Movies

Languages: French, DTS; French, Dolby Digital 5.1; English, DTS; English, Dolby Digital 5.1

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: How far would you go to become someone else.

Summary: "I feel like I've been handed a new life", says Tom Ripley at a crucial turning point of this well-cast, stylishly crafted psychological thriller. And indeed he has, because the devious, impoverished Ripley (played with subtle depth by Matt Damon) has just traded his own identity for that of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the playboy heir to a shipping fortune who has become Ripley's model for a life worth living. Having been sent by Dickie's father to retrieve the errant son from Italy, Ripley has smoothly ingratiated himself with Dickie and his lovely, unsuspecting fiancée, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). In due course, the sheer evil of Ripley's amoral scheme will be revealed.
Superbly adapted from the acclaimed novel by Patricia Highsmith (also the basis of the acclaimed French version, Purple Noon), The Talented Mr Ripley is writer-director Anthony Minghella's impressive follow-up to his Oscar-winning triumph The English Patient. Recreating late-1950s Italy in exacting detail, the film captures the sensuousness of la dolce vita while developing the fracturing of Ripley's mind as his crimes grow increasingly desperate. And where Hitchcock was necessarily discreet with the homosexual subtext of Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, Minghella brings it out of the closet, increasing the dramatic tension and complexity of Ripley's psychological breakdown. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchett are excellent in pivotal supporting roles, and the film's final image is utterly effective: Ripley's talents have gone too far, and this study of class distinction, obsession and deadly desire reaches a disturbing yet richly appropriate conclusion. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Sound: Dolby

Summary: Dexter King plays straight man to unpleasant comedian Ron Anderson. He falls in love with Kate, a pretty nurse he meets when he is receiving injections for hay fever. When Anderson fires him, he acquires the title role in a musical stage version of "The Elephant Man". Kate dumps him when she suspects he is having an affair with a fellow cast member, and he must win her back.

Languages: French, Unknown

Subtitles: English

Sound: Dolby Digital

Summary: (Original French Version) In Marseilles (France), Daniel, an ancient pizza delivery boy, changes job to become a taxi driver, but his dream is to become an F1 pilot. Caught by the police for a huge speed infraction, he will help Emilien, a loser inspector on the track of German bank robbers, so he doesn't lose his license and his job. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Daniel, ex-livreur de pizzas devenu chauffeur de taxi est un fou du volant. Son taxi c'est un bolide en puissance et quand il réveille les tigres qui sommeillent sous le capot, il échappe même aux radars. Hélas, lorsque son taxi croise la route d'Emilien, un policier recalé pour la huitième fois à son permis de conduire, Daniel est bien obligé, s'il veut garder un volant entre les mains, d'accepter le marché qu'Émilien lui propose : l'aider à démanteler un gang allemand de braqueurs de banques qui écume les succursales de la ville à bord de puissants véhicules. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Le film, le film par chapitres - La bande-annonce - Stéréo - Formats: 4/3 1.33:1 et 16/9 2.35:1 - Zone 1

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.1; English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: Putting the "F" back in Freedom.

Summary: The North American anti-terrorist force Team America attacks a group of terrorist in Paris. Later, the leader of the organization, Spottswoode, invites the famous Broadway actor Gary Johnston to join his world police and work undercover in Cairo in a terrorist organization and disclose their plan of destroying the world. The Team America destroy the cell of terrorists, but then the Panama Canal is attacked by the criminals as a payback. Gary feels responsible for the death of many innocents and leaves the counter-terrorism organization. When the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong II, joins a group of pacifist actors and actresses with the intention of using weapons of massive destruction, the Team America tries to avoid the destruction of the world.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.1; English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Commentary by director James L. Brooks, co-producer Penney Finkelman Cox and production designer Polly Platt, Unknown

Subtitles: English

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: Come to Laugh, Come to Cry, Come to Care, Come to Terms.

Summary: Aurora and Emma are mother and daughter who march to different drummers. Beginning with Emma's marriage, Aurora shows how difficult and loving she can be. The movie covers several years of their lives as each finds different reasons to go on living and find joy. Aurora's interludes with Garrett Breedlove, retired astronaut and next door neighbor are quite striking. In the end, different people show their love in very different ways.

Sound: Mono

Comments: There's No Rest For The Wicked...

Summary: France, 18th century. Lieutenant Andre Duvalier has been accidentally separated from his regiment. He is wandering near the coast when he sees a young woman. He asks the road to Coldon, where he hopes to rejoin his regiment. But the woman doesn't answer, doesn't even greet him and walks away. Eventually she takes him to the sea, where she disappears in rough water. Andre loses conscience when he is trying to following her, and is attacked by a bird. He awakes in a house with an old woman and a numb man. She claims to never have seen the woman. After he leaves, he sees her again and when trying to follow her is saved by a man from certain death. He learns that to help the girl, he must go to castle of Baron Van Leppe. When he arrives, Andre sees the woman looking from a window. Baron Van Leppe is old and seems reluctant to let André in however. He claims there's no woman in the castle, but shows André a painting which does indeed portray her. Andre learns that she is the baroness, who died twenty years ago. What is the baron's secret?

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Comments: As timely today as the day it was written.

Summary: A rural clergyman in 19th century England tells Durbeyfield, a simple farmer, that he is descended from the illustrious d'Urberville family -- now extinct. Or maybe not. Durbeyfield sends his daughter Tess to check on a family named d'Uberville living in a manor house less than a day's carriage ride away. Alec d'Urberville is delighted to meet his beautiful "cousin" and seduces her with strawberries and roses. Actually Alec has gotten his illustrious name and coat of arms by purchasing them. Tess too takes up the game of illusion when she finds, loses and finds again her true love Angel.

Languages: German, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Subtitles: English

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Comments: Fritz Lang's Meisterwerk. Der Gewaltigste Film der Gegenwart. (Fritz Lang's masterpiece. The most tremendous film of the present.)

Summary: Berlin police inspector Lohmann investigates a case, in which all clues lead to a man, who's in a hospital for mental illnesses for since many years - Dr. Mabuse.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 1.0

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese

Sound: Mono

Comments: The Amazing New Warner Bros. Sensation!

Summary: An early entry in the 1950s cycle of creature-feature pictures, Them! is the one about hordes of ants mutated to a giant size by the first A-bomb test. An exciting, persuasive exercise in paranoid science fiction, it exhibits an interesting tension between cautious warning about irresponsible tampering with the atom and a Cold War vision of the authorities taking on extraordinary powers to combat a threat to the country.
It begins as an eerie desert mystery, with New Mexico cop James Whitmore investigating disappearances and deaths: a mobile-home and a general store are crushed as if tanks have rolled over them, a shopkeeper is found dead of a huge injection of formic acid, quantities of sugar have been stolen (the film's sole straight-faced joke) and a catatonic little girl is shocked into shrieking "them, them!". FBI agent James Arness takes charge and a plaster-cast of a strange imprint summons a father and daughter investigative team from the Department of Agriculture, cherubic Edmond Gwenn and smart-suited Joan Taylor. Law-enforcement, military and scientific experts deduce the nature of the problem and take swift, decisive action to counteract the danger. Director Gordon Douglas stages several great monster-suspense scenes: a first encounter in a sandstorm, a venture into a poisoned nest, a glimpse of horror at sea, and a finale in the Los Angeles storm drains.
On the DVD:Them! has the wonderful scarlet-lettered, shrieking title on an otherwise sharp-looking black and white print. An amusing newspaper-style menu uses original artwork from the lurid poster to showcase some interesting snippets of test or outtake footage of the big puppet ants in action, and there's a wonderfully overblown terror-trailer.--Kim Newman

Sound: Mono

Comments: The Hilarious best-seller now becomes... The funniest film ever made about Australians!

Summary: Nino Culotta is an Italian immigrant who arrived in Australia with the promise of a job as a journalist on his cousins magazine, only to find that when he gets there the magazine's folded, the cousins done a runner & the money his cousin sent for the fare was borrowed from the daughter of the boss of a local construction firm. So Nino tries to get a job & finishes up ... laying bricks. Nino works hard & friends with lots of locals, Nino & Kay argue a lot, Nino & Kay fall in love ... Kay takes Nino to meet 'Daddy' but daddy hates journalists, immigrants and bricklayers (he's now BOSS of a construction firm). Nino starts to win him over with his charm & determination to marry Kay.

Sound: Mono

Comments: Carol Reed's Classic Thriller

Summary: An out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, and where a shortage of supplies has lead to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime's friends and associates Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent, and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime.

Sound: Dolby Digital

Comments: Run with the crowd, stand alone, you decide.

Summary: If there's a more exciting and diverse a film director currently working in the UK than Shane Meadows, then it's reason to truly celebrate. In fact, the sheer quality of Meadow's own output is enough reason to be enthused, not least his finest film to date, This Is England.
Set in the early 1980s, This Is England initially focuses on 12-year old Shaun (played by Thomas Turgoose, a real find), as he befriends a group of skinheads. Shaun bears the scars of the 80s, with his dad lost in the Falklands War, and his relationship with his new friends develops carefully across the first half of the film.
But it's in the second half where This Is England soars. It's not easy watching, as is the usual drill with Meadows' best films, From a stunning tirade about the state of Britain, to moments of real unease and tension, it's a terrific piece of cinema, and one destined to enjoy a healthy life on DVD. It's also one that should, if there's any justice, provide a major career springboard for its primarily unknown cast, and one that should get Meadows far more of the recognition he absolutely deserves.
Bluntly, not only is This Is England the best British film of the year. It's a standout contender for the best film of 2007 full stop. It's utterly superb, and it'd be remiss not to see it. --Jon Foster

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles: Spanish, French

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: Does for rock and roll what "The Sound of Music" did for hills

Summary: The comedic genius of This Is Spinal Tap is confirmed by the fact that a majority of studio executives were utterly clueless about its brilliance. As a first-time director and cowriter, Rob Reiner must have felt simultaneously frustrated and elated, knowing that the obtuseness of movie executives was a clue to his debut project's potential greatness. Now, of course, the clarity of hindsight and the rarity of superior satire have turned This Is Spinal Tap into one of the funniest documentary spoofs of all time. Reiner and the members of "Tap" (Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer) couldn't have picked a better target for their satire, because heavy metal music in the early 1980s was already a borderline case of self-parody. From the bizarre, premature deaths of the band's drummers to the backstage squabbles over sexist cover art and meddling groupies, this movie scores about a hundred comedic bull's-eyes for lampooning every possible aspect of rock pomposity in the age of Kiss. It's a virtual bible of rock & roll irreverence, so accurate in its observations that it's become a tour-bus classic for real bands around the world. On the one-to-ten scale of satirical inspiration, This Is Spinal Tap is like the modified amplifiers that Christopher Guest so hilariously demonstrates: this one goes to 11. --Jeff Shannon

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Comments: All the dreams you've ever had and not just the good ones

Summary: Kevin, an imaginative child, goes on a time-travelling adventure with a bunch of treasure-hunting dwarves, who have "borrowed" a map to the Universe's time holes from The Supreme Being.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.0; English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Comments: Your senses will never be the same

Summary: Tommy is blind, deaf and dumb, but there is nothing wrong with him. As a small child, he accidentally witnessed the murder of his father by his stepfather. His mother and stepfather told him to forget everything he had seen and heard, and to never talk about it; but Tommy carried it to the extreme, turned inward, and stopped seeing, hearing or speaking at all. He suffered much while growing up, and finally found happiness in, of all things, playing pinball. When he became the world champion pinball player it brought his family fame and fortune. After being spontaneously healed, he began to teach others of his unique perspective on life, eventually becoming a religious cult figure.

Sound: Mono

Comments: Hitchcock takes you behind the actual headlines to expose the most explosive spy scandal of the century!

Summary: A high ranking Russian official defects to the United States, where he is interviewed by US agent Michael Nordstrom. The defector reveals that a French spy ring codenamed "Topaz" has been passing NATO secrets to the Russians. Michael calls in his French friend and counterpart Andre Devereaux to expose the spies.

Sound: Mono

Comments: Suspense! Azione! Sorpresa! [Suspense! Action! Surprise!]

Summary: U.S. rocket scientist Michael Armstrong and his assistant/fiancée Sarah Sherman are attending a convention in Copenhagen. Michael is acting very suspiciously and Sarah follows him to East Germany when he apparently tries to defect to the other side.

Sound: DTS

Comments: No One Gets Away Clean

Summary: Featuring a huge cast of characters, the ambitious and breathtaking Traffic is a tapestry of three separate stories woven together by a common theme: the war on drugs. Bold in scope, it showcases Steven Soderbergh at the top of his game, directing a peerless ensemble cast in a gritty, multifaceted tale that will captivate you from beginning to end. Utilising the no-frills techniques of the Dogme 95 school, Soderbergh enhances his handheld filming with imaginative editing and film-stock manipulation that eerily captures the atmosphere of each location: a washed-out, grainy Mexico; a blue and chilly Ohio; a sleek, sun-dappled San Diego. But Traffic is more than a film school exercise. Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (adapting the British TV miniseries Traffik to the US) seamlessly weave the threads of each separate plotline into one solid tale, with the actions of one plot having quiet repercussions on the connected narratives. And if you needed more proof that Soderbergh takes unparalleled care with his actors, practically all the members of this cast turn in their best work ever, the standout being an Oscar-worthy Benecio Del Toro as the conflicted moral conscience of the film. Traffic registered eight Oscar nominations (winning four, including Best Director for Soderbergh). --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

Sound: Mono

Comments: MASTER-CRIMINAL! SUPER-SPY! AND ALL TRUE!

Summary: Loosely based on a true story, Christopher Plummer plays British bank robber Eddie Chapman who finds himself caught between the waring parties in WW2, the British and the Germans. working as a spy for both sides he tries to play the 3rd reich and the British against each other. the real life Chapman described himself as a completely 'amoral' person, which adds a nice philisophical touch to this somewhat colourful spy-flic. Is there any moral in making war ? Even if you're the 'good' fighting 'evil' ?

Sound: DTS

Comments: Before Romeo & Juliet, there was...

Summary: Luscious cinematography and even more luscious stars make Tristan & Isolde a feast for the eyes. Adapted from the medieval love story, the movie begins with with young Tristan (played as a child by Thomas Sangster, Love Actually) as he sees his parents killed by the tyrannical Irish, who ruled over a fractured Britain after the Roman occupation. Taken in by Marke (Rufus Sewell, Dark City), who rules one of the British tribes, Tristan (James Franco, Spider-Man) grows up to be a young prince and a mighty warrior--and when he's believed slain in battle, he's given a royal funeral, which sends him out sea in a burning boat. But the fire goes out and Tristan washes ashore on Ireland, where Isolde (Sophia Myles, Art School Confidential), the daughter of the Irish king, nurses him back to health. Being a lovely pair of young folk bursting with hormones, they fall madly in love... and set in motion a tragic tale that's lasted for centuries in many variations. Some reviewers have criticised Tristan & Isolde for deviating from the most common classical version, but the movie's storyline--though certainly altered to appeal to modern audiences--is fairly strong. Myles and especially Sewell turn in strong performances; Franco, however, though surprisingly persuasive as a warrior, never burns as a lover. Nonetheless, the loving shots of Franco's muscular physique will make this a must-have for his fans. --Bret Fetzer

Sound: Dolby Digital

Comments: Because everyone loves an accurate period piece.

Summary: Two actors, as their make up is applied, talk about the size of their parts. Then into the film: Laurence Sterne's unfilmable novel, Tristram Shandy, a fictive autobiography wherein the narrator, interrupted constantly, takes the entire story to be born. The film tracks between "Shandy" and behind the scenes. Size matters: parts, egos, shoes, noses. The lead's girlfriend, with their infant son, is up from London for the night, wanting sex; interruptions are constant. Scenes are shot, re-shot, and discarded. The purpose of the project is elusive. Fathers and sons; men and women; cocks and bulls. Life is amorphous, too full and too rich to be captured in one narrative.

Languages: German, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Subtitles: English

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Summary: Triumph of the Will is one of the most important films ever made, not because it documents evil--more watchable examples are being made today. And not as a historical example of blind propaganda--those (much shorter) movies are merely laughable now. No, Riefenstahl's masterpiece--and it is a masterpiece, politics aside--combines the strengths of documentary and propaganda into a single, overwhelmingly powerful visual force. Riefenstahl was hired by the Reich to create an eternal record of the 1934 rally at Nuremberg, and that's exactly what she does. You might not become a Nazi after watching her film, but you will understand too clearly how Germany fell under Hitler's spell. The early crowd scenes remind one of nothing so much as Beatles concert footage (if only their fans were so well behaved!).
Like the Fascists it monumentalises, Triumph of the Will overlooks its own weaknesses--at nearly two hours, the speeches tend to drone on, and the repeated visual motifs are a little over-hypnotic, especially for modern viewers. But the occasional iconic vista (banners lining the streets of Nuremberg, Hitler parting a sea of 200,000 party members standing at attention) will electrify anyone into wakefulness. --Grant Balfour, Amazon.com

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Subtitles: English, French

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Comments: A comedy about a corpse.

Summary: Trouble erupts in a small, quiet New England town when a man's body is found in the woods. The problem is that almost everyone in town thinks that they had something to do with his death.

Sound: DTS

Comments: For Honor

Summary: It is the year 1250 B.C. during the late Bronze age. Two emerging nations begin to clash after Paris, the Trojan prince, convinces Helen, Queen of Sparta, to leave her husband Menelaus, and sail with him back to Troy. After Menelaus finds out that his wife was taken by the Trojans, he asks his brother Agamemnom to help him get her back. Agamemnon sees this as an opportunity for power. So they set off with 1,000 ships holding 50,000 Greeks to Troy. With the help of Achilles, the Greeks are able to fight the never before defeated Trojans. But they come to a stop by Hector, Prince of Troy. The whole movie shows their battle struggles, and the foreshadowing of fate in this remake by Wolfgang Petersen of Homer's "The Iliad."

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.1; French, Dolby Digital 5.1; Commentary by director Terry Gilliam and producer Charles Roven, Unknown

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: The future is history.

Summary: An unknown and lethal virus has wiped out five billion people in 1996. Only 1% of the population has survived by the year 2035, and is forced to live underground. A convict (James Cole) reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to 1996 to gather information about the origin of the epidemic (who he's told was spread by a mysterious "Army of the Twelve Monkeys") and locate the virus before it mutates so that scientists can study it. Unfortunately Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, six years earlier than expected, and is arrested and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert.