Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story (Two-Disc Special Edition) | 
 enlarge | Director: Jake Kasdan
Actors: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Raymond J. Barry, Margo Martindale, Kristen Wiig
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.96
Buy Used: $4.85
You Save: $25.11 (84%)
New (51) Used (33) Collectible (6) from $4.85
Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 2632
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 216
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: 25078
UPC: 043396250789
EAN: 0043396250789
ASIN: B0012IWNZY
Theatrical Release Date: December 21, 2007
Release Date: April 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The Pixar-like roll of Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad) continues with another sure-fire hit. In charting the meteoric rise, catastrophic fall and Lazarus-like rise of rocker Dewey Cox, Walk Hard parodies the classic Hollywood bio-pic, cashing in mostly on Walk the Line. John C. Reilly, one of Hollywood's most solid character actors, makes the most of his Golden Globe-nominated star turn as Dewey, whose road to stardom is paved with a childhood tragedy that claims the life of his prodigiously talented brother ("The wrong kid died," is his father's mantra), instant stardom (his first record is a hit just 35 minutes after it was recorded), sex and drugs, and the inevitable "dark (effen) period" that leads him to rehab. Reilly gets solid backup from current and former Saturday Night Live alumni, including Kirsten Wiig as his incredibly fertile first wife who has no faith in his musical aspirations ("You're never going to make it," she cheerily ends one phone call); Tim Meadows, never better, as Dewey's drummer, who, in one of the film's best scenes, does a poor job of dissuading him from trying marijuana); and Chris Parnell as his bass player. Jenna Fischer leaves Pam back at The Office as Darlene, Dewey's virtuous duet partner. Hilarious cameos give Walk Hard a great "Hey!" factor: Hey, that's Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly. Hey, that's "Kenneth" from 30 Rock. Hey, there's Jack Black and Paul Rudd as--no kidding--Paul McCartney and John Lennon revealing "a rift in the Beatles." Some of the jokes are obvious (come on; the guy's last name is Cox), others inspired. But the decades-spanning music, echoing the styles of gritty Johnny Cash, romantic Roy Orbison, obtuse Bob Dylan, trippy Brian Wilson, and even a bit of anachronistic punk rock, is as pitch perfect and affectionately observed as in The Rutles, This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. Walk Hard earns its R-rating, particularly for a sure-to-be-talked-about scene of hotel-room debauchery. But: Hilarious? Outrageous? Twisted? To quote the title of one of Dewey's hit songs, "Guilty as Charged." --Donald Liebenson On the DVD
Though an unaccountable box office disappointment, Walk Hard is poised for discovery and cult status on DVD. You'd think the film had pretty much exhausted all the puns and double-entendres you could get out of Dewey Cox's last name, but the Elvis-inspired "A Christmas Song from Dewey Cox," the "Cox Sausage Commercial" and "The Real Dewey Cox," which are among this two-disc set's extra features, manages to get even more mileage out of that juvenile joke. Speaking of which, there is a "cockumentary" devoted to actor Tyler Nilson, who provides the film with its most shocking laugh during the hotel orgy scene, The Unbearably Long, Self-Indulgent Director's Cut contains, ahem, extended footage of that scene and features the deleted setups for some of the theatrical cut's more inexplicable gags (a deleted montage reveals just how Dewey and band member Theo wound up in bed together). Better than a gag reel is the "Line-O-Rama," a hit-and-miss compilation of improv outtakes. Full song performances give this film's Oscar-worthy music its due. The Daily Show's John Hodgman gets "The Last Word" in a celebrity profile spoof that was originally broadcast on Comedy Central. With a more traditional "Making of" featurette and entertaining audio commentary by writer Judd Apatow, director Jake Kasdan, and star John C. Reilly, Walk Hard walks even harder on DVD. --Donald Liebenson Beyond Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story 
On Blu-ray | 
The Soundtrack | 
UMD for PSP | Stills from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (click for larger image)
Product Description
One of the most iconic figures in rock history Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) had it all: the women (over 411 served) the friends (Elvis The Beatles) and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle (a close and personal relationship with every pill and powder known to man). But most of all he had the music that transformed a dimwitted country boy into the greatest American rock star who never lived. A wild and wicked send-up of every musical biopic ever made WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is gut-busting proof that when it comes to hard rocking living and laughing a hard man is good to find.System Requirements:Running Time: 216 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/SATIRE Rating: UNRATED UPC: 043396250789 Manufacturer No: 25078
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 66 more reviews...
 I love COX!!! July 15, 2008
OMG!! I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. In fact, I'm still laughing. Anyone who is familiar with pop culture should get all the little jokes and inuendo. Elvis the bully, the Beatles riff, the Brian Wilson drugged out days, Jerry Lee Lewis underage wife, the protest folk songs of the niave 60's, the comeback in the disco 70's. And the music? BRILLIANT! This is definitley a movie I will return to often.
 If you like STUPID humor..... July 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This wasn't quite the movie I expected, however if you like dumb funny then this is a great flick for you.
Exposes the Cliches Behind Fame July 6, 2008
This film lampoons the formulas used in the biopics of so many famous pop singers to make their stars' lives appear sympathetic, mythic, and worthy of their musical enshrinement.
"Walk Hard" is intended to most closely parallel the Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line." However, it actually includes the similar story lines of any number of other famous singers, from Elvis to Bob Dylan to Jim Morrison and more. The life trajectories of all these icons of 20th century popular music have a lot in common, and "Walk Hard" picks up on all these common strains of excess and rationalized rottenness and shows how such tawdriness ultimately gets transformed into redeeming epiphany and inflated importance in the typical cinema biography.
I personally wasn't able to laugh much at this satire, certainly not in the same hearty way I laughed at the mock seriousness of "Spinal Tap." This movie just exposes the cliches with too much raw candor. It underscores the "deja vu all over again" quality of our favorite singers' lives and deflates them in the process.
There's the cliche of the exaggeratedly troubled childhood that goads the star to overcome in adulthood. There's the cliche of the star's ensnarement into drug use, blamed on the star's cronies and the steepness of the rise to fame. There's the cliche of the first wife. With that poor haggard woman left standing in the middle of a messy kitchen and a circle of bawling children, the star strides off to fresh sexual conquests - cloaked in his conviction that "she just wasn't supportive." And on and on...
Whatever grace transforms their music fails to inform the personal lives of one star after another. This movie further makes one realize what a grinding chore it could be to know many of these individuals in real life. It makes one happy to be a stranger to them, to just have the best of them there in their recordings and to be able to leave the rest.
John C. Reilly does a great job portraying a singer with a homely, down-home combination of luck and grittiness. The songs, which are given special expanded space in the DVD bonus materials, are inventive and catchy. But overall, if you have ever looked for heroes in the pop world, for inspiring lives behind the inspiring music - this movie might make you realize how much more reason there is to cry than to laugh.
 "Help, It's A Bad Trip!" ~ A Not So "Beautiful Ride" Through The Mind And Music Of A Tormented Soul June 30, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The '07 release `Walk Hard' starring John C. Reilly as hard rocker Dewey Cox is a sometimes hilarious, but uneven parody that slowly loses it's inventive SNL like charm the further you move into the storyline becoming too repetitive and excessive by the time the credits roll by.
Positives:
- The sequence with Dewey in an ashram in India with the Beatles was excellent.
- The music is great.
- Jenna Fischer looked lovely.
Negatives:
- The orgy sequence was totally unnecessary.
- How many bathroom sinks do you have to rip off the wall before you finally realize it's not funny?
- Too long!
Bottom Line: Inane entertainment with hit and miss results.
Reilly and great music scenes save film from disaster June 27, 2008
With the description of the film and story (mock rock bio) already covered, I won't go into that again.
What works in the film is John C. Reilly, absolutely pouring himself into the persona of Dewey in his many phases, and delivering some fine singing and playing in the expertly crafted musical scenes.
All these period pieces are done with wit (which is something the rest of the film could have used more of) and it is telling that they mostly involve people other than the director and scriptwriter.
Apatow, in all fairness, does his best work with the music sequences, but exhibits just an appalling lack of instinct when it comes to the pacing and content of many of the dramatic scenes, particularly the icky, badly done machete sequence with the boys. Often I would just want to yell 'cut already' as scenes would disintegrate into pointlessness.
The script has some of the worst constructed dialogue I've heard in a while.
The brother talking about how "there ain't nothing I won't do in this long, long life of mine" to hammer home that, sure, it won't be a very long life...I am sure at the script conference, such 'hip' weird sentences are terribly funny, but try to sit through them on film....
So why 4 stars? Because Reilly and company are a blast when they sing and play, and there are some good scenes that work, such as a roaring, lusty Harlem-style club where Dewey, being the token white, steps in for the singer and tears the place up.
This is where the film works, because it balances between Reilly and the writer's penchant for raunchy material. But way too much material is just too juvenile to fit with the gentler style of Reilly at his best.
This one could have been on the level of 'Spinal Tap' if the writing had taken a clue from the songwriting: like I said, real wit.
C.
|
|
|
