime and Marriage may be dialogue based and towards the front speakers, but these films are still the best sounding of all the releases here, though the DVDs all fair better than their images tend to in their lossy Dolby Digital presentations.  All have Dolby 2.0 Stereo, save Will which only had Dolby Digital 5.1 that is limited and Loser and Son add Dolby 5.1 as an alternate option.  However, all are dialogue based as well, so y9ou can only expect so much.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo