My Name is Earl - Season One
List Price:
Our Price: $14.95
You Save: $25.03 (63%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.26 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Eddie Steeples, Ethan Suplee, Jaime Pressly, Jason Lee, Nadine VelazquezBrand: MY
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 526 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-09-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of My Name is Earl - Season One
Movie Review: One man's effort to be a better person
Summary: 5 Stars
Along with EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, Jason Lee's MY NAME IS EARL emerged as the finest new comedy of this past season. The premise was simple: a perpetual and hapless petty criminal wins the lottery but while celebrating gets hit by a car, causing him to lose the lottery ticket. While in the hospital he sees Carson Daly on TV talking about his philosophy of life, which he describes as karma, i.e. what goes around comes around. Earl comes to the sudden realization that the reason his life sucks is that he has spent his life doing nothing but sucky things to others. He resolves to make up for every bad thing he has ever done by compiling a list of everything he has ever done to hurt someone else and then making amends in each instance. When he finds the lost lottery ticket upon his discharge, he sees this as a sign that he is supposed to use that money to finance his quest. As he puts it each week, "I'm just trying to be a better person."
I have to confess that I often found Jason Lee irritating in most of his movie roles, especially his Kevin Smith films, though he was very fine in ALMOST FAMOUS as the lead singer for the band. Here he essentially recreates Nicholas Cage's character H.I. McDunnough from RAISING ARIZONA. They not only engage in the same kinds of petty thievery, they even resemble one another, and Lee affects the same kind of dumb, lopsided deer-in-the-headlights look of stupefaction that Cage perfected in that great film. But this isn't just mere imitation; Lee really makes the role his own and manages to imbue his utterly stupid character with a kind of genuine goodhearted nobility. For the show to work at all, Lee has to excel as Earl Hickey, and excel he does. Lee's Earl is clearly the central character and he does a great job of carrying the show, but he is assisted by an able though relatively small supporting cast. As good as Lee is as Earl, Jaime Pressly steals just about every episode as Earl's vile ex-wife Joy. An amazing beauty and real life former beauty queen, Pressly manages to come across as pure white trash (look, I'm the scion of several generations of white trash, so I know whereof I talk--you know the folks Jeff Foxworthy always jokes about? Well, those are my people.), albeit trash trapped in a stunning body. Her character could have been insufferable had they kept her the same ruthless plotter that she was in the earliest episodes, but as the season goes along they give her more and more depth, so that you come to learn that a lot of her harsh exterior covers genuine vulnerabilities. Ethan Suplee, another Kevin Smith alumni, plays Earl's brother Randy, one of the world's true innocents. Though Earl is not the sharpest tack in the box, he is Einstein compared to his brother Randy, but while Earl is truly trying to be a better person, Randy has always been one, even when he was assisting Earl in petty thievery. His problem is that he simply doesn't know any better. He is a very dim person with an extremely good heart. Much the same can be said for Joy's husband Darnell, whom Earl inexplicably calls Crab Man. Darnell is played by Eddie Steeples, who became a familiar face immediately before the show hit the air playing an office clerk in love with his rubber band ball in a series of Office Max commercials (he graced the cover of the 2005 Office Max catalog). Earl and Randy live in a seedy motor inn, where they have befriended the Mexican maid Catalina, played by the gorgeous Nadine Velazquez. So far her character has disappointed me. I'm not disappointed with the actress, but with the writers for not finding a better way of integrating her into the show. Few shows success by keeping the focus on just the main three or four characters and I suspect that for the show to develop--and it definitely will need to develop to stay a top show--they will need to do more with Catalina in the future. The cast is rounded out by a few performers who have made repeated guest appearances, including Giovanni Ribisi as a fellow crook, Beau Bridges as Earl and Randy's dad, Tracy Ashton as a one-legged girl Earl wronged (and who he has a huge amount of trouble trying to make amends), and Max Perlich.
I really enjoyed Season One, but I have some worries about where the show goes in the future. Each episode is structured around Earl getting to take one thing off the list each week. While this provides an easy framework to introduce each week's story, it could easily become a limiting premise. To succeed in the long run they are going to have to transcend this premise to become much more than a show about crossing someone else off Earl's list each week. Towards the end of the season they started showing signs that they were going to start breaking out of this framework to some degree. My other fear for the show is that while the characters are all a lot of fun, they might all be a tad too inherently two-dimensional to carry a series over several seasons. In other words, I fear that the show while a lot of fun in the short run might get old quick. They are going to have to give the characters a lot more depth in the future, which might be hard given how fundamentally dumb all the main characters are, excepting only Catalina, who has been underutilized so far. Thanks to shows like ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and SCRUBS and THE OFFICE, the bar has been raised for comedies on TV. Fifteen years ago the show would have been able to just go on as it is, but shows like those just mentioned challenge shows to develop and expand. My gut tells me that the show will be up to the challenge.
But fears for the future aside, this was in its first season a truly funny show with a genuinely unique set of characters. I'm definitely looking forward to see what they are able to do with the show in its second season.
Summary of My Name is Earl - Season One
Karma is a funny thing. Just ask Earl (Jason Lee), who's learning the hard way that when you do something bad, it has a way of coming back and biting you in the ass! Hoping to turn his life around, Earl's got a lengthy list of detestable deeds to make up for. Also starring Jamie Pressly, Ethan Suplee, Eddie Steeples and Nadine Velazquez, My Name Is Earl is wildly offbeat and hilariously irreverent?the #1 new comedy of the season!Similar DVD Movies
Two and a Half Men: The Complete Eighth SeasonWHV; Release date: 2011-09-06; DVD
Best price: $16.19
Price in other shops:
South Park: The Complete Fifth SeasonParamount; Release date: 2005-02-22; DVD
Best price: $14.53
Price in other shops:
Grounded for Life - Season 1Release date: 2011-09-13; DVD
Best price: $3.68
Price in other shops:
Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete First SeasonHBO Home Video; Release date: 2004-01-13; DVD
Best price: $13.95
Price in other shops:
Rescue Me: The Complete Fifth SeasonSony; Release date: 2010-06-01; DVD
Best price: $15.02
Price in other shops:
Rescue Me: The Complete Fourth SeasonSony; Release date: 2008-06-03; DVD
Best price: $10.96
Price in other shops:
Raising Hope: The Complete First SeasonFOX; Release date: 2011-09-20; DVD
Best price: $13.75
Price in other shops:
My Name Is Earl: Season FourMY; Release date: 2009-09-15; DVD
Best price: $17.54
Price in other shops:
My Name is Earl - Season ThreeFox; Release date: 2008-09-30; Published: 2008-09-01; DVD
Best price: $13.23
Price in other shops:
My Name Is Earl - Season TwoMY; Release date: 2007-09-25; DVD
Best price: $16.56
Price in other shops: