BLOODY SUNDAY
Dramatization of the fateful day of January 30,
1972, when British soldiers shot and killed 13 unarmed citizens taking part in
an anti-internment civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland. The event,
which has come to be known as Bloody Sunday, was a major turning point in the
history of modern Irish troubles, catapulting the conflict to a new level and
driving many young men into the IRA. The film encapsulates the events from all
perspectives of the "battlefield" in just one day, from the arrival of thousands
of troops on the streets of the besieged city to the violent collision between
soldiers and the crowds of civilian demonstrators. A powerful and, considering
the end result, depressing filmic statement.
Director: Paul Greengrass. Stars:
James Nesbitt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nicholas Farrell, Gerald McSorley, Kiera
Clarke. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 110 min.), Drama, 2002, Box office gross: $0.765
million, (Paramount), No VHS SRP, Priced for rental,
Available: 4/22, DVD: Day & Date.
CASTLE IN THE SKY
By the creator of such extraordinary Japanese
animated films as "My Neighbor Totoro," "Kiki's Delivery Service," "Princess
Mononoke" and "Spirited Away." "Castle in the Sky" takes viewers on a fantastic
voyage to a mythical retro-future full of amazing landscapes and wonderful
flying machines. Pazu, a young boy, finds the beautiful girl Sheeta descending
from the sky wearing a mysterious crystal, one that allows her to float in the
air. Sheeta can't remember the crystal's secrets, but it becomes the target of
a band of rabble-rousing sky pirates and their hilarious leader. Soon sinister
agents are after them as well, along with a treacherous man named Muska. The
chase leads them all to an astonishing castle in the sky, where a long
slumbering civilization waits with incredible surprises. The DVD version, on two
discs, includes the original Japanese language track, plus other goodies.
Director: Hayao Miyazaki.
English-language voices by James van der Beek, Anna Paquin, Cloris Leachman,
Mandy Patinkin, Mark Hamill, Andy Dick. CC, (MPAA rating: NR, 125 min.),
Animated, 1986, (Disney), $19.99 VHS SRP, Available: 4/15,
DVD: Day & Date.
DARKNESS FALLS
In their never-ending-quest to come up with
horror film scenarios, filmmakers seem willing to tap any and all benign
characters to turn them into avenging bogeymen (remember the killer Santa
Claus?). For this outing, the filmmakers have come up with a monstrous tooth
fairy who wrecks havoc on the town of Darkness Falls. The film starts with a
prologue of a woman -- a lighthouse keeper with a badly burned face -- unjustly
accused of a heinous crime. In the ensuing 150 years since the miscarriage of
justice, whenever local kids lose their last baby tooth, the evil spirit of the
woman appears, scarring the kids forever. The movie quickly moves to the
present, where Kyle, safely away from Darkness Falls, must return home to
confront his troubled past (he was accused of murdering his mother when we all
know it was the tooth fairy) to save his childhood sweetheart and her younger
brother (on his was to losing his last baby tooth) from the monster. See your
dentist instead.
Director: Jonathan Liebesman.
Stars: Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Lee Cormie, Grant Piro, Sullivan Stapleton.
CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 85 min.), Horror, 2003, Box office gross: $29.877
million, (Columbia TriStar), No VHS SRP, Priced for rental,
Available: 4/29, DVD: Day & Date.
DRUMLINE
Upbeat kids film about a hot-shot drummer from Harlem
who quickly learns that talent, passion, discipline and teamwork are required to
cut it on the drumline of a College marching band. Nickelodeon's Nick Cannon
stars as Devon Miles, a gifted street drummer who snares the top spot in a
Southern university marching band. But when his hotshot attitude gets a lukewarm
reception from the school's straight-laced band leader (Orlando Jones), Devon
quickly discovers that it takes more than rim shots to make it on the drumline.
There's plenty of syncopated steps (with a squad of bandmembers 300 strong) and
a hot hip-hop soundtrack.
Director: Charles Stone III. Stars:
Nick Cannon, Zoe Saldana, Orlando Jones, Leonard Roberts, GQ, Jason Weaver, Earl
C. Poitier, J. Anthony Brown. CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 118 min.), Musical Drama,
2002, Box office gross: $55.489 million, (Fox), $14.95 VHS SRP,
Available: 4/15, DVD: Day & Date.
FAR FROM HEAVEN
It's 1957 in the bedroom community of Hartford,
Connecticut. Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) has it all -- a
lovely home, two wonderful children, and a handsome husband, Frank (Dennis
Quaid), who is successfully climbing the corporate ladder at a television
company. But Cathy's idyllic existence is just an illusion, and as forbidden
desires threaten to tear her world apart, she is faced with choices that spur
gossip within the community and change several lives forever. Cathy is the
perfect, smiling wife, doting on her kids, her community and her husband. Frank,
hard-working and dedicated, has been staying late at his office to work on a new
campaign. One night Cathy decides to surprise Frank with a tupperware container
of the evening's meal, and instead of finding him hard at work, she finds him in
the arms of another man. Frank agrees to undergo medical attention for his
"problem," along the way taking solace in booze. As his life spins more and more
out of control, Cathy turns to another man for emotional support -- her
educated, soft-spoken gardener. In the eyes of her community and friends, Cathy
has violated the rules of upper-middle class etiquette -- she's not only
befriending a man below her station in life, she's befriending a black man
(Dennis Haysbert). And that, of course, changes everyone's lives forever. An
homage, as everyone knows by now, to the melodramas of Douglas Sirk and, in
particular, "All That Heaven Allows." But it's more than that of course: Todd
Haynes' brilliant screenplay and direction looks at forbidden feelings of love,
desire and yearning and places them onto a middle-class 1950s backdrop -- a time
when thinking and speaking about homosexuality and integration were taboo
subjects among the middle class. He weaves together layers of insights and
understandings that transcend the romantic melodrama genre -- he has
successfully sewn a modern sensibility on a 1950s tapestry. The power of the
film comes from that juxtaposition -- and, of course, from Moore's and Quaid's
bravura performances.
Director: Todd Haynes. Stars:
Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis,
James Rebhorn, Celia Weston. CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 107 min.), Melodrama,
2002, Box office gross: $15.000 million, (Universal), No VHS SRP,
Priced for rental, Available: 4/1, DVD: Day &
Date.
HARRY POTTER AND
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
Cars fly, trees fight
back and a mysterious elf comes to warn Harry Potter of danger -- all at the
start of the second year of his amazing journey into the world of wizardry. This
year at Hogwarts, spiders talk, letters scold and Harry's own unsettling ability
to speak to snakes turns his friends against him. From dueling clubs to rogue
Bludgers, it's a year of adventure and danger when bloody writing on a wall
announces: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. To save Hogwarts will require
all of Harry, Ron and Hermione's magical abilities and courage in this
spellbinding adaptation of J.K. Rowling's second book. Get ready to be amused
and petrified as Harry Potter shows he's more than a wizard, he's a hero. Fast
moving, involving story and action for kids of all ages -- the 161 minutes goes
by faster than you can imagine.
Director: Chris Columbus. Stars:
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Kenneth Branagh, John Cleese,
Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths, Richard Harris, Alan Rickman,
Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters. CC, (MPAA rating: PG, 161 min.), Family
adventure, 2002, Box office gross: $261.000 million, (Warner), $24.98 VHS
SRP, Available: 4/11, DVD: Day & Date.
RABBIT-PROOF FENCE
Director Phillip Noyce has made a disturbing
yet uplifting film that examines the plight of Australia's Aborigines during the
1930s when the government saw fit to wrench Aboriginal children from their
families "for their own good" to be assimilated i to white society -- typically
as domestic servants. The film follows the lives of three such girls who chafe
at the repression they encounter when sent to a mission to be trained to serve
the upper class, and subsequently escape to the outback on a 1,500 mile journey
home, hotly pursued by the authorities. The film gets its title from the
enormous rabbit-proof fence built by the government (to stop a rabbit plague)
that crossed the country and which the girls follow to get home. Political film
that touches the emotions.
Director: Phillip Noyce. Stars:
Evelyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Laura Monaghan, Kenneth Branagh, David Gulpilil,
Ningali Lawford, Deborah Mailman, Jason Clarke. CC, (MPAA rating: PG, 94 min.),
Drama, 2002, Box office gross: $5.772 million, (Miramax), No VHS SRP,
Priced for rental, Available: 4/15, DVD: Day &
Date.
RED DRAGON
Remake of Michael Mann's splendid 1986 "Manhunter,"
keying in more on the delightful Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) who played
second fiddle in the original version. Here Edward Norton plays a retired FBI
agent called back to action to consult with the incarcerated Lecter to solve a
baffling serial killer case in which the murderer -- dubbed The Tooth Fairy by
the press -- bites, maims and kills entire families. Its grisly, scary and
wonderfully chilling.
Director: Brett Ratner. Stars:
Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson,
Mary-Louise Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffman. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 124 min.),
Thriller, 2002, Box office gross: $92.790 million, (Universal), No VHS
SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 4/1, DVD: Day &
Date.
SECRETARY
Demented, weird and offbeat are words to best describe
this delight of a film about a young woman, Lee (Maggie Gyllenhaal), just
released from a mental hospital to the bosom of her dysfunctional family, who
gets a job as a legal secretary to sexually repressed Mr. Grey (James Spader).
In short order Grey takes charge of Lee's sexual yearnings (she wants to be
bossed around), resulting in Lee wearing a dog collar and engaging in spanking
and other S&M practices with her boss. But this is not a sleazy erotic offering.
Instead, it's a wonderful exploration of who is the master and who is the slave
in interpersonal relations, with Lee coming out on top in more ways than one.
This could have been a dreary outing in most hands, but director Steven
Shainberg plays it like a comedy, with an amusing but ambiguous ending.
Director: Steven Shainberg. Stars:
Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Leslie Ann Warren, Jeremy Davies. CC, (MPAA
rating: R, 111 min.), Drama, 2002, Box office gross: $4.046 million, (Lions
Gate), No VHS SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 4/1,
DVD: Day & Date.
SPIRITED AWAY
A wonderfully imaginative animated story by Hayao
Miyazaki, the creator of "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Princess Mononoke." And, like
those previous outings, "Spirited Away" is a heady mix of realism and fabulism,
sure to please adults and youngsters alike. Here a 10-year-old girl and her
family wander into what first appears to be an abandoned theme park but turns
out to be a spirit world. When her parents eat some food and are turned into
pigs, it's up to Chihiro to rescue them by dealing with weird spirits and
unearthly -- yet not scary -- situations. That includes a six-armed bathhouse
furnace tender, adorable "soot balls," a witchy spirit world boss and a River
God, among others. "Spirited Away" is the all-time boxoffice champ in Japan,
surpassing "Titanic."
Director: Hayao Miyazaki. Voices of
Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Jason Marsden, Susan Egan, David Ogden Stiers,
Lauren Holly, Michael Chiklis. CC, (MPAA rating: PG, 125 min.), Animated, 2002,
Box office gross: $7.400 million, (Disney), $19.99 VHS SRP,
Available: 4/15, DVD: Day & Date.
STANDING IN THE SHADOW OF
MOTOWN
This is the untold story of the
soul behind the soul: The Motown house band known as The Funk Brothers who
backed some of the top singers and groups of the fabulous Motown years from
1959-1973. In '59, Motown founder Berry Gordy gathered the best musicians from
Detroit's thriving jazz and blues scene for his new record company. For the next
14 years, these players were the heartbeat on "My Girl," "Baby Love,"
"Bernadette," "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "Dancing in the Streets" and
every hit from the label's Detroit era. This unheralded group of musicians
played on more No. 1 hits than the Beach Boys, the Stones, Elvis Presley, and
the Beatles combined. They called (and still call) themselves The Funk Brothers,
and this is their story.
Director: Paul Justman. Stars: The
Funk Brothers, Bootsy Collins, Ben Harper, Montell Jordan, Chaka Khan, Tom
Scott. CC, (MPAA rating: PG, 110 min.), Music biodoc, 2002, Box office gross:
$1.574 million, (Artisan), $19.98 VHS SRP, Available: 4/22,
DVD: Day & Date
TRANSPORTER, THE
Fast-paced actioner set against the
breathtaking backdrop of the French Mediterranean. Frank Martin (Jason Starham)
is the best at what he does: Transporting dangerous or illegal goods with no
questions asked. But his latest shipment, a beautiful young woman kidnapped by
international slave traders, brings deadly complications to his delivery plans:
he breaks the rules and must kick into overdrive to fight to save his cargo, and
his life. Whip-lashing car chases and edgy thrills.
Director: Louis Leterrier and Corey
Yuen. Stars: Jason Statham, Qi Shu, Matt Schulze, Francois Berleand, Ric Young.
CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 92 min.), Thriller, 2003, Box office gross: $25.296
million, (Fox), No VHS SRP, Priced for rental,
Available: 4/15, DVD: Day & Date.
TREASURE PLANET
Animated futuristic take on Robert Louis
Stevenson's "Treasure Island" has young Jim Hawkins, in possession of a secret
map, join up with a cosmic space crew headed by daring Captain Amelia on a
treasure hunt across the universe. Aboard the glittering solar galleon, Jim
meets the ship's cyborg cook, John Silver, who teaches him the value of
friendship and the power of dreams. Jim soon teams up with crazy new robot pal
B.E.N., and the shape-shifting Morph to discover a treasure greater than he ever
imagined. Disappointing critical and boxoffice response for Disney.
Director: John Musker and Ron
Clements. Voices of Joseph-Gordon Levitt, Emma Thompson, Brian Murray, Martin
Short. CC, (MPAA rating: PG, 95 min.), Family, 2002, Box office gross: $37.486
million, (Disney), $24.99 VHS SRP, Available: 4/29, DVD:
Day & Date.
TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE,
THE
An homage to and remake of Stanley
Donen's 1963 "Charade" starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. In the original,
Grant played a government agent who comes to the aid of Hepburn, who is being
bullied by three baddies who think she knows the whereabouts of ill-gotten gains
stolen by her now-dead husband. There was plenty of double-dealing and false
identities (hence the title "Charade"). In this version, Thandie Newton
admirably takes on the Hepburn role as the damsel in distress, and Mark Wahlberg
is her knight in shining armor (he plays a modern Cary Grant, more streetwise
than sophisticated but never-the-less appealing). The film, with Jonathan Demme
embellishments, takes the story into the new millennium but still retains much
of the excitement and intrigue of the original. "Charade" and "Charlie" will
make a great double bill in your home theater.
Director: Jonathan Demme. Stars:
Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, Tim Robbins, Joong Hoon Park, Ted Levine, Lisa
Gay Hamilton, Christine Boisson, Stephen Dillane. CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 104
min.), Thriller, 2002, Box office gross: $5.293 million, (Universal), No VHS
SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 4/1, DVD: Day &
Date.
TWO WEEKS NOTICE
Sexy comedy about an eccentric attorney and her
client who discover it's never too late to arbitrate an "I love you." Lucy
Kelson (Sandra Bullock) -- a brilliant but neurotic, liberal attorney with a
strategic mind who's more interested in saving her Coney Island neighborhood
than in earning a big paycheck -- is presented with the opportunity to do both
when she accepts a position as chief counsel for real estate tycoon George Wade
(Hugh Grant). However, the handsome, charming but totally self-absorbed Wade
pushes Lucy to the limit by treating her more like a nanny and a personal
assistant than the Harvard Law School grad she is. When Lucy decides to quit,
her two weeks notice makes them realize they have fallen in love. There's a
definite magnetism between Grant and Bullock and they play off each other with
wonderful timing energy. A well-wrought outing.
Director: Marc Lawrence. Stars:
Sandra Bullock, Hugh Grant, David Haig, Alicia Witt, Dana Ivey, Robert Klein,
Heather Burns, Dorian Missick. CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 110 min.), Romantic
Comedy, 2002, Box office gross: $95.000 million, (Warner), $22.99 VHS
SRP, Available: 4/29, DVD: Day & Date.
WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE,
THE
Kid-savvy producers Arlene Klasky
and Gabor Csupo bring "The Wild Thornberrys" to the big screen in a big,
satisfying way. In their first movie, the venerable Thornberrys take on
important issues involving the evils of animal poaching that are nevertheless
carefully tempered with humor and optimism to keep them manageable for young
audiences. Nigel Thornberry and wife Marianne produce a television nature show
from the wilds of Africa, traveling around that continent with two daughters,
the bratty teenager Debbie and the younger, sweet-natured Eliza. The family
comes to the aid of endangered animals and generally takes up an array of other
good causes. The hook, of course, is that Eliza has a secret only the audience
shares: She can converse with animals. One day, as Eliza plays with cheetah
cubs, one is snatched by two poachers. Eliza believes she is to blame and vows
to rescue the cub, no matter what it takes. From here the movie turns into her
official rite of passage as she confronts not only the poachers but also a
crucial decision involving her magical powers with the animals. The film's
optimism and intelligence are heightened by its buoyant animation, an uplifting
score by Drew Neumann and especially by Paul Simon's touching song "Father and
Daughter."
Director: Jeff McGrath, Cathy
Malkasian. Voices of Lacey Chabert, Tom Kane, Tim Curry, Jodi Carlisle, Michael
Balzary (aka Flea), Danielle Harris, Lynn Redgrave, Rupert Everett, Marisa
Tomei, Brenda Blethyn. CC, (MPAA rating: PG, 88 min.), Animated, 2002, Box
office gross: $40.000 million, (Paramount), $24.95 VHS SRP,
Available: 4/1, DVD: Day & Date.
All DVDs are screened on a reference system consisting of a
Rotel RDV-1080 DVD Audio/Video Player, a
Rotel RSX-972 Surround Sound Receiver, and Phase Technology 1.1 (front), 33.1 (center),
and 50 (rear) speakers and Power 10 subwoofer.
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