Video review: "The Office: Season Nine"

What happens when a very good television comedy loses its star and iconic main character?

Usually it spells the end, but “The Office,” which at one point was the highest-rated series on NBC, managed to trudge on for another two seasons without Steve Carell. Though the show clearly dipped in quality after losing the manic energy of Carell’s Michael Scott, it still boasted plenty of laughs -- and more somber moments than previously seen.

Despite the naysayers determined to shut down fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin early, “The Office” made for pretty good television during its ninth and final season.

As might be expected, company lovebirds Pam and Jim (Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski) took up some of the vacated limelight. But the show also found time to focus more on previously tertiary characters. Most notable was Ed Helms as self-deluded fussbudget Andy, who assumed Michael’s role as boss and resident empty suit.

By Season Nine, Helms’ movie career was taking off, so his character was largely shunted aside, leaving “fascist nerd” Dwight to finally step into his long-sought role of regional manager for the Scranton office of the fictional paper company. Rainn Wilson, who has created one of the most unique characters ever seen on TV, got to spread his wings a little further.

It was also nice to see Erin (Ellie Kemper), Oscar (Oscar Nunez) and Darryl (Craig Robinson) soak up some more screen time, and complete character development journeys that knocked them out of the grooved slots they had settled into.

There are plenty of television shows that overstay their welcome, diminishing their legacy by ending their runs with superfluous seasons – “Friends” and “Frasier” come to mind. “The Office” was not one of them.

Extra features are quite handsome, and you don’t have to splurge for the most expensive package to get the good stuff.

The DVD version comes with more than two hours of deleted scenes, original audition tapes from 2003 (including then-unknown Seth Rogen!), a cast retrospective, blooper reel and footage of the final table read.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition and you add an extensive panel discussion looking back on the entire TV series.

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Review: "This Is the End"

What could have been a terribly tiresome joke turns out to be an extravagantly funny one. Young(ish) Hollywood stars playing themselves convene for a wild party at James Franco's house, which gets broken up by ... the Apocalypse.

Yeah, really: brimstone, demons, the whole bit. Needless to say, they aren't among those who ascend into heaven during The Rapture, which leaves these entitled stars feeling rather miffed. Things grow progressively worse, the food and water run low and they start turning on each other, with merrily over-the-top results.

I think what makes it a giddy romp instead of a giant sandwich of self-indulgence is that the versions of themselves played by the comedy stars are thoroughly unlikable and selfish. Each seems to be doing an amalgam of their various film roles, with all the negative characteristics played up.

It goes so far that they crack on each other for bad role choices or movies that underwhelmed. Seth Rogen, who co-directed and co-wrote the film with Evan Goldberg, gets a lot of abuse for the mush-brained "The Green Hornet" ... for which, of course, Rogen and Goldberg did the screenplay.

The bare-bones setup is that Seth is hosting his old friend Jay Baruchel in L.A. for a few days. Jay is estranged from Seth's new buddies, including Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson. He gets strong-armed into attending a shindig at Franco's swank new Hollywood pad, it gets kinda awkward -- until death rains from the sky and holes open up in the earth.

Most of the guests and other celebrities get killed off rather quickly, including Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Paul Rudd and Jason Segal. Michael Cera, playing an arrogant coked-up version of himself, meets an especially messy end.

The survivors spend the next days and weeks holed up in Franco's house (which somehow manages to retain electricity even as the rest of town is fried into a smoking cinder).

The humor is really, really raunchy, with a bend toward the scatological. The running thread is that the entire bunch is ruled by narcissism, even when it seems like they're playing buddy-buddy.

Jay is the lone voice of reason, suggesting they repent their sins and hope for salvation. But it's a hard sell with this bunch. Their facility with religious faith extends only as far as Franco comparing the Holy Trinity to Neapolitan ice cream.

Emma Watson has a wicked turn playing herself, who busts into the boys' house with an axe and can't wait to bust out again.

"This Is the End" is essentially a one-joke movie, but it's one these young show biz funnymen gleefully -- and skillfully -- play on themselves.

Review: "Hot Tub Time Machine"

A movie called "Hot Tub Time Machine" sounds like a really bad sex comedy from the '80s -- except that it's actually a pretty decent comedy about some fortysomething guys who get to relive their wild teen days.

It even stars John Cusack, a guy who made his bones in flicks like "The Sure Thing." He gets to headline a movie that is not so much poking fun at the Decade of Reagan, as mocking movies of that era.

In fact, when Cusack and his crew get back to 1986 Kodiak Valley, the setting is almost a straight lifting of "Hot Dog: The Movie": Lovable losers take on preppie bullies at a partying ski lodge, with a whole lot of binge drinking and topless shenanigans.

It's an orgy of teased hair, DayGlo-colored outfits and hard-rock love ballads. And it's actually pretty dang funny.

Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry are Adam, Nick and Lou (whose nickname is "The Violator," which I hope he did not give himself) -- three best buds and former party animals turned middle-aged has-beens.

As the story opens Adam has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Nick is stuck working at a pet clinic called 'Sup Dawg?, and Lou nearly dies rocking out to Motley Crue sitting in his garaged Firebird as deadly fumes spew.

They decide to recapture their glory days at Kodiak, but find the town hit hard by the Great Recession. Their old ski lodge is falling apart, and the surly one-armed bellhop looks suspiciously like Crispin Glover.

But after they jump into the hot tub and zap themselves 24 years into the past, they get a chance to right some wrongs.

For Adam, that means not breaking up with the dream girl he let get away. For Nick, it means not whiffing at his big shot on stage with his band. For Lou, it means not getting repeatedly beat up by the preppy ski patrol head goon.

Initially, the guys are not happy about going back in time. When they look at each other, they see their lumpy, graying selves. But in the mirror and to others, they're 19 again. After some dithering, they decide to revel in and remake their youth.

Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) is along for the ride, which threatens the sanctity of the time-space continuum since he wasn't even born in 1986. But given that the time machine is a hot tub, metaphysical musings are perhaps misplaced.

Oh, and Chevy Chase turns up as a cranky hot tub repairman who may or may not be in on the time travel. He keeps promising to repair the temperamental machine, and then disappears. He's like Mr. Miyagi crossed with Carl Spackler.

The constant stream of jokes about how strange and funny things were in the '80s somehow never gets old. The ski patrol convinces themselves that the iPods, cell phones and energy drinks they confiscated from the guys are actually a Russian plot.

And I liked the bit where Jacob meets a girl, and asks how he'll get in touch with her since he can't e-mail, text or call her on her cell: "You just come find me." "That sounds so exhausting."

"Hot Tub Time Machine" is essentially just a clever retread, but at least it's a consistently humorous one.

3 stars