DVD corner

“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” HD DVD – Local television news anchors and their newscasts are easy targets to skewer, so here, in the new HD DVD version of the popular Will Ferrell comedy, broad skewering ensues. The film is 91 minutes of tongue-in-cheek hair pulling, which is especially cheeky since the group getting its hair pulled would rather not have theirs touched, thank you very much. Set in the early 1970s, Ferrell is Ron Burgundy, the enormously popular, hirsute television anchor for San Diego’s Channel 4, who loves his scotch and his lady friends almost as much as he loves being No. 1 in the ratings. Sure Burgundy is an idiot, but people like his macho bluster and they especially like the way he ends each newscast: “Stay classy, San Diego.” But when station manager Ed Harken (Fred Willard) hires reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) to add diversity to the newsroom, chauvinist Ron is forced to admit he might have met his match in a woman. With the help of his bumbling news team – closeted gay sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner), dim-witted weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), and investigative reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) – he decides to fight back. The result is a movie that hits on many unwanted industry truths, and which becomes enjoyably unhinged in the process. Rated PG-13. Grade: B+

“Mr. Bean’s Holiday” DVD, HD DVD – For those who appreciate the power of Bean in brevity, this “Bean” leads to too much bad gas. Once again, Rowan Atkinson assumes the role of Bean, who this time out is caught in an ongoing series of foibles that spring from his winning a video camera and a trip to Cannes, France. Naturally, it’s all a setup for disaster, with the clueless Bean bumbling out of England as he travels via train to his foreign destination. Along the way, he manages to separate a young boy (Max Baldry) from his father, with Emma de Caunes and Willem Dafoe joining in the forced tomfoolery. The ending is the best, most ingenious part of the show, though it comes too late to save it. As appealing as Atkinson is as Bean, he always has been best served in small doses. The movie is a banal riff on 1953’s “Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday.” Rated G. Grade: C-

“I Know Who Killed Me” DVD, Blu-ray – But was she in rehab when she found out? Lindsay Lohan stars in one of the year’s worst movies in what has to be one of the worst years of the young actress’s life. So, at least she’s being consistent. Here, Lohan plays two parts. First, she’s Aubrey, a sweet young writer mauled by a serial killer who lops off two of her limbs and then leaves her in a ditch to die. When Aubrey awakens in a hospital, she’s convinced that she’s Dakota, a sleazy stripper who looks just like Aubrey (though she favors a pole to a pen), and who allows the film to consider its few dim angles. Is Dakota really Aubrey? Is Aubrey really Dakota? Could it be she’s Aubrey’s secret twin sister? Or maybe she’s part of Aubrey’s imagination, blunted by trauma? By the time the movie comes through with its answer, some might want to take Dakota’s pole and pierce it through the heart of the DVD itself. Rated R. Grade: D-

“Leading Ladies Collection, Vol. 2” – From Warner, a set of five films, each worth revisiting for the power of the performances alone. In 1955’s “I’ll Cry Tomorrow,” Susan Hayward is struck hard by the more melodramatic undercurrents of life and survives (she’s excellent); 1966’s “Big Hand for the Little Lady” stars Joanne Woodward trying her hand at poker after her husband (Henry Fonda) dies; and in 1967’s “Up the Down Staircase,” Sandy Dennis joins Jean Stapleton in a battle to make a failed public school system work. In 1981’s “Rich and Famous,” Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen star in George Cukor’s last film; while in 1982’s “Shoot the Moon,” Diane Keaton is paired opposite Albert Finney in a movie about their characters’ unraveling marriage and messy divorce. Grade: B+

“Prison Break: Season One” Blu-ray – Brotherly love gone berserk. The first season of Fox’s popular show, now on high-definition Blu-ray disc, finds Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) purposely getting arrested for armed robbery so he can be sent to the Fox River Penitentiary. There awaits his brother Linc (Dominic Purcell), who was convicted of murdering the vice president’s brother and who awaits execution. But did Linc do it? Linc’s lawyer and former girlfriend Veronica (Robin Tunney) knows otherwise and, thanks to her, so does Michael, who has devised a plan (tattooed on his body) to break his brother out of the big house before it’s too late. What ensues is claustrophobic and kinetic, with the tension mounting nicely as the season blasts into its final episodes. Grade: B+

“Spice World” – A peculiar film about that peculiar British import known as the Spice Girls, which have since regrouped, have a new single out and a new world tour to promote, thus the re-release of their 1997 movie. While the good news is that recent photos and videos suggest the girls have aged well, going back into time and seeing them as they were is something of a nightmare. There is a moment in this movie when all the girls – Scary, Baby, Posh, Sporty and Ginger – declare they want a makeover and they wish to rename themselves. Since all of the girls look like roughed-up street trade, it seems only natural that they would rename themselves accordingly. Surprisingly, Flat-On-Her-Back Spice, Leave-The-Money-On-The-Dresser Spice and Penicillin Spice weren’t considered, a decision reflected in the film’s final grade. “Spice World” is not a movie. It isn’t even an extended music video, although it does feature some of the group’s popular songs, which are badly lip-synched throughout. Really, this is a marketing effort gone bad because, after one sees it, one doesn’t so much want to buy Spice Girls merchandise as one wants to start a Spice Girls backlash. For them, that’s a shame, particularly since their new round of cashing in has only just begun. Rated PG. Grade: F

“Waitress” – Home cookin’ served with a side of bitters. Keri Russell is Jenna, a gifted pie maker and waitress in a small Southern town whose pies match her moods. Since she is stuck in a bad marriage with Earl (Jeremy Sisto) and recently learned she’s pregnant with his child, Jenna, who names her pies, makes such classics as “I Hate My Husband Pie.” Upon going to her gynecologist to address the unwanted situation of her “damn baby,” as she calls it, Jenna finds her doctor is phasing into retirement and a new doctor, the studly Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion, “Serenity”), has taken over the practice. The relationship that steams between them is heated with reckless, comic abandon, with Jenna’s co-workers, Dawn (the film’s murdered writer-director Adrienne Shelly) and Becky (Cheryl Hines), offering raised eyebrows and halting advice as they freely tamper with their own lives. Russell is very good here, easily winning audiences over in a tricky role that could have been abrasive if the actress didn’t find unexpected ways to make her character so appealing. Her relationship with Andy Griffith’s grumbling Old Joe, who owns the diner where Jenna works, is shaded with nuance. Watching this fine romantic comedy, it’s clear that writer-director-co-star Shelly’s fortunes in Hollywood would have changed after the movie, which underscores just how ridiculously tragic her death really is. Rated PG-13. Grade: A-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.