New to VUDU: Week of August 7th, 2011

This week’s VUDU rental options keep track fairly well with the new Blu-ray titles being released at the same time. In this case, that’s kind of a shame, because the movies were mostly box office duds.

The following titles enter the VUDU stream this week:

  • ‘Gunless’ (8/9)
  • ‘Jumping the Broom’ (8/9)
  • ‘The Last Godfather’ (8/9)
  • ‘Mars Needs Moms’ (8/9)
  • ‘Mars Needs Moms 3D’ (8/9)
  • ‘Paul – Theatrical Cut’ (8/9)
  • ‘Paul – Unrated Cut’ (8/9)
  • ‘Tactical Force’ (8/9)
  • ‘Your Highness – Theatrical Cut’ (8/9)
  • ‘Your Highness – Unrated Cut’ (8/9)

Both of the week’s stoner comedies, ‘Paul‘ and ‘Your Highness‘, underperformed pretty badly during their theatrical runs earlier this year. Of the two, ‘Paul’ was slightly less of a disappointment, because it cost less make. Neither compares to the damage done by ‘Mars Needs Moms‘, which will likely go down as one of the biggest money-losers of all time.

Whether you enjoy the two comedies will probably come down to the question of whether you like their casts (Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Seth Rogen in ‘Paul’ – or Danny McBride, James Franco and Natalie Portman in ‘Highness’). VUDU has both theatrical and Unrated versions of each. Anyone who wants to rent these movies will surely go for the Unrated versions.

It seems that pretty much nobody liked ‘Mars Needs Moms’. But hey, you can stream it in 3D, if you’re so inclined.

The week’s only new title to actually make any money in theaters was the buppie romantic comedy ‘Jumping the Broom‘. The trailers for this one look exactly like every other buppie rom-com ever made. Although its ultra-low budget pretty much ensured that it would turn a profit, the movie’s poor Rotten Tomatoes score and IMDb user ratings suggest that it’s not one of the better examples of its genre.

I’m willing to bet that you’ve probably never heard of the Canadian indie Western comedy ‘Gunless‘ or the Korean gangster spoof ‘The Last Godfather‘. I’ve heard that ‘Gunless’ isn’t very good, which seems to be backed up by its really lame trailer. And ‘The Last Godfather’ just looks atrociously bad. ‘Tactical Force‘ appears to be a direct-to-video actioner starring “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. So you should already have a sense of what you’re getting into with that.

All dates provided refer specifically to rental availability. Check VUDU for sell-through availability, if interested.

Be sure to also check for VUDU’s $0.99 Movie of the Day offers, which are announced each day on the company’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

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