Home Video Spotlight: MACGRUBER, SOLITARY MAN and LETTERS TO JULIET

Brief capsules on new movies worth renting.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, The Good Life film critic

MACGRUBER

Based on the popular SNL skit, "MacGruber" is the kind of stupid, bad-taste comedy that every ounce of my being tells me not to like. But, dammit, it's one funny retro-raunch adventure, positioning the hapless MacGyver doppelganger (played, hilariously, by character-originator Will Forte) as a mullet-and-tape-deck era Austin Powers. Kristen Wiig is his Farrah-Fawcett-coiffed squeeze, Ryan Phillipe is his strait-laced sidekick, and Val Kilmer is his slithery nemesis, Dieter Von Cunth. (Available Sept. 7)

SOLITARY MAN

If Michael Douglas is as good as expected in the upcoming "Wall Street" sequel, he'll have logged two stellar performances in 2010. In "Solitary Man," the ailing actor is slick and superb as Ben, a self-destructive ex-car salesman whose adherence to his wild past is shattering his now-gloomy present. A sort of latter-day reconfiguring of "Death of a Salesman," the film co-stars Susan Sarandon, Jenna Fischer, Danny DeVito, Jesse Eisenberg, Mary Louise Parker and Imogen Poots. (Available Sept. 7)

LETTERS TO JULIET

Like "MacGruber," "Letters to Juliet" is a movie that, upon first glance, sends the red flags flying. A schmaltzy, formulaic romance, right? Correctamundo. But there are pleasantries aplenty to distract from this film's unlovely tale of young love, such as the sunny vistas of Italy, the ever-blossoming chops of Amanda Seyfried, and a luminous supporting performance from the great Vanessa Redgrave. Playing opposite each other exquisitely (as the American girl who travels to Verona, and the aged letter-writer who must track down a long-lost Romeo), Seyfried and Redgrave share the spotlight as two screen queens at opposite ends of their careers. (Available Sept. 14)