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A Slice of Life
by Francine Brokaw
February DVD Delights
An Affair to Remember
This is a classic among romantic dramas. It's been referenced to in many other films, most notably Sleepless in Seattle. It's the story of love and destiny. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr star as Nicky and Terry, two people who meet on a ship and fall deeply in love, although they each have someone else. When the ship pulls into New York, they make a vow to meet again in 6 months at the top of the Empire State Building because "it's the nearest thing to heaven." They will meet only if they still feel the same way about each other. Unfortunately, an accident prevents their rendezvous and they each go on with their lives, separately. But deep within them the love they feel for each other keeps them going, hoping that one day they will be together.
The music provides a poignant background to this beautiful story that is a classic among classics. The DVD includes commentaries, photo gallery, and the AMC Backstory Episode. The movie runs 119 minutes.
Baby Genius: A Trip to the San Diego Zoo
This new series is just the ticket for young children, ages 3 months to 36 months. And this particular DVD is the ticket to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. If you can't make it down to San Diego, the animals can make it to your home. The Baby Genius series introduces music and the world to kids. "Studies show that music can enhance a child's listening and language skills." Baby Genius adds wonderful music to the video, making the world of the animals a true audio and visual experience. It's fun to watch, and great to listen to. Whimsical music plays as butterflies flit about. The music accompaniment for the giraffes, bears, monkeys and others fit the great videos of the animals.
Special features on the DVD include a jukebox with 16 selections, interactive activities, a magical music helper and more. This is a wonderful DVD for kids, bringing them up close with the animals, while entertaining them with great music.
Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World
This is the third movie in the popular series, and the second direct-to-video. The enchanting castle and its occupants provide Belle and the Beast with several adventures and everyone with important lessons. First, they all learn how an apology is important in relationships. And during the dark winter months when Mrs. Potts feels especially blue, everyone learns cooperation as they pitch in to throw her a surprise party to brighten her mood. And when Belle finds a little bird with a broken wing, it is the Beast who learns that kindness to others is very important.
The movie runs 92 minutes and is rated G. The DVD contains several bonuses, including "Belle's Delightful Dinner Game" with hide-and-seek and trivia games, the "Enchanted Environment" puts a beautiful scene on your screen complete with your choice of music and/or sound effects, and there is a "Song Selection" to sing along. The magic of Beauty and the Beast lives on in this DVD.
Cary Grant DVD Collection
For all you Cary Grant fans, there is now a boxed set of DVDs that includes five of his most popular films. Father Goose is a fun story of a World War II Coast watcher alone on a tropical island, until he rescues a woman and her seven young charges. Leslie Caron also stars in this delightful film. That Touch of Mink has Doris Day playing opposite Grant in this light-hearted story of a woman who is swept off her feet by a rich businessman. He is worldly, and she is definitely not. There are plenty of laughs throughout the story. The Grass is Greener unites Grant with Deborah Kerr as a married couple living in the family estate, which is also a tourist attraction. Robert Mitchum arrives and attempts to seduce Kerr. Indiscreet stars Ingrid Bergman as a theatrical actress who falls in love with a suave diplomat (Grant), who tells her he is married. But when she finds out he is not married, she turns the tables on him. Operation Petticoat is a 1959 Blake Edwards comedy and includes the delightful antics of Tony Curtis.
Cary Grant is the consummate actor and all of these films are a delight to watch. Five films in one package. That's a deal!
Dora the Explorer: Dora's Map Adventures
Little Dora and her monkey friend Boots know that the map is the place to find which way to go, but when the map gets taken away Dora and Boots learn to draw their own map to find the way to rescue the lost map. After the map is retrieved from the Tallest Mountain, it then finds a cape and magically becomes "Super Map." Super Map can fly to get a bird's eye view of the terrain so he can tell Dora which way to go. Besides these two new episodes, the DVD contains two additional episodes, "Three Little Piggies" in which Dora and Boots locate the escaped piggies and return them to their pen, and "Lost and Found" in which they must help the lost Baby Blue Bird who only speaks Spanish.
Dora the Explorer has over 15 million viewers every month and is the #1 rated TV show for ages 2-5. The show teaches problem solving skills, some Spanish language skills, friendship, colors and general words like "over," "through," "under," and more. Included in the DVD is a Parents' Guide to get the most out of the disc.
Dora and Boots are popular characters. You can find them on toy shelves, clothing racks, and grocery store aisles. They're good role models for youngsters and also good friends.
Little Secrets
Little Secrets is an entertaining way to learn a valuable lesson. 14-year old Emily is the neighborhood "secret keeper." Once a week she opens a little booth and for a small fee she will listen to the kids and keep their secrets. She provides what she thinks is a valuable service. They get their problems off their chest and she makes a little money. The only problem is, keeping their secrets is not always the best thing for the kids. Emily has a big chest filled with paper bags of all the items the kids have broken through the years. She keeps their secrets and dispenses advice. And she never ever tells the secrets! Unlike a priest, however, she does not make the kids do any penance.
Emily is a brilliant violinist and is practicing to join a symphony. She befriends Philip, the new neighbor, and has an enormous influence on him; so much so he takes up playing the piano so the two of them can play duets together. Philip has a secret, as does his older brother David. And the biggest secret of all is Emily's. Everyone has secrets, but what the entire neighborhood learns is that secrets can get out of hand. Sometimes it's better to come clean even though you don't want to.
This is a delightful film for every age. It has a message, yet doesn't preach. It's beautifully done and an adorable story. The DVD includes a "making of" featurette, commentary, blooper reel, and both widescreen and full screen versions. There is also a separate soundtrack CD that comes with the movie. The movie is rated "PG" for thematic elements and has a running time of 96 minutes.
Baby Loony Tunes Eggstraordinary Adventure
The babies from the Loony Tunes cartoons have an adorable new adventure, just in time for Easter. Baby Bugs, Baby Silvester, Baby Tweety, Baby Taz and Baby Daffy and Baby Lola join together for their first full-length feature film.
Granny reads them a story about Easter and Easter candy and the gang can't wait for the big day. But Baby Daffy thinks the whole thing is a bunch of nonsense and there's no such thing as the Easter Bunny. Well, this upsets Baby Taz, so the rest of the gang takes Baby Taz out to search for Easter and the Easter Bunny. They're determined to show Baby Taz there really is an Easter Bunny, but they cannot find him. Baby Bugs decides to pretend to be the Easter Bunny to appease Baby Taz, but that plan falls through. In the end, they are all convinced (even Baby Daffy) that there really is an Easter Bunny, and Easter is a magical time filled with colors and candy.
The DVD includes two music videos ("D-A-F-F-Y" and "Mary Had a Baby Duck") and two animated shorts. This disc is sure to be a family favorite for Easter time. The Baby Loony Tunes TV series is the Cartoon Network's highest rated weekday show.
Man's Favorite Sport
Rock Hudson plays Roger Willoughby, a famous fisherman who works in a sporting goods store. But Roger has a secret. He doesn't know how to fish. As a matter of fact, he's never been fishing and can't stand to even touch a fish. So when his boss insists he enter a fishing contest, Roger is in a bind. Paula Prentiss comes to his aid and teaches him how to fish and even how to hold one of those slimy critters. But these two are like oil and water and she is definitely not his type. Together they experience some hilarious escapades and yes, they do fall in love. Hudson is at his comedic best in this film. Even though it's from 1963, it still holds up as an entertaining film today. 40 years has not dampened the humor. Man's Favorite Sport is a classic romantic comedy, with the emphasis on comedy, with a great score by Henry Mancini. It runs 121 minutes.
One Hour Photo
Robin Williams hauntingly portrays Sy, the Photo Guy. Sy is always there at the photo counter, ready and waiting for the next customer to drop off the latest roll of film. He prides himself on knowing his customers and giving them the best finished product he and his machine are capable of. But Sy has a secret. He's a lonely man and has "adopted" a family as his own, unbeknownst to them. For the past several years whenever they have dropped off their film, he has made an additional set of prints for himself. He has watched young Jakob grow from a baby to a young boy. And he takes pride and interest in the family. This is all well and good, but he's only the photo guy. And his obsession is about to get out of control.
This is an intriguing tale taking the viewer into the mind of a disturbed and obsessed man. Williams gives a wonderful performance as the man who refuses to just print the photos. He devotes his whole life to his work, priding himself on keeping his machine well maintained in order to make the best pictures in town. Once again Robin Williams proves his dramatic abilities. He's come a long way from "Mork, from Ork."
One Hour Photo is rated R for sexual content and language. If you like thrillers, you'll like this movie. It isn't bloody. It's just an interesting suspenseful story.
Stargate: The Ultimate Edition
Before the Sci-Fi Channel's hit TV show Stargate SG-1, there was the 1994 original movie. Now Artisan Home Entertainment has released a new edition, remastered and featuring Director's and Theatrical cuts as well as commentaries and featurettes including the "Making of Stargate" and "Is There a Stargate?"
The movie stars James Spader as Daniel Jackson, a professor who unravels the mysteries of an incredible archeological find. Kurt Russell is Colonel Jack O'Neil who is tapped to lead a group on a reconnaissance mission to see exactly what the Stargate is/does. What they find is another world on the other side of space. The Stargate provides wormholes, connecting planets all across the galaxies. When the team arrives on the new planet, they discover the inhabitants are descendents from Earth, and the terrain resembles that of ancient Egypt. This film is intriguing on it's own, but if you are a fan of the TV series, it is a must have. Stargate is an incredible journey with intrigue, action, a little bit of history and mystery. It's rated PG-13 for Sci-fi action violence and runs about 119 minutes.
Sweet Home Alabama
Reese Witherspoon stars as Melanie, a New York fashion designer who must return to her roots in Alabama to finalize her divorce in order to marry her fiancé, a budding politician and son of the Mayor. The only thing is, once she travels south (where "people need a passport to come down here") she comes face to face with her past, and her husband and first love. The question she has to answer is simple. What was the attraction to him in him in the first place, and is that still there?
Will she chose suave Andrew (Patrick Dempsey) in New York, who proposed in the middle of Tiffany's (which actually let the moviemakers film inside the famous store) or country Jake (Josh Lucas), with whom she fell in love when they were very young but now seem to be complete opposites?
Candace Bergen is wonderful as the Mayor and potential mother-in-law, and Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place play Melanie's parents. There's no doubt that life is much slower and simpler in Alabama. The DVD contains an alternate ending, 8 deleted scenes, and a music video.
Tuck Everlasting
If you could live forever, would you want to? Years ago the Tuck family drank from a spring, and now they have eternal life. Not only will they live forever, they will never age or get sick. At first thought that sounds good, doesn't it? But think again. As Tuck (William Hurt) says, they don't live. They just are. And when Jesse Tuck tells his new girlfriend Winnie "I will love you 'til the day I die," he means forever. Literally. But will Winnie drink from the spring so she will spend eternity with Jessie, or will she opt for a normal life? Tuck tells her, "You don't have to live forever. You just have to live." That is the lesson we all have to learn.
This is a classic and enchanting story by Natalie Babbit. The DVD contains some great bonus features, including "A Visit with Natalie Babbit" in which she explains how she writes and how her characters help her demonstrate her ideas. In this case, that eternal life is not all it's cracked up to be. The important thing is living a good life. Tuck Everlasting is a great family film and is rated PG for some violence. It runs 90 minutes.
Two of Us
Aidan Quinn stars as Paul McCartney and Jared Harris stars as John Lennon in this fictional film speculating on what might have happened on one day in 1976 if Paul had paid John a surprise visit. It's an entertaining look at what might have been.
When Paul pays a surprise visit to his old friend John, at first the atmosphere is strained. John is suspicious about Paul's motive for the visit. With rumors circulating that the Beatles might reunite, John is suspicious and doesn't want anything to do with a reunion. He's secluded himself away from the business and the public, even going so far as to let his recording contract expire. He says he's had enough of that world and is content to be a househusband and father.
But Paul won't leave. They are soon talking about their past and their present. Slowly John warms up to his old partner and begins to show some kindness and sincerity. After awhile, they decide to go out for a walk in the park. Yikes. Can you imagine John Lennon and Paul McCartney walking together through the park? Paul suggests they use disguises, so they each don mustaches, derby hats, and dark suits and stroll through the park.
These men were two of the most influential people in the music industry in the 20th century. Their songs will live on through the years. But we all wonder what might have been if they had reunited. This film is an interesting speculation.
Two of Us is rated PG-13 for drug content and language. It runs 89 minutes.
The Water Babies
This fantasy is part live action and part animation. Young Tom, a chimney sweep, jumps into a stream and magically becomes part of an underwater world with strange characters, beautiful colors, and lots of music. He likes being there, but wants to go back to his world. The only way back is to find the Water Babies, a group of fun-loving children who live in the middle of the ocean and who will be able to take him to the Lord of the Sea. So he sets off on an underwater journey to locate them and return home. Along the way he meets several critters, including a crab and a sea horse, and some very mean sharks.
MGM Home Entertainment has paired this DVD with The Care Bears Movie, so there are two separate fun DVD titles in one purchase. The Water Babies, which was made in 1978, runs 98 minutes. The 1984 Care Bears Movie is rated "G" and runs 76 minutes. This is a great double feature for kids.
© 2003 Francine Brokaw
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