CD Giveaway - 33Miles, "One Life"
Ends Aug 4, 2010
The country-pop sound established in their eponymous debut is a mainstay for this album as well, and even adds a little more southern flavor. |
CD Giveaway - Phil Wickham, "Cannons"
Ends Aug 3, 2010
With an opening shot that hits the sonic pinnacle, this collection of spiritual Brit pop/rock is heavily influenced by Keane, Travis, Coldplay, and U2. |
DVD Giveaway: Kick-Ass
Ends Aug 1, 2010
Get ready to have your ass kicked when this DVD of awesomeness releases to the home entertainment market. |
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DVD Review: Four Christmases
by R.J. Carter
Published: November 23, 2009
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Rating: 
Country: USA
Release Date: November 24, 2009
Distributor: New Line
Director:
· Seth Gordon
Cast:
· Vince Vaughn
· Reese Witherspoon
· Robert Duvall
· Sissy Spacek
· Jon Voight
· Jon Favreau
· Mary Steenburgen
· Tim McGraw
· Dwight Yoakam
· Kristin Chenoweth
Related Sites:
· IMDb: Four Christmases
Grade: B-
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Brad and Kate (Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon) are a happily unmarried couple who've been living together for three years, successfully avoiding each others families not just at Christmas, but apparently on a steady, ongoing basis. As they prepare for their annual "get out of town" vacation for the holidays (this year it's Fiji), a thick fog settles on San Francisco, effectively socking in all outgoing flights. (And no, you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you. That blue-eyed ticket agent at the airport Vaughn berates is none other than producer Peter Billingsley -- no stranger to holiday films himself since he became immortalized as Ralphie in "A Christmas Story.")
Not only are Kate and Brad delayed, but thanks to an on-the-scene live news report on holiday travelers, they're broadcast trying to sneak out on their trip, and their cell phones begin ringing as their respective parents -- all divorced -- start calling them out on their lies and demanding their attendance on Christmas. The only way to regain peace is for the two of them to spend part of the day with each of their parents. Fortunately, the fog won't affect that, as they all seem to live local to the San Francisco area, making their perpetual incommunicado status quo all the more baffling (or at least more difficult to maintain).
Thus is set in motion a tour-de-force of stars as we visit Brad's misanthropic father (Robert Duvall) and his two cage-fighting brothers (Jon Favreau, Tim McGraw) for a painfully physical visit, his flighty mother (Sissy Spacek) who has remarried Brad's best friend from high school, Kate's mother (Mary Steenburgen) who has found religion through dating a showman preacher (Dwight Yoakam), and her settled and sensible father (Jon Voight). Along the way, the encounters start Kate's biological clock ticking, and her change of heart about wanting children puts a strain on what had been up until that point a relationship free from anything resembling responsibility for Brad.
The humor is entirely situational, involving extremes of family dysfunction that miraculously coagulate into a quietly civilized Currier & Ives scene before the evening is over. Vaughn's style has never been one that appealed to me, but in this film it seems to work; perhaps Witherspoon has some magical ability to pull the best out of her male co-stars, as she's done in "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Just Like Heaven."
This DVD release contains no bonus features, but does include both the widescreen and full-screen versions on one single-sided disc.
Previews on this release include "Sherlock Holmes," "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" Ultimate Collector's Edition, Mini Ninjas videogame, and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
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