HollywoodIdiocy.com

The star right winger of the Montreal Canadiens, Alexei Kovalev has released a two-DVD set of hockey tips and techniques that, allegedly, help give the NHL star his edge on the ice. Born in Togliatti, Russia, Kovalev was drafted 15th overall in the 1991 NHL draft and has been tearing it up on the ice ever since. A journeyman who has played for the Rangers, Penguins and Canadiens, Kovalev was a key component on the Rangers’ 1994 Stanley Cup-winning team. Kovalev is the first Russian to ever be drafted in the first round in the NHL, and along with three Rangers teammates, was one of the first Russians to ever have their name inscribed on a Stanley Cup.

So, the upshot is, Kovalev’s a sufficiently experienced NHL pro to turn to for hockey tips and techniques. There are two DVD’s in the set; one is split between on ice hockey tips and off-ice training and the other is background on Kovalev and the Gift of Life Foundation.

There’s nothing world-shaking about Kovalev’s tips and techniques, though he thoroughly explains his methods and style of play while covering everything from skating, stick handling, shooting and some situation-specific scenarios. What is a bit more impressive is the off-ice training video, which clearly shows just how hard Kovalev (and anyone else who wants to be great at this sport) has to work to make those tricks and techniques look so easy.

The documentary on Kovalev’s life is entirely hockey-focused and isn’t going to beat out even an average episode of A&E’s Biography, but proves interesting since he spent some time in the Russian leagues before making the leap to the NHL. The piece on the Gift of Life Foundation is pretty much a standard promotional video for a worthy charity that is dedicated to fighting the spread of heart disease in children. Proceeds from the sale of this package go toward this foundation, which is why Kovalev got involved in the project. (In other words, save your Target coupons for some other product; this one benefits a worthy cause.)

While this is definitely a narrow-market specialty video, it’s certainly a DVD package than any hockey mom would be proud to give to their hockey-playing sons and daughters. Beyond that audience, however, there’s little of note for anyone else.

British drama has always been a bit slow paced with typical English reserve, and My Boy Jack, a BBC production, is no exception to that general rule. The tale revolves around Rudyard Kipling and his son, Jack, with the latter being portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. However, anyone picking up this film expecting anything like the action and adventure of, say, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be bitterly disappointed. There is no magic, no cloak of invisibility, not even a laptop computer to be found; it is a straightforward historical drama. Sorry, kids.

David Haig portrays Rudyard, a full-on British patriot who happened to work for the War Office’s Propaganda Department as World War I broke out. Based on Haig’s stage play and screen adaptation, My Boy Jack tells the tale of how Kipling’s son, Jack, struggled to gain entry into the British military despite severe near-sightedness and then went missing in battle one day after his 18th birthday. The story effectively portrays the terrible human cost of war without betraying genuine patriotism the pro-War Kipling embodied.

As Jack’s mom Caroline, Kim Catrall of Sex and the City fame makes an appearance and skillfully disappears into her character, rather than standing out like a sore thumb among the otherwise all-British cast. Virtual unknown Carey Mulligan makes a good first impression in the role of Jack’s sister, Elsie.

The best thing that can be said about Radcliffe’s performance is that it stands resistant to Harry Potter comparisons; he captures the spirit of his character and immerses himself in it for the entire 90-minute running time. And although he is the actor most likely to be recognized on US shores, it is Haig’s performance as the great British author that steals the show. He portrays a broad range, from comedy to sorrow, almost exclusively with amazing reserve and understatement.

The main trouble, however, is with Haig’s script, which builds to a satisfying climax but even at just over 90 minutes, feels slow and drawn out. While this is in the classic tradition of British moviemaking, the pace may come off a bit too slow for some US audiences. Nevertheless, it is a noteworthy film that marks Radcliffe’s maturity as an actor outside of the Harry Potter franchise.

Nauseating, pretentious, self-important, annoying, holier-than-thou. All these words, unfortunately, aptly describe the excremental proceedings awaiting viewers unfortunate enough to rent or, horrors, buy the DVD known as the Crave Film Series. A series of three short films, all under 10 minutes long, comprise the thankfully-brief collection that seems packaged to be marketed specifically to only the most obnoxiously self-righteous and smug of Christian churches.

OK, perhaps I’m being a bit unfair. The films themselves, for as long as they last, are not necessarily terrible, although their brief running time reduces them to little more than character sketches than anything significant. All three films are unrelated to each other, nor do they even comprise an overall story arc; only the loose theme of “crave,” as in “craving human and spiritual connections,” binds the package together.

Still, “Midnight Clear,” “Pop Star” and “Nameless Moment” are, in and of themselves and taken alone, mildly inoffensive. Of these, “Nameless Moment” has probably the best twist ending, while “Pop Star” is the most effective character study. Had they all been collected together without additional material, the collection might barely be tolerable.

Unfortunately, each film is bookended by commentary courtesy of Erwin Raphael McManus, lead pastor of the Mosaic Church and founder of Awaken, a group of Christian artists, poets and the like. That is where the pain begins. Pain the likes of which might drive you to want to hang yourself with a theater rope.

Now, although I’m not the same brand of believer as McManus, I am a person of faith and, that being said, I could not discern one lick of coherent thought in McManus’ self-important, pretentious ramblings that rob any enjoyment the short subjects might otherwise have rendered the viewers.

A blend of artistic pretentions, pop psychology and pseudo-spirituality all go into the mix of McManus’ pointless ramblings, but taken as a whole, he came off more effective than a politician at streaming off an endless supply of words without communicating one iota of meaning or real content in the process. His segments are simultaneously hyper-intellectual while at the same time coming off as insulting, demeaning and superior.

Perhaps the real miscalculation is in balance; by offering up both an introduction and an afterword to each film, McManus’ undesirable presence and contributions nearly rival the films themselves in running time, which is probably what makes matters so painful to endure.

The whole experience comes off like a bad concert performance by a drunken pop star who rambles on for 10 minutes about what each three-minute ditty means to her as a protest of the Bush presidency, the Iraq war, global warming or whatever other pop-culture obsession Hollywood is embracing at the moment. Eventually, you are just itching to scream at them, “Shut up and sing!”

The same urge applies to the Crave Film Series DVD… you’ll be best served by watching only the films themselves and skipping McManus’ pretentious prattle. Believe me, by doing so you may just be saving yourself years of therapy bills.

After watching several Fox Faith films, I was ready to screen something a little more gritty, yet without having to endure endless profanity, blood and guts. Fortunately, Resurrecting the Champ fit the bill quite nicely. Samuel L. Jackson does well in a surprising turn as a homeless man, Champ, who wanders wine racks and claims to be former boxing near-legend Bob Satterfield, a man nearly everyone thought was dead.

That is, until enterprising and ambitious sports reporter Erik Kamen (Josh Hartnett) stumbles across him coming back from covering a game, just as Champ is being beaten up by a group of young thugs. The two form a quick acquaintanceship, and Kamen is quick to recognize the story potential of a once-notable boxer now living on the streets of Denver. Despite using Champ’s story to launch his own writing career, he nevertheless forms a friendship with the man.

However, Kamen makes a rookie reporter mistake and wants so desperately to believe Champ’s story, he doesn’t properly check it out and only after the story run and his success starts overwhelming him does he begin to suspect that Champ may not be Satterfield after all, and that’s when the really interesting exploration into ethics takes over and drives the remainder of the drama.

Cold Case’s Kathryn Morris appears as Kamen’s estranged wife, but is little used throughout the film, which is a waste of good talent. Alan Alda and David Paymer fare better as Kamen’s superiors at the Denver Times, earning good screen time and some nice moments. Peter Coyote is almost unrecognizable in his cameo as a long-time boxing journalist, and Teri Hatcher appears as a Showtime Sports promoter, interested in hiring Kamen.

Overall, the Rod Lurie-directed drama, based on an actual LA Times magazine piece by J.R. Moehringer, is a solid mix of boxing action, human drama and empathetic performances. The story has some nice turns and its exploration of ethics, truth-telling and lying is clear-eyed and honest on all sides. As a bonus, there’s little in the way of profanity and Kamen actually turns down more than one chance to cheat on his estranged wife, so it’s nice to see a film character make smart choices in a film that isn’t bent on selling a specific religion.

While Resurrecting the Champ doesn’t rank up there with Rocky Balboa or Raging Bull as a boxing movie, it is solid family entertainment, without religious pretensions weighing it down. A solid film, worth seeing especially for Samuel L. Jackson’s atypical, noteworthy performance as Champ.

Although released under the Fox Faith banner, Ace of Hearts is a heart-warming family film that could easily take its place alongside such standard children’s fare as “Eight Below” and “Old Yeller.” The movie features Dean Cain (“Lois and Clark”) as the human half of a K-9 police unit whose partnership with a police dog, Ace, is causing him to neglect both his wife and his daughter.

Despite his neglect, both wife and daughter remain unswervingly loyal to Cain’s Officer Dan Harding, especially when a controversial take-down by Ace seems to prove him uncontrollable and a biter; Cain doesn’t want to believe it, and his daughter only wants to see him happy again, so she launches her own unlikely investigation into the crime in which Ace allegedly bit a criminal.

Even though he was apparently euthanized shortly after the biting incident, Ace makes his escape an tries to reunite with his family in time to keep them safe from the criminal Ace took down. Like most children’s movies, the daughter has the surprising ability to be a better investigator and fact-finder than her experienced, well-trained father, and whenever danger threatens, a rescue never arrives too late to save the day.

Despite this, the film has just enough action to appeal to boys and well as girls, and the film is entertaining enough to make watching it enjoyable for adults as well, even though the film lacks much edginess. Of course, few films in the Fox Faith family sport much edginess, so no surprise there.

Cain’s daughter is ably portrayed by Britt McKillip, who Showtime watchers might recognize as Reggie Lass, the “invisible” sister of Ellen Muth’s George Lass on the cable drama Dead Like Me (which is soon transforming into a major motion picture, barring any of the principles undergoing drug treatment, by the way). As Julia, she fits the young female heroine role well, and shed of her Dead Line Me classes and ponytails, is almost unrecognizable in this role.

The story, unfortunately, is thin and predictable stuff, but not so much as to be insulting. While hardly a classic, “Ace of Hearts” makes agreeable, if not exactly memorable, family viewing.