Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Latest on DVD: I Do, I Don't

Sandra Bullock returns to typical terrain in the romantic comedy hit The Proposal, available on DVD and Blu-raytoday. She plays a Devil Wears Prada-esque book publisher who, upon threats of deportation to her native Canada, ropes her ambitious assistant Ryan Reynolds into a sham wedding to get her green card.

Complications ensue when a by-the-book immigration officer (Denis O'Hare, who apparently is in everything these days) calls foul, prompting the faux lovebirds to fly to Reynolds' Alaskan hometown to prove the legitimacy of their pending nuptials.


As is way-too-typical in movies like this, Bullock's ice queen is thawed in the wilds of Alaska, populated as it is with such quirky denizens as Betty White's gone-native grandmother and Oscar Nuñez (gay Oscar on The Office) as the town's sole male exotic dancer, Ramone.

The plot hinges solely — and unbelievably — on that ol' rom com trope, the kiss of true love between two characters who hitherto loathed each other, and it's hard to buy that Bullock is such a dragon queen as well.

Nevertheless, The Proposal benefits greatly from the charms of its leading couple, and the scene-stealing White is, as always, a hoot. And the Alaskan scenery looks great in high def.

Blu-ray extras include a gag reel, deleted scenes and a wisely excised "alternate ending" that, if left intact, would have sent this one too far over the top to survive.

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