March 18, 2008 - New DVD Releases:

Atonement DVD

Length: 118 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing war images, language and some sexuality

Keira Knightley and James McAvoy star in this drama adapted from Ian McEwan’s novel. The movie opens in 1935 at the Tallis family’s British country estate, where college-aged Cecilia Tallis (Knightley) becomes aware that she and Robbie Turner (McAvoy), the son of a servant, are sexually attracted to each other.

But 13-year-old Briony gets upset and confused about what’s going on between her sister Cecilia and Robbie, and the younger girl does something that ruins all three of their lives. The story takes decades to fully play out, and three actresses play Briony as she ages. Selected DVD Special Features:

Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD. Check with your video store/online rental service for availability in other formats, including streaming video/digital download.

Enchanted DVD
Length: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG for some scary images and mild innuendo

This is a Disney musical romantic comedy. The first several minutes of the film are animated and take place in a fairy-tale land. There the evil queen becomes displeased with a sweet-natured princess named Giselle and pushes her down a well. Then the movie switches to live action, and Giselle (Amy Adams) pops out of a manhole in modern-day Manhattan. She has trouble dealing with the bustling metropolis, but is rescued by single dad Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey). As others from the fairy-tale land arrive in New York, an attraction develops between Giselle and Robert.

Selected DVD Special Features:

* Widescreen
* Also Available on Blu-ray Disc

Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD. Check with your video store/online rental service for availability in other formats, including streaming video/digital download.

I Am Legend DVD

Tagline: “The last man on earth is not alone.”

Length: 101 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence

Will Smith stars in this adaptation of Richard Matheson’s 1954 sci-fi novel. The film opens in a desolate Manhattan where weeds are growing and there are lots of abandoned vehicles. It’s 2012, and three years earlier an epidemic caused the city’s evacuation, but not before many people became infected and transformed into bloodthirsty zombies. But Robert Neville (Smith) turned out to be immune, and he now lives alone with his German shepherd in a Washington Square townhouse. Neville battles loneliness as he searches for a way to reverse the disease in the zombies. Selected DVD Special Features:

* Widescreen

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With NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the Coen Brothers have found a perfect match in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy. Their adaptation of McCarthy's praised novel is a staggering masterpiece. In this almost impossibly faithful adaptation, the film takes place in a small Texas border town in 1980. Sheriff Bell (a never-been-better Tommy Lee Jones) has ruled the land for years without the use of a gun, but a new brand of reckless lawlessness has taken over his town. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is an innocent Everyman with a devoted wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), but when he stumbles across a drug deal gone deadly and finds two million dollars, he's determined to keep it for himself. There's only one problem. He's being pursued by one of the most amoral, evil psychopaths that the big screen has ever seen. Wearing an absurd haircut and brandishing a pressurized weapon that's used to murder cattle, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) creeps forward on his mission to track Moss down and return the money to its rightful owners to save his own skin. As the tension mounts, the body count begins to rise, confirming Sheriff Bell's inability to battle this new wave of modern brutality.

The most striking thing about the Coen Brothers' thriller is their masterly use of silence to create an almost unbearable level of tension. Cinematographer Roger Deakins is once again at the top of his game, beautifully capturing this stark and lonely world. The well-rounded cast is clearly excited to be a part of such a stellar production--particularly Bardem, whose Chigurh is a freakishly mysterious monster, and is certain to haunt viewers long after the final credit has rolled. In a career filled with striking achievements, this might very well be the Coen Brothers' finest. It is filmmaking at its best. (2 hrs. 2 min.)

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Based on the popular Playstation 2 game, HITMAN chronicles the frame-up and retribution-packed odyssey of Number 47 (Timothy Olyphant), a bald assassin raised from birth to be a killer and tattooed with a barcode on the back of his head. There's lots of BOURNE SUPREMACY-style flash-edits and superhuman stunt work as 47 seeks to find out why moderate Russian presidential nominee Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen) was the client for his own assassination, a hit that 47 pulled off perfectly, except for one hitch: the target's still alive. For romantic interest we have Olga Kurylenko as a foxy Russian prostitute sold into slavery by the evil Belicoff. She and 47 wind up on the lam together but they'll never be safe as long as Belicoff is still alive. Meanwhile, Interpol agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott) has been tracking 47 for years; he's on the scent and about to close in. Luc Besson was the producer on this, and fans of his TRANSPORTER, THE PROFESSIONAL and LA FEMME NIKITA films will eat it up, as it's got the same narrative arc, same hyper-kinetic shoot-em-up flavor, vividly saturated colors, swooping camerawork, tightly choreographed fights, and lots of blood flying from the copious bullet wounds. Vin Diesel executive produced, and one wonders what stopped his big bald head from filling the screen in the lead, but no matter, as Olyphant does a thorough job, speaking in a measured drawl that recalls, of all people, Clint Eastwood in his DIRTY HARRY days. (1 hr. 33 min.)

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