Connie and Carla

It's a safe bet to assume that Connie and Carla was made only because My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a box-office smash. Greek star and writer Nia Vardalos follows up that cross-cultural comedy with an insipid third-rate TV sitcom about two lounge singers (Vardalos and Toni Collette) who somehow get a hold of a hot bag of cocaine. With gangsters on their trail the singers flee to L.A. In the city of angels these country bumpkins turn into female impersonators in a gay bar and their popularity grows too big for their own good. The plot rips off Some Like It Hot, in which two male jazz musicians escape the mob by posing as women. What made the Billy Wilder classic so funny was that it skewered the uptight sexual mores of its time. Connie and Carla offers no such subtext, just clichéd characters (limp-wristed queens) and lousy gags ("With L.A. men, the bulge in their pants is their cell phone"). Only those lying in a coma could enjoy this movie. Collette's immense talent is wasted on this drivel; instead, go see her in Japanese Story. Even love interest David Duchovny looks lost in this mess. The disc offers many special features that only a masochist could enjoy. Director Lembeck introduces several deleted scenes and shares the commentary track with Vardalos. The deleted scenes add nothing to the understanding or enjoyment of the film and amount to a cheesy gag reel. The obligatory "making of" featurette is a run of the mill back-slapping EPK (electronic press kit). Please. (Universal)