Erin Brockovich

Sporting back-combed, two-tone hair, spike-heeled Candies and the wardrobe of a trailer park tart, Julia Roberts has somehow never been more appealing and charismatic than she is as the brazen, tactless and utterly magnetic heroine of inventive auteur Steven Soderbergh's latest Hollywood-deconstructing dynamo. A based-on-fact story about a law office file clerk who in 1993 rallied a small desert town against the Goliath public utility that had for decades knowingly poisoned its water supply, Erin Brockovich is the kind of triumphant underdog story commonly prefabricated for cable TV. But this picture is an entertaining wonder because its conventions are turned inside-out by a whimsical script, refreshingly idiosyncratic characters and Soderbergh's vivaciously unorthodox direction. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)[Blu-ray Review—June 5, 2012—Universal, 132 min., R, $19.98—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 2000's Erin Brockovich sports a decent transfer with DTS-HD 5.1 sound. Extras include deleted scenes (30 min.), a location “making-of” featurette (15 min.), "100 Years of Universal” featurettes on “Academy Award Winners" (10 min.) and “The Lot" (10 min.), an "Erin Brockovich: A Look at a Real-Life Experience" featurette (4 min.), trailers, the BD-Live function, and bonus DVD and digital copies of the film. Bottom line: a solid Blu-ray debut for this fine biopic featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Roberts.]