DVD MOVIE

Remember the Titans

2011-03-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

Based on the true story of the explosive events that took place in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971 when African-American football coach Herman Boone was hired to guide an integrated but racially polarized high school team--the T.C. Williams Titans. Angry, stubborn and a rigid taskmaster, Boone faces a cool reception from the team's players as well as an awkward relationship with assistant coach Bill... See Full Description
PG for thematic elements and some language.NZone,
(3 out of 5 stars) "...another 'Denzel against the world' film." Full Review... Cinema Sense,
"Gem" "A wonderfully stitched movie about a community overcoming racial prejudice via the crucible of its high school gridiron." Full Review... Deseret News (Salt Lake City),
(3 out of 4 stars) "...has real heart..." Full Review...

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Saving Grace (Fine Line Features)

2011-03-05T04:21:00.000-08:00

Grace Trevethan's idyllic life on the Cornish coast is turning upside down. Faced with her husband's untimely death, a mountain of debt, a former mistress and the prospect of losing her beautiful manor house, Grace decides to put her green fingers to work. Desperate times call for desperate measures and with a little prompting from her now underemployed gardener, Matthew, Grace swaps her prize-winning... See Full Description
R for drug content and language.NZone,
(3.5 out of 5 stars) "Following along on the footsteps of 'The Full Monty,' 'The Big Tease' and 'Waking Ned Devine,' 'Saving Grace' brings us back into the world of yet another quaint little British town." Full Review... culturevulture.net,
"The movie staggers where it should skip lightly, its scenes elastic and unshaped." Full Review... Empire (UK),
(3 out of 5 stars) "For all its niceties, there's nothing new here." Full Review... Film Journal International,
"...blithe, snappily paced..." Full Review...

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Saving Private Ryan

2011-03-05T00:17:00.001-08:00

James Ryan, who has parachuted into France during the Allied invasion of Europe, has just lost three brothers in combat. Government policy dictates that he should return home lest his family be deprived of all its male offspring. A team of soldiers, led by Captain John Miller and fresh from the beaches of Normandy, is assembled to find and save Private Ryan.
Action/Adventure, Drama and WarR for intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence, and for language.BBC, Almar Haflidason
"What is abundantly clear is that in the massive body of films that deal with World War II, this is one that pulls no punches." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"Saving Private Ryan is a powerful experience." more... Reel.com, Tor Thorsen
"Hailed as the greatest war movie of all time, Saving Private Ryan is one of those few movies that lives up to its hype." more... Salon, Gary Kamiya
"After Saving Private Ryan, the myth of World War II will never be the same." more...

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The Lover

2011-02-27T05:52:00.000-08:00

Set in 1920s Indochina, a young French girl becomes romantically and sexually involved with a Chinese man.

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The Bar Method Body - Fat Free

2011-02-27T00:54:00.000-08:00

The Bar Method is a fitness program designed to produce the slim, defined body of a dancer without the use of any expensive exercise equipment. Instead, instructor Burr Leonard guides the viewer through a series of precise exercises that can be achieved with a simple piece of sturdy furniture. These highly effective movements result in elongated legs, lifted buttocks, and defined abdominals. This volume... See Full Description

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The Other Side of Heaven

2011-02-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

John Groberg, a farm kid from Idaho, crosses an ocean to become a missionary in the remote and exotic Kingdom of Tonga during the 1950's, leaving behind a loving family and the true love of his life, Jean Sabin. Through letters and musings across the sky, John shares his adventures with "the girl back home," and her letters buoy up his spirits in difficult times. John must struggle to... See Full Description
Action/Adventure, Drama, Kids/Family, Adaptation, Biopic and Politics/ReligionDecember 14, 2001 (limited), April 12, 2002 (limited)PG for thematic elements and brief disturbing images.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sheila Norman-Culp
"...wry, gentle comedy." more... Chicago Tribune, Robert K. Elder
"... a breathtaking exotic landscape cluttered only by the smugness of its characters." more... Deseret News, Jeff Vice
"...a disappointment." more... E! Online,
"...takes drama and drains it of friction." more...

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Mean Girls

2011-02-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

Cady Heron is a cultural blank slate when she first sets foot on the grounds of North Shore High School in a small town outside of Chicago, Illinois. After living in Africa, Cady, now a junior, has no idea how "wild" things can be in civilization until she crosses paths with one of the meanest species of all, the "Queen Bee," who at this particular high school is the cool and calculating... See Full Description
PG-13 for sexual content, language and some teen partying.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"Reasonably mean and certainly funny, but eventually wimps out." more... Boston Globe, Wesley Morris
"Mean Girls is a pitcher of Kool-Aid with a drop of acid..." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"In a wasteland of dumb movies about teenagers, Mean Girls is a smart and funny one." more... Chicago Tribune, Robert K. Elder
"Though not a perfect comedy, it manages to be quite often laugh-out-loud funny." more...

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Fantastic Four

2011-02-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

Investor, astronaut and scientist Dr. Reed Richards' lifelong dream is close to being realized. He is spearheading a trip to outer space, to the center of a cosmic storm. There he hopes to unlock the secrets of the human genetic codes for the benefit of all humanity. Extensive government grant cutbacks nearly dashed the visionary's hopes of the historic flight, until Reed accepted a financing deal... See Full Description
Action/Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Crime/Gangster and AdaptationPG 13 for sequences of intense action, and some suggestive content.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"...chances are, you'll be taken in." more... Boston Globe, Wesley Morris
"...you might assume its source was the cartoons of Hanna-Barbera." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...in short, underwhelming." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"...missing something vital by the end." more...

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

2011-02-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

A tale of adventure set during the 17th Century in the Caribbean Sea. For the roguish yet charming Captain Jack Sparrow, the crystalline waters of the Caribbean, like the high seas the world over, present a vast playground where adventure and mystery abound. But Jack's idyllic life capsizes after his nemesis, the wily Captain Barbossa, steals his ship, the Black Pearl, and later attacks the town of... See Full Description
Action/Adventure and Kids/FamilyPG-13 for action/adventure violence.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bob Longino
"...a consistently rousing, funny and thoroughly entertaining summer action movie." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...a movie that charms the audience and then outstays its welcome." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"...Pirates of the Caribbean is fun - but only as long as you don't expect much." more... E! Online,
"...this flick may just be the buried treasure of the summer-blockbuster season." more...

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Party Girl

2011-02-26T05:58:00.000-08:00

Coming-of-age comedy about a downtown party girl who takes a job as a library clerk to prove to her librarian godmother that she can be a responsible adult. Along the way she falls in love with a Lebanese falafel vendor who yearns to be a teacher.

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Fight Club

2011-02-26T02:24:00.000-08:00

The mundane existence of a product liability evaluator and insomniac, who is addicted to self-help groups, is turned upside down when he meets a sado-masochistic anarchist who is secretly plotting to overthrow civilization. As their friendship grows, they become increasingly involved in a secret society of "fight clubs" where men act out their aggressions and violently beat one another to... See Full Description
Action/Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller and AdaptationR for disturbing and graphic depiction of violent anti-social behavior, sexuality and language.Christian Science Monitor, Tom Regan
"Occasionally I see a film that demands a response or an action. 'Fight Club' is such a film." more... culturevulture.net, Tom Block
"David Fincher’s 'Fight Club' (from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk) is about a special kind of male anger." more... Flick Filosopher,
"There is a dissatisfaction that American men are coming to realize afflicts them." more... Harvey's Movie Reviews, Harvey O'Brien
"There are some good moments in David Fincher's bombastic, hyperkinetic adaptation of Jim Uhls' novel." more...

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Dancing with the Stars

2011-02-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

Samba all the way to slim with this exercise program from top-rated show DANCING WITH THE STARS. Dancers Ashly Costa Delgrosso, Kym Johnson, and Maksim Chmerkovskiy demonstrate four different dancing styles that can banish boredom (and extra pounds): Paso Doble, cha-cha, samba, and jive. This customizable workout also features a warm-up, cool-down, and instructions on how to eat better.

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100 Girls

2011-02-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

A college freshman has sex with a girl during a power outage and never sees her face. When he goes in search of the mystery girl, he realizes there are about one hundred suspects to consider.

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The Bar Method Body - Designer Sculpting

2011-02-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

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Last of the Dogmen

2011-02-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

Lewis Gates, a bounty hunter haunted by the past, is hired to track down three escaped convicts in the Oxbow region of the Rockies. Following the criminals' trail, Gates arrives at a secluded spot where he discovers signs of a struggle, but no bodies or evidence other than a strange arrow shaft. Gates takes the mysterious arrow to Lillian Sloan, an expert in Native American culture, who identifies... See Full Description

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Batman Begins

2011-02-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

How does one man change the world? It's a question that haunts Bruce Wayne like the specter of his parents, gunned down before his eyes in the streets of Gotham on a night that changed his life forever. Tormented by guilt and anger, battling the demons that feed his desire for revenge and his need to honor his parents' altruistic legacy, the disillusioned industrial heir vanished from Gotham and secretly... See Full Description
PG 13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"This is the story of the Dark Knight, not the Caped Crusader." more... Boston Globe, Ty Burr
"In Batman Begins, Christian Bale gives us the best Bruce Wayne that has ever graced the screen." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"...one of the artier, more noir-drenched, psychologically tortured and memorable of all the recent big comic-book hero movies." more...

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The Notebook

2011-02-25T03:53:00.000-08:00

An epic love story centered around an older man who reads aloud to an older, invalid woman whom he regularly visits. From a faded notebook, the old man's words bring to life the story about a couple who is separated by World War II, and is then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths. Though her memory has faded, his words give her the chance to relive her... See Full Description
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"As weepies go, this is a perfectly good one." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...it is a tearjerker, it's just that it's a good one." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"It's a film about falling in love and looking back on it, and it avoids many of the genre's syrupy dangers." more... Cincinnati Enquirer, Margaret A. McGurk
"(Rachel) McAdams shows great personality, and (Ryan) Gosling - best known for much darker roles - makes a credible romantic hero." more...

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The Aristocats

2011-02-24T22:53:00.000-08:00

The Aristocats was the first Disney Studios animated feature to be produced after Walt Disney's death. A wealthy woman leaves her vast fortune to her four cats: the well-bred Duchess and her kittens Berlioz, Toulouse, and Marie. Jealous butler Edgar, eager to get his mitts on the cats' legacy, abandons the felines in the French countryside. The four lost kitties are aided in their efforts to return... See Full Description
Comedy, Kids/Family, Musical/Performing Arts and Animation

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Crunch - Fat Burning Ab Attack

2011-02-24T19:41:00.000-08:00

Instructor Catherine Chiarelli helps viewers achieve the abdominal appearance they want in CRUNCH - FAT BURNING AB ATTACK. This workout is, obviously, specially designed to eliminate fat around the stomach area and sculpt the abdominal muscles, creating the desirable "washboard abs" look. Not only does the routine help to develop the wanted abs look, but it also offers hints and techniques to maintain... See Full Description

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Pornografia

2011-02-24T15:37:00.000-08:00

In 1943, Poland has been under German occupation for nearly four years, but for a group of artists, writers and intellectuals who regularly gather at an exclusive club, the war could be a world away. Two self-described thinkers, Fryderyk and Witold, are invited to stay at the country home of another friend, Hipolit, and they eagerly accept for what proves to be an extended stay as the sophisticated... See Full Description

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Beauty and the Beast

2011-02-24T12:08:00.000-08:00

An arrogant nobleman is turned into a beast and, in order to break the spell, he tries to win the love of a village girl.
Comedy, Kids/Family, Musical/Performing Arts, Romance and AnimationNovember 13th, 1991; January 1st, 2002 (IMAX Re-release)Walt Disney Studios DistributionChicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...great entertainment..." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"...this is a film of astonishments." more... E! Online,
"...this beaut's worth it just to revisit a time when Disney knew how to make good animated films without its Pixar crutch." more... filmcritic.com, Christopher Null
"...on a return viewing ten years later, Beauty and the Beast doesn't seem to be quite the masterpiece we once thought." more...

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Another Gay Movie

2011-02-24T07:10:00.000-08:00

In a world where being gay is a non-issue and losing one's virginity has become top priority, a spoof about four high school graduates, on their way to college, who are aiming to lose their virginity by the end of the summer with the help of their chick-magnet, lesbian gal pal, Muffler.
Chicago Tribune, Sid Smith
"...more numbingly disgusting than funny." more... E! Online,
"It's all pretty unimaginative stuff." more... Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman
"What Another Gay Movie doesn't have is a message, and that, it turns out, is a good thing." more... filmcritic.com, Chris Barsanti
"...a shockingly incompetent piece of crap..." more...

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Live Nude Girls

2011-02-24T02:46:00.000-08:00

It's been twenty-five years since six Southern California girlfriends had a slumber party. So now that Jamie is about to embark on her third marriage, her best pals from girlhood decide to revisit their childhood ritual. An evening of daiquiris, dishing and Doris Day movies begins an ebullient homage to more innocent times. But as the night presses on, the angst of adulthood surfaces and the party... See Full Description

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Moulin Rouge

2011-02-23T23:19:00.000-08:00

Christian, a young Bohemian poet living in 1899 Paris, defies his father by joining the colorfully diverse clique inhabiting the dark, fantastical underworld of Paris' now legendary Moulin Rouge. In this seedy but glamorous haven of sex, drugs and newly-discovered electricity, the poet-innocent finds himself plunged into a passionate but ultimately tragic love affair with Satine, the club's... See Full Description
Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and RomanceMay 18, 2001 NY/LA; June 1, 2001 WideBBC, Neil Smith
"...a feast for the senses..." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"It's like being trapped on an elevator with the circus." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"...a rare picture that gets you intoxicated on the possibilities of movies." more... CNN.com, Paul Clinton
"...quite simply, a spectacular reinvention of the movie musical." more...

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Showgirls

2011-02-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

Nomi Malone is a fiercely independent young woman who comes to Las Vegas running from a troubled past. Looking for a break on the Las Vegas Strip, she lands a job as an erotic dancer at the Cheetah Club. But, to make ends meet, she also works as a lap dancer in the club's back room. Possessed of a raw and riveting dancing talent, Nomi is soon introduced to the vastly different world of the big... See Full Description
Austin Chronicle, Marjorie Baumgarten
"...even on this bottom-feeder level, Showgirls fails to deliver the goods." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"It's trash, yes, but not boring." more... filmcritic.com, Christopher Null
"...(Elizabeth) Berkley hams up the role so much, she becomes incredibly fun to watch." more... Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan
"...somehow managed to make extensive nudity exquisitely boring." more...

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20 Country Love Songs

2011-02-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

Twenty country legends take the stage at Orlando's legendary Church Street Station venue. Performances from Tanya Tucker, Charlie Rich, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Lee Greenwood, TG Sheppard, and more are sure to please country fans.

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Daniel O'Donnell - Branson Encore

2011-02-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

The lengthy musical career of Daniel O'Donnell has seen the popular Irish star wow fans across the globe with his subtle folk melodies. This two-part program takes shape with a concert from O'Donnell that was filmed for PBS. Additionally, fans get a chance to witness the small town where Daniel grew up, as a camera crew and the man himself descend on Kincasslagh in Ireland.

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Cheaper by the Dozen 2

2011-02-23T04:40:00.000-08:00

Tom Baker and wife Kate, hoping to bring their family together for a memorable summer vacation, take their 12 offspring to the rustic Lake Winnetka. But their retreat soon becomes cutthroat when they enter into a competition with the over-achieving members of a large family headed by Tom's long-time rival, Jimmy Murtaugh.
Comedy, Kids/Family and SequelPG for some crude humor and mild language.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bob Longino
"Loud, unamusing, inane, shameless family-style antics. They laugh, they cry; you'll wince." more... Boston Globe, Ty Burr
"It's the sort of movie to send small children and grandparents out of the theater hugging each other and strong men in search of bourbon." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...as I watched this sequel, a certain good feeling began to make itself known." more... Chicago Tribune, Robert K. Elder
"...a harmless, inoffensive bit of family programming..." more...

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Shanghai Kiss

2011-02-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

A young, struggling Chinese-American actor falls for a high school girl in the U.S. When he inherits his grandmother's house in Shanghai and travels there, he falls for a beguiling Chinese girl.

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Love Scenes

2011-02-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

A successful film director becomes insanely jealous when he casts his beautiful wife in a very erotic role, co-starring with a womanizing male lead capable of pleasing her physically in ways that he can't.

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Alone with Her

2011-02-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

Doug sets his sights on a young woman, slyly inserting himself into her life and planting hidden cameras in her apartment. But when another man comes onto the scene, Doug resorts to desperate measures to keep her all to himself.

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Envy Girls

2011-02-22T12:38:00.000-08:00

The four ladies of ENVY GIRLS show everyone how to get toned abs, tight glutes, slim arms, or sleek legs worthy coveting. Each episode in this four-pack focuses on a single body part with a twenty-minute full workout and a five-minute touch-up. Eliana targets abs, Natasha tackles butt muscles, Vala tones legs, and Yvette takes on arms in this set from the producers of CARMEN ELECTRA'S AEROBIC STRIPTEASE.... See Full Description

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A Real Young Girl

2011-02-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

Director Catherine Breillat's revealing, near-pornographic coming-of-age tale, A REAL YOUNG GIRL, was made in 1976, but did not receive distribution until 2002. Focusing on a teenage girl, Alice (Charlotte Alexandra) during her summer vacation from school, the film is direct, abrupt, and in some ways, disgusting.

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The Bachelor

2011-02-22T05:06:00.000-08:00

Twenty-nine-year-old bachelor Jimmy has been dating Ann for three years and feels compelled to finally ask for her hand in marriage. However when he does, the proposal comes out all wrong. Instead of accepting his offer she walks out on him. When Jimmy's grandfather dies, leaving a will stipulating that his grandson must marry by age 30 or forfeit a $100 million inheritance, he tries desperately... See Full Description

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Charlie's Angels

2011-02-22T00:55:00.000-08:00

Three beautiful private detectives who work for a suave playboy boss are called in to rescue soon-to-be billionaire software mogul Eric Knox, when he is kidnapped from his office at Knox Technologies. While rough-and-tumble Alex, wild-child Dylan, and nerdy Natalie use an impressive array of high-tech gadgetry and martial arts moves to retrieve Knox from the clutches of rival Roger Corwin and his goons,... See Full Description
Action/Adventure, Comedy, Thriller, Crime/Gangster and AdaptationPG 13 for action violence, innuendo and some sensuality/nudity.Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...eye candy for the blind." more... culturevulture.net, Scott Von Doviak
"The latest proof that summer in Hollywood now lasts all year round, 'Charlie's Angels' is yet another update of a 70's television artifact, in this case, the crown jewel of ABC's renowned jiggle era." more... Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jeff Vice
"...may be the year's most pleasant surprise." more... E! Online,
"...smart enough not to take itself too seriously." more...

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Girl With a Pearl Earring

2011-02-21T20:52:00.000-08:00

A speculative account of the life of Griet, a 16-year-old girl who appears in Johannes Vermeer's painting of the same title. Set in 17th century Holland, Griet is employed by Vermeer as a housemaid to care for his six children, his jealous pregnant wife and his uncommunicative mother-in-law. Tensions arise when Vermeer's wife suspects intimacy between her husband and the girl--and then climax,... See Full Description
PG-13 for some sexual content.Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"It is about things not said, opportunities not taken, potentials not realized, lips unkissed." more... E! Online,
"Color us intrigued if not entirely sold." more... filmcritic.com, Christopher Null
"Barely 90 minutes long, the movie’s only real failing is that it never develops a terribly compelling story." more... Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt
"A film that beautifully dramatizes how life influences art." more...

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Love & Basketball

2011-02-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

Eleven-year-old Quincy doesn't know what to make of Monica, a girl who can outplay any of the guys on the neighborhood basketball court. Soon he is infatuated with her and, much to his surprise, she is eager to become closer to him. Best friends all throughout the following school years, the pressure for each to be recruited by college basketball coaches brings them closer together and their love... See Full Description
April 21, 2000 Nationwide; January 20, 2000 Sundance'00PG-13 for sexuality and language.NZone,
(2.5 out of 5 stars) "Financed by Spike Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule production company, 'Love & Basketball' is too much like Spike’s recent flicks - excessively long, agonizingly self-indulgent and full of nails-across-a-blackboard music from Terence Blanchard." Full Review... E! Online,
(grade: B+) "First-time director Prince shoots and scores..." Full Review... filmcritic.com,
"Of all the projects for Spike Lee to attach his name onto, 'Love and Basketball' may go down as one of the most idiotic." Full Review... hip online,
(6 out of 10) "A clever and unique thought, this show's close to being a winner." Full Review...

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Parenthood

2011-02-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

A comedy about parenthood, from several points of view.

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Navy SEALs - Buds Class 234

2011-02-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

Navy SEAL cadets are pushed past their limits in this gripping six-part miniseries that follows 83 men as they struggle through a punishing six-month training course. Enduring mile-long swims through icy water, anxiety-inducing combat scuba dives, and heart-pounding live-fire missions, most of them won't make it. But the fearless few will be forged into a hardened military unit that represents one... See Full Description

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The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

2011-02-21T05:32:00.000-08:00

There's trouble brewing in Bikini Bottom. Someone has stolen King Neptune's crown, and it looks like Mr. Krab, SpongeBob's boss, is the culprit. Though he's just been passed over for the promotion of his dreams, SpongeBob stands by his boss, and along with his best pal Patrick, sets out on a treacherous mission to Shell City to reclaim the crown and save Mr. Krab's life.
Comedy, Kids/Family, Animation and AdaptationAtlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"SpongeBob rules!" more... Boston Globe, Wesley Morris
"...ambles from adventure to adventure, taking nothing seriously, not even itself." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...so much more entertaining than you are probably imagining." more... Chicago Tribune, Scott L. Powers
"...too much message, not enough nonsense." more...

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A League of Their Own

2011-02-21T00:57:00.000-08:00

Story of the formation of the first professional female baseball league, during World War II.

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What a Girl Wants

2011-02-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

Daphne Reynolds has what every girl wants--or so it seems. This spirited young American girl has a unique style all her own, an unconventional but loving relationship with her bohemian mother Libby and a future full of possibilities--but despite her remarkable promise, Daphne feels incomplete. She dreams of one day meeting the father she’s never known, the man Libby shared a whirlwind romance with... See Full Description
Comedy, Drama, Musical/Performing Arts, Romance and RemakeAtlanta Journal-Constitution, Christy Lemire
"The shoe doesn't fit for this charm-free Cinderella tale." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"The movie is clearly intended for girls between the ages of 9 and 15, and for the more civilized of their brothers, and isn't of much use to anyone else." more... Chicago Tribune, Robert K. Elder
"It's all transparent, absurd posturing that makes everyone look culturally ignorant, if not a bit daft." more... Cincinnati Enquirer, Margaret A. McGurk
"Despite its superficial ways, the movie does have charm." more...

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Thirteen

2011-02-20T16:23:00.000-08:00

At the edge of adolescence, Tracy is a smart straight-A student--if not a little naive. When she befriends Evie, the most popular and beautiful girl in school, Evie leads Tracy down a path of sex, drugs and self-mutilation. As Tracy transforms herself and her identity, her world becomes a boiling, emotional cauldron fueled by new tensions between her and her mother--as well as, teachers and old f... See Full Description
R for drug use, self destructive violence, language and sexuality.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"...piercingly strong..." more... Boston Globe, Ty Burr
"It's the movie's relentlessness...that will make it a success de scandale at upscale suburban movie theaters." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"That the horrors in this movie are worse than those found in the lives of most 13-year-olds, I believe and hope." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"It's an excellent, unforgettable film, one of the prize American indies of the year." more...

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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

2011-02-20T13:18:00.000-08:00

Set in a time of uncertainty in the land of Middle-earth, a tale which charts a heroic quest which centers around an intrepid hobbit. The future of civilization rests in the fate of the One Ring, which has been lost for centuries. Powerful forces are unrelenting in their search for it. But fate has placed it in the hands of a young Hobbit named Frodo Baggins, who inherits the Ring and steps into legend.... See Full Description
Action/Adventure, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Adaptation and SequelPG 13 for epic battle sequences and scary images.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"...a terrific movie." more... BBC, Nev Pierce
"...surpasses The Fellowship of the Ring in terms of wit, action and narrative drive." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"...stands on its own as a visionary thriller." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"...a stupendous visual achievement, a great movie fantasy." more...

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Gangs of New York

2011-02-20T08:40:00.000-08:00

In 1860's lower Manhattan, the Five Points section is a dark, teeming corner of the city known for vice and chaos. Into this frontier of lawlessness arrives the young Irish American, Amsterdam Vallon. Amsterdam is the orphaned son of the slain Priest Vallon--once chief warrior of the Dead Rabbits gang that rallied the Irish immigrants of the Five Points. After 16 years in a "House of Refuge,"... See Full Description
Action/Adventure, Drama, Crime/Gangster and AdaptationDecember 20th, 2002 (1,500 theaters)R for intense strong violence, sexuality/nudity and language.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
"...a fever-sprawl of a movie, a melting-pot panorama, brought to full boil." more... BBC, Nev Pierce
"...both astounds and enthrals..." more... Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"It is very good but not great." more... Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington
"...definitely the work of a master." more...

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Coyote Ugly

2011-02-20T04:08:00.000-08:00

Graced with a velvet voice, 21-year-old Violet Sanforn heads to New York to pursue her dream of becoming a songwriter only to find her aspirations sidelined by the accolades and notoriety she receives at her "day" job as a barmaid at Coyote Ugly. A new nightclub with a twist, Coyote Ugly is the hottest spot in town, featuring a team of sexy, enterprising young women. Lil is the savvy and... See Full Description
Comedy, Drama, Musical/Performing Arts, Romance and AdaptationNZone,
(2.5 out of 5 stars) "...a 'Flashdance' redux..." Full Review... Deseret News (Salt Lake City),
(1.5 stars) "...ludicrously entertaining..." Full Review... E! Online,
(grade: C+) "...something called a plot gets in the way..." Full Review... filmcritic.com,
(2 out of 5 stars) "...just plain bad." Full Review...

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Soldier's Girl

2011-02-20T01:07:00.000-08:00

This is the story of Barry Winchell, a soldier in the 101st Airborne Division, who was brutally murdered by a fellow GI on July 4th, 1999, shortly after the installment of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. On an outing with his buddies, Barry had been captivated by the beautiful Calpernia Adams, a transgendered entertainer in a local Nashville nightclub, and the story focuses on the love that developed... See Full Description

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Anastasia

2011-02-19T20:34:00.000-08:00

Little Anastasia and her grandmother, the Dowager Empress Marie, manage to escape the curse Rasputin lowers upon the rest of the Romanovs thanks to the enterprising help of a kitchen boy. But while Marie makes it back to her home in Paris, Anastasia becomes separated from her and is next seen a decade later. At that moment, Dimitri and Vladimir are auditioning candidates for an alleged theatrical piece... See Full Description
Drama, Kids/Family, Musical/Performing Arts, Romance, Animation, Adaptation and Remake

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Gay Amigo

2011-02-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

Cisco and Pancho are back as the comedic, romantic, and charming team. In this adventure the heroic duo are being chased by a calvary because they were falsely accused of a crime. Now they have to clear their names before the law catches up.

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Selena

2011-02-19T13:23:00.000-08:00

By the age of 23, Selena Quintanilla Perez had seen almost all of her dreams come true. She and her family had risen together to a level of success they had hardly imagined, and their upward climb showed no signs of stopping. Selena, with her blend of natural talent, boundless energy and magnetic charm, was poised to become popular music's next big superstar, until her life was cut short at the... See Full Description
Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Biopic

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Beach Babes 2: Cave Girl Island

2011-02-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

The Beach Babes are back...attempting to return to their home planet, Xena once again crash-lands the T-Bird star cruiser. This time on a primitive island full of naughty natives and hungry dinosaurs. As they explore the 'wild life' with the local cabe boys, the beautiful babes are soon captured by the island's insane owner.
Comedy, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Sequel

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Kickin' It Old Skool

2011-02-19T05:09:00.000-08:00

In 1985, 12-year old Justin Schumacher was hoping killer moves could help him dance into his dream girl's heart. So when Justin and his break dance posse--the Funky Fresh Boyz -- were challenged to a battle in the school talent show, Justin knew what he had to do. But after starting with a coffee grind, into a head spin and a freeze, Justin decided to go for a back flip that sent him flying off stage....

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Comedy and Musical/Performing ArtsPG-13 for crude and sexual content and language.
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Flashpoint (Top Selling DVD)

2011-02-19T00:44:00.001-08:00

Bobby Logan (Kris Kristofferson) and Ernie Wyatt (Treat Williams) are burnt-out Texas border patrolmen in danger of losing their jobs when they find a 1960s-era jeep buried in the desert along with human remains, a rifle, and $800,000 in cash. Cynical Logan wants to take the money and run, but idealistic Wyatt persuades him to conduct a secret investigation first. The partners' detective work soon... See Full Description

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Yellowstone Kelly (Warner Bros. Archive Collection)

2010-08-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

"Clint's back!...and 'Kookie' is with him! The year's big new thrill on the big theatre screen!"
"Always, the Kid strained to match Big Kelly's stride...and finally did, one Indian-screaming afternoon...."

A solid, no-nonsense oater. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection has released Yellowstone Kelly, the 1959 big-screen Western starring man-mountain Clint Walker of TV's smash-hit Cheyenne, along with other Warner TV contract players Edward "Kookie" Byrnes (77 Sunset Strip, Dad), John Russell (Lawman), and Andra Martin. No extras, of course, for this good-looking Archive release, but it's always a treat to see well-remembered-but-little-seen library titles like Yellowstone Kelly pop up on disc.

The time: the months following General Custer's massacre at Little Big Horn. Fur trapper, surveyor and Indian scout Yellowstone Kelly (Clint Walker), the first frontiersman to cross the Yellowstone Valley, has come down to meet the riverboat Far West to trade in his wolf skins for more traps. Having enjoyed seven years of peaceful coexistence in the Sioux-controlled lands, Kelly isn't about to entertain newly-transferred Major Towns' (Rhodes Reason) request that Kelly map the unknown territory south of the Dakotas, leading the firefight-spoiling major to the Sioux nation. Kelly understands the major's two-fold reason for taking on the Sioux: revenging Custer's death, and securing a promotion in the process. Kelly swears off the deal, and gives an equally firm "no" to shavetail Anse Harper's (Edward Byrnes) request to tag along with Kelly as a helper. Kelly likes being alone, and he's not interested in minding after a tenderfoot in the treacherous, lonely Sioux country. Kelly soon changes his mind about Anse once he sees how willing he is to impress the experienced trapper, but the untried Anse will be of little help to Kelly when Sioux Chief Gall (John Russell), captures the two men and gives them an ultimatum: save the life of injured Arapaho captive Wahleeah (Andra Martin), or face torture and execution by his White-hating nephew Sayapi (Ray Danton). It doesn't help matters when all the men fall in love with the beautiful blue-eyed Indian princess.

SPOILERS WARNING!

Yellowstone Kelly certainly won't make anyone's Top Twenty list of the most influential or most important Westerns in Hollywood history...and that's just fine with me, because if there's any genre that can consistently deliver the maximum amount of enjoyment out the barest minimum of conventions, it's the Western. Often with a Western--particularly when it's a professionally produced, slick studio offering like Yellowstone Kelly, directed by one Hollywood's more dependable journeymen, Gordon Douglas--it's enough just to see a tough-looking hombre like Clint Walker break the back of an equally huge horse as he holsters his Winchester and rides along the mountain trail...in Technicolor? and widescreen, of course (the location shooting at the Coconino National Forest in Arizona is spot-on). The pleasures of the Western genre can be exceedingly simple (the open spaces, the excitement of fast-gun play, the romance of the mythologized cowboy/loner/gunslinger), and equally satisfying emotionally and intellectually when the genre stretches to include genuinely complex themes and motifs such as the clashes of culture between Whites and Indians, or the expression of "maleness" through action. I can find just as much satisfaction in something as deep (and troubling) as The Searchers or Man of the West, as I can for something more accessible, such as Yellowstone Kelly, because it's all still horses and guns and the vast, open stretches of wild, untamed land.

In Yellowstone Kelly, there are attempts to bring a more thoughtful tone to what would otherwise be a thoroughly familiar group of Western subplots. With a screenplay by soon-to-be Western director-of-note Burt Kennedy, based on a novel by celebrated author Henry "Heck" Wilson Allen, Yellowstone Kelly's various plot threads certainly wouldn't have been unfamiliar to the dedicated Western fan back in 1959. The solitary, loner Westerner caught between the warring White and Indian cultures; the grizzled veteran teaching a shavetail the ropes of survival out in the hostile land; the tension-filled romances between an Indian beauty and the various men who wish to possess her; the duplicity of the Army and the American government in their dealings with the various Indian Nations; and an internal family struggle within an Indian tribe, had all been dealt with before on both the big screen and on television by 1959. Still, while Yellowstone Kelly may not strive to look at these complex themes too closely, it's enough that they're there, with an admirable brief straightforwardness to them that never gets in the way of the main story arc, a tone well-matched by the leads' low-key performances. Remarkably imposing physically, with a contrasting quiet, almost graceful line delivery, Walker easily dominates all of his scenes, lending a quiet authority to the character that goes a long way towards making believable those taciturn lines of dialogue (Walker worked previously with director Douglas on 1958's Fort Dobbs, and would collaborate again on 1961's Gold of the Seven Saints.

At a trim, fast-moving 92 minutes, Yellowstone Kelly doesn't screw around; its concerns are laid right out there. In his first meeting with Major Townes (within the film's first ten minutes), Kelly sets the record straight about where he stands as to the treatment of Indians by "we Whites," in some commendably lean dialogue. He may be up in the hills trapping wolves most of the year, but he knows the score. Defending the Sioux's right to defend themselves on their own land, Kelly chastises the Major, stating plainly, "Words on paper don't mean a thing unless they're lived up to," referring to the treaty at Laramie that the Sioux signed in good faith with the Army. When Townes answers with, "But they have no right," Kelly replies, "Not anymore they don't. We Whites saw to that." Kelly immediately understands what Townes is up to: revenge and promotion, and he'll have no part of it. The Sioux have been fair to him. If I had my wish, I would have liked Yellowstone Kelly to explore that even-handedness of Kelly's more, as well as the interesting development later on that unfolds, when we learn Kelly has enjoyed 7 years of peace with the Sioux not so much because of his own skills of even-steven diplomacy but solely because Gall has ordered his warriors to remain "hands off" with Kelly, because Kelly once saved his life when he was a young warrior. Unfortunately, Yellowstone Kelly doesn't have time to dwell too long on those potentially interesting ideas.

Probably the film's weakest element is the Wahleeah subplot, a plot development that feels forced and tacked on (due, no doubt, to considerations of box office for female ticket buyers). Although Martin is fine as the Arapaho captive (she gets a showy scene where she graphically screams in close-up as Kelly performs some frontier surgery), bringing out Byrnes' quiet, romantic qualities during their scenes together (lots of dreamy shots of "Kookie" for the hep-cat teenyboppers out there in '59), she has little to do in the film. Playing right into the stereotypical depiction of all beautiful Indian maids immediately taking up with the handsome cowboys, there isn't nearly enough background on the character for us to believe she'd eventually fall for Clint (except for his obvious charms), with her presence in the story seemingly more useful as merely a goad to egg on crazed White-hater Ray Danton (another clich?d, poorly developed character). Too pat, as well, is the film's resolution, where a simple sentence from Kelly dissuades Gall from continuing on the warpath. With that rushed denouement (and a truncated final Indian attack that promised much and then kind of fizzled out), Yellowstone Kelly really begins to feel more "TV" than "feature film" at the end here, and that's a shame, considering how assured and confident this good-looking film was up to that point.

The DVD:

The Video:
The anamorphically enhanced, 1.85:1 widescreen video transfer for Yellowstone Kelly looks quite good, with cinematographer Carl E. Guthrie's wide-open Arizona landscapes popping nicely in the slightly muddied Technicolor?. Scratches and white and black specks are present, but they're not distracting at all, while compression issues did not arise.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English audio track is big, fat mono, and it's transferred here at an agreeable level, capturing composer Howard Jackson's full-bodied score quite well. No subtitles or close-captions, however.

The Extras:
As with almost all the Warner Bros. Archive Collection cut-on-demand discs, there are no extras...although for this particular release, Warner had the brilliant marketing idea of having none other than the Big Man himself, Mr. Clint Walker, personally autograph the first 300 ordered discs--a ridiculously low number, if you ask me, since I would imagine there would be thousands of fans who would have jumped at the chance at having that kind of collectible (for practical reasons, such a low number might have ultimately hurt sales, since once Warners announced the copies were sold out on their website--within a matter of hours, I'll bet--a lot of potential buyers said, "Skip it."). Sadly, my copy was not one of those 300 (but you can email anytime, Mr. Walker).

Final Thoughts:
Unpretentious, assured Western fare, which only falters (slightly) at the end. Clint Walker, with that massive frame, deep voice, and surprisingly gentle manner, is perfectly cast here as Yellowstone Kelly, a loner who reluctantly gets drawn into not only an Indian war, but also a friendship with a shavetail innocent, and a romance with a beautiful Indian maiden. Directed by old pro Gordon Douglas (who couldn't help but direct straightforward, enjoyable genre fare for decades), Yellowstone Kelly is slick Western entertainment, presented at a speedy clip. I recommend Yellowstone Kelly. Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

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Cemetery Junction

2010-08-14T20:00:00.001-07:00

The Movie

Over the last five years, British comic genius Ricky Gervais has built quite the cinematic resume. (We'll, uh, overlook the Night at the Museum series.) As if cementing his pop cultural legacy with The Office and Extras was not enough, Gervais and, to a lesser extent, his creative partner Stephen Merchant, have seized their opportunity to make a handful of idiosyncratic, startlingly thoughtful comedies. Last year's The Invention of Lying, for example, was perhaps the boldest examination of the role religion and belief plays in human lives Hollywood has ever mustered.

Given the pair's track record, together and apart, leading up to Gervais and Merchant's first, official feature film, Cemetery Junction, expectations were understandably high. So, when the film came and went with relatively little fanfare earlier this year, an unsettled feeling began to rise: Could Gervais and Merchant have finally stumbled in their near-flawless run of smart, funny projects? Sadly, the answer is a resounding yes. Cemetery Junction is not a horrible, claw-your-eyes-out bad film by any means, but it's also the weakest effort to date by this pair.

Set in rural England in the early '70s (1973, to be precise), Cemetery Junction unfolds as a pretty standard coming-of-age drama tinged with a few comedic elements. Balancing pathos with pithiness surprisingly eludes Gervais and Merchant, who prefer to lean on well-worn tropes and cliched plot devices, rather than spruce up a genre in desperate need of an overhaul. Christian Cooke stars as Freddie Taylor, a fresh-faced twenty-something living in Cemetery Junction who yearns to avoid the blue-collar life lived by his work-a-day father (Gervais).

Freddie makes a bid to become an insurance salesman, falling under the spell of self-made titan Mr. Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes) and his obsequious right-hand man Mike Ramsay (Matthew Goode). Freddie's pals, Snork (Jack Doolan) and the combative Bruce (Tom Hughes), can't comprehend why Freddy would chase a life spent in suits, stuffy mansions and expensive cars, but neither can they begrudge him an opportunity to make something of himself. Complications ensue, as they always do, when Freddie reconnects with long-lost crush Julie Kendrick (Felicity Jones). His feelings towards her suddenly cause him to question everything about his current path and what the future may hold.

The cast acquits themselves well, the soundtrack is rife with vintage gems (including a rarely used Led Zeppelin track) and Gervais and Merchant make a few pointed observations about the friction between the classes and the ambivalence of youth, echoing such British staples as The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner or Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It's wise about the need to extricate yourself from a dead-end situation, even it means leaving behind your family and friends.

Yet, Cemetery Junction doesn't connect on the emotional level Gervais and Merchant are clearly trying to hit. Too much of this -- the insolent pranks, the teary confrontation with parents, the secret love -- pops up in every other young-man-coming-into-his-own drama and here, it just feels stale. That's surprising, coming from Gervais and Merchant, who've excelled at taking moribund idioms, such as the sitcom, and injecting into them a pronounced vitality. Cemetery Junction just seems dead on arrival, a lovingly made tribute to the men's upbringing, but not enough of a movie to really hold interest. Here's hoping their next cinematic collaboration has a bit more life in it.

The DVD

The Video:

Cemetery Junction arrives on DVD with a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Bathed in golden light and smeared with just a bit of grit, the image nevertheless looks clean, clear and sharp. There are no readily apparent visual defects, befitting a recently filmed production, and Remi Adefarasin's cinematography sparkles throughout the film.

The Audio:

The English, Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack matches the visuals, in terms of clarity and crispness. The vintage pop songs -- T Rex, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, etc. -- burst to life yet don't overwhelm the dialogue, which is heard clearly and free of distortion. French and Thai DD 5.1 tracks are included, as are optional English, French, Chinese, Korean and Thai subtitles.

The Extras:

Up first on this relatively full disc, a pair of commentaries: Gervais and Merchant sit for a track, as do the three lead actors, Cooke, Hughes and Doolan. The directors' commentary is as wry and witty as the film is leaden, suggesting period filmmaking is not their forte. Still, they sprinkle tidbits about the making of the film throughout, along with personal reminisces. The trio of actors, all of whom are unknown Stateside, spend much of their jovial track marveling at working with the star directing team and relaying behind-the-scenes info as well.

Ten deleted scenes (presented in anamorphic widescreen) are included, playable individually or together for an aggregate of 13 minutes, 47 seconds. A 13 minute, 43 second blooper reel (presented in anamorphic widescreen) is also included, along with a pair of featurettes. "The Directors: A Conversation with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant" is presented in anamorphic widescreen, runs 15 minutes, eight seconds and covers similar territory to their commentary track. Likewise, the 10 minute, 15 second "The Lads Look Back: The Stars Discuss Cemetery Junction" (presented in anamorphic widescreen) finds the trio of actors -- Cooke, Hughes and Doolan -- holding forth about their experiences, only occasionally overlapping with their commentary track.

Final Thoughts:

Over the last five years, British comic genius Ricky Gervais has built quite the cinematic resume. As if cementing his pop cultural legacy with The Office and Extras was not enough, Gervais and, to a lesser extent, his creative partner Stephen Merchant, have seized their opportunity to make a handful of idiosyncratic, startlingly thoughtful comedies. Cemetery Junction is not one of those, unfortunately. A grab bag of coming-of-age cliches undermines the able cast, just as Gervais and Merchant's seeming sentimentality undoes any hints of fresh thinking in this well-worn genre. Rent it.

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Feeding The Masses Horror Collection

2010-07-30T08:41:00.001-07:00

The Product:
Like lots of aspiring filmmakers, Richard Griffin has found an interesting niche within the new world order of easily available technology and low budget b-movie objectives. In love with all things macabre and the cinematic visualization of same, he has struggled to make a name for himself among the various icons of outsider independent cinema. Now, DVD distributor Shock-O-Rama has decided to gather up four of his films (three of which are excellent) and bring them together as the Feeding the Masses Horror Collection. Within you will find zombies, beasties, ghouls, ghosts and that most terrifying of all creatures - man. But there is also a tinge of sadness here. While studio grunts like Shawn Levy and Dennis Dugan turn out mediocre pabulum, artists like Griffin are wiling away in obscurity. This set may not change that, which is a shame. Sometimes, the most inspirational ideas come from the most intriguing, off the radar realms.

The Plots:
If you click on the title of each film in this box set, you will be sent to this critic's full length review previous published at DVD Talk. Indeed, this is a compilation of formerly available movies, though the presentation this time around is lacking some of the frills offered initially.

Feeding the Masses (Score: ***1/2) The world has been overrun by flesh eating zombies. A local Rhode Island TV station has been on the story for days, but now the government has stepped in. In place of hard news, the Feds want to mislead the populace. Hoping to combat the powerful propaganda machine, cameraman Torch, field reporter Shelly, their military escort Roger and in-studio technician James take to the streets, hoping to give the public the real story.

Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon (Score: **) While delivering some radioactive slop to a local swimming hole, a goofball backwoods worker gets covered in genetic goop. He turns into a ferocious fish beast and begins terrorizing a small, dullard infested area. When corporate goons from the local medical lab responsible for the spillage start spraying the countryside with bullets, it's up to the local yokels to fight back.

Necroville (Score: ***1/2) Jack and Alex are lifelong friends. Living in the dead end New Mexican burg of Necroville, they spend their days working at a local video store, their off hours battling various craven creatures of the night. You see, this city has a zombie/werewolf/vampire problem, and the locals have learned to live with it. When the guys lose their job over a misunderstanding, they end up at Zom-B-Gon, a company specializing in metropolitan monster eradication.

Splatter Disco (Score: ***1/2) Thanks to the efforts of some narrow minded moralizers, Kent Chubb's fetish nightclub Den O' Iniquity is under attack. With his father (and co-owner) Skank ailing, and his wife disapproving, it looks like things are at their worst for the earnest entrepreneur. Then, a psychotic killer targets his club, and one by one, starts picking off his clientele in decidedly gruesome ways.

The DVDS:
As stated before, each one of these films has been reviewed here at DVD Talk. Instead of going into detail with a second review, this critic will try to paraphrase each film in a single paragraph. Links have been provided above for additional reading.

Feeding the Masses
It's tough coming up with a new angle on the zombie film. Like the Western in the 60s, or the action film in the 90s, the living dead have been literally done to death. So hats off to writer Trent Haaga and director Richard Griffin for finding what is perhaps the last novel way of dealing with flesh eating fiends. Take a little bit of Wag the Dog, a helping of Robocop, toss in some completely indirect nods to Network, and cover the entire concept in shades of Romero and Fulci, and you've got something that is both scary and satirical, fabulously funny and yet fraught with some significant flaws. While Feeding the Masses doesn't measure up to other cannibal cinema the filmmakers have been involved in (including Griffin's work on the excellent The Stink of Flesh) there is still a lot here to love. After all, it's not every zombie apocalypse film that has the nerve to make jokes at the expense of both the heroes and the horror.

Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon
Stifled by its own stupidity and feeling twice as long as its 90 minute running time, Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon is something derivative done rather poorly. Perhaps a cowering Cold War audience, unable to fully wrap their brains around the notion of nuclear annihilation, could appreciate the concept of a murderous fishman stalking the suburbs. But in 2007/2010, when similarly looking monstrosities are given fame whore celebrity (right Paris and Lindsey???), such scaly scares just don't cut it. Of course, it doesn't help matters much that Griffin found the only amateur acting cast in the entire Western Hemisphere that couldn't concoct a decent cracker accent (they sound more Southern Boston than Southern belle) and a plot that tries for both the gory and goofy at the same time. Equally upsetting is the lack of standard exploitation elements. If you're going to push for some aesthetic link to the drive-in fodder of decades past, you better have your grindhouse gears good and juicy.

Necroville
Imagine Clerks combined with Ghostbusters, toss in a few riffs from the Evil Dead school of creepshow cut-ups, accent with some amiable performances, and you've got a pretty good idea of how Necroville plays out. This lightweight terror tale, purposely encased inside a solid slacker universe, suggests there is more to the genre than gore, guts, and godawful direction. The brainchild of buddies Bill Garberina and Adam Jarmon Brown (who also star as pals Jack and Alex), this pseudo Shaun of the Dead derives a lot of its pleasure out of simply watching characters interact. Sure, we get the standard undead shuffle, some frightening (and fanged) Goth kids, and very limited lycanthropy. In between are the kinds of conversations that Kevin Smith excels at, curse-laden exchanges where individuals hide their inner angst via mutual sarcasm and slams. As our heroes, Garberina and Brown are wonderful, eliciting a cool chemistry that's rare, even for a mainstream movie. Whether it's girl or guy trouble, these men make us care about such lumbering leads.

Splatter Disco:
When a fright fan hears a title like Splatter Disco, the mind starts to free associate on all manner of devilish delights - leisure suit wearing stiffs being slaughtered by the Studio 54 version of Jason or Freddy; lots of metronomic beats and babes shaking their can-cans; mirrorballs and Me Decade decadence; and blood, Blood, BLOOD!!! Oddly enough, none of that exists in Richard Griffin's inventive little comedy. Instead, he subverts our expectations to offer up an ode to outsiders, misfits, and unappreciated individuals everywhere. For a horror spoof, the terror is kept in check. For an example of arterial spray, the gore is limited and never truly showcased. And in typical slasher fashion, the killer's ID is kept secret until the last act reveal - but by then, we really don't care. You see, not only does this film function outside the box of your typical homemade macabre, but it strives to mine heretofore untapped territory within the genre realm. And it does so with style, wit, and skill.

The Video:
Everything is 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks damn good for a collection of homemade horror films. Griffin has a strong eye, an attention to detail, and some decent post-production facilities. Feeding and Splatter look especially good since their scope is a bit larger than the others. While it's a hackneyed effort, Creature also offers some excellent visuals. Only Necroville maintains its Clerks like level of point and shoot stylizing.

The Audio:
Each film is offered in a Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 mix that's engaging, polished, and balanced. Musical scores occasionally overwhelm the dialogue, but that's to be expected. Overall, the sound quality is good and often adds a lot to the ambient mood of the movie.

The Extras:
Of previous DVD versions of these films, Feeding and Creature represent mere porting over of the original disc. For some reason, Necroville and Splatter are smashed onto one DVD, removing many of the excellent bits of added content in the process. Specifically, here is what you will find.:

Feeding the Masses:
The biggest bonus is the full length audio commentary with director Richard Griffin and actor Billy Garberina. A combination of self-deprecating criticism and glowing back slapping make up the majority of this alternate narrative and it's a really enjoyable listen. Every actor gets their props, production nightmares are readily discussed, and occasional narrative continuity errors are explained away with a decided nod to the limited budget. Similar sentiments flow from the Making-of documentary. Following the film from Day 1, we see how certain shots were captured, where improvisation was needed to save a scene, and how CGI was used to create convincing gun effects. Add in some trailers, a recap of Shock-o-Rama's release year, and two unrelated short films by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks (Voltagen and The Hypostatic Union) and we have a complete little package.

Creature of the Hillbilly Lagoon:
We are treated to deleted scenes (all of which focus on a dopey character narration that was eventually rejected) and a selection of trailers. Equally compelling is a commentary track from director Griffin and his producer pals Ted Marr, William Decoff, and Don Foley. While these guys have far too much faith in this film, their behind the scenes anecdotes and numerous production insights are a pleasure to listen to.

Necroville:
None - though the previous release offered a commentary from Garberina that's loaded with blow by blow production detail, a series of deleted scenes and outtakes, a look at Necroville's Visual F/X, a talk with actor Mark Chavez (Clarke), two terrific short films (Legend of Aeereus Kane and Cum-uppance) and a trailer vault. All of that is missing here.

Splatter Disco:
Of the many bonus features available previously, all that remains is a nicely fleshed out Making of. All other extras, including a full length audio commentary featuring Griffin, Lowry, actors Jason Witter, Jason McCormick, Jason Krangel and producer Ted Marr and two 'alternate' scenes including a second take on the opening musical number, as well as a gruesome murder in a graveyard, are MIA.

Final Thoughts:
With one mere misfire and a couple of near classics, the Feeding the Masses Horror Collection is a good introduction to Richard Griffin's serio-silly comic take on the icons of terror. Sure, the films are uneven and often overshadowed by issues of amateurism and other production pitfalls. Still, as an example of something far enough off the beaten path to provide a modicum of amusement, at least three of the movies deserve a Recommended rating. Only Creature from Hillbilly Lagoon pales in comparison. Be warned, however. Both Necroville and Splatter Disco have stand-alone discs that offer the kind of explanatory added content efforts like these mandate. Without them, the anthology appears incomplete. Still, for what's here, the Feeding the Masses Horror Collection is well worth a look.

Want more Gibron Goodness? Come to Bill's TINSEL TORN REBORN Blog (Updated Frequently) and Enjoy! Click Here

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Tales from the Script

2010-04-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

Tales of the Script is documentary that consists solely of interviews with prominent (and a couple of not-so-prominent) screenwriters exploring the triumphs and tragedies of being a writer in Hollywood. The interviewees' comments are cut together in thematic groups that cover everything from making a pitch to working with superstars to the role of the writer on a film set. This compendium of anecdotes and insight is an excellent record of the writer's perspective on the film production process, and will be an invaluable document for those considering any kind of career in the movies.

Participants include Oscar-winners William Goldman, David S. Ward, and Bruce Joel Rubin; writers who have experienced huge commercial success such as Shane Black and John August; independent writers of more personal material like Ron Shelton and Paul Schrader; as well as writer-directors like John Carpenter and Frank Darabont.

Almost each and every interviewee in this documentary talks about the positive and the negative - the dark and the light in screenwriting. Their experiences have almost all been roller-coaster rides - and we're talking about some of the most successful writers in the business. This was the most surprising thing I learned from the documentary: that all of these writers have had markedly similar experiences - although well-paid and having a relatively good time, they all must confront the insurmountable frustrations of studio executives, their "ideas," and the vast unpredictability of the studios' decision-making process.

William Goldman expounds upon his theory that, in the film business, no one really knows anything. Paul Schrader explains why his Dutch Calvinism has gelled so well with Martin Scorsese's Italian Catholicism. Ron Shelton claims that all of his screenplays derive from his own personal background and interests. Shane Black talks about early successes (Lethal Weapon, etc.) that left him blocked for several years thereafter. David Hayter explains how he essentially fell into screenwriting while working on X-Men. Guinevere Turner pulls no punches discussing Uwe Boll's hijacking of her screenplay for Bloodrayne; on that project, Turner wrote only a single draft before it was accepted, heavily modified, and shot by Boll.

Although there is much to glean from the documentary, especially for those interested in pursuing a writing career, several of the interviewees (particularly Carpenter and Goldman) are adamant about the unpredictability of it all - that there are no hard and fast rules and that the ground is constantly shifting beneath a writer's feet. A need to stay agile, motivated, and informed seems to be one of the few substantial "rules" for Hollywood writers - and a key to maintaining one's creativity and sanity.

was a parallel film and book project (see the above image), and First Run Features generously sent a copy of the book along with the DVD screener. The book is more thorough than the film, running about 350 pages. But the whole is a straightforward, well-organized set of material. The film alone is alternately inspiring and discouraging, although the discouraging parts grow out of a sense of realism rather than being merely depressing.

The DVD

The Video
Sadly, the image of this brand-new documentary is presented in a non-enhanced, letterboxed transfer - a baffling choice given where we are now in terms of audio-visual technology, and the preferred aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The film was shot in that shape, but is presented here full-screen and letterboxed. As you might expect, the transfer is far from perfect. Although bright and generally sharp, there's a fair amount of noise and some pixilation here and there.

The Audio
The stereo soundtrack gets the job done. We don't look to interview-based documentaries for dynamic audio mixes, and this one is no exception. However, I don't have any complaints about what is present here. Dialogue is always clear.

The Extras
There are a few decent bonus features on the disc. More is 47 minutes of deleted scenes, most of which are just as interesting as the footage that made the final cut. The Gospel According to Bill is a 12-minute profile of William Goldman, the hilarious Oscar the Grouch of filmdom. (If you like this documentary, you will adore Goldman's two indispensible books on screenwriting: Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell?) Finally, Advice for New Screenwriters is a 9-minute compilation of comments directed at beginning writers.

Final Thoughts

Of great interest to writers and film buffs, Tales from the Script is an excellent documentary highlighting some of the most important and unsung participants in the filmmaking process. Jam-packed with fantastic stories and perspectives, it's an important addition to any cineaste's film library. Highly recommended.
Casey Burchby is a writer and editor who lives in San Jose, CA. He Twitters and occasionally Blogs.

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Possession

2010-04-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Somewhere down the line, between her career-defining role in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and as a nails-against-a-chalkboard princess in I Know What You Did Last Summer, Sarah Michelle Gellar received something of a label as a go-to actress in the horror genre. Her lingering charisma from Buffy's heyday seems to be the only driving force now, because the actual performances she's offered since haven't been encouraging; from her wide-eyed empty disposition in The Grudge to a workable but undistinguished performance in the middling downer The Return, she's been fairly forgettable in the subsequent roles following her iconic '90s offerings. Now she's popped up in , another moody part-supernatural suspense from "the executive producers of" a full slate of Asian horror remakes (The Ring, Shutter, Dark Water), which again leaves her blandly weaving between knee-jerk twists and turns in a poorly executed thriller.

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Head Case: Season 2

2010-04-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter Friendly"My job is to kind of be the doctor in your head, and as I'm sort of laying you out on the table, I honesty don't know which tool to pick up first...I'm trying to kind of do one cup of emotional urine at a time."
Dr. Elizabeth Goode

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Hidden

2010-04-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyThe Movie:

While Dread may have been the frontrunner as the best offering in this year's After Dark Horrorfest collection (thanks in no small part to have Clive Barker's name attached to it, no doubt), the most surprisingly solid offering award should actually go to The . This Norwegian import, written and directed by Pal Oie, may not be loaded to the gills with monsters and gore but it's got atmosphere to spare, great acting, and an intelligent and engrossing storyline.

The film revolves around a man named Kai Koss (Krisoffter Joner) who returns to the small town he grew up in when his mother passes away and he inherits her home. After stopping at the morgue to see for himself that she is, in fact, very dead he heads to the house for the first time in years. As he begins to explore the house he's startled by some vivid hallucinations brought about by memories he'd long since tried to repress. This is, after all, the house where he was abused by his mother and kept locked in the basement for most of his childhood.

Kai's return is seen as a good thing by Sara (Cecilie A. Mosli), a pretty blonde cop who remembers Kai from their youth, but not everyone in the town shares her enthusiasm for his return. A few of Sara's fellow police officers, primarily a hot head named Roy (Marco Kanic) think that he may have something to do with a couple of strange events going on in the area. Sara wants to help Kai figure out his past and his connection to a child named Peter who may have been kidnapped by his mother years before, but Kai's really only interested in burning the house to the ground and getting back to his life. As Kai settles in to room 212 at a local hotel run by a strange woman named Miriam (Karin Park), however, circumstances will arise and strange things will occur which will force Kai to deal with his past.

Pay close attention to this film and you'll find yourself well rewarded with a rich and multi-layered plot, a well fleshed out central character, and some really interesting themes and ideas. Plenty of films deal with a character 'returning home' again after some time to deal with whatever sort of tragedy you'd care to name but few do it with the same amount of style and suspense that this odd little Norwegian film has in spades. Refusing to subscribe to the ideology that everyone in a small town must be quirky and weird (blame that one everyone wanting to rip off Twin Peaks), this movie instead provides us with people we can believe in. Realistic characters certainly go a long way towards helping a film build legitimate suspense and Pal Oie's film knows this and makes the most of it.

More than just a character driven piece, however, the picture also delivers plenty of solid scares. A few are provided by some fairly typical jump scares, you'll notice this in the first twenty minutes or so, but once we get past the point where Kai's character needs to see his dead mother every time he turns around we start delving deeper into his past and how it relates to the killings in the area and the history of the house he has inherited. It's here that the film stretches its wings and becomes more than just a 'things jump out and make loud noises' film as Kai's story becomes more and more unusual.

Of course, all of this is anchored by some very strong acting. The supporting performances from Mosli, as the cute girl next door, and Park, as the mysteriously attractive hotel clerk, are both noteworthy but it's Joner in the lead who anchors the picture. His character is understandably a bit shock up by the recent turn of events he is forced to deal with but never to the point of tedium and we're able to sympathize with him enough that it works. Since the film has so little dialogue compared to most pictures, it's a testament to the cast that they're able to communicate as well as they do here. This isn't a film that's full of effects or gore set pieces (though there are a couple of each, they're minor) but those with the attention span to appreciate it who are looking for something a little off the beaten path will find much to appreciate here.

The DVD:

Video:

The arrives on DVD in a strong 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. The movie isn't the most colorful of productions and it makes use of a fairly bland and dark color scheme - lots of grays and browns and dark greens - but in the context of the story it works well. There aren't any obvious compression artifacts nor is there any edge enhancement to complain about. A bit of mild aliasing shows up if you want to look for it but that issue aside, things look pretty good. Detail is strong and the source material used for the disc was obviously in great shape as there are no problems with print damage, dirt or debris at all.

Sound:

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High Plains Invaders

2010-04-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyThe Taglines:

THE PRAIRIE HIDES A DEADLY SECRET

No one invited them. NOTHING CAN STOP THEM.

The Movie:

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Defendor

2010-04-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

"" could be processed either as a dreadful misfire of a black comedy or a semi-brilliant deconstruction of the deranged superhero mindset. It's a weird picture and not always successful selling its ideas, but it definitely retains a determined personality, making the picture convincing on a fundamental level of cinematic ambition, not execution.

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Hal Hartley's Surviving Desire

2010-04-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

In the early 1990s, I happened upon Hal Hartley's "Trust" on the shelf of my local video store. An impulse rental due to a fraudulent synopsis provided by the box-art design folks at Republic Pictures, finding "Trust" was pure serendipity, nudging me to investigate the curious, colorful world of independent film, back when the label meant bed sheet exhibition and a few bloodstains on the print. It brought about the Hal Hartley phase of my movie appreciation quest, which was stoked further by the offbeat short film, "Surviving Desire."

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Vivre sa vie - Criterion Collection

2010-04-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter Friendly

THE MOVIE:

An impressionistic review written in homage to the inspirational spirit of the source material. A criticism in six tableaus.

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The Ultimate Goldbergs (71 Complete TV Episodes plus 12 Radio Shows)

2010-04-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyLet me state this right up front: The Ultimate Goldbergs is one of the best TV on DVD releases of the year, a delightful surprise. I was expecting something historically interesting but technically creaky and dramatically clunky. Boy, was I wrong.

It's one of those shows famous as a television landmark but little seen, remembered chiefly as a precursor to the more enduring I Love Lucy-type situation comedy. Partly this is because The Goldbergs had an extremely spotty, convoluted run on three different networks and, finally, in first-run syndication. It aired live for most of its existence (with scattered episodes preserved on kinescope) but then switched to 35mm film for its final season. At various times it was a half-hour weekly series and a 15-minute/twice-weekly show. Troubles with the Blacklist kept it off the air for while and it was rarely revived in any form after the late-1950s.

But now the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Shout! Factory have joined forces to release The Ultimate Goldbergs, a wonderful six-disc set featuring all 71 extant (and now restored) episodes of the 1949-56 series featuring shows from all its various incarnations, along with 12 episodes of the long-running radio series that preceded it, and other good extras including an informative booklet and an excerpt from Aviva Kempner's excellent documentary Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009); Kempner also contributes a booklet essay.

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Shiva Rea - Creative Core Abs

2010-04-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyGeneral Overview
If you think yoga is just for new age hippie weirdos, you would be correct on this and all Shiva Rea videos. I've heard a lot of great things about Shiva Rea so I was excited to try Creative Core Abs. Unfortunately, I found it to be too far "out there" and subsequently inaccessible to most people.

The "workout" consists of three segments--Water Core, Spontaneous Core and Fire Core--all filmed at White Sands National Park to achieve that ethereal look, I suppose. The moves themselves are fairly simple but knowing how to make them really target your abdominal muscles is a more advanced practice than they let on.

Skip this video in favor of something a little more (dare I say) normal. I fear this will scare a lot of people off.

Equipment Needed
All you need is a mat. Or, in Shiva's case... a mountain of sand and a drummer man. Whatever you have handy.

Effectiveness
I'm sure that this sequence would be effective in targeting the core if the person doing it knows exactly how to do that. Unfortunately, a lot of these moves (and the muscles they require) are probably new to most people who will have trouble getting it all to click. I've been practice yoga regularly for a year and I couldn't get these moves to connect to my core.

Safety
As with any yoga practice, it's important to listen to your body and not push through pain. I don't see this DVD causing a lot of injuries.

Cast/Instructor
The video is hosted by Shiva Rea, an internationally famous yoga teacher referred to as "the Madonna of yoga." She didn't speak during the taping of the practice and instead instructs via voice over. I couldn't decide if I preferred this style of instruction more than a teacher talking me through it while doing it. The voice over style is calmer and more relaxed.

Shiva is crazy flexible and very advanced in her yoga practice so don't be surprised to find you look nothing like her in most of these poses. So does offer some modifications, but I think the instruction is lacking in detail.

Music
Don't be fooled by the drummer man in the foreground of this video. I'm no musician but I'm pretty sure that bongo of his isn't making the sound of like five different instruments. It appears he was there just for show and a recording was added in later.

Set
The video was filmed in White Sands National Park in New Mexico. It looks beautiful but I feel it's a bit overly dramatic. Yoga is a simple and humble practice that can take place anywhere without the need for extravagance. This set is just excessive to me and gives the feeling that yoga is distant, exotic and unapproachable.

Video
The video was shot in HD by Sion Michel.

Negatives
As stated, I think this video makes yoga appear exotic and unapproachable. The actual moves feel entirely too easy unless you are an advanced practitioner and know how to engage the proper muscles. I can't think of anything I liked about it.

Conclusion
I can't speak for all Shiva Rea videos, but after doing this one I can certainly say, "Skip it." Unless you know what you're doing, you won't feel an effective workout on your core, which is supposed to be the goal. And if you find yoga to be a bit weird, this will most certainly turn you off entirely.

Katie

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Deadly Impact

2010-04-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyThe Movie:

Robert Kurtzman directs , an action film starring Sean Patrick Flanery as a cop named Tom Armstrong working in New Mexico. When we meet him, he and his partner are hanging out decorating a Christmas tree and talking about having kids with their respective wives. They get the call and rush into action and we cut to a scene in the basement of a house where Tom's own wife is tied and bound to a post in the basement. Tom's cell phone rings and it's 'The Lion' (Joe Pantoliano), a master criminal and serial murderer that Tom has been chasing for some time now. It seems that, like Jigsaw from the Saw films, he wants to play a game with Tom. He tells him that the whole house is rigged with enough plastic explosive to level the entire block and that the only way he can stop this explosion is by shooting his wife dead. With time running out, Tom makes the hard decision and pops a cap in poor Mrs. Armstrong, the woman he loved and had hoped to one day make babies with.

The next time we see Tom he's south of the border pounding booze to hide his misery and wanting nothing to do with the world. He's approached by an incredibly well built Spanish lady but pegs her for an F.B.I. agent before she even sits down with him. This woman, Isabel Ordonez (Carmen Serano) tells him that 'The Lion' is back in action and the Feds need Tom's help. Of course, he's not interested but when we cut to the next scene and see the Feds setting up a sting at a nightclub, Tom shows up to help just in time to see a bullet fly through the window from outside and send the entire scene spiraling into chaos.

Before you know it, Tom is back on the force, no questions asked, and his expertise makes him the main man on this case. He and his former partner reunite and are buddies again and things are looking up in the love life department when he finds himself going mouth to mouth with a very topless Isabel. But while all of this is going on, 'The Lion' is making his next move and planning his next attack. The government doesn't negotiate with terrorists and refuses to pay him the money he wants, leaving Tom with no choice but to find him and stop him before it's too late.

is about as original as its title. This is a pretty generic film, there's not much here at all to really separate it from countless other 'cop versus lunatic' movies and as such, it's pretty disposable and forgettable. The film starts off reasonably well, if a bit on the corny side (Really? They're hanging out decorating a Christmas tree and talking about babies?), and the scene in which Tom has to shoot his wife is fairly suspenseful but as the movie continues, the pacing becomes erratic and the random explosions and semi-regular scenes of action and violence can't save it.

In terms of the acting in the film, again, there's nothing that really stands out as memorable here. Flanery coasts through the movie and offers very little charisma. He's not so much smug or uppity as he is bored and uninspired. There's not much in the way of emoting here at all and considering what his character goes through, there was certainly ample opportunity for that. Had the script given him a bit more levity it might have helped things but as it stands he moves from wanting to make babies with his wife to having a dead wife to being drunk to burying his face between Ordonez's admittedly impressive rack so quickly that believability and in turn sympathy go right out the window. Pantoliano isn't any better, hissing his way through the movie and overdoing it in a few scenes. His character isn't given enough of a background to be interesting and while his performance at least has some energy behind it, by the time it's all over and done with you probably won't care.

The DVD:

Video:

The test disc sent for review does not represent final product as it has a FOX watermark in the lower right hand corner of the picture. It's hard to evaluate the quality of what you'll be buying in stores when you can't see it though the film is presented here in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen which appears to be its original aspect ratio. That said, the test disc looks okay though there are some noticeable compression artifacts present throughout. Hopefully the properly pressed DVDs look better than what has been sent out for review...

Sound:

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Thunderheads

2010-04-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter Friendly:
It's new Advice Category time again here at DVD Talk, as the Smithsonian Channel releases its 45-minute DVD of 'a daredevil quest into the eye of the storm'. More than many other one-shot TV-on-DVD releases, boasts some universal appeal. After all, who doesn't react strongly to thunderstorms? And when you fold in the question of what effect Climate Change will have on monster storms, it's even more intriguing. Yet this short subject, of which there are many, many comparable examples on TV, is too slight to really merit a purchase, and too readily available in some form or another to barely even necessitate a rental. That's why we give this still entertaining documentary the coveted Buy It For Your Nephew's Theme Gift Basket rating.

Luckily, this is an exciting, compelling story, so when you're forced to watch it with your storm-chasing nephew, or you find it on TV, you'll be glad you did. It sounds like a movie: The global crew of scientists and fighter pilots from I.C.E. (the International Cloud Experiment) are heading down to Darwin, Australia - one of the southernmost cities on the planet - to study "Hector," a super-thunderstorm. Hector is an extremely dangerous beast, the scientists are deadline-driven and casual about the perils the pilots face, the pilots are near revolt, and their equipment - some of the most sophisticated planes and gear around - keeps breaking down.

Despite that promising premise, the remainder is fairly standard TV documentary stuff. You'll find only one somewhat new technique here, as far as documentaries go, and it's a bad one. When talking heads interviews are shown, the subjects are superimposed in front of cloud footage (which is a nice change from your standard colored background) but they're surrounded by idiotic black halos that poorly separate them from that footage. Otherwise, the usual graphics and maps, on-the-ground footage, and truly stunning aerial footage of awesome clouds bracket these interviews. As we learn more about thunderstorms than we'd ever expected, the pilots and scientists, as they work together and bicker, gradually turn into quirky characters, way more so than in other documentaries of this type.

Being able to somewhat connect with these personalities is a nice counterpoint to the true draw, gawking at storms while sucking up heavy concepts. Even the setting fits the hyperbolic subject, since Darwin nicely fills the 'outpost at the end of the world' role. Above this outpost and out at sea, the pilots encounter 100-mile-an-hour winds, lightning, microbursts, gravity waves and other terrifying stuff, all while capturing storm-chaser-porn imagery. Of course Climate Change is dragged into the mix, causing paranoid viewers such as myself to imagine a future composed of non-stop violent storms. Somehow, this also fits the bill. Yet no matter how thrilled you might be by this, it ends quickly and only merits repeat viewings by the truly obsessed. Perhaps your nephew Gordon is among those obsessed.

The DVD

Video:
The 1.66:1 non-anamorphic, semi-widescreen HD presentation doesn't do justice to the gorgeous and beguiling images on display. It's not big enough. At least the image is clear and crisp, with nice color and no compression artifacts.

Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Audio Tracks are both well mixed and distortion-free, with OK dynamic range. Even without a surround setup, the 5.1 track is the way to go, as - at least on my TV - the 2.0 track sounds a little tinny and echoey.

Extras:
Previews for 12 other Smithsonian Channel DVDs, as well as English SDH Subtitles are the only extras.

Final Thoughts:
While this 45-minute documentary about serious thunderstorm research features nifty personalities, cool concepts and gorgeous imagery, it's simply too short, and such a common subject for cable TV, (Weather Channel, anyone?) to merit a purchase. That is, unless your nephew Gordon, who has a birthday coming up, wants to be a meteorologist. You might put this in his gift basket, or I suppose you could Rent It.

Kurt Dahlke

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God and Gays: Bridging the Gap

2010-04-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter Friendly"There are kind of two camps: You either take the Bible literally, word for word, or you take it as a whole considering the context and culture of the day."

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Poldark: Series 1

2010-04-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter Friendly

"It won't last forever. Nothing is forever. Take it while we can. Live it. Fight it. Laugh at it."
"What, Ross, what?"
"Take whatever life gives and call it ours. What anger. What chance. What love. What happiness."

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Bill Cosby Show Season 2

2010-04-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyTHE SERIES:

The first time I saw Bill Cosby perform live, after a life of fandom, was in 2004. He was 67 years old at the time, but showed no signs of slowing down--indeed, he did not one but two two-hour shows in the same night, and as manager of the venue, I got to see both of them. I've heard everything the man's ever recorded, so I was surprised to find that a) he only did one bit I'd ever heard before (he closed with the "Dentist" routine from Bill Cosby: Himself), and b) that one bit was the only material that was heard in both shows. As Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock marveled in Comedian, while they're out they're killing themselves to put a solid hour-long act together, and Cos floats out onstage every night and does four hours total of, in Rock's words, "killer shit."

But then again, he's been doing it so long, he doesn't have to work out tightly-constructed bits and rat-tat-tat punchlines. He just tells stories, and he's so naturally funny and so entirely in command of his instrument that he gets bigger laughs talking about his day than most comics do from running down their most intricately-constructed piece. When he started out as a comic, he worked in tight, punchy sketches (the kind of bits heard on early records like Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow, Right! and I Started Out as a Child), but around the mid-60s, he relaxed himself onstage, and was free on an album like Wonderfulness to do 12-plus minute routines like "Chicken Heart" and "Tonsils." He became even more free-wheeling in the 70s, as he worked more in Vegas; his last two albums (1986's Those of You, With or Without Children, You'll Understand and 1991's Oh Baby) have side-long routines, showcasing the kind of naturalistic storytelling and humor-of-recognition that became his stock in trade.

So it's no surprise that his 1969-1971 television sitcom, The Bill Cosby Show, traffics in the same kind of low-key, slice-of-life humor, rather than wacky situations and broad characterizations. He came to the series with considerable clout--he had won three Best Actor Emmys for his work on the hit spy show (and racial groundbreaker) I Spy, and co-created the series with Michael Zagor and his future collaborator on The Cosby Show, Ed. Weinberger. NBC execs wanted Cosby to play a comical detective, but he was dead set on playing a high school teacher; it wasn't much of a stretch, as he continued to pursue his education while his career was in full swing in the subsequent years, even briefly contemplating a show-biz retirement to become an educator in the mid-1970s. Instead, he found ways to be an entertainer-educator--by appearing on The Electric Company, by creating and fronting Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and by playing Holmes High School gym teacher and coach Chet Kinkaid on The Bill Cosby Show.

The title is quite accurate--this truly is Cosby's show, as there are no either regular cast members and precious few semi-regulars (likable pixie Joyce Bulifant returns periodically as guidance counselor Mrs. Peterson, and Lee Weaver appears, though not nearly often enough, as Chet's wry brother Brian). In fact, he's the only star in the opening credits, which are scored for the second season with a slightly jazzier new mix of Quincy Jones and Cosby's theme (for my money, the third-best TV theme song of all time, behind only Sanford and Son and The Rockford Files).

As for the show itself, it has aged remarkably well. Its gentle humor and situation-based comedy was perhaps a bit ahead of its time--as was Cosby's insistence on eschewing the nearly-mandatory laugh track (a move which did him no favors among NBC executives, and which he claims cost him marketing attention that led to the show's cancellation after two seasons). In fact, with its easygoing humor, naturalistic vibe, and lack of canned laughter, The Bill Cosby Show would make a smooth fit into the network's Thursday night comedy line-up of 2010 (the episode profiling Cliff's battles with the health insurance industry seems particularly prescient).

Claims of network indifference notwithstanding, the show's first season ranked 11th in the ratings, so Cosby and his crew didn't go fixing things that weren't broke for season two. It sticks to roughly the same formula, usually with Chet getting himself into a fix or unfortunate social situation either at our outside of school (the episodes are balanced about 50/50), or helping a new friend out of a spot of trouble. Lessons are often learned, but not in a preachy way--and most intriguingly (and in marked contrast to the mostly "father knows best" story arcs of his The Cosby Show a decade and a half later), more often than not Cosby makes himself the object of ridicule who must right the error of his ways. In various season two episodes, Chet is guilty of hubris (thinking he can sell a house for a realtor friend), impatience (with an elderly neighbor), ego (expecting a surprise party for his birthday), and jealousy (of a potential girlfriend's other suitor). It says much about Cosby's personal charm and charisma that Chet remains so likable; with his screws turned a couple more times, he could very well be Larry David.

Much of the fun of The Bill Cosby Show is seeing Cosby working out formative ideas and comedy concepts that would appear later in his career. The "March of the Antelopes" episode--in which a group of inner-city kids attempt a camping trip--bears a passing resemblance to the "My Boy Scout Troupe" cut on his 1971 When I was A Kid album, while the "Deluge" episode (with his frequent film co-star Gloria Foster) finds Chet helping a neighbor woman deliver a baby (shades of Cliff Huxtable). And his funny dancing on the episode "The Generation Gap" will strike a chord with all of us who loved those Cosby Show dance-heavy opening sequences.

Cosby gets plenty of opportunities to make us laugh; the show makes Chet the kind of likable goofball who can take the stories in unexpected directions. In the season's first episode, "Anytime You're Ready, C.K.", he uses the acquisition of an 8mm camera for football game films as an excuse to make goofy home movies (we even get to see Cos do some old-school silent comedy, and credibly). In the students-on-strike episode "To Each According to His Appetite," he explains his experience with "revolutionaries" as "when I was in the Navy, putting down mutinies and things of that nature." He also gets considerable comic mileage out of Chet's swinging-bachelor status; we always tend to think of Cos as the family man, but it's fun to watch him as a silk-voiced smoothie whose flirtations occasionally get him in over his head.

Season one was notable for its guest stars, particularly a wonderfully-crafted episode with Henry Fonda. This season's biggest star is Dick Van Dyke, whose turn as drunken magician "Miraculous Martin" is a throwback to the kind of slapstick pantomimes that he did on so many old variety shows. He and Cosby make a pretty good comedy team (particularly during the business with the handcuffs in the last few scenes). Don Knotts doesn't fare quite as well--he's overdoing it (even for Don Knotts) and his broad overplaying doesn't jibe with the show's low-pitched vibe. Other guest stars, including Elsa Lanchester, a pre-Starsky & Hutch Antonio Fargas, and Wheezy Jefferson herself, Isabel Sanford, provide able support.

There are some stumbles in the second season. The two-part "Deluge" episode stretches a slender idea until it just about breaks, and the Cosby-directed "Sesame Street Rumble" is too broadly staged, taking dips into cartoonish absurdity that the show is usually careful to avoid. And as in year one, some of the supporting players--particularly the students--are pretty wooden. But those aren't game changers; the awkward familiarity of "The Generation Gap" (in which Chet spends a few days alone with his dad and runs out of things to do or say) or the clever construction of "A Dirty Business" (in which Chet attempts to recruit a student who fancies himself a spy) confirm that the charming, loose Bill Cosby Show is a winner that ended too soon.

THE DVD:

The Bill Cosby Show's first season DVD set was released in August 2006, and season two has been announced and delayed several times in the years since. Shout Factory is finally making it available directly from their website. The season's 26 episodes are spread across four discs, which are housed in a standard-width plastic case on hinged plastic disc trays.

Video:

As a general rule, the 4:3 image looks pretty good. The episodes appear to have been fairly well restored; the rich, bright late 60s/early 70s color saturation pops nicely from the screen. There are occasional too-hard cuts in and out that indicate premature snips (though this affects audio more than video), and I spotted some occasional (but fleeting) softness and pixilation--but nothing nearly as bad as, say, the commercial for the Room 222 set on the first disc. Overall, it's a solid transfer--particularly considering the show's forty-plus year old age.

Audio:

Audio, on the other hand, is problematic. I was expecting the 2.0 track to be a little on the thin side--that's par for the course on old TV sets. But there are all kinds of other issues: hissing, some crackles, buzzes, pops, cut-outs, and frequent reel-switch tones. Those hard cuts also tend to chop the Jones music cues a note or two short. The quality also varies pretty wildly from episode to episode, with some shows (particularly "March of the Antelopes" and "To Each According to His Appetite") particularly distorted and badly under-modulated. The show is by no means unlistenable, but certain episodes fair worse than others, and those little bumps and hiccups are present in almost all of them.

Extras:

Only one bonus feature: "The Bill Cosby Interview Part II" (19:38). This "newly recorded interview" (it's the second part of an interview on the 2006 season one set, but whatever) finds Cos holding forth on his fellow actors, his attempts to integrate the show's crew, the season's guest stars, the music, and directing for the series ("I don't care for directing. It's a wonderful job, and I can tell directors what to do, but I don't wanna do it"). It's good to see new (ish) footage of Cos talking about his lesser-known series, though (as anyone who's seen a recent interview with him can attest), he does tend to ramble on and on a bit.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

It may prompt more smiles and chuckles than big, hearty laughs, but The Bill Cosby Show remains an underrated treasure. Its stories are simple and the execution is graceful, and Cosby is as eminently watchable as ever. Shambling, laid-back, and sweet, The Bill Cosby Show is as warm and comfortable as an old blanket.

Jason lives in New York City with his wife Rebekah and their two cats. He blogs every day at Fourth Row Center. He's also on Twitter, for reasons unclear.

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Life with Derek: The Complete Third Season

2010-04-16T12:53:00.000-07:00

A Disney Channel series that was produced in Canada and ran for four seasons, "Life With Derek" most resembles a modern "Brady Bunch", taking the structure of the classic with a modern setting and attitudes - rather than making any sort of attempt to get along, the children constantly bicker with one another and try to set boundaries in a house that seems awfully small.

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Possible Films, Volume 2: New Short Films by Hal Hartley

2010-04-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

Hal Hartley was, in a fairly quiet way, one of the defining filmmakers of the 1990s. His spare, mannered, witty style presaged the work of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, and his influence is even visible, to an extent, in Quentin Tarantino's films. The verbose, often opaque dialogue of his strange, still, oddly focused characters suggested the particular angst of that decade - a moody inward paranoia about the location of the border that divides sincerity from irony. Two of his best films - Simple Men (1992) and Henry Fool(1997, and a Cannes winner for Best Screenplay) - deal with this theme in diverse and extremely funny ways. Henry Fool can be read as one of the central cinematic statements of the 1990s, a film that delves deep into the tenor of the era, through characters who grapple with varied, shifting permutations of authenticity.

Hartley has directed four features in the twelve years since Henry Fool - none of which have received much attention from any sector of the film-going population. His most recent, Fay Grim (2007), was a sequel to Henry Fool, and was released by Magnolia Films simultaneously in (a few) theaters and on DVD. The film was not only deeply uninteresting, it almost leeched power away from its immensely superior predecessor.

I'm not surprised that Hartley seems to be moving away from films - or at least, away from theatrical features. His work in the 1990s was so of the 1990s - and how does an artist so engaged with a decade deal with an evolving culture? So, he has moved around Europe a lot lately, doing theatrical work and short films.

It comes as a great sadness to report that the five shorts in Possible Films, Volume 2 - all of which were made in the last five years - are like soggy crumbs fallen from the plate of a master. These lifeless experiments in form and style breathe none of the wit or mystery of the work Hartley is known for; the very real enthusiasm for filmmaking one feels when watching his best features is totally absent. Hartley wields the camera here with desultory disinterest, capturing these indulgent shorts as if he's being forced to do so against his will. There's no heart in any of them.

A/Muse (2009, 11:00) is about a young German actress determined to be cast by a well-known director (implicitly Hartley) in his next feature. She writes to him and seeks him out at the theater where he is directing a play, but these connections are missed. She finally receives a letter in which the director explains that he has left Germany for New York, where he intends to start a new business selling a brand of European window. Coy without being charming, A/Muse is the perfect introduction to this set of five transparently self-absorbed films.

Implied Harmonies (2008, 28:05) is the most engaging of the five. It is a documentary about the production of an opera called La Commedia, composed by Louis Andriessen and directed by Hartley. (It was staged in Amsterdam.) This strange film, however, does not tell you a whole lot about the opera in concept or content. The film is too impressionistic to convey information, even though it's about a real project that actually took place. Still, there is something interesting here about the collaboration between Andriessen and Hartley, even though it's inadequately presented.

The Apologies (2009, 13:36) is about an aspiring actress who house-sits for a writer friend, where she practices a monologue repeatedly. The friend's ex-girlfriend shows up to drop off a set of keys and recite a rather trite monologue of her own, thinking the writer is in the apartment somewhere, hiding from her.

Adventure (2008, 20:26) is a really strange, alarming, and oddly invasive autobiographical piece about Hartley's relationship with his wife, the Japanese actress Miho Nikaido. Despite the film's ostensible "intent," I learned nothing about love, marriage, or Nikaido from this film - what I did learn is that Hal Hartley is a much bigger egotist than I would have imagined. There are cutesy title cards that talk about Hartley and Nikaido in the third person, a lot of tiresome shots of trains and orchards, and ongoing inane chatter. There's something particularly upsetting about the moment when Hartley casually presents his wife's candidly naked breasts for all to see.

Accomplice (2009, 3:08) is an indescribable short that includes shots of Hartley's colleague Jordana Maurer at work and a voice-over by Jean-Luc Godard about how it's always "possible" to make films. Easy for Godard - and Hartley - to say.

The DVD

The Video
Unfortunately, these films, although new, are presented in full-screen transfers. The images are far from demonstration-quality. There is a fair amount of digital noise and pixelation.

The Audio
The simple stereo soundtracks are plain but clear.

The Extras
No bonus content is included.

Final Thoughts

I wish I had an opportunity to write about any of Hartley's wonderful features. I regularly recommend Simple Men, Henry Fool, and Surviving Desire to friends and acquaintances. Hartley's unique wit is a palpable influence among a number of very important filmmakers today. However, these shorts suggest a man bored with filmmaking - the fact that they were made at all is strange. Like the most aggravating film-school exercises, they lack the necessary spark of inspiration. Skip it.
Casey Burchby is a writer and editor who lives in San Jose, CA. He Twitters and occasionally Blogs.

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The Sensei

2010-04-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyTHE PROGRAM

"" is best described as HBO financing "The Karate Kid" meets a "very special episode" of "Blossom." Directed, written, and starring Diana Lee Inosanto (the daughter of one of two men authorized by Bruce Lee to teach Jeet Kune Do), "" sets out to tackle some very serious issues, but does so in one of the most amateurish and at times, (unfortunately) unintentionally hilarious fashion. If it weren't for the film's good intentions, I would say this is a movie just waiting for a RiffTrax release, but despite all its shortcomings, I did appreciate what it tried to do.

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Merlin: The Complete First Season

2010-04-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter FriendlyThe Show:

Throw out everything you think you know about Merlin,Arthur, and Camelot. That's what the BBCdid with its 2008 reimagining of the Arthurian legend aptly titled Merlin. Thefirst season, which was shown on NBC herein the US (thefirst BBCprogram to be broadcast on USnetwork TV in decades) and recently picked up by SyFy, is beingreleased soonby BBC Home Video. Is it worth pickingup? That's a tough question to answer. It largely depends on a viewer's ability toignore the myriad flaws and gaffs. Ifyou can do that, it's a pretty good show.

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Zombies of Mass Destruction

2010-04-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

The Movie:
is a film that attempts to be in equal parts a horror movie, a low to middle brow farce and a scathing satire of red state America. Unfortunately, it fails to be terribly effective in at least two of these areas, mostly through relatively insignificant missteps and errors of tone.
The story follows several people from the small northwestern island town of Port Gamble, all of whom are outsiders in one way or another. Frida (Janette Armand) is of Iranian heritage, was born and raised in Port Gamble, and yet has to constantly deal with the ignorant yokels who think she's Iraqi and don't consider her a "real American". Tom (Doug Fahl) is a successful gay man who was born in Port Gamble, and is returning with his partner Lance (Cooper Hopkins) to come out to his mother, about which prospect he is rather nervous. Cheryl (Cornelia Moore) is an iconoclastic high school teacher who is running against the conservative and small minded Mayor Burton (James Mesher) who has an ally in the equally small minded minister Reverend Haggis (Bill Johns).
A zombie outbreak of essentially unexplained origin (though it is reported in news programs that it is the result of a terrorist attack, and that an Islamic fundamentalist had taken credit) throws the small island into havoc. Tom and Lance's coming out dinner is interrupted by Tom's mother succumbing to the zombie infection, and Frida is overwhelmed while talking in a car with her boyfriend. Many hijinks ensue. Most notably, Frida is interrogated and tortured (by having a nail driven through her foot) in her neighbor's basement for no more reason than that she is of Iranian descent, and the scuttlebutt is that the zombies are a terrorist attack. Tom, Lance and Cheryl meanwhile take shelter in the church hall with the crazed and homophobic (though not zombified) congregants who believe that the apocalypse is nigh and only sinners become zombies, and thus strive to cure the Tom and Lance of their homosexuality to ensure their entry into heaven.
There are a number of good things to report about . The performances are all pretty good, though not quite good enough to make the satire work. (More on that in a moment.) And the special effects and makeup are first rate. The gut munching, limb hacking and arterial spray are very effective and quite fun, residing firmly in the Evil Dead 2 and Braindead end of the spectrum, rather than the more realistic Zombi 2 and Day of the Dead end. A few gags, a woman who has her lower job bitten off and a knife that gets jammed upward through a man's chin, are particularly effective. The production values side of things is very respectable as well. The film looks good.
However, despite that, the film fails to deliver the wallop of the four films mentioned above, or even that of non-zombie satirical films. Director Kevin Hamedani seems to intend a stinging comedic attack on small minded, provincial America, but significantly overplays his hand. First off, most of the jokes and humorous situations are simply too broad or ham fisted to work, or suffer from slightly defective timing. Secondly, the subjects of his satire, as represented in the backward locals, are too clearly cardboard caricatures, entirely without sympathy. A scene which exemplifies both of these problems is that in which Frida finds herself tied to a chair in her neighbor's basement. Mr. Miller (Russell Hodgkinson), despite the fact that his son has a major crush on her and that he himself has known her for years, is convinced that Frida is a secret terrorist. To try and determine whether she is a true blue American, he quizzes her about the minutia of civics, makes her sing The Star Spangled Banner, and forces her to eat ham, all before nailing her foot to the floor regardless of her correct answers and pork ingestion. Really? Is the audience expected to accept that any real person would react this way when besieged by zombies, even within the broad confines of social satire? This goes ditto for Rev. Haggis and his flock, who keep their gay conversion machine and risibly homoerotic movies on hand for just this sort of circumstance. While there are undoubtedly folks around who believe that homosexuality can be cured, it is simply too ridiculous to be credited as presented here.
This isn't to say that there do not exist buckets of material to satirize in small town America. There certainly is an abundance of fodder, just as might be found with any other group or geographical location one chooses in this multifaceted country. But the material in will be no more than mildly amusing to anyone but uncritical true believers. Hamedani uses a sledge hammer when he should be using a scalpel. While his protagonists are well fleshed out (for a horror movie, at least) the backward citizens of Port Gamble are quickly sketched cartoons, and the film suffers significantly for it.
There is much to enjoy and admire in but also much to dislike and cringe at, making it only mediocre when considered overall. It certainly fails as a social satire, but largely succeeds as a gore fest. In this case, a little subtlety would have gone a long way.
The DVD
Video:
The video is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, and looks good. The image is bright and the colors are rich. The bright red of the arterial spray particularly stands out.
Sound:
The sound is in Dolby digital 5.1 channel, and does the job but is otherwise unremarkable. The dialogue is always clearly audible, and no hiss or other audio problems are discernible. Subtitles are available in Spanish and English, but no alternate language tracks are provided.
Extras:
The disc is a bit scant with the extras. They are:
The Making of ZMD: The
This six minute featurette includes interviews with the director, much of the cast and lots of the crew. It is moderately interesting, but very slight.
Trailers
The original trailer for is included, and is effective and fun. Also included are a trailer for Saw VI and promos for Horrorfest 4 and Horrorfest 3 in general, plus some commercials for fearnet.com and Epix.
Final Thoughts:
is a film with high production values, exciting and fun splatter and gore effects; it's a film that looks good and has better performances than most horror movies released today. What it doesn't have is the spot on timing, stinging wit and innate grasp of just how much to caricature its intended victims that makes for a truly incisive satire. Because of the over broadness, and just a few beats off lack of timing, a good portion of the film's thrust falls flat. The dumb yokels we see here are simply too reprehensible and ignorant for the humor to work. Hopefully, Hamedani will bring his not insignificant talents into a tighter focus and hit the mark more squarely in the future.

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Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge

2010-04-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

P R I N TPrinter Friendly

THE MOVIE:

I was prepared for . Chainsaw wielding brutes. Schoolgirls with killer moves. Schoolboys with awesomecrazycool hair. I was ready for all of it and yet I was surprised. While features all the anticipated ingredients, it definitely has a very different idea as to how they should be combined. Rather than a schlocky gorefest, we get a thoughtful look at the nature of grief filtered through adolescent sensibilities.

"Damn, he topped me."
These are the words used by Yosuke (Hayato Ichihara) when referring to his friend, Noto (Yosuke Asari) who died in a motorcycle accident. Odd as they may seem, they represent his way of dealing with a grief that has no outward expression. He feels numb and incomplete which makes him do foolish things, like stealing food, in order to feel anything at all. One day, on his way back to his dorm, he meets a pretty girl who sits sullen, waiting for some unavoidable appointment. Even as he questions her, we watch as snow begins to fall from the sky acting as the harbinger of what is to follow. All of a sudden, a massive, hulking cloaked monster falls from the sky, bearing a threatening chainsaw in one gnarled hand. Much to Yosuke's surprise, the girl efficiently dispatches the monster with some quick thinking and even quicker throwing knives.

"The sadder I become, the stronger he gets."
After their stunning first encounter, Yosuke offers to buy the girl a meal as a token of his gratitude for saving him from the monster. Over the course of lunch, he learns that her name is Eri (Megumi Seki) and that she has been having an awful month. This marks the time when she first encountered the chainsaw wielding monster. He came to her while she was in mourning at a funeral. This was when she knew that she had to defeat him in order to be at peace again. Fortunately for Eri, she also discovered that she had been gifted with new powers including agility and a facility with weapons. Although Eri refuses to disclose whose funeral it was, we can tell that the extent of her loss is vast and her sadness is all-consuming. What else could compel someone to risk life and limb, night after night, in battle against a violent force of nature?

"Would you like to eat stew with me?"
Yosuke finding himself without purpose, decides to help Eri during her daily skirmishes with the chainsaw monster. While he isn't a very good fighter, he is content with giving Eri rides on his bicycle to the battle site du jour and taking care of her after the monster has been defeated. Although initially resistant to Yosuke's aid, Eri gradually comes to rely on him for moral support. With Yosuke by her side, Eri's strength grows in leaps and bounds making it that much easier for her to face the monster. Despite being cultivated in the most unusual of circumstances, Yosuke and Eri's relationship is both cute and slightly goofy. This is perfectly captured in the scene when Eri longs to cook for someone and asks Yosuke if he would like to have stew with her. It's a perfectly innocent request but it carries the weight of their non-verbalized love for each other. Before Yosuke really has a chance to act on his feelings a wrench gets thrown in the works. Due to circumstances seemingly out of his control, he may not be around much longer. Without him, Eri may fall under the chainsaw in her next run-in with the monster. While the resolution is nothing you haven't already figured out, I won't spoil it here.

Using the novel by Tatsuhiko Takimoto (Welcome to the N.H.K) as his source, director Takuji Kitamura has made an interesting decision as to which elements of the film to bring into the foreground. While many others would have chosen to concentrate on Eri's fight scenes with the monster at the expense of character development, Kitamura has framed the story in such a way that the focus always remains squarely on the characters. It shouldn't come as a surprise since the movie makes it apparent early on, but the monster is simply an embodiment of Eri's grief. Its desire to destroy Eri is her self-destructive sadness made literal. By choosing to keep the fight scenes short, when they are shown at all, Kitamura makes his desire explicit. He would rather examine the healing process between two damaged individuals than dwell on the ways they choose to punish themselves. Although we get some well-choreographed action sequences at the start and finish of the film, the fights are almost beside the point for the most part. Some will balk at this given how the film is being marketed, but I found this approach quite refreshing.

As a character driven piece, it is fortunate that the major roles in the film are enacted so convincingly. Ichihara portrays Yosuke with the nervousness that accompanies a tight-knit group of friends falling apart. After Noto's death, Yosuke's interactions with his other friend represent what it feels like when any balanced relationship loses its stability. Having inhabited a specific role within the group for so long, Yosuke feels adrift. His environment has changed without giving him any clue as to how he must change with it. Ichihara conveys this confusion without making it painfully clich

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The Slammin' Salmon

2010-04-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it: I have little patience for the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. Their brand of irreverence has always registered to me as excruciatingly forced, with pictures such as "Super Troopers," "Beerfest," and "Club Dread" coming across not only downright unfunny, but also criminally slapdash, possibly reflecting the obscure origins of the group. "Slammin' Salmon" is their latest endeavor, featuring a few key changes in backstage responsibility and a reduction in locations. Consider me thunderstruck, but the creative shake-up infuses a fresh comedic drive into the team; "Salmon" is legitimately funny, agreeably cartoonish, and, for the very first time in their mystifying career, focused.

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The Graves

2010-04-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

Comic book fans from the nineties will have no trouble remembering Brian Pulido - but in case they do, his latest movie, , reminds us in an early scene that takes place inside Atomic Comics that he was the guy who created Lady Death and a few other 'bad girl' types by shooting one of the lead characters in front of a rack of said comics. But yeah, with that blatant bit of self promotion out of the way, the movie is about these two sisters, Megan (Clare Grant) and Abbey Graves (Jillian Murray), who are out for one last good time before Meg moves to New York City to go to school. After they're done tooling around at the comic store they head to a club, kick a guy in the nuts, and c heck out a band called Calabrese (introduced by none other than.... Brian Pulido). Abbey is videotaping as much of this as she can - after all, it's their last hurrah.
The next day the two hit the road and wind up at a dinner where a weird priest (Tony Todd) is hanging out with a girl named Becca who mysteriously vomits on the table. The waitress, not really all that phased by this, tells the two girls they should go check out their local tourist attraction, the Skull City Mine, located just a few miles away. Intrigued by the idea of a ghost town, the girls take this advice and soon meet the hostess, a woman with brown teeth calling herself Mama. They pay the admission fee, head into the deserted buildings and soon find themselves being chased by a guy with a beard brandishing a hammer. He makes short work of a few other victims before Meg manages to dispose of him and flag down some help from a passerby in a truck (Bill Moseley). Well, he's not what he seems either, and before you know it bodies are dropping, flies at showing up and sucking the souls out of corpses, and lots of CGI blood effects destroy an interesting premise, a great location, and give a reasonably effective cast little to do but run around the desert and yell.
Brian Pulido is doing his best to channel Robert Rodriguez here, from the twangy-punkabilly soundtrack to the opening credits sequence right down to his production company's name (Mischief Maker studios? Really? You couldn't have come up with a less obvious swipe?) but ultimately doesn't do a very good job of it. The plot is riddled with logic gaps and scenes that are meant to be scary fall flat - a prime example being a scene where Meg gets 'possessed' by whatever it is that is in the area and starts to growl and snap like a dog. It's not scary, it's just really goofy.
Pulido has assembled a capable enough cast but hasn't bothered to give them much to work with. Tony Todd is only in the film for about ten minutes and while he's not a bad choice to play a deranged preacher, he's a little too heavy on the fire and brimstone angle. Jillian Murray and especially Clare Grant are plenty easy on the eyes and sex it up a bit early on but aren't given much more of an opportunity to do any more than that, though Grant spends a lot of time hunched over with her cleavage exposed. That counts for something. The script tries to forge an emotional attachment between the two sisters early on and partially succeeds only to more or less forget about it once it all hits the fan. Bill Moseley, very capable of taking roles and really making them his own, can't be bothered to do much more here than we've seen him do what seems like a hundred times over the last few years of his straight to video career. Falling somewhere between Chop Top from Texas Chainsaw 2 and his Otis character from The Devil's Rejects, his character here is nothing new.
This is a low budget horror movie though, right? Could Pulido save it by tossing in copious amounts of sex and violence to distract us from the fact that the script is terrible and the production values not all that interesting? He could have, but he doesn't. There are a few splatter effects here and there but almost all of them are done with bad CGI and as such the fail to convince. There's no nudity either. So no, there's not enough sex and violence or T&A to really distract us, and instead, it has to depend on the film's non-existent tension. The result is a film both boring and messy and therefore not worth your time. At least the mine setting looked cool.
The DVD:Video: is presented on DVD in a good 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. With most of the film taking place in the desert and during the day time, the colors tend to run a little bit on the hot side but in the context of the movie, it actually works quite well that way. The image is well defined with nice detail and there are no problems with print damage, mpeg compression artifacts or pesky edge enhancement. Some shimmering is evident here and there but it's not a constant problem. Black levels are generally quite strong as well, and this is, generally, a well encoded disc even if the source material is pretty erratic.
Sound:

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Living for the Day After Tomorrow: Complete Collection

2010-04-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Living For the Day After Tomorrow is a touching, methodical stroll through a summer where little girl's wish to become an adult is granted. The series is based on the manga written and drawn by J-ta Yamada and spans 12 episodes across two DVD's. Joining the glut of movies and shows that deal with age swapping, Living For the Day After Tomorrow doesn't cover much new ground. But that certainly doesn't make it unwatchable. In fact, I enjoyed this little drama series quite a bit and grew to really like most of the characters as the story progressed.
After losing his parents, Hiro is forced to leave his life in America to care for and raise his younger sister Karada Igokawa. Young Karada feels as if she's a burden to her older brother. Karada makes a secret wish at the town shrine; she wishes to become an adult to free Hiro of his burden. Karada has no idea what chaos will ensue when she makes her wish. Shoko, an old friend of Hiro's, happens to be with Karada at the shrine when she makes her wish, which has the side effect of turning Shoko into a little girl. Once the wish is granted, the wishing stones in the altar are turned to charcoal preventing them from simply unwishing the wish.

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Sgt. Frog: Season 2, Part 2

2010-04-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

FUNimation gives fans another 12 laugh-out-loud funny episodes of everyone's favorite alien invader in Sgt. Frog Season Two Part Two. Clever, witty, and hilarious, this has show consistently delivered irreverent fast-paced comedy over 50

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The Ruth Rendell Mysteries Collection

2010-04-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

A big block of sometimes engaging, sometimes dodgy, mysteries. Acorn Media has gathered together four previously released volumes of episodes from the British ITV series, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries under the title (no mystery here): , an 11-disc, 17 episode set that should prove interesting to followers of British mystery TV. Fans and collectors who already own the individually released volumes won't need to double-dip here; these are the exact same discs, right down to the artwork, as the earlier releases, with no additional extras. Newcomers to the series, however, may want to take a look at some of these unsettling psychological exercises. And just a small note: I'm in no way an expert on Ruth Rendell's work (I read a couple of her Wexford mysteries years and years ago), so I can't pass judgment on the fidelity of these adaptations to her actual works. I'll leave that to the Rendell scholars. I can only give you opinions on how the movies themselves work. Let's look very briefly at the films included here. I'll include the synopsis written on the back of the slimcases for purposes of brevity, but after that, beware the plot spoilers I may include in my discussions. You have been warned, you know....

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Angels and Demons

2010-04-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

I always thought this book would make better movie than the DaVinci Code, just because there was more action and suspense. The murders were pretty gruesome, and, you don’t have to sit through the history lesson. Where it was obviously impossible to squeeze all the information and detail contained in the DaVinci Code in to a 2 hour or even a 4 hour movie, fits that movie mold much better. That being said, some how, Ron Howard just cant seem to make these books into blockbusters, as much as everyone wishes they would be (myself included). The movie is good, better than DaVinci Code easily, but there is just something missing. I don’t know what it is (maybe it’s just me).
Robert Langdon – Tom Hanks is once again called in to solve a crime. During the conclave, the process where Catholic cardinals gather in Rome to elect a new Pope, someone has abducted four of the members and is threatening to kill them (one each hour) until the final act, the destruction of Vatican City itself. Religion and science collide once again as Langdon must decipher the clues and rescue the cardinals with the help of a pretty young Italian scientist Vittoria Vetra – Ayelet Zurer, while he tries find the mole within the Vatican, all the while being hindered and obstructed by the ones he’s trying to help. A race against the clock thriller with a pretty spectacular twist ending.
All in all the movie is good, I just wanted great. Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, good book, come on. I want great. So here’s the question, is it What-to-Watch?…Absolutely, Yes it is, better than most of the movies this year, enjoy.
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Before I Self Destruct

2010-04-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

It really is nice to watch an urban drama that is not about gangs, drugs, or the rap game. I know as much as anyone, that most street dramas are about what happens on the streets, but the ex-drug dealer trying to make it off the harsh streets and out of the hood by rapping is getting old. Self Destruct manages to tell a touching but violent story of what it takes to survive when you have responsibilities to take care of but no other options available. Written, produced, and directed by Curtis “50 cent” Jackson he does a great job of keeping the film authentic while not falling into the usual street movie cliches.
50 Cent stars as Clarence, the older son in a fatherless home, trying trying to find a job and a life after blowing out his knee during the championship game of a high profile street ball tournament. Although he does land minimum wage job at local grocery store, life is just passing him by. When his mother, who holds the family together, is killed as an innocent bystander in shot out, Clarence and his younger brother Shocka must figure out how to survive day to day while grieving over their moms senseless death. When Clarence finally exacts his revenge on the boy responsible, opportunities begin to open up as he enters a whole new lifestyle that seems to be suited perfect for him.
The movie drags a little bit during the middle half hour and the acting of the mother and girlfriend leave much to be desired. Overall the movie’s pretty good. Great camera work and editing for a street movie. Jackson proves he’s a very competent director. Now in his fourth film role 50-cents acting is still developing, and in my opinion, he needs to start looking at roles other than street hustler if he intends to have that breakout performance. All in all, pretty good, I’m waiting for the sequel.
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Inglourious Basterds

2010-04-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

Well, what can you say. Quentin Tarantino at his usual fantastic best.
Dialog and character in a way that no one else can seem to manage. His movies are becoming a genre of their own since no one else can even come close to making a movie with that kind of rich substance. With an ensemble cast that’s absolutely stunning. Everyone delivers in this world war II fantasy where they manage to rewrite history.
An elite group or soldiers (Jewish soldiers) called the Basterds are being assembled to do one thing, kill Nazi’s. Lead by Lt. Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt) who tells his small group of men that as of now, they all owe him 100 Nazi scalps. They roam the countryside killing Nazi’s and collecting scalps. The other half of the plot has you following the Jew Hunter,
Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) who proceeds to steal the movie as the man the Germans call in when they need the best. During a raid on a small farm, Landa loses a teenage Jewish girl named
Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) and the film manages to follow her as she grows up and waits for the perfect time to exact her revenge. With the Basterds, Landa, and Shoshana all on a collision course the films last act is just what we all wish would have happened to end the war.
With the acting and dialog at its absolute best, this film was one the five best last year. If you are a fan of Tarantino’s movies (and I don’t know how you couldn’t be) this will be known as his best work since Pulp fiction. Exceptionally bloody and violent, the film is perfection on every level. Don’t miss it.
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District 9

2010-04-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

For me, THE best movie of 2009. Sure Avatar is the crowning achievement of the 2009, but up until late December, this was the best movie of the year. The perfect low budget sci-fi film that proves you don’t need Transformers type CG to make a great movie with special effects. The story is exceptional and has some great plot twists as well. The acting is absolutely great, and you don’t know any of the actors. Extreme gore but with purpose, and a plot thats actually believable. A harsh look at the human condition and prejudice regardless of the species. All in all, an utterly engrossing, fantastic movie.
28 years ago an alien space craft stalled high above Johannesburg South Africa. When the humans finally get inside they discovery an entire race of extra terrestrials (about a million) starving and sick. The government quickly sets up a refuge camp below the broken ship in an attempt to nurse the aliens (called Prawns) back to health, and keep them in one place. As the aliens begin to venture out into the city and cause trouble and the camp soon gets walls and becomes part ghetto, part concentration camp. The “aliens rights” bill is past, and it looks like the Prawn’s are here to stay. The human population reaches its end with the alien problem as their numbers have increased to almost two million, and wants them moved out of the city. A government group called MNU decides to relocate the alien population 200 miles away to a new tent city called District 10. This movie is about what happens when you try and evict two million alien life forms from a slum they have been oppressed in for 25 years.
is as original and entertaining as any alien movie in the last decade. The special effects only help with the realism, they don’t take over the movie. The best part of this movie is the story and, the interaction of the characters. Harsh, gross, and in the end, sad and heart felt. There are no excuses why you haven’t seen this movie yet.
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Law Abiding Citizen

2010-04-16T09:08:00.001-07:00

Comments (0)
March 26, 2010

Strong, one of the better thrillers to come along last year. One of those rare movies where you really root for the bad guy, who is really a good guy. Just like in the film Taken, you understand the revenge of the character and identify with his pain. Sort of evil genius, and, loving father who has been wronged by the system, Now has one singular vision to make everyone involved pay with their lives. You cant go wrong with Gerard Butler and Jaime Foxx facing off either.

Clyde Shelton – Gerard Butler is the victim of a horrible home invasion
where his daughter and wife are raped and murdered while he watches helplessly tied up on the floor. The two men responsible are caught but, the prosecutors use one to testify against the other to get the death penalty. It makes Nick Rice – Jamie Foxx look good and keep up his conviction rate high while he aspires to higher office. The problem is, the system doesn’t serve justice as it should, and just do whats right. Well, Clyde just happens to be an inventive tinkerer with years to spend planning his revenge. Clyde finally gets to exact his revenge on the real man responsible for his families death and does to him what he deserves. Soon, Clyde is arrested for the gruesome murder and once they lock him up, the killing spree really gets started, and even behind bars, everyone who was involved is now in danger.

Gory in some parts, but not excessive. Acting is top notch all the way through, even the supporting cast is really good. An all around good thriller for most everyone. Check it out, it’s what-to-watch.

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The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

2007-12-26T04:39:00.000-08:00

This is the current info about The Bourne Ultimatum. Fortunately, this review about Matt Damon returns as highly trained assassin Jason Bourne, who is on the hunt for the agents who stole his memory and true identity. With a new generation of skilled CIA operatives tracking his every move, Bourne is in a non-stop race around the globe.

This film like the others in the Bourne series was wall to wall action. This Paul Greengrass directed film is a fitting end to a great movie trilogy. You can’t take a moment to relax, with peril and danger at every turn. Although Bourne is a trained assassin you grow to like him. This film is about the answers to many of the questions about Bourne’s past left unanswered in the previous films.

This is the cinematic equivalent of lighting a high-power repeater firework and having the director strap you to it before you can retreat to a safe distance. It’s insane and it’s the Bourne Ultimatum. The third and final instalment of a trilogy that has raised its genre’s bar to new heights, completing what has been an adrenaline-fuelled rollercoaster ride of emotion through the murky world of government splinter cells, high-tech surveillance and assassins aplenty.

The plot follows along the lines of the previous installments. C.I.A. official, Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), is a man on a mission to destroy anyone who threatens the secret identity of an illegal government project. This includes killing Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), an assassin suffering amnesia, who needs to reveal the truth so that he may put his fractured and tormented life back together. Vosen’s colleague, Pam Landy (Joan Allen), is determined to separate right from wrong and along with C.I.A. Operative, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), they provide uneasy allies for Bourne as he battles an organisation that wields more power than ever before.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action in reading more info

Titanic 10th Anniversary

2007-10-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

This coming November 20th,Paramount will release a 10th Anniversary Edition of "Titanic" on DVD.Leonardo DiCaprio and Oscar -nominee Kate Winslet acquaintance up the color as Jack and Rose, the young lovers who find one supernumerary on the maiden voyage of the "unsinkable" R.M.S. Titanic. But when the doomed gusto inlayer collides with an iceberg in the prim North Atlantic, their feverish love affair becomes a thrilling rendering for archaism.

300

2007-07-31T18:41:00.000-07:00

Like the raw and brutal Sin City a few years before, Frank Miller's 300 stands as one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of the 1990s. Employing the writer and author's testosterone-fueled dialogue and distinct visual style (highlighted further by the bold color palette of Miller's partner, Lynn Varley), 300 was essentially a stylized re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae, in which a handful of skilled Spartan soldiers and Greeks fought against hordes of Persian invaders. Choosing to take arms and fight as they'd been trained to do since adolescence, the Spartans sought to preserve their ideals despite overwhelming odds.

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Is Online DVD Rental Or Pay-Per-View The Best Way To Get Your Movies?

2007-07-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

With renting methods such as online DVD rental and pay-per-view, it seems almost old-fashioned to go to the rental store. But with all the different ways to get the latest movies, which way is the best? Well, that depends on what is important to you. Here are some of the different ways you can get the latest movies and the pros and cons of each.

Going to the Rental Store

I guess it is like they say, sometimes you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. It is hard to change from the old ways, especially when they work fairly well. If you want to see a movie, there is always a rental store nearby that should have it available. You are allowed to keep it for a couple of days for a price of around $4.00. However, if that movie is late, you have to expect some horrendous late fees (they usually will charge you an additional $4.00 as if you were renting the movie a second time; this gives you a couple of days to turn the movie again before they charge you again). For those who cannot change there ways, renting from a store is not a bad way to go, but you should at least check out the other possibilities, such as the online DVD rental system or pay-per-view, and see what they have to offer.

Online DVD Rental

The newer system of online DVD rental has its upsides and downsides. This system is for avid movie fans. In this system you usually do not pay for each DVD but instead pay a monthly fee for the DVD delivery service. With some plans as low as $9.99 a month with no late fees, you can get about any DVD delivered to your door in one business day. When you are done with that DVD, you simply send it back to receive another. This can be done as many times as you want in one month; however, there is usually a limit of how many DVDs you can have in your possession at one time (depending on how expensive your monthly plan is).

The biggest issue with online DVD rental is the waiting. You have to plan at least one day in advance what movie you want to watch which means no Friday late night movie runs. Also, you have to be renting at least 2-3 movies a month to make it more valuable then renting at your local movie store. If you watch a lot of movies and do not mind the wait, the online DVD rental system may not be a bad option for you.

Pay-Per-View

Pay-per-view has the “right now” benefit that the online DVD rental system does not have. With pay-per-view, whenever you decide you want to watch a movie, you just order it, sit down and watch it. Another benefit with pay-per-view s that you don’t have to worry about scratched or skipping DVDs. Companies such as I-Satellite offer 33 pay-per-view channels and 13 sports pay-per-view channels with prices as low as $1.99 to watch a movie. This is definitely a more simplistic way of doing things. However, it can start the money can start to add up if you are an avid movie watcher. Also, with pay-per-view you do not get access to the same “bonus features” that you get with the DVD.

With the choices of renting movies from the store, online DVD rentals, and pay-per-view it is definitely easy to get your movie fix in one way or another. All three methods of getting current blockbusters have their benefits and detriments in which you will have to decide from. Personally, I like the convenience of pay-per-view. No matter when I choose, I can sit down and watch the movie of my choice from several pay-per-view channels available. However, you will have to decide which method is best for you.

About the Author:

Kaitlin Carruth is a client account specialist with http://www.10xMarketing.com – More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. To learn more about online DVD rental, visit http://www.dishnetworkproducts.com/articles/online-dvd-rental.php . If you are interested in pay-per-view, please visit http://www.dishnetworkproducts.com/articles/pay-per-view.php

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Who Dies In Harry Potter?

2007-07-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

We know at least two people die in book 7. We suspect more, and we have our theories.
Let's see.. Who's Going to Die in Harry Potter?

The Contract

2007-07-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Its on. With that statement, Morgan Freeman opens The Contract, a tale that intertwines a dysfunctional father and a professional killer, one trying to protect his son and get to the authorities, the other trying to get back to his team and hit his target, and neither side willing to budge an inch. These opposing characters, in the capable hands of Freeman and John Cusack, are incredibly strong. Its just a shame the story that puts them together is considerably weaker.

TotalVid

2007-02-08T20:04:00.000-08:00

TotalVid offers on demand access to the Internet’s largest selection of videos consumers want but can’t find at their video rental store – all for a fraction of the cost of a DVD. From Action Sports to Anime, Instruction to Inspiration…whatever your interest, TotalVid has a download for everyone.

Popular Dvd Movie Reviews

2007-02-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

The Grudge

What I love about this movie (and franchise) is that it leaves much to the imagination. While a lot of horror movies are implausable, the Grudge franchise focuses on the spiritual. For me, it's easier to believe in ghosts and angry spirits, than to believe that people have the resources to do the evil things they do in movies like Saw. For those who prefer a horror movie that hits them over the head with gore and violence, stay tuned for Saw 20, which will most likely be out next year, as the franchise seems to crank them out within weeks. But for those who like to have something left to the imagination, let's hope the Grudge franchise lives a long, long time.

Juliet Farmer, aka writnkitten (Dvd Talk)

CinemaNow.com

2007-02-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

CinemaNow is the premier online destination for downloadable Hollywood movies and TV shows. Rent or buy movies, stream free videos, even burn movies to DVD and watch on TV! Start watching in seconds or download and watch anytime, anywhere on your PC or TV. Their service legally offers downloads of more than 4,000 feature-length films, television programs and music concerts from more than 250 licensors including 20th Century Fox, ABC News, A&E, Disney, HDNet, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, New Line, Paramount, Sony, Sundance Channel and Warner Bros. Fast and convenient, CinemaNow lets customers download their favorite movies on a rental and download-to-own basis. Buying a video download typically costs $9.99 to $19.95 per movie and offers customers an unlimited viewing period. CinemaNow also offers movies on a pay-per-view (rental) basis providing customers 24 hours to watch the video from the time they press “play”. Movie rentals cost $1.00 to $3.99 per movie. No subscription, membership fees or late fees. CinemaNow’s most recent and much acclaimed service offering, “Burn to DVD,” represents a landmark in digital distribution and a true innovation in home entertainment. This revolutionary service enables consumers to legally download a complete DVD, play it back on any PC and burn one copy to a blank DVD disc. The disc can then be played in virtually any DVD player with full remote control navigation and access to all special features. With the CinemaNow affiliate program you earn money for every user who rents or buys a CinemaNow movie. Leverage the millions of marketing dollars spent each year by studios to drive your own product sales. CinemaNow provides new creatives and information on the latest titles to make sure you have the most up-to-date assets needed to sell. Movie downloading is growing at a rapid pace and CinemaNow gives you an opportunity to earn cash for every new customer who tries this technology.

Rent Your Favourite Movie

2007-02-01T19:54:00.000-08:00

Amazon Unbox allows you to purchase or rent your favorite movies and TV shows to download and watch on your PC – all in DVD quality. High-quality video downloads are the next big thing and Amazon Associates can be a part of this exciting innovation. If you are interested in trying out Amazon Unbox for yourself, you can download a TV show for free with the purchase of any DVD from Amazon.com.

Top Seller Dvd

2007-01-31T22:43:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

Here the list for 5 Top Seller Dvd:

1. The Secret (Extended Edition)

2.Casino Royale (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition)

3.Lady and the Tramp (50th Anniversary Edition)

4.The Departed (Two-Disc Special Edition)

5.Bambi (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Best Movies of the new millenium so far

2007-01-31T22:12:00.000-08:00

The Depart (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Directed by Martin Scorsese

By an Amazon.com customer

Product Description

Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg star in Martin Scorsese's new crime drama "The Departed." "The Departed" is set in South Boston where the state police force is waging an all-out war to take down the city's top organized crime ring. The key is to end the reign of powerful mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) from the inside. A young rookie, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to infiltrate Costello's mob. While Billy is working to gain Costello's trust, another young cop, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is among a handful of elite officers whose mission is to bring Costello down. But what his superiors don't know is that Colin is working for Costello, keeping the crime boss one step ahead of the police. Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operation he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the gangsters and the police that they have a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin find themselves in constant danger of being caught-and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself. Read more...

Top Dvd's for 2007

2007-01-31T20:12:00.000-08:00

The Secret
(Extended Edition)
Directed by Skye Byrne

Amazon Sales Rank: #1 in DVD

Product Description

The new "extended edition" of this ground-breaking feature length movie presentation reveals The Great Secret of the universe. It has been passed throughout the ages, traveling through centuries... to reach you. This is The Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted. In this astonishing program are ALL the resources you will ever need to understand and live The Secret. For the first time in history, the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it... Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein. Now YOU will know The Secret. And it can change your life forever. Read more...