DVD Review: Last Chance Harvey
REVIEW: ANCHOR BAY/STARZ Street: May 5 Prebook: April 2 > Modest but engaging romance brightened by the exemplary work of its two stars.
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DVD Review: Live and Become
REVIEW: MENEMSHA FILMS Street: April 7 Prebook: now > Inspiring story of a young Ethiopian in Israel.
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DVD Review: The Uninvited
REVIEW: PARAMOUNT Street: April 28 Prebook: March 17 > Remake of Asian horror film starts slow but builds to jolting climax.
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DVD Review: Ready or Not
REVIEW: MONARCH Street: March 24 Prebook: March 2 > So-so comedy has likable players, but a thin script.
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DVD Review: Ready? OK!
DVD REVIEW: WOLFE Street: March 24 Prebook: now > Sweet comedy about a boy’s fascination with cheerleading.
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DVD Review: Fidel!
DVD REVIEW: MICROCINEMA Street: Feb. 24 Prebook: now > Absorbing, largely uncritical doc about the Cuban dictator.
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DVD Review: Seven Pounds
DVD REVIEW: SONY Street: March 17 Prebook: now > Downbeat Will Smith vehicle about redemption and sacrifice.
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DVD Review: Punisher: War Zone
DVD REVIEW: LIONSGATE Street: March 17 Prebook: now > Excessively violent thriller for action-hungry fanboys.
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DVD Review: Gospel Hill
FOX Available now > Well-acted tale of a small town’s commemoration of a civil rights leader. Actor Giancarlo Esposito makes his directorial debut with this sincere, emotional drama featuring a top-notch ensemble cast.
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Palo Alto, CA
IMAGE Street: Feb. 17 Prebook: now > Amiable, low-budget teen dramedy has appealing cast and believable situations. Four childhood friends (familiar TV faces Ben Savage, Johnny Lewis, Justin Mentell, Aaron Ashmore), now college freshmen, return home for Thanksgiving break and go looking for excitement on their last night together.
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Cadillac Records
SONY Street: March 10 Prebook: Feb. 5 > Dynamic era of American popular music is recreated with verve and style. Cadillac Records boasts a terrific ensemble cast and a great soundtrack of popular ’50s tunes, from the bluesy stylings of Etta James to the rock 'n’ roll crossover hits of Chuck Berry.
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Moving Midway
FIRST RUN Street: Feb. 17 Prebook: now > Beautifully crafted film about the Old South's plantation culture and slavery. Filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire returns to his home state of North Carolina, where his family's ancestral home, an old-style Southern plantation, is being uprooted and transported to a new location.
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Miracle at St. Anna
DISNEY Street: Feb. 4 Prebook: now > Spike Lee’s latest gets off to a good start but lumbers to an unsatisfying conclusion. Spike Lee’s rejoinder to Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers (which Lee believes slighted black soldiers who served during World War II) revolves around the mystery of a marble statue whose severed head was lugged around Italy by four heroic African...
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How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
MGM/FOX Street: Feb. 17 Prebook: Jan. 21 > Satire of fawning celebrity journalism hits more than it misses. Toby Young’s tell-all memoir about his brief but disastrous career as a Vanity Fair staff writer comes to the screen in a heavily fictionalized manner that retains the author’s dishy insouciance while changing names to protect the not-so-innocent.
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Lakeview Terrace
SONY Street: Jan. 27 Prebook: now > Engaging thriller takes an easy way out in its last third. Interracial newlyweds (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) move into a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood and quickly earn the displeasure of their autocratic neighbor (Samuel L. Jackson), a tough cop who wages a campaign of intimidation against them.
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The Secret Life of Bees
FOX Street: Feb. 3 Prebook: Jan. 7 > Superb ensemble acting distinguishes this period drama. The preternaturally gifted Dakota Fanning registers solidly as a traumatized teen who lives with three African-American sisters in this schmaltzy but earnest drama based on a best-selling novel by Sue Monk Kidd.
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Flash of Genius
UNIVERSAL Street: Feb. 17 Prebook: Jan. 6 > Capra-esque fable pits average Joe against big corporation. Flash of Genius recounts the true-life story of Detroit mathematics professor Robert Kearns (played by Greg Kinnear), whose ’60s workshop tinkering led to the invention of the intermittent windshield wiper.
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Soul Men
WEINSTEIN/GENIUS Street: Feb. 3 Prebook: now > Star power of Mac and Jackson trumps warmed-over gags and situations. An African-American Sunshine Boys (with a little Grumpy Old Men thrown in for good measure), Soul Men offers a few good musical numbers and palpable chemistry between co-stars Bernie Mac and Samuel L.
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Pride and Glory
WARNER Street: Jan. 27 Prebook: Dec. 23 > Cops on the take in NYC—nothing new, but palatable entertainment. This adequate thriller centers on a family of New York cops and pits brothers against each other. Emotionally and physically scarred detective Ray (Edward Norton) learns that his uniformed brother-in-law Jimmy (Colin Farrell overdoing a Noo Yawk accent) heads a group of dirty cops.
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