Hope Springs
Steve Carell counsels Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones through their 30-year-old marriage, which predictably has hit a few bumps. Some small-town locals show up for support, but this is mostly the stars' gripe and grope session. And there are plenty of problems to get through, starting with, but not limited to, the usual bedroom ones. Carell's doc suggests solutions — some work (holding each other through the night proves easy enough), some don't (Streep tries to goes down on Jones in a movie theater with disastrous results). Every summer, a movie like this is released to give grownups a reprieve from all of the superheroes and explosive 3D extravaganzas clogging the multiplex. At least this one has a terrific cast anchoring it, even if, like a 30-year-old marriage, it hits some predictable bumps. Your mom's favorite new movie opens this week.
Full Metal Jacket: 25th Anniversary Blu-ray Book
Stanley Kubrick's look at the Vietnam War chronicles young recruits' training before throwing them into the middle of a bloody battle. Which is more harrowing? The 25th anniversary set out this week includes extras like commentary by stars Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio, and R. Lee Ermey, plus a documentary about the director, who put his cast through another kind of hell as they were making this timeless classic. ,/p>
The Bourne Legacy
Sadly, there's no Matt Damon in the fourth Jason Bourne movie. But director Tony Gilroy wrote the others, and star Jeremy Renner earned his action-star medal in the terrific Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol and the even more terrific Avengers. So yeah, we're excited to see what the shadowy government pricks who made life hell for Damon have in store for Renner. Here's hoping it involves lots of explosions. It opens Friday.
The Campaign
Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis star as sparring North Carolina presidential hopefuls in this new movie opening Friday. That's the good news. Director Jay Roach is responsible for the Meet the Parents and Austin Powers movies. That's the bad news. But we'd watch these two comedy heavyweights play ping-pong, so baby-kissing and shit-talking offer way more opportunities for them to mix things up.
Whores' Glory Austrian documentary filmmaker Michael Glowagger has already made movies about big-city living and the plight of the working class across the globe. The final chapter of his trilogy takes a look at prostitution in three different parts of the world. The focus may be on individual women, but their stories, not so surprisingly, are frighteningly similar. It shows at the Cinematheque at 7:25 p.m. on Friday and at 9:10 p.m. on Saturday.
The Lorax</b> One of Dr. Seuss' most endearing stories isn't the home run you hoped for in this CGI blockbuster featuring the voices of Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, and, um, Zac Efron. But it comes from the same people who made Despicable Me, so it's not all fluff either. There's no escaping the green message at the center of the movie — which is out on home video this week — but that's the point. It looks great too, so go for HD.
Spaceballs: 25th Anniversary Edition Before Family Guy and Robot Chicken took on the Star Wars universe, this 1987 Mel Brooks-helmed parody was the best one out there. It makes its Blu-ray debut this week in an extras-stuffed set that includes commentary by the director, a bunch of outtakes, and a new feature on the making of the movie. Some of Brooks' gags fall flat (he crams so many of them into every scene, it's bound to happen), but Pizza the Hut is still hilarious.
