Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Ed Wood (Special Edition)

  • From Tim Burton, acclaimed director of BIG FISH, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and BATMAN, and the producer of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, comes the hilarious, true-life story of the wackiest filmmaker in Hollywood history, Ed Wood! Johnny Depp (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, CHOCOLAT, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) stars as the high-spirited movieman who refuses to let unfinished scenes
From Tim Burton, acclaimed director of BIG FISH, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and BATMAN, and the producer of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, comes the hilarious, true-life story of the wackiest filmmaker in Hollywood history, Ed Wood! Johnny Depp (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, CHOCOLAT, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) stars as the high-spirited movieman who refuses to let unfinished scenes, terrible reviews, and hostile studio executives derail his big-screen dreams. With an oddball collecti! on of showbiz misfits, Ed takes the art of bad moviemaking to an all-time low! The all-star cast features Bill Murray (LOST IN TRANSLATION, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS), Sarah Jessica Parker (TV's SEX AND THE CITY), Patricia Arquette (STIGMATA, LITTLE NICKY), and an Academy Award(R)-winning performance by Martin Landau (Best Supporting Actor, 1994) as Bela Lugosi. Hailed by critics everywhere, this laugh-packed comedy hit is sure to entertain everyone!Edward D. Wood Jr. was an actor writer-director-producer, occasionally in drag, who combined meager bursts of talent with an undying optimism to create some of the most bizarrely memorable "B" movies to ever come out of Tinseltown. Though Wood died in obscurity as an alcoholic in 1978, his films have been considered cult classics for years. He is consistently voted the worst director who ever lived. You would think this an odd subject, but director Tim Burton harnesses the undying hopefulness that made Wood such a character. Shot in ! black and white, just like Wood's creations, this stylized, wi! tty prod uction captures the poetic absurdity of Wood's films and his unconventional life. Burton's recreation of Wood's wonderfully awful Plan 9 from Outer Space looks much better than the original low-budget quickie. Burton tackled an extremely strange subject matter for a biopic, but Wood is presented as naive almost to the point of delusion, so the story works. The pace sags in the middle, as the weirdness starts to wear thin, but Depp proves himself an adroit actor, even while wearing angora and a blonde wig. Wood's unconventional repertoire company is faithfully reproduced, including an Academy Award-winning Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. Landau is pathetic, droll, and charismatic as the elderly junkie who made his last screen appearances in Wood's films. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Full of It

  • 17 year-old Sam (Pinkston) may be the new kid at school, but he's got a sure-fire scheme to fast-track his popularity. Claiming to drive a Porsche, date a movie star and have a rock-star for a dad, Sam soon finds himself BMOC. But when Sam's outlandish fictions mysteriously turn into outrageous facts - he begins to discover that having all your dreams come true. can be a total nightmare! Forma
17 year-old Sam (Pinkston) may be the new kid at school, but he's got a sure-fire scheme to fast-track his popularity. Claiming to drive a Porsche, date a movie star and have a rock-star for a dad, Sam soon finds himself BMOC. But when Sam's outlandish fictions mysteriously turn into outrageous facts - he begins to discover that having all your dreams come true... can be a total nightmare!

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurette


National Geographic Readers: Dolphins

  • ISBN13: 9781426306525
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Everyone loves the smile on a dolphin’s face. Though smart enough to become theme park tricksters, dolphins are first and foremost wild mammals. Melissa Stewart’s lively text outlines our responsibility to conserve their natural environment. This high-interest book also offers an interactive experience to boost awareness of these adorable creatures.

The Chorus (Les Choristes)

  • An inspirational story in the rich tradition of MUSIC OF THE HEART and MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, THE CHORUS has moved critics everywhere to declare it one of the year's very best films! When he takes a job teaching music at a school for troubled boys, Cl ment Mathieu is unprepared for its harsh discipline and depressing atmosphere. But with passion and unconventional teaching methods, he's a
An inspirational story in the rich tradition of MUSIC OF THE HEART and MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, THE CHORUS has moved critics everywhere to declare it one of the year's very best films! When he takes a job teaching music at a school for troubled boys, Clément Mathieu is unprepared for its harsh discipline and depressing atmosphere. But with passion and unconventional teaching methods, he's able to spark his students' interest in music and bring them a newfound joy! It also puts him at odds with the school's overbear! ing headmaster, however, locking Mathieu in a battle between politics and the determination to change his pupils' lives!By getting nominated for Academy Awards in both the Foreign Language Film and Best Song categories, Les Choristes (The Chorus) made a rare (for a European film) double impression at the 2004 Oscars. This sentimental tale follows the arrival of a new teacher at a remote boys school in 1949 France (the war is a largely unspoken but ghostly presence). With disciplinary problems rampant, and the policies of the old-fashioned headmaster not helping, Monsieur Mathieu decides to introduce choral singing as a way to bridge the gap with his students. You don't need a crystal ball to figure out where this will go, although the movie uses its atmospheric location and lush vocal arrangements well. Bald, dumpy Gerard Jugnot provides a refreshingly offbeat hero (though securely in the traditions of the My Most Memorable Teacher movie); he's sort of a younger Phil! ippe Noiret. Director Christophe Barratier works in the winsom! e-cute m ode that makes a certain kind of French movie into an overly sweet bon bon, although at least this bon bon sings. --Robert Horton

Heartbreaker

  • HEARTBREAKER (DVD MOVIE)
Get ready to lose your heartand your bank accountto a couple of sexy sirens in this "vastly enjoyable comedy" (People)! With a "first-rate cast" (The New York Times) that includesSigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee and OscarÂ(r) winner* Gene Hackman, this hilarious laugh-riot is "smart and funny" (Joel Siegel, "Good Morning America")! When it comes to conning millionaires, Page Conners (Hewitt) and her mother Max (Weaver) are real pros. Max lures them to the altar, then Page leads them into temptation and a hefty divorce settlement! Now they're about to strike gold with the ultimate sting: a wealthy, wheezing tobacco tycoon (Hackman). But before they can seal the deal, Page breaks the cardinal rule of the con and falls in love! Now Max must convince Page to hold on to her heart and the tobacco fortune or lose the best partner in crime she'll! ever have! *1992: Supporting Actor, Unforgiven; 1971: Actor, The French ConnectionHeartbreakers wants to be a distaff variation of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, compensating for lack of intelligence with ample cleavage provided by Sigourney Weaver and (especially) Jennifer Love Hewitt. This alone should draw plenty of drooling guys who will enjoy the scenery and affirm the movie's depiction of men as lecherous idiots. And what scenery it is! Gussied up in trampy glamour, Weaver and Hewitt play mom-and-daughter grifters with a devious routine: Max (Weaver) lures wealthy cads into marriage, and then daughter Page (Hewitt) seduces them, so Mom can discover the infidelity and fleece the chump in divorce court. They've just scammed the boss of a hot-car ring (Ray Liotta) and now it's on to Palm Beach, Florida, where they'll dupe a wheezing tobacco baron (Gene Hackman) and retire to the good life. Or so they think...

Armed with the same airheaded humor he brought ! to Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, director Dav! id Mirki n relies on the clichéd notion that sex turns all men into morons--a conceit that would have worked if the dialogue and sitcom antics were more convincing. As Page's would-be paramour, Jason Lee is rendered intellectually inert, and it's hit-or-miss from that point forward. When the humor hits--as it does with Nora Dunn's rendition of a horrible housemaid--Heartbreakers hints at its full potential. Additional plot twists--not to mention Hewitt's microskirts and Wonderbras--may hold your attention, but you may find yourself harkening back to Steve Martin, Michael Caine, and those happier high jinks on the French Riviera. Singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin has a cameo role as the wedding priest. --Jeff Shannon In a frothy, sexy feature The Huffington Post called an effervescent delight, Alex (Romain Duris of The Beat That My Heart Skipped) is a romantic for hire. If your daughter or sister or friend is falling for the wrong man, Alex will get her to fall for him, wa! tch her dump the loser...and then break her heart by walking away. She ll be sad but wiser and lucky to have avoided a bad relationship. It s a highly profitable business with one rule: don t fall in love. When Alex is hired to woo Juliette (Vanessa Paradis of Girl On The Bridge), he breaks her heart...and his own rule. Starring two of the most beautiful actors in the world, Heartbreaker is the perfect date movie with a sweetly hilarious, Dirty Dancing-inspired finale that you ll never forget.

Harsh Times

  • (Action) Bale stars as an ex-Army Ranger who finds himself slipping back into his old life of petty crime and booze after a job offer from the LAPD evaporates. Honorable discharged, Homeland Security wants to recruit him for some special ops in Central America, but first he has to pass a urine test.which proves difficult. Film directorial debut for Ayer who has written such box office hits as TRA
(Action) Bale stars as an ex-Army Ranger who finds himself slipping back into his old life of petty crime and booze after a job offer from the LAPD evaporates. Honorable discharged, Homeland Security wants to recruit him for some special ops in Central America, but first he has to pass a urine test...which proves difficult. Film directorial debut for Ayer who has written such box office hits as TRAINING DAY, U-571 and THE FAST AND THE FURIOUSBleak as its South Central Los Angeles setting, Harsh T! imes is like a suicidal vortex swallowing men who ought to know better but can't stop their self-destruction. Christian Bale stars as Jim Davis, a stressed-out, former Army Ranger who becomes a very bad influence on his weak-willed buddy, Mike Alvarez (Freddy Rodriguez of Six Feet Under). Together the two meander through streets at night, getting drunk and stoned, finding trouble for its own sake and inviting danger as a ritual of machismo bonding. Mike's wife, Sylvia (Eva Longoria), a lawyer whom Mike, working as a telemarketer, put through school, is repelled by Jim and watches in pain as her spouse chooses a downward spiral over renewal and redemption with her. When Jim's application to join the L.A. police is turned down, he leads Mike into pure anarchy. An impractical change of fortune doesn't help any, and first-time director David Ayer, who wrote the screenplay for Harsh Times years before his script for Training Day, goes to some lengths, dr! amatically and visually, to convey Jim's unhinged condition. T! he drear iness of it all, and a sense that Bale has constructed--but not exactly lived in--another in his gallery of lost, misfit souls, makes it hard to connect with this film. Still, it is hard to turn away from these desperate and dangerous characters. --Tom Keogh

BagHead

  • EACH COPY IS SIGNED AND DATED by Author/Illustrator
  • Independently Published
  • For ages 3-8
From the author of Good Night, Monkey Boy, the hilarious tale of a haircut gone awry!
One day Josh had a big, brown bag idea: to wear a paper bag over his head. He thought it was a good idea. His mother did not. Neither did his bus driver, his teacher, or his soccer coach. What could Josh possibly be hiding?
A surprise ending will keep kids gigglingâ€"and from taking haircuts into their own hands!


From the Hardcover edition.While the Duplass Brothers were shooting their last feature film The Puffy Chair, a crew member raised the question "what's the scariest thing you can think of?" Someone immediately said "a guy with a bag on his head staring into your window." Some agreed, but some thought it was downright ridiculous and, if anything, funny (but d! efinitely not scary). Thus, Baghead was born, an attempt to take the absurdly low-concept idea of a "guy with a bag on his head" and make a funny, truthful, endearing film that, maybe, just maybe, was a little bit scary, too.

In their indie sensation The Puffy Chair, writer/directors Mark and Jay Duplass used the retrieval of a piece of furniture to explore the relationship between a close-knit trio. Their studio follow-up represents something both fresh and familiar. Not to be confused with the children's book of the same name, Baghead retains their emphasis on character over plot mechanics, but this time they infuse their humorous approach with horror overtones. Matt (Ross Partridge), Chad (Steve Zissis), Catherine (Elise Muller), and Michelle (Greta Gerwig, who appears with Mark Duplass in Hannah Takes the Stairs) work as extras in Los Angeles. Matt convinces them to accompany him to his family cabin to write a script in which they a! ll get to star. As they collaborate, it becomes apparent that ! Chad has eyes for Michelle and that Matt and Catherine have been an on-and-off thing for years. The screenplay becomes an excuse to organize their personal and professional lives, until Michelle spots a man with a brown paper bag on his head skulking in the woods. Is he a manifestation of the emotions roiling between the quartet, a psychotic killer, or a friend playing a cruel trick? Baghead turns into a frisky take on The Blair Witch Project, except the Duplass Brothers have more than thrills in mind, since it takes a spooky dude to remind these self-absorbed actors about the importance of friendship. The concept may be slight and the execution rudimentary, but the makers of Baghead have devised an unexpectedly poignant romp. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Amazon.com
What does one make of a movie whose plot revolves around second-rate actors who scare each other by wearing bags on their heads? This conundrum and more are exploited to stro! ng effect by young directing team Mark and Jay Duplass, in their low-budget, grade Z cult comedy, Baghead. This follow up to their debut effort, The Puffy Chair, stars two couples who head to their parents’ cabin in an attempt to make their own horror film free from the constraints of the film industry. Brothers, Matt (Ross Partridge) and Chad (Steve Zissis), host bimbos Michelle (Greta Gerwig) and Catherine (Elise Muller) on a weekend adventure that is less than intellectually stimulating. As sexual tensions increase, brown paper bags are busted out and the characters seek revenge upon each other by pretending to be masked peeping toms. This meta-narrative of a movie about the making of the movie is further confused when the bunch suspects that there is an extra baghead on the scene, a really psychotic one. A few actually scary moments add gusto to this film that mostly feels like a po’ man’s rendition of Blair Witch Project, with its hand-held c! amera stylings. Highlights throughout involve Chad, the nerdie! r, uglie r brother who manages many funny lines and boosts the humor bigtime. That Baghead is a fairly terrible film, with slow, moronic dialogue and long scenes in which little or nothing happens, may well be intentional. It’s impossible to judge. Baghead is so ripe with irony that it bags the idea that it’s cool to strive towards making a fine film, and the story gives up on trying to be good before it even tries. The characters start washed-up and stay washed-up, as does the movie. But this strange resignation that makes Baghead awful is also what makes it conceptually unique; the Duplass brothers did, after all, complete the film and release it. One wonders why directors bother making a movie that presumes itself worthy of wearing a baghead? This is Baghead’s virtueâ€"it left me feeling as if I had a bag over my head, dumb for missing some bit of subversive genius. --Trinie Dalton



Filmmakers Mark a! nd Jay Duplass have written a celebrity blog for us to promote their new film, Baghead.

Duplass BrothersWhy the hell are we trying to make a horror film about a guy with a paper bag on his head? This, even more than “to be or not to be” was the question for myself and my brother Jay going into shooting Baghead. We had just come off of our first micro-budget feature The Puffy Chair, a sensitive, funny, quirky relationship movie that wowed Sundance, sold big, played incredibly well in theaters, DVD, and TV, and gained us favor in the indie world the world over. So, again, why would we be so stupid as to make a horror movie based around a guy with a bag on his head?

I’m still not quite sure. When I look back, what we shoul! d have done is clear… we should have made another relationsh! ip movie to cash in on Puffy’s success. But, we were compelled to make Baghead, so we did it. And then something really interesting happened. We discovered that we are hopelessly and helplessly ourselves on set. For example, even if something terrifying was happening in the horror plot, we couldn’t help training the camera on all of the little personal dynamics happening among the 4 lead characters, just like we did on The Puffy Chair. No matter how eerie or cool-looking our lighting got, we were infinitely more obsessed with the chubby guy whose advances were being rejected by the hottie girl.

About a week into filming, we realized we had something VERY different on our hands. We had a horror movie shell… “guy with bag on head comes to get 4 people in a cabin in the woods.” We all know this set-up, right? Not too original. But, we were making a highly sensitive relationship dramedy inside of this horror film because, in the end, that! ’s what Jay and I know how to do best and that’s what we love showing.

So, basically, we started panicking. How do you make a movie work that’s scary, funny, and (ultimately) endearing and touching as we understand the nature of our desperate, sweet, tragically flawed lead characters? The answer was… I hope we don’t @&*# it up.

On week 2, we happened to catch a glimpse of the film Saw on TV, and it became clearer to us how Baghead could be a really interesting film for this time frame in cinema. Saw is great in its own right, but it’s mean, it’s gory, and it’s not really scary. Somehow, the crazy sound design, gore, and effects, took the film further and further away from being actually scary. Whereas, with Baghead, we somehow stumbled into something genuinely frightening, with our $50,000 budget, no sound f/x, no score, no make-up… just a ridiculous paper bag and the question of “who the hell i! s under that bag?” So, we started to feel smart. Confident. ! Inspired in new ways. We even waxed philosophical about how brilliant we were to “come up with his concept” (that we totally lucked into, btw)…

On week 3, we finished the shoot and all looked at each other a little shell shocked. What did we just do? Is this movie even gonna work? Cut to a year later. We’re opening the film at the Sundance Film Festival and every buyer is calling us, making insanely inflated offers, asking us how we came up with such a brilliant, genre-smashing concept.

I guess it kinda comes down to the old adage our dad used to tell us… “I’d rather be lucky than good.”

--Mark & Jay Duplass

A little boy learns that wearing a bag on his head when he gets nervous doesn't solve the problem.

Flashbacks Of A Fool [Blu-ray]

  • FLASHBACKS OF A FOOL BLU-RAY (BLU-RAY DISC)
Daniel Craig delivers a startling performance as Joe Scott, a washed-up Hollywood star adrift in a haze of sex, drugs and squandered fame. But when he receives news of the sudden death of his childhood best friend, Joe flashes back to his younger self (played by Harry Eden of Oliver Twist) in his small English seaside village and the summer of innocence and tragedy that would change his life forever. Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense), Claire Forlani (CSI:NY) and Eve co-star in this powerful drama about love, loss and one man’s journey to redemption, executive produced by Daniel Craig and featuring songs by Scott Walker, David Bowie and Roxy Music.Leading man Daniel Craig apparently made Flashbacks of a Fool (he was also one of the executive producers) in between stints as James Bond, and you can see why he was attract! ed to it; Joe Scott, the character he portrays in this film, could hardly be less like the suave, ever-resourceful 007. Ensconced in a fab, oceanfront Malibu crib, Joe is a movie star on the skids. Hooked on coke and drink, engaging in group gropes with dumb Hollywood bimbos, he’s sunk so low that his sassy assistant (Eve) calls him "a disgrace to white folks," and even his agent is sick of him, which is somewhat akin to a parasite dissing its host (it’s a measure of writer-director Baillie Walsh’s script’s lack of depth that we never really see what made Joe so great in the first place, or so bad now). When a call comes that a childhood friend has died, Joe decides to return to his native England for the funeral, whereupon an extended flashback kicks in. Young Joe (Harry Eden), it seems, was as randy and hopelessly naïve as a lot of teenage boys. Though he had the hots for the sexiest young thang in town (a coastal village that’s as lovely in its way as the Cali! fornia setting, both of them handsomely photographed by cinema! tographe r John Mathieson; the locations, in fact, are probably the most attractive element of the film), he also wasn’t immune to the advances of Evelyn (Jodhi May), the older married woman who lives next door. And when a tragedy involving Evelyn’s daughter struck while she and Joe were in flagrante, Joe handled it by leaving town, never to return--until now, that is. He discovers that his late pal’s widow is the same young girl Joe’d had his eye on, but otherwise his homecoming is a strangely muted affair; not a lot happens, which pretty much applies to the film overall. In the end, Flashbacks of a Fool has its touching moments, but it might have turned out better had it been both shaken and stirred. --Sam Graham

Stills from Flashbacks of a Fool (Click for larger image)











Flashbacks of a Fool Soundtrack
Daniel Craig delivers a startling performance as Joe Scott, a washed-up Hollywood star adrift in a haze of sex, drugs and squandered fame. But when he receives news of the sudden death of his childhood best friend, Joe fla! shes back to his younger self (played by Harry Eden of Oliver Twist) in his small English seaside village and the summer of innocence and tragedy that would change his life forever. Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense), Claire Forlani (CSI:NY) and Eve co-star in this powerful drama about love, loss and one man s journey to redemption, executive produced by Daniel Craig and featuring songs by Scott Walker, David Bowie and Roxy Music.Leading man Daniel Craig apparently made Flashbacks of a Fool (he was also one of the executive producers) in between stints as James Bond, and you can see why he was attracted to it; Joe Scott, the character he portrays in this film, could hardly be less like the suave, ever-resourceful 007. Ensconced in a fab, oceanfront Malibu crib, Joe is a movie star on the skids. Hooked on coke and drink, engaging in group gropes with dumb Hollywood bimbos, he’s sunk so low that his sassy assistant (Eve) calls him "a disgrace to white folks," and ev! en his agent is sick of him, which is somewhat akin to a paras! ite diss ing its host (it’s a measure of writer-director Baillie Walsh’s script’s lack of depth that we never really see what made Joe so great in the first place, or so bad now). When a call comes that a childhood friend has died, Joe decides to return to his native England for the funeral, whereupon an extended flashback kicks in. Young Joe (Harry Eden), it seems, was as randy and hopelessly naïve as a lot of teenage boys. Though he had the hots for the sexiest young thang in town (a coastal village that’s as lovely in its way as the California setting, both of them handsomely photographed by cinematographer John Mathieson; the locations, in fact, are probably the most attractive element of the film), he also wasn’t immune to the advances of Evelyn (Jodhi May), the older married woman who lives next door. And when a tragedy involving Evelyn’s daughter struck while she and Joe were in flagrante, Joe handled it by leaving town, never to return--until now, that i! s. He discovers that his late pal’s widow is the same young girl Joe’d had his eye on, but otherwise his homecoming is a strangely muted affair; not a lot happens, which pretty much applies to the film overall. In the end, Flashbacks of a Fool has its touching moments, but it might have turned out better had it been both shaken and stirred. --Sam Graham

Stills from Flashbacks of a Fool (Click for larger image)











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