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Home (Re)Viewing: She’s the Man? Nuh-uh!
Once again the classics department at Warner Bros. has put out the best DVD releases this week, although you could certainly do worse than the one mainstream release I caught from this year’s bleak first quarter.
She’s The Man: Amanda Bynes pulls off the somewhat dubious feat of being both the best and the worst thing about this Shakespeare remake by way of a teen movie.
This movie wants to do for Twelfth Night what 10 Things I Hate About You did for The Taming of the Shrew when it launched Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles to stardom. Unfortunately, She’s The Man only wins half the battle of the sexes.
Bynes is a gifted young comedienne and is very winning when she’s playing a girl, but she plays her male guise so broadly I didn’t buy it, even though the dull-witted males in the movie did. Clark Kent would love this crowd. They’re so dense that Clark wouldn’t have to wear glasses to disguise the fact that he’s Superman.
As for She’s The Man, it’s watchable as long as Bynes is the woman - but there was too much faux testosterone for me to give this one a pass. GRADE: C+
Also Out Today
Tsotsi: This drama about a South African Thug who unwittingly kidnaps a baby was this year’s Foreign Language Film Oscar winner.
From the Catalog
Film Noir Collection: Warners cranks out its third collection of starkly lit, hard-boiled dramas, including Lady in the Lake with Robert Montgomery as Philip Marlowe, On Dangerous Ground with Ida Lupino and directed by Nicholas Ray, His Kind of Woman with Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, The Racket, also with Mitchum; and Border Incident with Ricardo Montalban, directed by Anthony Mann.
Tough Guys Collection: Last year Warner gave us its gangster collection featuring the rough and tumble films that were the studio’s early trademark. This collection broadens the definition a bit, featuring James Cagney in G-Men, City for Conquest and Each Dawn I Die; Humphrey Bogart in San Quentin and Bullets or Ballots and Edward G. Robinson in Bullets and A Slight Case of Murder.
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