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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY RECOMMENDS: VIDEO & DVD |
Reviews: 'The Ring,' 'The Osbournes: Uncensored'
Video review: 'The Ring' and 'Ringu'
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(Entertainment Weekly) -- Horror movies are like pornography -- what does it for me may not do it for you, and the reason is best left to psychiatrists.
That said, Gore Verbinski's sadistic ''The Ring'' scared the bejesus out of me in theaters last year, so it was with some trepidation that I screened the widely hailed-as-superior 1998 Japanese original, ''Ringu,'' about that cursed video that kills all unlucky enough to watch it. (And no, it doesn't star Eddie Murphy.)
But I don't see how ''Ringu'' is the better film -- largely because ''The Ring'' is a remake that's almost identical to the original. In both, cutie-pie journalists (Naomi Watts and Nanako Matsushima) with saucer-eyed children and scruffy ex-husbands face down that demonically clever plot device that turns universal household items into the stuff of the Brothers Grimm. The plots differ only slightly, but the scares are more or less the same. And I had to watch them twice.
So now, if you don't mind, I'm off to the corner of my office to curl into a fetal position and rock slowly.
Grade: B+
-- Daniel Fierman
DVD review: 'The Osbournes: The First Season Uncensored'
It's official: Even the Osbournes are getting tired of ''The Osbournes.'' ''I'm sick of it,'' huffs Kelly as she's confronted by a now-familiar family portrait at the menu screen of this all-encompassing set. But while ''Osbournes'' backlash kicked in rather swiftly, the reality show's 10-episode charter season is as riotous and revealing as ever, especially the moments in which the clan's patriarch is reduced from headbanger to housecleaner.
Speaking of Oz, for those who couldn't make out his seemingly backward-masked speaking style, the DVD provides a sporadic ''Ozzy Translator'' and an option to ''de-bleep'' the show -- both of which spoil the fun of guesswork and take away from the show's charmed-life simplicity (it's amazing how much sweeter the F-word is when you don't actually hear it a dozen times in a row).
The rest of the extras -- deleted scenes, bloopers, and some funny, if not particularly enlightening, commentary tracks from the family, primarily Sharon -- are perfectly fine; we'd just like to see the famously remote-impaired Ozzy try to get them all to work.
Grade: B
-- Brian M. Raftery
