The Bank Job: Not to be confused with: The Italian Job. Even though they both involve: Dangerous heists and Jason Statham in tailored suit jackets.

Shutter: Not to be confused with: Shudder. Even though they both involve: Revulsion.

Meet Bill: Not to be confused with: Meet Dave. Even though they both involve: Talented but self-sabotaging actors making sure we never, ever take them off probation.

Also on DVD this week: Bra Boys, Never Forever, Penelope, and The Year My Parents Went on Vacation.

The Tracey Fragments: Passenger name: Ellen Page. Boarding at: Hey It’s That Cute Pregnant Girl. Arriving at: OMG, What the Christ is Going On, BC.

The Ruins: Passenger names: Virile, Attractive 20-Somethings. Boarding at: Civilization. Arriving at: Evil Mexican Plants, MX-OA.

Stop-Loss: Passenger names: Ryan Phillipe and Channing Tatum. Boarding at: An Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Stopping in: Basic Training, Iraq, Complete Emotional Disintegration. Arriving at: PTSDville, USA.

Also on DVD this week: Little Chenier, Sleepwalking, and Superhero Movie.

War, Inc.: What’s more patriotic than satirizing the government?

Vantage Point: The Lone Gunman vs. Military Industrial Conspiracy debate is like the fourth most popular American pass-time, right behind baseball, mercenarism, and inventing new Dorito flavors.

Drillbit Taylor: See item three above.

My Blueberry Nights: Wang Kar Wai finally makes a movie in America. Bonus points for the presence of Natalie Portman, representing the Israel lobby.

Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns: There’s only one nation on Earth where you’ll regularly find a man in drag and a fat suit holding down the moral compass for your movie.

Also on DVD this week: City of Men, Sex and Death 101, and Sunflower.

By the time I arrived, the rain had subsided and Yivo was standing majestic before the media, inflated to maximum capacity and surrounded by a small but formidable army of raygun-toting beauties. I did my best to get a personal interview but I could see in his eyes that the first word I dared utter would likely earn me a tentacle to the back of my neck. His are the kind of eyes that could drive a man of lesser constitution over the edge of sanity. A mere glimpse into those swirling pupils could fill a man with all the intergalactic love in the cosmos, but at what unthinkable cost? Fearing that I may have already overstepped my boundaries as a mere mortal, I made the decision to beat a hasty retreat while I was still able.

Later, having narrowly averted a cosmic disaster, I settled down with the new DVD of The Beast with a Billion Backs to find out just what may have happened had I succumbed to the temptation of this libidinous, inner-dimensional being.

Futurama fans have been put through the ringer when it comes to fighting for their favorite show, but thankfully their loyalty has been repaid tenfold by series creator Matt Groening and company. Recognizing the passion of their fans, the creative series behind the show made the commitment to producer four feature-length Futurama films. First there was Bender’s Big Score, and now The Beast with a Billion Backs, with “Bender’s Game” and “Into the Wild Green Yonder” set to follow in short succession.

Simply stated, this disc will without question be a welcomed addition to the DVD collection of any die-hard Futurama fan. The feature, presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, looks great. The animators seem to have had a blast stretching their vision out to the wide frame, and viewers are bound to have a blast picking out all of the sight gags. Audio is presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, with optional closed-captioning for the hearing impaired as well as English, Spanish, and French subtitles.

Of course when it comes to DVD, the feature itself is only the beginning. This release of The Beast with a Billion Backs is jam-packed with enough quality bonus materials to keep viewers occupied until the year 3000. Things get off to a fun start with a lost adventure that finds the tyrannical leader Mom launching a diabolical plot to enslave the human race, with an additional storyboard animatic allowing a tantalizing glimpse into the mechanics behind some key scenes in The Beast with a Billion Backs. The latter in particular is a real treat for animation enthusiasts, as it highlights just how the show’s creators refine the final product. Things get even more detailed as the animators discuss the 3D models used to create the character of M5438, among other things. Deleted scenes alternate between pencil-line form, storyboards, and full animation, providing a chance to see a few fun gags that got excised from the final cut. “Meet Yivo!” and “Blooperama” featurettes allow the viewer the rare opportunity to step into the studio and watch the actors at work, with a popcorn-munching David Cross offering a few solid laughs by discussing his unique vocal techniques. “A Brief History of Deathball” allows director Peter Avanzino the opportunity to discuss the design of the “Deathball” uniforms and arena, and highlights how happy accidents can sometimes yield the most hilarious results. Additional commentary tracks on both the main feature and the “lost” adventure make for seriously fun listening, with a sneak peak at “Benders Game” offering an entertaining look at things to come.

An arty, hyper-stylized ensemble piece, My Blueberry Nights features Jones in lead billing, and Kar-Wai and co-scripter Lawrence Block build the narrative trajectory on the geographic journey of her character, Elizabeth. The actress, however, does little onscreen other than bearing witness to vicissitudes from the lives of various middle-American characters that Elizabeth encounters, as she wanders aimlessly from Manhattan to Memphis to Vegas and back to Manhattan – making this a vignette-laced showcase for the work of four A-listers: Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. Everything else here is just window dressing.

A whopping great part of the emotional impact and intellectual power in Kar-Wai’s Chinese-language films (Chungking Express, Happy Together, et. al.) derives from their ability to adroitly merge alluring visual effects (fast and slow motion, stop motion, surrealistic lighting, flashy montages, superimpositions, impressionistic color) with semi-improvised performances that enable the actors and actresses to feel out and work through almost inarticulate emotions and psychological states onscreen. This juxtaposition typically enhances the depth of the material. My Blueberry Nights retains one-half of the equation: the stylization is here ad nauseum, but the film demonstrates little sign of improvisation: the narrative is clear-cut, the dialogue may have been ad-libbed but sounds completely written and rehearsed; dramatic events (including an alcoholic cop’s gun-wielding tirade with his loose-limbed, dysfunctional wife and a young gambler’s journey to a Vegas hospital to see her father one last time) feel calculated and planned, and resemble slightly diluted derivatives of Sam Shepard stories, with more than a passing influence by Tennessee Williams. That isn’t necessarily a problem; the ability to cinematize events from middle American lives, with a strand or two of melodrama, has a certain capacity for charm, and nothing here is particularly dislikable.

Kar-Wai misses the mark for which he was aiming, however. His absurdly exaggerated visuals not only fail to serve any apparent purpose, but detract from the material onscreen in an almost Brechtian manner by calling attention to the drama’s artificiality and making it seem both thin and transparent. If he wants to bring us to the point of complete emotional intimacy and empathy with these middle American characters, he should at least give us some indication of a realistic and plausible onscreen environment, with ontological depth and dimension – in the way that scriptwriter Shepard, director Wim Wenders and cinematographer Robby Muller did with their masterpiece Paris, Texas (1984). That doesn’t happen here – not even once – and unlike Shepard, Wenders and Muller, Kar-Wai demonstrates no feeling for the middle American landscape – not even during a cross-country road trip sequence in which two characters drive to Vegas.

My Blueberry Nights will invariably draw critical comparisons to Jim Jarmusch thanks to the Memphis setting for much of the narrative and the almost anecdotal structure that recalls Mystery Train and Night on Earth, and on several levels that makes sense. The movie, however, lacks Jarmusch’s offbeat originality and his quirky take on Middle America; in fact, Kar-Wai seems to lack an interpretation of the U.S. altogether.

Had the director tamed and subdued his aesthetic impulses (enabling us to believe in the world that he hands us) and given us a clearer sense of the environment, he could have improved the feature tenfold, but even moreso with subtly nuanced and finely-felt performances from his stars. Despite overwhelming geniality wrought via their presence onscreen, the ensemblers rarely plumb the depth, nuance and emotional complexity necessary to give this material weight and dimension. As a case in point, Weisz feels infuriatingly inconsistent – to such a degree that she both scrapes the bottom of the barrel and brings the film to its zenith in one ten-minute span. Her nadir hits when her character, Sue Lynne (the aforementioned cop’s wife) drinks herself into oblivion, then responds to devastating tragedy with an agonizing, drunken rant about a saloon tab, screaming her lungs out at a barkeep. This is the stuff of paper-thin, southern-fried gothic melodrama, and there may be a way to make it work onscreen, but Weisz and Kar-Wai don’t find it. The actress isn’t for a second convincing during this scene, but feels rather embarrassing. Conversely, Sue Lynne has a lovely intimate confessional with Elizabeth while seated on some outdoor steps – merely a couple of scenes later – that represents some of the finest onscreen work the gifted Weisz has ever done. From this instance and others in the film that demonstrate the same mercurial unevenness, one senses that Kar-Wai had little control over his cast, and perhaps even felt ill-equipped to direct the performers in English.

At its best, My Blueberry Nights retains a comfortable narrative flow and occasionally touches elements of lyricism. Yet it falls terribly shy of the potential that lies within its grasp.

Conditional Reasoning
Caramel: If Caramel is the Beauty Shop of Beirut, then who does Queen Latifah play in the Autobus of Atlanta?

Conversions
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins: Martin Lawrence and Mo’nique both begin reading a script at 2:30 PM. If Lawrence reads 200 words per minute and Mo’nique reads 900 lines per hour, at approximately what time will I kill myself?

Also on DVD this week: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, Rails & Ties, Under the Same Moon.

Jumper: The Aniken kid does not become despondent over peaking with Virgin Suicides in 1998, jump off of some iconic ancient structure and plummet to his death.

The Other Boleyn Girl: This is the most important one — Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman do not, I repeat, do not make out, no matter how close they came after shooting had wrapped.

Witless Protection: Dan Whitney does not take this opportunity to explore any new avenues in his long standing career as a character actor.

Also on DVD this week: Chaos Theory, Funny Games, the Grand, Out of the Blue, Protagonist, and the Signal.

Any film dealing with teen sexuality will court a fair amount of controversy by default, add a girl with a killer vagina into the mix and odds are good that any potential distributor will go running for the hills. Thankfully for fans of extreme cinema, Roadside Attractions and Dimension Extreme have seen fit to give the film a proper stateside release. In terms of horror, Teeth delivers the gory goods yet never wallows in excess, while in terms of comedy, it uses smart satire and gruesome sight gags to highlight the adult hysteria surrounding sex education, and the inherent dangers of forced ignorance regarding human sexuality. Weixler’s performance as virtuous teen Dawn successfully highlights the script’s satirical strengths as her unusual character arc toys playfully with the idea that she is some kind of female superhero gradually coming to terms with her unusual power, and co-star Appleman makes a demented impression as her intimidating, heavily tattooed step-brother. Also distinguishing the film is Paul Avery’s smart-but-subtle production design, the local nuclear cooling towers at one point adorning Dawn’s suburban ranch home like some garish symbol of middle class social status. Addressing such complex and controversial issues is certainly no easy task – especially for a modestly budgeted independent such as Teeth - yet thanks to his love for classic monster movies and his smart skills as a writer/director, Lichtenstein craftily manages to keep things relatively tasteful without necessarily playing it safe.

Flawless: On the other hand, it’s easy for Demi Moore to keep everybody thinking she’s impossibly smoking hot for her age when nobody sees her movies anymore.

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: You may play the clown these days, Mr. Vaughn, but you can’t run from your dashing, leading-man past. We all remember when you looked like this.

The Eye: Yes, it’s a little ironic that Jessica Alba plays a blind girl in a movie where her hotness is the only thing in it worth looking at.

Semi-Pro: Will Ferrell is the hottest man alive. But only when he’s wearing tiny basketball shorts.

Also on DVD this week: Meet the Spartans and Noise.

Grace is Gone: Bad to Joke About: War in Iraq, military widows/widowers. Good to Joke About — John Cusack vying for the Oscar he missed out on with Martian Child.

Darfur Now: Bad to Joke About — Crisis in Darfur, genocide in general. Good to Joke About — No dice on this one. Watch this hilarious kitten video.