LATEST ADDITIONS

Tony DeCarlo  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: May 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 1
A well-known, brilliant yet mentally unstable mathematician dies and leaves behind two daughters and a lot of filled notebooks in Proof. It’s an adaptation by David Auburn and Rebecca Miller from Auburn’s own Pulitzer Prize–winning play that works on every level. Live-in caretaker and daughter Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow, who reprises her role from the London stage) is a gifted mathematician, too, but lives in fear that her father’s instability may be a gene she inherits. Then there’s the professor’s protg Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is interested in Catherine. He’s obsessed with going through her father’s notebooks and then finds one that is astounding: a proof, a groundbreaking mathematical discovery. The problem is, it’s Catherine’s finding. Or so she claims.
Aaron Dalton  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: May 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Video: 4
Audio: 2
Extras: 5
Married yuppies Jane (Ta Leoni) and Dick (Jim Carrey) try to keep up appearances after Dick’s fraudulent company implodes in this frequently hilarious romp. Laced with underlying righteous anger at the corporate shenanigans of recent years, the film still holds plenty of laughs in the physical comedy and strong rapport between Carrey and Leoni. The two characters become partners in crime to pay the bills and hold onto their house. Watching Carrey try and fail repeatedly to draw his gun while robbing a convenience store will have you in stitches, and Leoni more than holds her own with scenes like the one where she bluffs her way through teaching a gymnastic-fighting class.
Gary Frisch  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: May 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 1
“Your mother can’t be with you anymore,” intones the Great Prince, a regal buck, to young Bambi, thus setting into motion the events of this modern-day follow-up to the timeless classic. Voiced by Patrick Stewart, the Great Prince breaks with tradition by taking everyone’s favorite fawn under hoof, teaching Bambi the ways of the forest, while bonding with his son. Consider this Bambi: The Formative Year.
Mike Prince  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: May 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 3
Suburban angst and dysfunction are prime fodder for films and TV, whether it be housewives that seem desperate or disaffected teens too heavily medicated to even communicate with each other. The Chumscrubber falls into the latter category and presents a world all too familiar, while retaining its individuality in the genre.
Corrina Y. Jones  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: May 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 2
In this thought-provoking film inspired by a true story, acclaimed New Zealand director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) offers viewers another portrait of a courageous heroine breaking the gender barrier to overcome traditionally male-dominated roles.
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: May 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Video: 4
Audio: 5
Extras: 3
The hardest decision a filmmaker has when creating a biopic is deciding what events to include. It may be easy to pare down the sum of my existence into a tidy, two-hour package, but I’m no Gandhi…or Richard Nixon or William Wallace or Mozart. These men led complicated, dense lives, and their biopics reflect that complexity with running times of three hours or more. In Walk the Line, director and cowriter James Mangold shows remarkable restraint in telling the story of his idol, Johnny Cash, in just over two hours. Cash’s life was no less dense, no less complicated. But Mangold chose to focus on the events leading up to 1968, a pivotal year in which Cash recorded At Folsom Prison, kicked his decade-long drug habit, and married June Carter. Up to that point, Cash lived a troubled, haunted existence, but, in 1968, he found redemption. That, for Mangold, was the story to tell, and he tells it very well.
Chris Chiarella  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: Dec 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Dream Street
Welcome to their
Nightmare…again. This new and greatly improved infinifilm edition of A Nightmare on Elm Street reminds me that New Line had other blockbuster franchises before the reign of hobbits and snaggletoothed British spies. Director Wes Craven’s imaginative script struck a nerve with audiences who were growing tired of contemporary horror flicks. He introduced us to the iconic Freddy Krueger, a supernatural murderer relegated to attacking his young victims in their sleep, where no one can protect them from his knife-enhanced fingers. Elm Street also marked the big-screen debut of a baby-faced boy next door named Johnny Depp.
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: Dec 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Just Sink Already
It’s like
Titanic, just minus 90 minutes and any quality.

Video: 4
Audio: 5
Extras: 3

Aimee Giron  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: Dec 02, 2006  |  1 comments
Video: 5
Audio: 4
Extras: 4
Akeelah and the Bee is a moving story about a precocious “tweenager.” She discovers she is more than the sum of her spelling parts and helps others around her realize their own abilities to become powerful beyond measure. Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett reunite in this inspirational tale of hope, audacity, and some very hard-to-spell words. Fishburne gives an impeccable performance as the candid Dr. Larabee, who guides Akeelah to the national spelling bee under his rigorous tutelage.
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Feb 02, 2007  |  First Published: Dec 02, 2006  |  0 comments
Video: 4
Audio: 3
Extras: 3
I enjoy a good black comedy as much as anyone, but Bad Santa just didn’t work for me—and I can’t quite pinpoint why. It’s better than any recent holiday film that comes to mind. Billy Bob Thornton is outstanding as the truly distasteful Willie, a safe cracker who poses as Santa each year to pull off a master robbery. The movie’s ultimate triumph is that you find yourself caring about Willie by the end, not because he becomes much more likable but because his flaws are put into perspective as other characters’ true natures are revealed. Still, in the end, it just didn’t generate enough laughs to offset the cringes.

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