STINKERVILLE

Here are some new DVD releases that leave a lot to be desired. Paint your kitchen walls! Trim your nose hairs! Write to someone on Death Row! Just don't waste your time with this crap.

Bee Season
Grade: C
How do you spell “tedium”? After seeing this mishandled adaptation of Myla Goldberg’s excellent novel, you’ll have to fight the urge to say “B-E-E S-E-A-S-O-N.” The film, which stars Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche, faithfully follows the book’s plotline about an 11-year-old spelling wiz and her seemingly perfect but highly dysfunctional family. But co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (who fared far better with The Deep End) get the tone all wrong. Goldberg’s book is dark, but it has a comic edge. Here, the proceedings are humorless, and the wannabe weighty religious themes come across as mystical mumbo jumbo.

Ellie Parker
Grade: C
This uneven and overlong comedy about a struggling Hollywood actress looks like it was filmed in one day on a budget of $50. Naomi Watts does her damndest to keep the episodic plot chugging along, and at times her performance recalls her brilliant portrayal of an ambitious actress in Mulholland Dr. But the premise is so limited that the jokes dry up long before the final credits roll.

Fun with Dick and Jane
Grade: C+
Are we having fun yet? Not really. Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni replace George Segal and Jane Fonda in this uneven update of the 1977 comedy about an upwardly mobile couple that turns to crime when the hubby loses his posh job. The remake gets off to a strong start with a sharp satire of an Enron-like corporation that suddenly folds and leaves its employees with incredibly shrinking pension plans. But when it comes to the couple’s slapstick robbery sprees, there are multiple misfired jokes for every genuine chuckle.

Shopgirl
Grade: C
You won’t have to shop around much to find a better movie than this vapid adaptation of Steve Martin’s bestselling novella. Martin, who wrote and produced the film, stars as a fiftysomething, emotionally detached millionaire who wins a trophy girlfriend in the form of a young Saks retail babe (Claire Danes). Despite a heartfelt performance from our so-called heroine, the doomed romance is totally unconvincing. Instead of zippy dialogue and character development, we get lots of pointlessly pretty shots of perfume counters and L.A. skylines. A dippy, irrelevant subplot with Rushmore’s Jason Schwartzman doesn’t help matters.