Our top DVD picks for the week of July 11.

Basic Instinct 2 (Sony) Bill Maher: New Rules (HBO) Bridezillas: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons (Weinstein) Care Bears: Hearts at Sea (Family Home Ent.) Dennis Miller: All In (HBO) Dolla Morte (Grimoire) The Dudesons Movie (Rhino) The Ellen Show: The Complete Series (Sony) ER: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner…

It’s Pad Thai! It’s a Volcano Roll!

By day he is the mild mannered Kitti Sirimaturos, but by night, he is Sushi Man, the karaoke emcee master who has been saving the world from ennui for the last six years, one karaoke hit at a time. In his not-so-secret lair at Sushi Toi restaurant (3811 N Federal…

Fool’s Gold

The fact that 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was such a hit had much to do with viewers’ prelaunch expectations, which were approximately none. Who could have been blamed for thinking a Gore Verbinski-directed, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie based on a theme-park ride would proffer…

Truly, Madly, Darkly

Slipped into the summer movie season like acid in your happy meal, Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is a blockbuster of counterprogramming. No matter that the dude from The Matrix is its star — or would be, if he weren’t half hidden under a thick swath of digital paint. Linklater’s…

The Last Wives Club

There’s no doubt that into every marriage creeps, or perhaps floods, moments that inspire you to dream of snuff films with your mate in a starring role. But to truly consider following through? Well, that’s another matter, as well as the plot for Michele Lowe’s 2002 dark comedy The Smell…

Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.

It’s a sure sign summer has arrived when museums begin delving into their permanent collections. Hence, Miami Art Museum’s “Big Juicy Paintings (and More): Highlights from the Permanent Collection.” The exhibition delivers on its provocative title with more than 50 items from the vault, along with ten loans, presumably works…

Bond in a Bikini

The Matador (Weinstein) Richard Shepard’s spec script, sent to Pierce Brosnan’s production company out of desperation, wound up as 2005’s best buddy pic — damned if I can recall a funnier movie from last year, except the one with the middle-aged virgin. Brosnan, not afraid to don cheerleading skirts and…

Pong 360

Publisher: Rockstar Games

Platform: Xbox 360

Price: $39.99

ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)

Score: 7 (out of 10)

Our top DVD picks for the week of July 5.

Charlie’s Angels: The Complete Third Season (Sony) Cyberteam in Akihabara: Complete Collection (ADV) Eastern Horror Double Feature: Satan’s Slave and Corpse Master (Brentwood) King of the Cage: The Superstars of KOTC (Brentwood) The Kinks: The Live Broadcasts (Classic Rock Legends) The Legend of Prince Valiant: The Complete Series, Volume One…

Recycled Steel

After all that, just… this? After all the anticipation, all the hype, all the product available on toy-store shelves and kiddie sections at bookstores, after all the promise that this would be the most super of Superman movies, all we get is just this… this… remake? Because let’s first call…

Cruella de Vogue

For an industry in decline, print journalism has done a fashion publicist’s job of staying in vogue, particularly among the more stylish of career-seeking college grads. Never mind telling these BlackBerry-toting eager beavers that even an unpaid gig in the field is as rare as a winning lottery ticket: The…

Letter-Box Edition

It may not be an “iconic manifestation of civilization,” as documentarian Ken Burns proclaims, but The New York Times crossword puzzle is undoubtedly an institution. Printed every day for the past 64 years, in weekly cycles of increasing difficulty, the puzzle draws politicians, working stiffs, comedians, musicians, coders, and homemakers…

If It Ain’t Got That Swing

It’s ten years this month since songstress Ella Fitzgerald died. Fitzgerald, whose romantically distinctive voice has gently passed from generation to generation since her first recordings in 1936, didn’t so much have her own “songs” in the way that Johnny Cash has “I Walk the Line” but instead made anything…

Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.

“Pretty as a picture” is a phrase that was inspired by images like Carmel Brantles’ sepia-toned Paper Nautilus. The photograph of the spiral shell and the delicate shadows cast by its graceful swoops, swirls, and spires was awarded this year’s Best in Show at “InFocus: 10th Annual Juried Exhibition,” which…

The Citizen Kane of Crap

The Devil’s Sword (Mondo Macabro) Few trash movies live up to their reputation, but here’s a balls-out wonder that surpasses it. Grab a 12-pack of Bintang and cue up this jaw-unhinging slab of Indonesian sword-and-sorcery circa 1983 — a start-to-finish feast of martial arts, mullets, flying heads, vestal virgins, dry-ice…

The Last Bland

Publisher: Activision

Platform: Game Cube, PC, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360

Price: $39.99

ESRB Rating: T (for Teen)

Score: 4 (out of 10)

Our top DVD picks for the week of June 27.

Commander in Chief: 2-Disc Inaugural Edition Part 1 (Disney) The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection (MPI) Cow Belles (Disney) Danger After Dark (TLA) Evil (Magnolia) Is It Really So Strange? (Frameline) Failure to Launch (Paramount) Family Affair: Season One (MPI) Fear Factor: The First Season (Universal) Imagine Me & You (Fox)…

Les B-Friends

The underground break dancing scene is already kind of a niche group; if you don’t know the key players, it can be a little tough to worm your way in. Besides, you would have to strap on more than a helmet to assimilate comfortably at most of these y-chromosome-heavy battles…

Pause and Effect

Click may be the first Adam Sandler movie in which the high concept isn’t dependent upon the star. Sandler comedies tend to take his standard character of the petulant man-child with anger-management issues and place him in different wacky situations: elementary school (Billy Madison), the golf course (Happy Gilmore), the…

Deep Doo-doo

About three-quarters of the way through Waist Deep, the hero of the piece — an indestructible ex-convict who calls himself O2 (2 Fast 2 Furious star Tyrese Gibson) — peers out through the swirling smoke and the bloody mayhem of an urban killing ground and experiences a revelation. “Somethin’ ain’t…

Men in Black:

Throw a fancy hardwood desk on top of a red Oriental carpet, tack a picture of the pope up on the wall, and you’ve got a church rectory, on stage, at least. Rectories must present, by far, one of the easiest theater sets to pull off , and the costuming…

Jest in Show

It’s a faintly surreal, even disorienting experience to take in two of South Florida’s big juried summer group shows, which run roughly concurrently. First, take the elevator to the sixth floor of the Broward County Main Library in downtown Fort Lauderdale and step out into Gallery Six for “United and…