Susan Granger’s dvd update for Friday, June 6th:
If you missed the recent TV adaptation of Michael Crichton’s “The Andromeda Strain,” the excellent two-part miniseries is already available. It’s about what happens when a satellite falls in Utah, bringing with it a deadly extraterrestrial virus.
“Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights Hollywood to the Heartland” chronicles his raunchy cross-country trip with a bunch of comedians and special guests; it’s part documentary, part variety show, part buddy road picture.
Natural childbirth is the focus of the documentary “The Business of Being Born” for which actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to explore and question the way American women have babies. The fundamental question is: should most births be viewed as a natural life process or a potential medical emergency?
Another documentary, “What Would Jesus Buy?” follows Rev. Billy (Bill Talen) and his Church of Stop Shopping gospel choir travelling around the country in the weeks before Christmas putting on faux-evangelical shows attacking the demon cash register.
Clint Eastwood’s detective franchise returns with “The Dirty Harry Ultimate Collector’s Edition” with all five films, plus unique bonus features.
Finally, slapstick spoofs don’t get worse than the wretched “Meet the Spartans,” a witlessly crude, vulgar “300” parody set in ancient Greece.
PICK OF THE WEEK: “Semi-Pro” imagines a fictional ABA team, the Flint Tropics, run by Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell), a one-hit singing sensation/owner/coach and power forward, whose hoop dreams rest with his newest player, Monix (Woody Harrelson), a former Celtics benchwarmer. In its final season in 1976, the ABA engineered a merger with the establishment NBA, essentially dissolving the league so only the top teams survive. While the comedy is sloppy and crude, it captures the old ABA spirit for basketball fans who will probably enjoy it.