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New Releases: 'Two Weeks Notice' deserves a pink slip

Two Weeks Notice (PG-13)

Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant are attracted, attractive opposites in a middlebrow entertainment that dares to go where both stars, and so many others, have gone numerous times before. Two Weeks Notice is a romantic comedy about a pair of big-city types who chronically annoy each other before falling into a passionate relationship. Just like in real life.

Grant is billionaire New York developer and inveterate womanizer George Wade, who undercuts the efforts of brainy legal-aid attorney and historic-preservation activist Lucy Kelson (Bullock) by hiring her as his chief counsel. Initially the new czar of the company's philanthropic activities and a first-rate divorce attorney for her boss, she soon becomes a personal manager, coordinating his calendar, wardrobe and office decor.

Lucy quickly tires of her role as George's girl Friday, and resents his apparent intention to go back on a pledge to protect a cherished community center from the wrecking ball. As predictable as Bullock's nose wrinkles and Grant's familiar mannerisms, the screenplay penned by writer/director Marc Lawrence (Miss Congeniality, also with Bullock) has the two become one, but not before a protracted love-hate period marked by physical pratfalls and Lucy's sudden emergence as a beautiful swan. Was the guy blind before?

On a positive note, Robert Klein and Dana Ivey are cute as Lucy's parents, faded 1960s radicals still loyal to the old causes.

Rent it if you enjoy: Maid in Manhattan, You've Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, previous variations on the formula by Bullock or Grant.

DVD extras: Bullock, Grant and Lawrence offer amusing anecdotes and other tidbits during a commentary which allows viewers to click onto outtakes from portions of the movie. Also included are two deleted scenes and a making-of-the-movie short.

Disney's animated retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's high-seas adventure novel Treasure Island is an ambitious reinvention, starting with the $100-million price tag. Shot using a mix of digital images, hand-drawn art and "virtual sets," the movie is a little bit extreme sports and a little bit video game, all set in the future.

The noble good guys and the scurvy villains carry on in deep space, where galleons whoosh around and the air is breathable. The visuals are impressive, but the whole concept looks and feels off-kilter. And the characters come off as rather hollow. Young hero Jim Hawkins is voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and sung by John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls; other voice roles are played by Brian Murray, David Hyde Pierce, Emma Thompson, Martin Short and Laurie Metcalfe. For an antidote to Stevenson spun futuristic, try Disney's live-action version of Treasure Island, released in 1950 and now available on DVD.

Rent it if you enjoy: Stevenson's original novel or the movie adaptations; contemporary Disney animated features.

DVD extras: "Visual commentary," allowing for viewing of behind-the-scenes material while watching the movie; deleted scenes; Rzeznik's I'm Still Here video clip; "Disney's Animation Magic," with Roy Disney; pirate facts and trivia; RLS Legacy exploration game.

Who killed rival rappers Biggie Smalls, a k a Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac Shakur, in murders committed six months apart in 1996 and 1997? Nick Broomfield (Kurt and Courtney), director, writer and narrator of Biggie and Tupac, offers his own answers and speculations. Broomfield, British-accented and often combative, interviews the stars' friends, family members and colleagues, following hot trails and stumbling into dead ends in an intriguing documentary that variously indicts Death Row Records founder Suge Knight and the Los Angeles Police Department. Broomfield's controversial conclusions have been hotly debated.

Rent it if you enjoy: Rap movies; Kurt and Courtney; VH1's Behind the Music series.

DVD extras: A commentary and a follow-up interview featuring the filmmaker; deleted scenes; discographies of the rappers.

References to early slapstick, including Charlie Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy, color The White Sheik, the 1952 directorial debut of legendary filmmaker Federico Fellini. The gentle, funny satire is centered on a newlywed couple's trip to Rome: Wanda (Brunella Bovo) runs off to spend the day with her idol, the White Sheik (Alberto Sordi), star of a photo-comic strip, while her increasingly frantic husband Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) tries to explain his new bride's absence to inquisitive family members, eager for sightseeing and an audience with the Pope. The Criterion Collection edition includes recent interviews with Bovo, the late Trieste and Fellini biographer Moraldo Rossi, an essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum and an excerpt from Charlotte Chandler's biography, I, Fellini.

Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu), a sightless fellow, good-hearted and swift with a sword, was the hero of a long-running film and television franchise in Japan. Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold, released in 1964, has the Blind Swordsman clanking metal with criminals and corrupt government representatives in an effort to right wrongs committed against poor farmers. That film, artfully shot by Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon) is one of three feature-length episodes just released on DVD, along with illuminating essays. Also out are Fight, Zatoichi, Fight and Zatoichi's Flashing Sword.