Saturday, December 31, 2011

Fame

  • Sevenes a day and a hot lunch. That's what New York City's High School for the Performing Arts guarantees. Stardom? That's something the school's teenage musicians, actors, dancers and dreamers strive for.Fame sings the body electric, celebrating the growing-up process of honing talent, confronting realities, finding love, living life. Director Alan Parker (Evita, The Commitments) brings an energe
Seven classes a day and a hot lunch. That's what New York City's High School for the Performing Arts guarantees. Stardom? That's something the school's teenage musicians, actors, dancers and dreamers strive for. Fame sings the body electric, celebrating the growing-up process of honing talent, confronting realities, finding love, living life. Director Alan Parker (Evita, The Commitments) brings an energetic style to the crisscrossing stories of students (including future Academy Award winner Iren! e Cara, Paul McCrane (ER), Barry Miller (Saturday Night Fever) and two who returned in the later TV series, Gene Anthony Ray and Lee Curreri). Nominated for six Academy Awards, Fame won Oscars for its dynamic score and title tune.This early effort by director Alan Parker is lively but jagged as it follows four students through their years in the New York City High School for the Performing Arts. Rather predictably, the kids fall into four clearly defined stereotypes: brazen, gay and hypersensitive, prickly, shy. It makes up for a disjointed presentation with a lot of heart and a great soundtrack (for which it won two Academy Awards). The hopes and disappointments, failures and successes of these teens are fodder for emotional scenes and exuberant dancing in the streets. It also turned out to be the first of many imitators and spawned a popular television series. (It was the breakout film for the short-lived feature film career of Irene Cara, who sang the title song.) --R! ochelle O'Gorman

Fears of the Dark

Buzby Breakin' All The Rules Hermie and Friends

  • Join Hermie and friends in an interactive adventure based on the hit video, BUZBY the Misbehaving Bee. In five engaging activities, children help Lucy match flowers, load the Ferris wheel with the right type of bugs, add scores in the bowling alley, sort items from the Roach Coach, and spell words in Buzby's honeycomb. They'll also collect seeds for an art garden where they can color scene
The game is on and the rules are out as Jamie Foxx, Morris Chestnut, Jennifer Esposito and Gabrielle Union star in this outrageous comedy that rewrites the book of loveJamie Foxx proves a winning romantic lead in the surprisingly subtle Breakin' All the Rules. When Quincy (Foxx, Ali, Collateral) gets brutally dumped by his fiancee, he researches the psychology of firing employees to create a break-up guide--a guide to a kinder, gentler break-up. His cousin Evan (Morris Chestnut, The! Brothers) is afraid that his girlfriend is going to dump him, so he asks for Quincy's help, setting in motion a web of mistaken identities that snares Evan's girlfriend Nicky (Gabrielle Union, Bring It On), Quincy's boss Philip (a wonderfully squirmy Peter MacNicol), and a blithe gold digger named Rita (Jennifer Esposito, Dracula 2000). Writer/director Daniel Taplitz gives his characters, if not three dimensions, then two and a half--comedy comes out of their personalities instead of lame gags. Add in some unpredictable plot twists, genuine chemistry between Foxx and Union, and the result is genuinely fun. --Bret FetzerStudio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 12/29/2009Jamie Foxx proves a winning romantic lead in the surprisingly subtle Breakin' All the Rules. When Quincy (Foxx, Ali, Collateral) gets brutally dumped by his fiancee, he researches the psychology of firing employees to create a break-up guide--a guide to a ki! nder, gentler break-up. His cousin Evan (Morris Chestnut, T! he Broth ers) is afraid that his girlfriend is going to dump him, so he asks for Quincy's help, setting in motion a web of mistaken identities that snares Evan's girlfriend Nicky (Gabrielle Union, Bring It On), Quincy's boss Philip (a wonderfully squirmy Peter MacNicol), and a blithe gold digger named Rita (Jennifer Esposito, Dracula 2000). Writer/director Daniel Taplitz gives his characters, if not three dimensions, then two and a half--comedy comes out of their personalities instead of lame gags. Add in some unpredictable plot twists, genuine chemistry between Foxx and Union, and the result is genuinely fun. --Bret FetzerQunicy Watson, after being unceremoniously dumped by his fiancée, pens a "how to" book on breaking up and becomes a best-selling author on the subject. Not wanting his male friends to suffer the same fate, he gives them advice on dumping their mates. A comedy of errors ensues.Jamie Foxx proves a winning romantic lead in the surprisingly su! btle Breakin' All the Rules. When Quincy (Foxx, Ali, Collateral) gets brutally dumped by his fiancee, he researches the psychology of firing employees to create a break-up guide--a guide to a kinder, gentler break-up. His cousin Evan (Morris Chestnut, The Brothers) is afraid that his girlfriend is going to dump him, so he asks for Quincy's help, setting in motion a web of mistaken identities that snares Evan's girlfriend Nicky (Gabrielle Union, Bring It On), Quincy's boss Philip (a wonderfully squirmy Peter MacNicol), and a blithe gold digger named Rita (Jennifer Esposito, Dracula 2000). Writer/director Daniel Taplitz gives his characters, if not three dimensions, then two and a half--comedy comes out of their personalities instead of lame gags. Add in some unpredictable plot twists, genuine chemistry between Foxx and Union, and the result is genuinely fun. --Bret FetzerJoin Hermie and friends in an interactive adventure base! d on the hit video, BUZBY the Misbehaving Bee. In five engagin! g activi ties, children help Lucy match flowers, load the Ferris wheel with the right type of bugs, add scores in the bowling alley, sort items from the Roach Coach, and spell words in Buzby's honeycomb. They'll also collect seeds for an art garden where they can color scene

Femme Fatale

  • Femme Fatale is a contemporary film noir about an alluring seductress (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) suddenly exposed to the world -- and her enemies -- by a voyeuristic photographer (Antonio Banderas) who becomes ensnared in her surreal quest for revenge.Running Time: 115 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R Age: 085392446124 UPC: 085392446124 Manufac
Britney Spears announces her seventh studio album is titled Femme Fatale. The iconic global superstar’s title Femme Fatale is a tribute to bold, empowered, confident, elusive, fun, flirty women and men. It’s not a conceptual album, Spears is letting the music speak for itself. She’s worked hard on it for two years and she considers it to be her “best album to date,” true to where she is now personally and professionally. Femme Fatale (Jive Records) is executive produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke. Few artists ha! ve earned the distinction of having five No.1 debut albums, and 24 Top 40 hits. She most recently set a new one-day precedent for single sales with her current No. 1 hit song, “Hold It Against Me.”. Jonas Åkerlaund shot the video for the song. Spears is peerless among her contemporaries. Throughout the years, Britney has consistently released hit after hit for over a decade, selling close to 70 million albums cumulatively worldwide. During her 12-year career, Britney has had five albums debut in the No. 1 position on Billboard 's Top 200 Albums chart and she's had 24 Top 40 hits on Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40 chart. Globally, Britney Spears is one of the top-selling artists of the past decade, dominating charts with her albums, selling an astonishing 67 million albums worldwide. Her previous albums include: …Baby One More Time (1999); Oops!... I Did It Again (2000); Britney (2001); In The Zone (2003); Blackout (2007); Circus (2008); and The Singles! Collection (2009). Studio: Sony Music Release Date: 11/2! 2/2011Br itney Spears announces her seventh studio album is titled Femme Fatale. The iconic global superstar’s title Femme Fatale is a tribute to bold, empowered, confident, elusive, fun, flirty women and men. It’s not a conceptual album, Spears is letting the music speak for itself. She’s worked hard on it for two years and she considers it to be her “best album to date,” true to where she is now personally and professionally. Femme Fatale (Jive Records) is executive produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke. Few artists have earned the distinction of having five No.1 debut albums, and 24 Top 40 hits. She most recently set a new one-day precedent for single sales with her current No. 1 hit song, “Hold It Against Me.”. Jonas Åkerlaund shot the video for the song. Spears is peerless among her contemporaries. Throughout the years, Britney has consistently released hit after hit for over a decade, selling close to 70 million albums cumulatively worldwide. During ! her 12-year career, Britney has had five albums debut in the No. 1 position on Billboard 's Top 200 Albums chart and she's had 24 Top 40 hits on Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40 chart. Globally, Britney Spears is one of the top-selling artists of the past decade, dominating charts with her albums, selling an astonishing 67 million albums worldwide. Her previous albums include: …Baby One More Time (1999); Oops!... I Did It Again (2000); Britney (2001); In The Zone (2003); Blackout (2007); Circus (2008); and The Singles Collection (2009). Femme Fatale is a contemporary film noir about an alluring seductress (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) suddenly exposed to the world -- and her enemies -- by a voyeuristic photographer (Antonio Banderas) who becomes ensnared in her surreal quest for revenge. The sheer pleasure of watching movies is celebrated in Brian De Palma's dazzling Femme Fatale. Working from his own intricate screenplay, De Palma indulges all of his trademark ! obsessions, upping the ante on Hitchcock (again) with a Ver! tigo -like plot that begins with an audacious heist at the Cannes film festival (another sexy, violent tour de force for De Palma). From there, the stunning thief Laure (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) assumes a new identity, marries a U.S. senator (Peter Coyote), and returns to Paris where a tenacious paparazzo (Antonio Banderas) becomes a patsy in her multilayered scheme. De Palma's weaving a web of nonsense, but his plotting is so exuberantly absurd--and his frame so full of visual clues and relevant detail--that Femme Fatale becomes a joyous thrill ride at first encounter, and a crazily logical (and grandly rewarding) movie on subsequent viewings. In her best role to date, Romijn-Stamos is everything you'd want a femme fatale to be, in a thriller that constantly challenges you to question what you're seeing. --Jeff Shannon

Friday, December 30, 2011

The Mistress of Spices

  • Tilo runs a spice store in San Francisco and has a magical gift of seeing into her customers' lives and desires. But, when a handsome, enigmatic American with a secret past enters her store, Tilo s own desires are stirred for the first time. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN Rating: PG-13 Age: 796019802741 UPC: 796019802741 Manufacturer No: 80274
A clash of cultures in the spirit of MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, this modern musical retelling of Jane Austen's classic PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is a hilariously entertaining tale of one girl's unlikely search for love! Sparks immediately fly as a love/hate relationship ignites between a small-town beauty (international star Aishwarya Rai) and a wealthy American (Martin Henderson -- THE RING, TORQUE) who's visiting her modest Indian village. In a swirl of music, dance, and comic misunderstandings, these opposites continue to attract and repel each other! in a riotous romance that spans three continents! Featuring Naveen Andrews (TV's LOST, THE ENGLISH PATIENT) and a memorable performance from top recording artist Ashanti -- love will eventually conquer all in this acclaimed treat from the director of BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM!The exotic sounds, vibrant colors, and ecstatic dancing of Bollywood collide with the cunning storytelling of Jane Austen in Bride & Prejudice (from the writer/director of previous East/West hybrid Bend It Like Beckham). When smart, outspoken Lalita Bakshi (Indian beauty Aishwarya Rai) meets Will Darcy (Martin Henderson, The Ring), she finds this American businessman arrogant and conceited--but because his best friend is falling in love with her sister, Lalita agrees to travel around India with Darcy. On the trip, a childhood friend of Darcy's named Johnny (Daniel Gillies, Spider-Man 2) both tickles Lalita's fancy and confirms her worst suspicions about Darcy. But as events unfo! ld, Lalita wonders if she hasn't misjudged Darcy--and Johnny. ! Austen f ans will be find much to criticize; Bride & Prejudice transplants the basic plot of Pride & Prejudice to modern India, but not much of Austen's sly wit or her insights about character and society have survived the translation. Henderson, though handsome, lacks the intimidating charisma of previous Mr. Darcys (including Laurence Olivier and Colin Firth). Thank goodness for the delightful Rai, here making her first all-English-language movie. She commands the screen like a true star (unsurprisingly, she's hugely popular in India, and previously starred in a more homegrown Austen adaptation: I Have Found It, based on Sense & Sensibility). For Western audiences unfamiliar with the freewheeling exuberance of Indian movies--wild musical numbers can break out at almost any moment--Bride & Prejudice offers an engaging taste of this fantastic cinematic style. --Bret FetzerThe exotic sounds, vibrant colors, and ecstatic dancing of Bollywood co! llide with the cunning storytelling of Jane Austen in Bride & Prejudice (from the writer/director of previous East/West hybrid Bend It Like Beckham). When smart, outspoken Lalita Bakshi (Indian beauty Aishwarya Rai) meets Will Darcy (Martin Henderson, The Ring), she finds this American businessman arrogant and conceited--but because his best friend is falling in love with her sister, Lalita agrees to travel around India with Darcy. On the trip, a childhood friend of Darcy's named Johnny (Daniel Gillies, Spider-Man 2) both tickles Lalita's fancy and confirms her worst suspicions about Darcy. But as events unfold, Lalita wonders if she hasn't misjudged Darcy--and Johnny. Austen fans will be find much to criticize; Bride & Prejudice transplants the basic plot of Pride & Prejudice to modern India, but not much of Austen's sly wit or her insights about character and society have survived the translation. Henderson, though handsome, lacks! the intimidating charisma of previous Mr. Darcys (including L! aurence Olivier and Colin Firth). Thank goodness for the delightful Rai, here making her first all-English-language movie. She commands the screen like a true star (unsurprisingly, she's hugely popular in India, and previously starred in a more homegrown Austen adaptation: I Have Found It, based on Sense & Sensibility). For Western audiences unfamiliar with the freewheeling exuberance of Indian movies--wild musical numbers can break out at almost any moment--Bride & Prejudice offers an engaging taste of this fantastic cinematic style. --Bret Fetzer(Romance) Tilo runs a spice store in San Francisco and has a magical gift of seeing into her customers' lives and desires. But, when a handsome, enigmatic American with a secret past enters her store, Tilo’s own desires are stirred for the first time.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Crossing Over

  • CROSSING OVER (DVD MOVIE)
Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones films) is on a quest for justice as an immigrations agent investigating the case of a missing illegal. In a cross-fire of crime and bureaucracy, fraud and murder, he must race against time to try to save a family from becoming collateral damage in the fight for the American dream. Critics rave, “Harrison Ford is terrific. An engrossing, thoroughly entertaining movie with great performances from a first-rate ensemble cast” (Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com). Co-starring Ashley Judd (Twisted), Ray Liotta (Smokin’ Aces), Jim Sturgess (21), and Cliff Curtis (10,000 BC); Crossing Over will keep you riveted until the final mystery unfolds.

Stills from Crossing Over (Click for larger image)


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The director of The Cooler tries a bigger canvas: Crossing Over is Wayne Kramer's take on nothing less than the vast subject of illegal immigration, coming at the topic from a dozen or so directions. Hefting the most star power is Harrison Ford, scurrying about as an L.A. Immigration and Customs officer whose conscience is sore from having trundled so many illegals back over the border--now he's worried about the child of a particularly vulnerable woman (Alice Braga). Cliff Curtis plays Ford's partner, an Iranian-American whose family ! is not as assimilated as his casual manner might suggest. There's a bit of pulp swagger in other sections of the picture, as Kramer tries to channel his inner Sam Fuller: for instance, an Immigration official (Ray Liotta at his piggiest) coerces an Australian actress (Alice Eve) into a sex-for-green-card affair, and an adolescent Arab-American girl (Summer Bishil, from Towelhead) gives a cheeky speech at school that puts her family under suspicion as possible terrorists. Other strands of this scenario aren't as urgent, as Ashley Judd dreams of adopting the African child she's tending, and Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe), as a British non-believer, tries to convince Immigration authorities of his commitment to working at a Jewish school. The movie's single best scene has him "auditioning" to convince a rabbi of his commitment to Judaism, a funny moment that also carries an echo of the history of Jewish exodus. The movie has a tendency to bash from one thing ! to the next, too neatly connecting its Crash-like plotl! ines, li ke a really spirited first draft of a better movie. --Robert Horton

BRONZE FAMILY TREE PICTURE FRAME - BRONZE FAMILY TREE WITH 6 HANGING PICTURE ...

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Good Luck Chuck (Unrated Widescreen Edition)

  • Actors: Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler, Connor Price, Troy Gentile.
  • Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC.
  • Language: English. Subtitles: English, Spanish.
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
  • Not Rated. Run Time: 96 minutes.
Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 09/09/2008 Run time: 101 minutes Rating: UrIn a perfect world, Good Luck Chuck would've captured the humor of Superbad and the raunch of the American Pie films. But what we're left with, instead, is a raunchy film with an anemic storyline. Cursed as a child with a hex that prevents him from finding true love, Charlie "Chuck" Logan (Dane Cook) finds that the women he dates find the men of their dreams immediately after they've dumped him. For a guy who enjoys dating beautiful women, it doesn't seem like such a horrible thing. ! But then he meets and falls for beautiful and klutzy Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba). Charlie wants to have a meaningful relationship with her, but how can he make her fall in love with him without losing her to some unknown man waiting to sweep her off her feet? Good Luck Chuck isn't an original movie; Cook and Alba make for an attractive couple that exudes warm chemistry. And Alba proves that while she may be famous for her body, she's quite adept at physical comedy. Dan Fogler doesn't fare as well. He has the thankless role of playing Charlie's obnoxious best friend Stu, a borderline perv plastic surgeon who proudly displays a set of Pamela Anderson's breast implants in his office (which, coincidentally enough, is located right next door to Charlie's). The dialogue is crass and the direction is all over the place. Everything is played for laughs, but little actually is very funny in this comedy. This movie actually could've used a bit more good luck. And lots more wit.! --Jae-Ha Kim

Friday, December 16, 2011

Disaster Films Collector Set (6-DVD Pack)

  • DISASTER 6 FEATURE MOVIE PACK (DVD MOVIE)

Genre: Comedy
Rating: UN
Release Date: 6-JAN-2009
Media Type: DVDEven within the subgenre of grab-bag comedy, Disaster Movie sets a new bar for free-associative lunacy. To what degree there is a plot, it's vaguely stolen from Cloverfield: A handful of twentysomethings try to rescue someone in a city assaulted by an incomprehensible threat--in this case, falling asteroids. But that's just a thread on which to string a long and increasingly tedious series of gestures towards recent movies (ranging from High School Musical to Enchanted to Sex and the City to Kung Fu Panda) and pop culture figures (Amy Winehouse to Flavor Flav to Dr. Phil to, of course, perpetual punching-bag Michael Jackson). No one over 30 will recognize more than a fraction of the movie's r! eferences, but the movie's bigger problem is that there are hardly any actual jokes--the filmmakers seem to think that simply alluding to Hancock or Jumper is funny in and of itself... and it just isn't. Disaster Movie will probably appeal to its primary audience of high-school students and repressed frat boys, for whom the mere mention of homosexuality prompts jittery laughter and who find generically pretty girls and studly boys in tight clothing titillating. It's a wasted opportunity; there are moments that, through sheer incompetence and desperation, suggest a surreal stream-of-consciousness. A filmmaker like Luis Bunuel or Federico Fellini could have turned such raw matter into a satirical aria that would genuinely critique a culture that worships Paris Hilton. Instead, we get this. Featuring, as ever, Carmen Electra.--Bret Fetzer


Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 01/06/2009 Run time: 88 minutes Rating: Ur
DISASTER MOVIE - DVD Movie
Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four will never be the same after this outrageously funny spoof of your favorite! comic book movies! Drake Bell (Drake & Josh) stars as a nerd! y high s chool student bitten by a genetically-altered dragonfly. He stumbles hilariously through the process of becoming a crime-fighter and as his new powers grow, so do the laughs. Sara Paxton (Aquamarine) and Christopher McDonald (Spy Kids 2) costar as the clueless damsel in distress and the comically intense super villain, along with Pamela Anderson and Leslie Nielsen. Going from superzero to superhero has never been this much fun! Adolescent fantasy meets sophomoric humor in the latest cuisinart comedy, Superhero Movie. The story of how frustrated loser Rick Riker (Drake Bell of Drake & Josh) becomes the superpowered Dragonfly is largely poking fun at Spider-Man, but there are a handful of digs at X-Men, Fantastic Four, and other Marvel Comics superhuman flicks. What's disappointing is how few of the jokes are specific to the genre--the abundance of gags about urine, feces, horniness, and especially flatulence (long, drawn-out gags about fl! atulence) could have been shoehorned into a parody of pretty much anything. The strong point of Superhero Movie is the above-average cast; while there are the obligatory cameos by the likes of Pamela Anderson, the cast is mostly filled out with actual actors like Marion Ross (Happy Days), Christopher McDonald (Thelma & Louise), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), and Leslie Nielsen, who trots out his trademark deadpan one more time. As Dragonfly's love interest, Sara Paxton (Aquamarine) does a flawless and subtle imitation of Kirsten Dunst's sultry vocal mannerisms. And for fans of Airplane! (the movie that started the whole everything-but-the-kitchen-sink genre of comedy), there's an appropriate cameo by Robert Hays as Rick Riker's father. Superhero is a step above such recent tripe as Date Movie and Meet the Spartans... but sadly, that's not saying much.! --Bret FetzerDisaster Films Collector Set
! 10.5 Apocalypse
After a massive 10.5 quake tears apart the West Coast, triggering an unrelenting series of natural disasters, Seismologist Samantha Hill uncovers an even greater threat: an expanding fault line that's slicing toward the country's two largest nuclear reactors...if a meltdown occurs, millions will die.

Category 7: The End of the World
As the nation faces a deadly Category 6 storm, the government falls under terrorist attack. Now, it's not only man against nature, but man against man as an intensified Category 7 approaches...

Supernova
When an astrophysicist discovers the sun is set to explode, a team of fellow scientists race against time to stop his predictions of apocalypse from coming true.

Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York City
A volcano beneath New York City seems unlikely...yet nothing else can explain the bizarre tremors and terrifying explosions wreaking havoc on the city.
The Black Hole
Following a scientific mishap, mankind is faced with total annihilation as a threatening black hole appears over St. Louis. Now, time is running out to obliterate the black hole and the electricity-feeding alien it has unleashed...

Final Days of Planet Earth
In this riveting end-of-days action thriller, an archaeologist discovers that aliens, posing as government officials, are secretly harvesting human bodies in a bid to take over Earth.
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