Cheaper To Keep Her (2011/E1 DVD)/A
Christmas Wish (2011/E1 DVD)/Diary
Of A Single Mom (2011/Image DVD)/Ice
Quake (2010/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)
Picture: C+/C/C/B Sound: C+/C+/C+/B Extras: C/C-/D/C- Main Programs: C/C/D/C-
Here are
four more titles to wrap up (no pun intended) Christmas 2011 releases.
Cheaper To Keep Her (2011) happens to be coming out
now, one of two releases here trying to capitalize on the
Christmas-to-Valentine’s Day stretch.
This is from Je’Caryous Johnson, trying to jump on the Tyler Perry
bandwagon and he has Vivica A. Fox and Brian Knight on board, shows he is at
least being enterprising. The other is
Robert Townsend with Diary Of A Single
Mom (also 2011) in which the survivor of the Black New Wave continue to
retreat into the obvious, but he does secure Richard Roundtree and Billy Dee
Williams for support. However, both are
predictable, boring family tales with obvious melodramatics and thus, the same
outcomes. Cheaper is a relationship comedy on stage, while Mom wants to be a tribute piece. I don’t doubt sincerity, but there is no
originality and that is boring.
Cheaper has a Johnson Introduction,
Behind-The-Scenes piece and bonus video on Johnson as its extras, while Mom has none.
The more blatant A Christmas Wish
(2011) has Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy:
The Vampire Slayer) in a sappy, sloppy Hallmark Channel-shown dud about a
single mom (yup, that term) also in financial trouble and can faith help her
find money? Well, if she is a good
girl… Yes, it has that same good
girl/bad girl syndrome so many of these pieces have. Wow, is this bad. This has a laughable trailer despite being a
telefilm too.
But as
laughable as anything is Paul Ziller’s goofy Ice Quake (2010) in which a family celebrating Christmas in a small
town surrounded by mountains has to deal with multiple avalanches and much
worse. As shown as the latest schlock on
the SyFy Channel, it is bad sequence after bad sequence as unknowing people
have to deal with bad natural catastrophe after catastrophe. The main family is actually stupid enough to
go closer to the ice and snow after seeing how bad some things are, so you know
this is pointless down to Victor Garber as a military head stuck in a
communication HQ post trying to coordinate survival, but his biggest
achievement is not falling on the floor laughing and busting a gut. Extras include a trailer (was this intended
for theaters?) and a Making Of
featurette.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78X 1 DVDs all look soft and poor, though Cheaper has slightly better color and
definition than the others. The 1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Quake is a surprise, shot on film and looks fine save when the
laughable digital effects kick in, while its Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is also well
done, making me wonder if this was meant for theaters because the soundfield is
more impressive than it has a right to be.
The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Wish
and Cheaper just spread around what
is simple stereo recording, something the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Mom does not even attempt and all are
on par with each other, weaknesses and all.
- Nicholas Sheffo
