So here is where I start off this new feature in which I go through my DVD collection and put to the test all the movies therein that are infrequently/never watched, to determine whether they get to stay or go. My DVDs are in alphabetical order, with numerical titles appearing first. So we start off with the 2000 Sandra Bullock movie 28 Days.
Obvious Loba reason for owning this movie? Sandra Bullock. I don’t own very many movies that could be considered “chick flicks,” but a lot of the ones I do own are more than likely from Bullock’s oeuvre. She’s funny, beautiful, doesn’t seem too wrapped up in herself, gravitates toward characters that have universally recognizable flaws and strengths, she’s kind of a hometown girl (she hails from Arlington, Virginia), and she knows how to drive a bus. Okay, maybe not so much that last one. But she also has two strong links to the Trek universe:
- One of her co-stars in 2000’s Miss Congeniality was the ever awesome, the one and only Captain James Tiberius Kirk, William Shatner.
- In 1990, she was cast as Tess McGill in the sitcom version of Working Girl, with Nana Visitor, she of “Kira Nerys” fame, playing her boss. See, here they are:
Look at those outfits. Look at the hair. Look at the dot matrix printer paper. Oy.
Trek links are always bonus points in your favor in the Loba universe.
All that being said, with as wonderful as Bullock can be, she also has quite a few…less than stellar movies under her belt. Two If by Sea, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Hope Floats, Murder by Numbers, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. These are the ones that immediately come to mind. I haven’t seen any of the movies she’s made since 2006’s The Lake House, so I don’t know about the new stuff.
But what about 28 Days? Bullock plays Gwen Cummings, a NYC-based writer by day/drunk by night who is sentenced to, surprise, 28 days of rehab in lieu of jail time after she crashes her sister’s wedding limo into someone’s house (which happens right after she ruins her sister’s wedding by falling ass first into the wedding cake). I remember this movie being marketed as a straight comedy. That decision gets a big “FAIL” since a lot of the plot is quite heavy, emotionally taxing…and predictable. If you’ve seen one Hollywood-cliched movie about drug or alcohol abuse, you’ve seen this movie.
And that’s quite a shame, because this movie had the potential to be wonderful. It had a great cast. In addition to Bullock, there were Elizabeth Perkins, Steve Buscemi, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Viggo Mortensen, Diane Ladd, Alan Tudyk…all amazing actors who have done fine work throughout their careers. And they do fine work here under the direction of Betty Thomas, who used to have cool points in my book for having directed the funny Brady Bunch movie, but has lost all credibility now that I see her latest directorial effort is Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Screenwriter Susannah Grant seems to be the queen of chick flicks, having also penned Ever After, In Her Shoes, and Catch and Release. She also wrote Erin Brockovich, which I very much enjoy, so I’ll cut her a bit of slack.
Not much though.
It all really comes down to is the fact that this is a story that has been told many times before, and will continue to be told many times again. This telling wasn’t particularly fresh or surprising, and doesn’t ever make you feel the deep connection with any of these characters that I think they were striving to make.
DVD Special Features: There’s a commentary track with Betty Thomas, editor Peter Teschner , composer Randall Poster (I think), and producer Jenno Topping. It’s a relatively solid commentary at first, with ample amounts of technical talk and behind-the-scenes stories. It did seem, however, that they all sort of ran out of things they wanted to say and were still talking simply because they had to fill out the rest of the track. Also included is an HBO “making of” special, which was cute and quick and filled with plenty of sunshine-pumping and smiles; a bunch of “clips” from Santa Cruz, the fake soap opera that played a prominent role in this movie (I have to admit I didn’t watch all of these; I hate soap operas, so this bored/irritated me very quickly); additional “Guitar Guy” songs; deleted patient testimonials; actor biographies; theatrical trailers; isolated music score; and “how to make a gum wrapper chain.”
All in all, there’s a nice selection of special features on this DVD, which is pretty impressive for a movie released in 2000. Sadly, though, the special features ride on the shoulders of a not-so-impressive movie and simply aren’t enough to tip the scales in favor of this one.
Final Verdict: As much as I love Sandra Bullock, and as amused as I always was to see this sitting right next to my copy of 28 Days Later (which I originally thought was a sequel to this movie because, yes, I am that stupid sometimes), I’ve got to release this one. It’s a movie that I might stop to watch for a few minutes if I saw it on television, but there was never a moment in this movie that grabbed me as something I would ever want or need to revisit in its entirety.
Also, one more thing: The poster for this movie is a prime example of what I hate most about a lot of recent designs. What about this poster tells you anything more about this movie than the fact that the designer wanted to showcase Bullock as the star…and they just discovered the lens flare filter in PhotoShop? Boring, boring, boring.
