Best Buy > Music & Movies > Movies > Comedy > General Comedies > Product Info

Belly-Aching Laughs: Blades of Glory/Old School/Without a Paddle [3 Discs][Fullscreen] - DVD

SKU: 18072746 | Release Date: 11/3/2009

Backordered: Usually leaves our warehouse within 1-2 weeks Estimate Arrival Time

Store Pickup: Not Available

Financing:

Great Financing Offer

List Price:

$19.99

Our Price:

$14.99

Printer friendly printing

Choose the pages you would like to print
Overview
Customer Reviews
Editorial Reviews

Overview
Customer
Reviews
Editorial
Reviews

Need Help?

Call 1-888-BEST BUY or have us call you now.

Format: DVD
Genre: General Comedies
Studio: Paramount

Synopsis

Includes:

Old School (2003), MPAA Rating: R

Without a Paddle (2004), MPAA Rating: PG-13

Blades of Glory (2007), MPAA Rating: PG-13

Old School
Three men relive their carefree college years by killing off as many brain cells as possible in this over-the-top comedy. Mitch (Luke Wilson) returns home from a less-than-pleasant business trip one evening to discover his wife, Heidi (Juliette Lewis), involved in a m�nage � trois with two blindfolded strangers. Feeling less than welcome at home after this, Mitch rents a house near the campus of a nearby college; two of Mitch's old college buddies, Beanie (Vince Vaughn) and Frank (Will Ferrell), stop by to cheer him up. They soon become regular guests at Mitch's place, despite the fact that Frank only recently wed Marissa (Perrey Reeves), while Beanie and his wife, Lara (Leah Remini), are busy with two kids. Beanie decides to throw a housewarming party for Mitch, and since Beanie sells audio equipment for a living, he's able to trick out the big bash with a massive PA system and an appearance by Snoop Dogg. Mitch soon finds he's the not-entirely-willing proprietor of the school's leading party spot, which raises the ire of Pritchard (Jeremy Piven), a dean at the college who was the target of Mitch, Frank, and Beanie's abuse when they were all students. Pritchard arranges to have Mitch's neighborhood zoned into a student housing district, but Beanie and Frank respond by forming a fraternity and making Mitch's home their headquarters. Mitch, however, is not enthusiastic about the idea, especially as he's trying to impress Nicole (Ellen Pompeo), a beautiful divorcee who is less than enchanted with Frank and Beanie's "party hearty" lifestyle. Old School director Todd Phillips knows more than a bit about the seamy side of fraternity life as director of the infamous unreleased documentary Frat House. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Without a Paddle
Just as the old saying goes, a trio of hapless city-dwelling friends (Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, and Dax Shepard) find themselves spiraling out of control up a very brown river in this raucous comedy from Little Nicky director Steven Brill. Heading out for a weekend canoe trip in search of an elusive 200,000-dollar treasure, the trio must contend with everything from raging rapids to backwoods mountain men if they're ever going to uncover the secret of the missing booty. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Blades of Glory
Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, and Will Arnett headline this high-concept comedy concerning two male figure-skating rivals aching to compete despite having been banned from the sport. Their medals stripped after getting into a highly publicized fight at the World Championships, star figure skaters Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Heder) are barred from ever competing in the sport again. Upon discovering a loophole that will allow them to perform together in the pairs figure skating category, the two athletes determine to put their differences aside in order to pursue their gold medal aspirations. Amy Poehler, Jenna Fischer, Craig T. Nelson, and Rob Corddry co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Belly-Aching Laughs: Blades of Glory/Old School/Without a Paddle [3 Discs]: AMG Review
AMG

Includes:

Old School (2003), MPAA Rating: R

Without a Paddle (2004), MPAA Rating: PG-13

Blades of Glory (2007), MPAA Rating: PG-13

Old School
At one point in director Todd Phillips' post-Animal House, pre-midlife crisis comedy Old School, love interest Nicole (Ellen Pompeo) slyly mentions to Mitch (Luke Wilson), the "Godfather" of a ragtag fraternity, that she always wondered what went on in "those places" (meaning frat houses). Herein lies the problem with Old School: if anyone should know enough of what goes on in frat houses to make a solid collegiate comedy, it's director Phillips. As the man behind the controversial and ill-fated documentary Frat House, Phillips personally endured the legendary "hazing" process and was subsequently threatened with multiple lawsuits by Greek society members for the sometimes shocking situations he captured them participating in. With this wealth of knowledge, it would seem that Phillips would undoubtedly be the man to avoid the clich� and breathe new, authentic life into the long-suffering college party film. Yet despite his previous experience with the wild side of Greek culture, audiences are inexplicably served up the same "save the frat house from the evil dean" plot that seemed laughably played-out when PCU hit theaters nearly a decade ago. Audiences have no doubt seen all the characters and many of the situations in Old School countless times before, and despite the talented cast involved, only SNL alum Will Ferrell seems to be able to muster the energy needed to transcend the hackneyed material. A fearless and at times surreal performance, Ferrell's suppressed maniac Frank "the Tank" provides Old School with not only 80 percent of the laughs, but a sole, strangely tender comic moment which with a lesser comic actor would have been swallowed up in the flood of clich�s. It now seems as if every generation needs an Animal House to call their own, filled with the comic actors of the day and spiked with the popular radio hits of the moment. Taken as such, Old School does indeed serve it's purpose, yet it might have been more effective if it had attempted to break the mold instead of simply going through the motions. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Without a Paddle
If you were looking to feel superior toward a movie in 2004, you had few better choices than Without a Paddle. The trailers were geared toward juvenile humor that ranged in depth from homophobia and animatronic bears to the ever-present fear of being raped by hillbillies. It's not that Without a Paddle doesn't touch on these things, it's that it's not very mean-spirited about them, and is more likeable than it should be for much of its running time. This can be credited to the snappy dialogue by Jay Leggett and Mitch Rouse, who get down a good "guys razzing each other" tone that develops the characters and makes them seem comfortable enough to be real friends. Since the actors are clearly having a good time, it's easier to swallow the ridiculous things that happen to them in the course of a camping trip gone wrong in all the predictable ways. As though to prove Seth Green is the most marketable of the stars, all the truly outrageous things happen to his character, leaving Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard to look on and guffaw moronically. This gets tiresome, as do a bunch of set pieces that beat a sadly familiar trail. But darn it if a good soundtrack and some watchable chemistry don't push things toward a halfway-decent lowbrow comedy. In a ten-minute cameo as a mountain hermit, Burt Reynolds submits a far livelier performance than his co-starring role in The Dukes of Hazzard the following year. Also nice fun are Abraham Benrubi and Ethan Suplee as a pair of redneck marijuana farmers, with Suplee's performance serving as a template for his moony simpleton on My Name Is Earl. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Blades of Glory
Blades of Glory may well be the Will Ferrell movie for people who don't like Will Ferrell movies. It's hard to believe, since an outlandish sports comedy where the SNL vet plays a slovenly egomaniac probably sounds like the quintessential Ferrell flick. But where movies like Anchorman and Talladega Nights -- and even non-Ferrell sports comedies like Dodgeball -- depend on comedian improvisation, and on scenes in the script that delve into the truly bizarre, Blades of Glory actually sticks fairly rigidly to its story. This has its benefits; Ferrell rarely indulges in his usual uncontrollable rants, and while he may be treading on fairly well-worn territory with his character, it's a persona that works well for him. Likewise, Jon Heder finds success in a role that's quite the opposite of Napoleon Dynamite, playing a dainty and elegant figure skater with a mane of blonde, Leif Garrett-like curls (though you'll catch him slipping into the Dynamite voice here and there, like a suppressed foreign accent). Unfortunately, while these concessions may tone down the elements that don't agree with non-fans of the cast, they also rob the movie of what many viewers are looking for. Co-stars Amy Poehler and Will Arnett are surely capable of extreme hilarity as an uncomfortably close rival brother-sister skating team, but the script provides them little dialogue besides words to further the plot, and we're even cheated out of seeing the entirety of their skating routine as Marilyn Monroe and JFK. The Office's Jenna Fischer is as adorable onscreen as ever, but she's given little opportunity to utilize her great comic timing (though we're offered the consolation prize of seeing her in a bustier). There are plenty of funny moments, most of them dependent on the homoeroticism of male-male pairs skating -- which you can't really claim you didn't see coming. There are also, somewhat surprisingly, a number of skating in-jokes; pretty much every prominent American skater from the past 30 years makes an appearance, and you might notice that the secret, experimental move in Ferrell and Heder's routine is the exact same one from 1992's The Cutting Edge -- though it's much more impressive here, where we're given shady footage of it, previously only being legal in North Korea. In the end, Blades of Glory has what its target audience is looking for, it just doesn't have a lot of it. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Skip Navigation

My Account

Order Status

Customer Service

Español

Weekly Ad

Store Locator

Outlet Center

Services

Gifts

TV & Video

Audio

Car & GPS

Cameras & Camcorders

Computers

Mobile Phones & Office

Music, Movies, & Books

Video Games & Gadgets

Home & Appliances

Belly-Aching Laughs: Blades of Glory/Old School/Without a Paddle [3 Discs][Fullscreen] - DVD

Financing:

Need Help?

Synopsis

Order Support

Legal

Product Support

Credit Cards

Reward Zone® Program

Get Connected

Corporate Info

More Best Buy Sites

Need help? We're available 24/7 at 1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289)