DVD OF THE WEEK

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL ****
Dir: Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand

'From the guys who brought you The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.” So says the tag-line and while it may be true, this is a subtly different beast.
You can see the similarities running through all three films: a somewhat nerdy hero, full-frontal male nudity, and the regular company filling minor roles, but Forgetting Sarah Marshall works at a more mature level (in its own way) than those films and really delineates the decade's changes of rom-com styles from the gross out humour of the Farrelly Brothers' There's Something About Mary to a more character-based variation.
Segel here plays the hero Peter, not a hopeless stoner or late life virgin but a fairly straight, if rather lazy, composer. He is not a loser by any stretch but things start badly as he is dumped by his titular girlfriend, also the star of the TV show he writes music for. He's also not poor, and heads to a resort in Hawaii to drown his sorrows. And here's the set-up: she's also staying there, with her (famous) new boyfriend.
And things tick along, much as you expect them to. We all know the destination but there is an edge to the characters and an off-beat honesty about the delivery that keeps you on your toes and makes the journey pleasantly unpredictable. Sarah is initially relegated to distant object of desire status, but gets to put her side at the film's climax; the boyfriend – a very impressive Russell Brand - turns out to be very cool, in a weird off-this-planet rock star sort of way; and Segel's hang-dog charm grows on you as the film progresses.
It's not a laugh-a-minute comedy but as far as this strange new genre - the male centred rom-com – goes, it's pretty good.

How much you like The Love Guru (***) will largely depend on how much you like Mike Myers central character, The Guru Pritka. Teaching nonsensical mnemonically-coded slogans and wanting to be Deepak Chopra, Myers is hired by a chirpily bland Jessica Alba to fix the troubled marriage of an ice hockey player whose wife has run off with a rival (Justin Timberlake, hamming it up with an outrageous French-Canadian accent). The style, songs, and general silliness is pure Austin Powers and the gags are now fairly recognisable, but these guys are pros and turn their tricks with skill. Be warned, however, in case it should offend, that much of the humour is sex-related.

Pathology (****) is a fantastically nasty little thriller set in a world of dead bodies and medical students. These students are a little on the extreme side, as they play games involving committing perfect murders. And it gets worse. In scenes resembling the fetishistic car-crash worshippers in David Cronenberg's Crash, these guys really party down with the corpses. They also have pretentious philosophical discussions and, like that film, the tone is bleak and sombre, but if there is any serious content on offer here it is happily subsumed by the many excesses on display. The week's Outrageous Movie Award winner.

Why anybody at this stage would want to make X Files 2: I Want to Believe (**) rather escapes me. And, it would appear, rather escaped the makers of the film, who churn out a story devoid of aliens that could easily have fitted into a typical early TV episode, as a paedophile priest leads Mulder and Scully through a wasteland of red herrings in the search for a missing FBI agent (and others). The reoccurring focus on the two lead's relationship is tedious and confusing, and what was once an exciting search for mysteries revealed now seems like a frustrating plod.

The Colour of Magic (**) is a TV mini-series based on the Terry Pratchett's wonderful Discworld novels and the best thing about it is the voiceovers which come, in many cases, directly from the books. Other than that things are severely hampered by a limited budget and a presentation that seems a lot less magical than it should. Fans of the books could have the patience for it, but it might actually work better broken into TV-length episodes.