Thursday, December 1, 2011

Elvis Has Left the Building

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Full Screen Edition)

  • The next installment in the Harry Potter series finds young wizard Harry Potter (DANIEL RADCLIFFE) and his friends Ron Weasley (RUPERT GRINT) and Hermione Granger (EMMA WATSON) facing new challenges during their second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as they try to uncover a dark force that is terrorizing the school. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating:&nb
From Christopher Munch, the director of The Hours and Times, comes this unforgettable tale of intense brotherly love. Harry (Bryce Johnson) is a 23-year-old former boy-band idol who is watching his 16-year-old brother Max (Cole Williams of Boys Life 4) follow in his footsteps. Harry escorts Max on a long-promised camping trip to Los Angeles' San Gabriel Mountains. What starts out as fun quickly turns serious as they bond in ways that neither could have anticipated. Artful and provocative, sexy and controversia! l, Harry and Max proves that the road to adulthood is never a straight line.The next installment in the Harry Potter series finds young wizard Harry Potter (DANIEL RADCLIFFE) and his friends Ron Weasley (RUPERT GRINT) and Hermione Granger (EMMA WATSON) facing new challenges during their second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as they try to uncover a dark force that is terrorizing the school.First sequels are the true test of an enduring movie franchise, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets passes with flying colors. Expanding upon the lavish sets, special effects, and grand adventure of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry involves a darker, more malevolent tale (parents with younger children beware), beginning with the petrified bodies of several Hogwarts students and magical clues leading Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) to a ! 50-year-old mystery in the monster-laden Chamber of Secrets. H! ouse elv es, squealing mandrakes, giant spiders, and venomous serpents populate this loyal adaptation (by Sorcerer's Stone director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves), and Kenneth Branagh delightfully tops the supreme supporting cast as the vainglorious charlatan Gilderoy Lockhart (be sure to view past the credits for a visual punchline at Lockhart's expense). At 161 minutes, the film suffers from lack of depth and uneven pacing, and John Williams' score mostly reprises established themes. The young, fast-growing cast offers ample compensation, however, as does the late Richard Harris in his final screen appearance as Professor Albus Dumbledore. Brimming with cleverness, wonderment, and big-budget splendor, Chamber honors the legacy of J.K. Rowling's novels. --Jeff Shannon

Mossy Oak Turkey Tool (Break-Up, One Size)

Cry Wolf (Alpha and Omega, Book 1)

Black Christmas (Special Edition)

  • The few remaining residents of a Canadian sorority house are celebrating the onset of Christmas vacation when a thirteen year-old girl is found dead in the park. Soon, it is discovered that one of the sorority sisters is missing, which triggers a terrifying chain of murders within the house. Director Bob Clark's (PORKY'S, A CHRISTMAS STORY) tense, effective film is a precursor to the slash
An ill-fated houseful of sorority sisters are stalked by a psychopath during the christmas season. Studio: Koch International Release Date: 12/30/2008 Starring: Olivia Hussey Margot Kidder Run time: 98 minutesYou may never have heard of this neglected 1974 gem, but you've probably seen one of its many imitators. Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder (also look for Andrea Martin of SCTV fame) star as two residents of a sorority house that is emptying out as Christmas approaches. The atmosphere is jolly ! and carefree, except for an ongoing series of menacing telephone calls, and, oh yes, we've just seen someone climb into the attic with apparent ill intent. Kidder does some scene-stealing as the bad girl, Hussey illustrates one of the downsides to having beautiful long '70s hair, and Keir Dullea does a nice turn as the creepy boyfriend. Director Robert Clark knows that the unseen is far scarier than what can be seen and he ratchets up the tension beautifully, making good use of ominous shadows, and putting in nice touches like replacing the sound of a distraught woman's scream with the piercing ring of yet another ominous phone call. This is a terrific, well-made little movie that is genuinely sleep-with-the-lights-on scary. Don't miss it. --Ali Davis

Blood Diamond (Widescreen Edition)

  • An ex-mercenary turned smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio). A Mende fisherman (Djimon Hounsou). Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately bea
An ex-mercenary turned smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio). A Mende fisherman (Djimon Hounsou). Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside. Directed by Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai), this urgent, intense! ly moving adventure shapes gripping human stories and heart-pounding action into a modern epic of profound impact.Leonardo DiCaprio puts a handsome face on an ugly industry: In parts of Africa, diamond mining fuels civil warfare, killing thousands of innocents and drafting preteen children as vicious soldiers. DiCaprio (The Departed) plays Danny Archer, a white African soldier-turned-diamond-smuggler who gets wind of a large raw jewel found by Solomon Vandy, a native fisherman (Djimon Hounsou, In America) recently escaped from enslavement by a brutal rebel leader. Archer offers a deal: He'll help Vandy find his war-scattered family if Vandy will share the diamond with him. Drawn into this web of exploitation is journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly, Little Children), who agrees to help if Archer will tell her the details of how conflict diamonds make their way into the hands of the corporations who sell them to the Western world. DiCaprio is compell! ing because he never flinches from Archer's utter ruthlessness! ; Archer ends up doing the morally justifiable thing, but only because his desperate greed has led him to it. Hounsou and Connelly, though saddled with all the moral and political speeches, rise above the cant and keep the movie's treacherously formulaic plot rooted in human characters. But in the end, the story won't stick with you as much as the dead stillness in the child soldiers' eyes; the horror of African civil strife refuses to be contained by Blood Diamond's uplifting message--and the movie is all the more potent as a result. --Bret Fetzer

After Midnight

  • Fiction
  • Thriller
Sanna and her ravishing friend Gerti would rather speak of love than politics, but in 1930s Frankfurt, politics cannot be escaped--even in the lady's bathroom. Crossing town one evening to meet up with Gerti's Jewish lover, a blockade cuts off the girls' path--it is the Fürher in a motorcade procession, and the crowd goes mad striving to catch a glimpse of Hitler's raised "empty hand." Then the parade is over, and in the long hours after midnight Sanna and Gerti will face betrayal, death, and the heartbreaking reality of being young in an era devoid of innocence or romance.

In 1937, German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel. Yet even as it exposes huma! n folly, the book exudes a hopeful humanism. It is full of humor and light, even as it describes the first moments of a nightmare. After Midnight is a masterpiece that deserves to be read and remembered anew.

"Our sister is marrying a vampire."

When the ever practical Caroline Cabot first hears those words from the lips of her fanciful youngest sister, she accuses Portia of having a wild imagination.

But when she discovers their sister Vivienne is actually being courted by Adrian Kane, the mysterious viscount rumored to be a vampire, she decides to accept his invitation to a midnight supper and do some sleuthing of her own. To both her delight and her dismay, she soon finds herself falling under Kane's bewitching spell.

After all, what's a proper young lady to do when her sister's suitor arouses more than just her suspicions?

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