By Gregg Shapiro

Contributing writer 

“The Life Before Her Eyes” (Magnolia Home Entertainment)—In this modern-day ghost story, Diana (Uma Thurman) is haunted by (or is she the one doing the haunting?) the memories of a Columbine-esque high school massacre that occurred 15 years earlier.

Teenage Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) was a girl with a bad reputation who shared an unlikely and occasionally contentious friendship with uber-good girl Maureen (Eva Amurri). On the day of said bloodbath, the duo was standing in front of the mirror in the girls’ bathroom when they heard screams and gunfire. Moments later they came face to face with Michael (John Magaro), the student responsible for the slaughter, clutching his weapon of choice.

Moving back and forth in time, the movie presents Diana’s adult life, in which she is married to Paul (Brett Cullen) and the mother of Emma (Gabrielle Brennan), coming apart at the seams as the anniversary of the annihilation looms large in her mind. So the question is how could such a topical, albeit high-concept, project go so terribly wrong? How did director Vadim Perelman, whose previous film was the praiseworthy “The House of Sand and Fog,” get mired in such obscure self-indulgence, when telling the story in a more straightforward fashion would have served everyone, particularly the viewer, much better?

It’s a pity that “The Life Before Her Eyes” wastes not only the talents of Thurman, Wood and Amurri, but also the audience’s time. DVD special features include an alternate ending, deleted scenes, Eva Amurri’s casting tape, commentary by director Vadim Perelman and much more.

“What Happens In Vegas” (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)—Jack (Ashton Kutcher) and Joy (Cameron Diaz) have had better days. Jack, who has a hard time being serious for any length of time, is fired from his job at a closet-making business by his hyper-critical boss, who also happens to be his father Jack Sr. (Treat Williams). Futures trader Joy is the kind of person who makes plans to make plans. But there was no way that she could have planned for her distant boyfriend Mason (Jason Sudeikis) breaking up with her at a surprise party she has thrown for him, with all the hidden guests privy to the details of the break-up.

To escape the run of bad luck they are having, strangers Jack and Joy head for Las Vegas, with best friends the abysmal Hater (Rob Corddry) and wise-cracking Tipper (Lake Bell), respectively, in tow. There, all four are accidentally booked into the same room, leading to an unpleasant first encounter. Once they get beyond the initial near disastrous meeting, the four of them end up spending just enough time together for Joy and Jack to have sex and get married. After mutually agreeing to have the marriage annulled, Joy and Jack have words. Just as Joy is huffing off in a rage, Jack drops a quarter that she gave him in to a slot machine and wins $3,000,000.

With a large sum of money at stake, Joy and Jack are in court for a divorce where they come up against Judge Whopper (Dennis Miller). After declaring that gay people aren’t destroying the sanctity of marriage, but people like Joy and Jack are, Whopper sentences them to six months of “hard marriage” (during which time he freezes the funds), after which time they will either split the money or one of them will get it all.

In other words, it’s a case of till death do they part, unless one of them kills the other one first. Not exactly a promotional video for Las Vegas or marriage, for that matter, what follows is a series of schemes, some funny, some downright cruel, to get the other to crack and leave the marriage. Of course, love works in mysterious ways and the odd couple no longer finds themselves at odds in this 21st century screwball comedy that wasn’t as funny as it could have been. DVD bonus features include 
Sitting Down with Cameron and Ashton in which the actors interview each other and a fake advertisement for Hater’s law firm, which specializes in handling gay divorce cases.