Renée Zellweger

Miss Potter
$19.95
If you are over 13, as I am, you can thoroughly enjoy this film for the superb acting of Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor as well as Emily Watson. The scenery of Old England and the story of Beatrix Potter is fascinating.

A Price Above Rubies
$9.99
The reason to watched this movie is Christopher Eccleston's Doctor Who - The Complete First Series portrayal of the villainous Sender Horowitz, the protagonist's amoral, sexual blackmailer of a brother-in-law. He is simply mesmerizing and so spot-on that I am compelled to periodically watch it just to see him in action, complete with yamulke!

Rubies is a Jewish mysticism/chick flick (if that genre exists) starring Renee Zellweger as Sonia, a Jewess who is very unhappily married to a fervent Hasidic scholar. Renee's blushes and burning cheeks are very overdone. It's hard to believe that the affection starved Sonia doesn't enjoy Sender's sexual attentions just a little given the plot set-up.

The film does a good job of depicting Jewish family life on the lower East side of NYC, Shabbat's dinners, etc. Julianna Margulies turns in a very believable performance as Zellweger's sister-in-law. Sadly, as the plot progresses the more muddled it gets. Apparently the director is trying to evoke the imaginary aspects of a Marc Chagall painting with Sonia's brothers ghost and a kindly guiding spirit floating around in the plot. However, Sonia's burning sexuality is the snake in this garden. Too bad the director just didn't acknowledge that, it could have been a much better movie since it deals with universal issues, heightened by fundamentalist beliefs. Oh well, bye bye sexy Sender, on to the 9th Dr. Who.

Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason (Widescreen Edition)
$5.98
The original "Bridget Jones Diary" is one of my favorite recent comedies . . . I can say that even though I'm a guy. Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant led a stellar ensemble cast that was as committed to pitch-perfect little moments as it was to broad laughs and big romantic scenes. All in all, the original "BJD" is right up there with the most charming of English comedies.

But you know what happens with Hollywood and good ideas - if there's a nickel to be made, then nothing is sacred.

Somehow Zellweger, Firth and Grant let their "people" talk them into making this absolutely soulless shell of a sequel. On the Sequel Scale, with "Godfather II" at the top with an easy 10 and "Caddyshack 2" a zero, "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" rates about a 1.5. The concept is stupid - Bridget is still dizzily in love with Darcy (Firth), and he does nothing at all wrong except be just too darn perfect for words. But we must contrive some conflict, so Bridget concocts stupid sins on his part that even she realizes are stupid, but they are sufficient to create some distance between the two.

Look, in romantic comedies we expect a certain amount of cliche and coincidence - it comes with the territory. But this sequel just isn't true to Bridget. She learned in the first movie that Darcy really loved her, and she is a smart enough girl that she would never do the idiotic things she does in this movie. That's one of her most endearing qualities - Bridget is smarter than the thin people in her world realize. Stupid Bridget just ain't that interesting.

In this closed universe of profiteering, the filmmakers are so completely bereft of ideas that no sooner has Darcy left the stage in a semi-huff that Hugh Grant oozes back into Bridget's life, looking for a return to Bridget's arms. This makes absolutely no sense - here's Grant (it makes no sense to refer to his name - he's playing Hugh Grant), jet-setting around the world for a fun TV show, apparently still sleeping with supermodels, and yet his number one goal seems to be to seduce Bridget. Whaaaa? If Grant's purpose was to get revenge on Darcy, then perhaps the movie might have been funny. Not even Hugh Grant's charm can make this ridiculous character work.

We also get lots of contrived scenes demonstrating how the lovable Bridget gets herself into trouble. When Bridget thinks she's pregnant, not only are the filmmakers content to fall back on the old "Let's watch the terrible skier fly down the mountain at top speed, leaving a trail of destruction while narrowly escaping death and screaming 'Whoooo!'," but they have her glide into a pharmacy (yes, a pharmacy) at the bottom of the slope (pretty prime real estate for a pharmacy), where she requests a birth control test, only to realize that she is in the one store in a German tourist town where nobody speaks English. Hardy har nope. There's more exercise of similar "wit," including most tastelessly some completely shameless scenes in a Thai women's prison, where the filmmakers think the prisoners can be made to forget their cares and woes with a little Madonna sing-a-long and some lingerie. Nice.

Save your money - do not buy this film. At best, this movie should be seen by potential filmmakers and storytellers as a cautionary tale of the bad things that can happen to a great idea.

Love and a . 45
$9.98
I'd love to know what movie Peter Travers was watching when he compared it to 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Drugstore Cowboy' because it sure wasn't this. This film is stupid trying to pass for smart. Two white trash lovers, Watty (Gil Bellows) and Starlene (Renee Zellweger), hightail it to Mexico after Billy (Rory Cochrane), Watty's speed freak ex-partner, blows away a convenience store clerk during a botched robbery. Once across the border the two dine with Starlene's parents (Peter Fonda, speaking through a voice box, is her dad), get hitched by a goofy reverend (David Lynch favorite Jack Nance), and turn into cult heroes thanks to media coverage. Things aren't all sunny for the newlyweds since Billy, who now has an idiotic skull tattoo, is hot on their trail. He even has himself a few new partners (including Stuart Gordon favorite Jeffrey Combs). I thought the film sucked due to bad writing, Cochrane being so obnoxious and over the top and the fact that I never cared about Watty or Starlene. Zellweger is very sexy here, but she made some bad movies at the beginning of her career. (To be fair, she did win an Independent Spirit Award for this film). The only parts of the film I enjoyed featured Wiley Wiggins, Nance, Combs and the short shorts that Zellweger wears. Thanks for nothing Travers.