Strawberry Shortcake: Meet & Spring & Get Well, DVD

New Wave director Yazaki Hitoshi made a great splash in 1992 with his acclaimed March Comes in Like a Lion, a beautifully pondering film about incest. But since then, Yazaki has remained low-profile, or rather no-profile save for 2000's under-the-radar Hana o Tsumu Shojo to Mushi o Korosu Shojo. Fourteen years after his groundbreaking film, Yazaki earns much-deserved accolades once more for Strawberry Shortcakes. With a commercially friendly cast, a pop-infused soundtrack, and a manga-based story...

Producer: Frederick Ashton. Choreography: Frederick Ashton. Producer: Mort Abrahams. Director: Clark Jones. Producer: Sol Hurok. Screenwriter: Frederick Ashton.

There are woefully painfully few laughs in this disjointed comedy, and despite Courteney Cox's buoyant presence, the film never navigates a coherent wavelength. The jokes become depressing very quickly, particularly those about homelessness and mental illness, not necessarily knee-slapper material in the first place. Much of the problem is the unlikely casting of disheveled, bearded, chain-smoking Vincent Gallo as a popular talk show host. He plays it too seriously morose, and worse, he's given free...