What I'm Watching: Editor's Choice (Blu-ray & DVD)

How I Met Your Mother / The Proposal / Year One / It's Garry Shandling's Show / You're Welcome, America / The Mary Tyler Moore Show

I finally get it.

Kind of.

For the past three seasons, I've largely dismissed How I Met Your Mother as an overrated sitcom with inexplicable popularity. The episodes I watched just never seemed that funny to me. But when Season 4 (now on Blu-ray as well as DVD, no less!) came across my desk, I decided to really knuckle down, sit through a good chunk of episodes, and see if I could find out what everyone else was getting that I was missing. And I finally do. Mostly.

See, I finally like the show. It made me laugh, and I appreciated the numerous different storylines that ranged from typical relationship/dating humor to how to watch Star Wars with a girl. That being said, I still think the show's overrated. It's pretty good, but its not truly great. It still doesn't quite measure up to a classic sitcom like Friends or Frasier. Ted Radnor's a bit spastic in the lead role for me, and while Neil Patrick Harris's Barney can be pretty funny at times, sometimes he can be equally as annoying. And seriously, how did people not know NPH is gay? I know Barney's supposed to be this womanizing man-whore, but he's awfully gay for a guy who's supposed to like chicks. I'm just saying.

Special Features include:

Season 3 Recap
Audio Commentary On Selected Episodes
Barney Stinson: That Guy's Awesome Music Video
Gag Reel
A Night With Your Mother Panel Discussion

So while I have my problems with the show still, I can at least now say that I do actually enjoy it quite a bit. I'll discuss the A/V portion of the Blu-ray a little bit further in the review.

Show: B
Video: A-
Audio: B
Extra Features: B

To see a romantic comedy get it 100% right, you definitely need to see The Proposal. Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock's rom-com smash hit of the summer is a pure joy to watch, largely due to the fact that Ryan Reynolds is a much more skilled and nuanced actor than people give him credit for. You've seen it in the trailers, but watch the full version of the scene where he walks into the office only to find out that he and Sandra Bullock are getting married. His facial expression in that scene is absolute comic genius. It was right at that moment that I knew I loved this movie, and the rest of the film did nothing to change that opinion. The Proposal is funny, endearing, and even a little bit romantic. Sure, it's as predictable as flowers on Valentine's Day, but what romantic comedy isn't these days? The point of this film isn't to be surprised, it's to have fun and laugh for 90 minutes, and that's exactly what I got.

Extra features (including a Blu-ray exclusive Additional Deleted Scene) are:

Alternate Ending With Optional Commentary
Deleted Scenes With Optional Commentary
Set Antics: Outtakes
Feature Audio Commentary With Director Anne Fletcher And Writer Peter Chiarelli

Far from being just another chick flick, The Proposal is a really fun movie with some terrific performances that elevate the comedy above standard rom-com fare.

RECOMMENDED!

Movie: A-
Video: A-
Audio: B
Extra Features: B

Year One was kind of a box office bomb, but I wanted to like it. It seemed like the kind of film that could be a breezy, silly good time; nothing too original but maybe something lightly enjoyable. Well, it turns out that it's kind of terrible. Not completely terrible or utterly terrible, but kind of terrible. I mean, it just tries so hard and fails so miserably that you almost feel sorry for the film and the people involved. Michael Cera is at least a little bit amusing in it, but Jack Black just does that thing that he does way too much nowadays, where he's the wild-eyed blundering idiot, and it's just not funny anymore. Even Paul Rudd (who can save just about any movie) is only on screen for about a minute, and I can't figure out what blackmail the film's producers had over Oliver Platt to get him to take the role he has. Harold Ramis, where have you gone?

If for some reason you enjoy the film, the Blu-ray is loaded with extra features:

Includes Both Theatrical And Unrated Versions Of The Film
Alternate Ending- Sodom Destruction
Deleted Scenes
Extended & Alternate Scenes
Line-O-Rama
Gag Reel
Commentary with Director Harold Ramis, Jack Black,and Michael Cera
Year One: The Journey Begins
Sodom's Got'em!
Leeroy Jenkins: The Gates Of Sodom
Blu-ray Exclusives:
The Year One Cutting Room

Year One isn't the worst movie I've ever seen (or even seen this year), but it is a pretty spectacular failure considering all the comedic talents involved. It's like, not one of these funny people in the film got half way through filming and went, "Hey, guys, wait a minute. I think we have a problem here..."? Watch this one at your own risk.

Movie: D
Video: A
Audio: A-
Extra Features: A

All three of the aforementioned Blu-rays offer up pretty standard comedy-style audiovisual quality. Like most comedies, they don't offer up anything special in terms of audio or visual fireworks. As such, they each look and sound pretty good on Blu-ray, but none of them are the kind of disc that really shows off the format's capabilities. Each transfer boasts solid colors, rich blacks, and solid (but not overly impressive) levels of detail and image clarity. The surround soundtracks also do well with what they have to work with, largely focusing on spreading the soundtrack music around and preserving clear, clean dialogue. In the few scenes where things get a bit crazy (more in Year One and The Proposal than in HIMYM), the rear channels do kick in with some directional effects, but these are all fairly basic comedy mixes.

Ok, so there was this really popular show a while back, right? It centered around a kind of obnoxious, kind of neurotic New York Jew; his nebbishy, high strung best friend; his slightly kooky, platonic lady friend; and another friend who was just not quite right most of the time. Remember that show? Yeah, me too, I used to love it! It was called Seinf-- oh, wait, that's not quite right, is it?

Going back to watch It's Garry Shandling's Show (now released on DVD for the first time courtesy of Shout Factory), I was struck not so much by the quality of the show itself (although it does hold up pretty well after 20 years), but by how much the show laid the groundwork for Seinfeld. While Seinfeld never broke the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience like Garry Shandling does here, the use of Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up bits in the early episodes certainly mirrors the feel of Garry's rants to the audience. I'm not saying the shows are completely identical or that Seinfeld stole its concept from Garry Shandling, but man, the similarities are a bit uncanny.

Like I said, the show holds up pretty well after two decades, and the meta aspect of the show, with Garry talking to the audience, remaining a highlight of the show. Some of the jokes miss, but a lot more of them hit. The only thing that doesn't work about the show is the heavily dated hairstyles and fashions. I know that shouldn't impact how much you like a show, but I did find myself often getting distracted while thinking, "Was it really okay to wear that?"

The new It's Garry Shandling's Show: The Complete Series box set is a real treat. It contains all four seasons worth of the show on 16 discs, plus a really great selection of extra features, and even a full-color, fact filled booklet. Here are the extras:

6 Featurettes With Cast, Crew and Writers
It Only Looks Easy - Episode Outtakes
Original Promos
18 Commentaries

It's Garry Shandling's Show may have aged a bit, but it's still a terrific sitcom, and it still has the single greatest TV Show theme song ever written!

RECOMMENDED!

Show: B+
Extra Features: A-

You're Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush is HBO's home video release of Will Ferrell's sold-out two-night one-man show on Broadway of the same name. In it, Ferrell basically dresses up as the former president and delivers what amounts to a somewhat ironic stand-up routine. It's pretty funny stuff, too, assuming you're not a George W. Bush fan (are there any of those?) or, to a lesser extent, a Republican. Ferrell makes some cracks that border on the obvious, but he also gets into a lot of different facets of Bush's personality such as his Texas Cowboy, The Decider, and the like.

The only problem with the show is that, at 90 minutes, it actually feels a bit long. Listening to George W. Bush, even a funny George W. Bush, for that long can get a bit tedious. And while the laughs keep coming, there were a few times when I was tempted to fast forward a bit.

Special features include:

"The Bush on Bush Interview" - Will Ferrell in a dual role as President Bush interviewing himself as Rancher Bush, both reminiscing on the best moments in the White House.
"Road to Broadway" - A behind-the-scenes featurette including interviews with cast and crew.
"Interactive True/False Game" - Viewers get to test their knowledge of the 43rd President.
Digital Copy

For Will Ferrell fans and politically active viewers, this one is definitely worth watching. If you're more of a casual fan of this kind of humor, I'd say this one is worth a rental at least.

Movie: B+
Extra Features: B

Wrapping things up is The Mary Tyler Moore Show: Season 5. The season starts off with Mary in jail, but things quickly return to normal from there. In this season, Mary acts as a news producer, which continues the show's themes of women's liberation and equality. In fact, her ability to do her job by herself even becomes the topic of one of the episodes. As always, the show remains largely funny due to Mary Tyler Moore's performance and her terrific supporting cast, which included Ed Asner, Valerie Harper, Ted Knight, Cloris Leachman, Betty White, and Gavin McLeod. I can't say this is the kind of show I go back to over and over again, but since it was before my time, it's nice to watch some episodes on DVD for the first time.

There are no extra features but with 24 episodes of classic sitcom goodness, it's hard to complain.

Show: B+
Extra Features: F

- Mike Spring
Editor