Hot DVD's Due Out Next Week 6th May

P.S. I Love You

Starring:Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Gina Gershon, Lisa Kudrow
Director:Richard LaGravenese Studio: Warner Bros
Running Time:126 mins Rated: PG-13







Features:James Blunt Music Video; A Conversation with Cecelia Ahern; Additional Scenes; The Name of the Game is Snaps

Synopsis:Holly Kennedy (Hilary Swank) is beautiful, smart, and married to the love of her life—a passionate, funny and impetuous Irishman named Gerry (Gerard Butler). So when Gerry’s life is taken by an illness, it takes the life out of Holly. The only one who can help her is the person who is no longer there. Nobody knows Holly better than Gerry. So it’s a good thing he planned ahead.



Over Her Dead Body

Actors: Eva Longoria Parker, Paul Rudd, Lake Bell, Lindsay Sloane, Jason Biggs
Director:Jeff Lowell Studio:New Line Cinema
Running Time:95 mins Rated: PG-13





Synopsis:Devastated when his fiancée Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) is killed on their wedding day, Henry (Paul Rudd) reluctantly agrees to consult a psychic named Ashley (Lake Bell) at the urging of his sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane). Despite his skepticism over her psychic abilities, Henry finds himself falling hard for Ashley, and vice versa. But there is a big snag. Ashley is being haunted by Kate's ghost, who considers it her heavenly duty to break up Henry and Ashley's fledgling romance, if it is the last thing she does on this earthly plane...


Hottie And The Nottie
Actors: Paris Hilton, Joel Moore, Christine Lakin,
Director:Tom Putnam
Studio:Liberation
Running Time:91 mins
Rated: PG-13








Synopsis:Nate Cooper (Joel David Moore) has been smitten with Cristabel Abbott (Paris Hilton) since he first laid eyes on her at the impressionable age of six. But before he could try and snuggle up to her at nap time, or maybe send her a valentine, his family moved away. In the intervening years there have been other women in Nate’s life, but none who could measure up to Cristabel. Convinced she’s the only girl for him, Nate decides to move back to L.A. and track her down. The good news: she’s still single and stunning. The bad news: there’s a reason she’s still single. Cristabel’s still best friends with the same ugly little girl Nate remembers from first grade, JUNE PHIGG (Christine Lakin). The two are inseparable. They live together. They go to yoga together. They would even go on double dates together…if only June could get a date. And Cristabel simply refuses to leave dear June home alone. Determined to spend as much time as possible with Cristabel, Nate sets out to find a boyfriend for June. But even when he pays them, guys all flee at the sight of her. And then it hits him: June needs a makeover. But as Nate and June become friends and she emerges from her cocoon, Nate slowly realizes that the girl of his dreams isn’t the hottie at all. It’s the nottie — who turns out to be something of a hottie herself.



I'm Not There (Double Disc Special Edition)

Starring: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore
Director:Todd Haynes
Studio:Weinstein
Running Time:135 mins Rated: R





Features: audio commentary (participants to be confirmed), deleted scenes, featurettes, a music video, audition tapes, a gag reel, a Bob Dylan filmography and discography, and more.

Synopsis: Todd Haynes (VELVET GOLDMINE, FAR FROM HEAVEN) delivers this dazzling, experimental take on the life of popular music's most revered and enigmatic artist: Bob Dylan. In keeping with the impossible-to-pin-down nature of Dylan himself, Haynes chose to cast six different actors to portray several incarnations of the groundbreaking troubadour. The result is a challenging, sprawling work that spans several decades and genres. Woody (Marcus Carl Franklin) is a young black child with a folk music obsession; Jack Rollins (Christian Bale) is an upstart folksinger whose protest songs have ignited an entire generation; Arthur (Ben Wishaw) is a Rimbaud-esque figure who has begun to embrace a new form of lyrical poetry; Robbie (Heath Ledger) is a well-known actor whose marriage to the lovely Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) crumbles under the weight of his lifestyle; Billy (Richard Gere) is a slippery frontiersman who echoes Dylan's infatuation with the Old West and American folklore; and, finally, there is the substance-abusing, confrontational Jude (Cate Blanchett), who represents Dylan in the turbulent mid-1960s. Much in the same way that Dylan appropriated a vast array of musical styles to create his own vernacular, Haynes does the same thing with I'M NOT THERE, using his expansive knowledge of movie history to pay homage to a variety of movements and genres (Godard, Fellini, Lester, etc.). The typically extraordinary cinematographer Edward Lachman outdoes even himself this time around, incorporating so many different visual styles that it's impossible to decide which is the most beautiful. While the cast all fare well in their roles, it is Cate Blanchett who runs away with the picture, proving once again that she is one of the finest actors the movies have ever seen.


First Sunday (Special Edition)

Actors: Ice Cube, Katt Williams, Tracy Morgan, Loretta Devine,
Director:David E. Talbert
Studio: Sony Pictures
Running Time:94 mins. PG13






Features: Commentary with Writer/Director David Talbert; Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by Writer/Director David Talbert; Gag Reel; Katt Williams Outtakes; David Talbert Camera Wrap Speech; Tiffany Pollard Outtakes; Hood Robbin' with the First Sunday Cast and Crew featurette; The Almighty Version Fact Track

Synopsis:In this hilarious comedy, Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan) are best friends and bumbling petty criminals. When told they have one week to pay a $17,000 debt or Durell will lose his son, they come up with a desperate scheme to rob their neighborhood church. Instead, they end up spending the night in the presence of the Lord and are forced to deal with much more than they bargained for.


The Bridges of Madison County (Deluxe Edition)
(1995)

Actors: Kyle Eastwood, Jim Haynie, Phyllis Lyons
Director: Clint Eastwood
Studio: Warner Bros
Running Time:135 mins PG13





Synopsis: World-traveling National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid and Iowa housewife Francesca Johnson aren't looking to turn their lives upside down. Each is at a point in life where expectations are behind them. Yet four days after meeting they wont want to lose the love they've found. Academy Award winners' Meryl Streep (earning her 10th Oscar nomination for this performance) and Clint Eastwood (who also produces and directs) bring blazing starpower and powerful conviction to the beloved characters of Robert James Waller's best seller of love choice and consequence. With luck a love like that happens to some of us sooner or later. For Robert and Francesca it was later. And it was glorious.

DVD Sales/ Rental Chart Week Ending 13 April

DVD Sales

1.	Alvin and the Chipmunks	Fox
2.	The Water Horse	Sony
3.	There Will Be Blood	Paramount
4.	Sweeney Todd	Dreamworks-Par
5.	Walk Hard	Sony
6.	I Am Legend	Warner
7.	Lions for Lambs	MGM-Fox
8.	Enchanted	Disney
9.	No Country for Old Men	Miramax-Disney
10.	Bee Movie	Dreamworks-Par

DVD Rental

1.	There Will Be Blood	Paramount
2.	Alvin and the Chipmunks	Fox
3.	Lions for Lambs	MGM-Fox
4.	The Water Horse	Sony
5.	Sweeney Todd	Dreamworks-Par
6.	I Am Legend	Warner
7.	Walk Hard	Sony
8.	The Mist	Weinstein-Genius
9.	Enchanted	Disney
10.	No Country for Old Men	Miramax-Disney

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

This review was written for the festival screening of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

Overall Grade A must watch movie!







CANNES -- Director Julian Schnabel and screenwriter Ronald Harwood have performed a small miracle in adapting for the screen Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiography "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Not, of course, as much as the one it took for the former "Elle" editor to write the book when he was paralyzed from head to toe and could communicate only by blinking his left eye.


But their film does justice to the enormous courage and determination of the man and the caring patience of those who helped him. Taking a very different approach to the award-winning 2004 Spanish film "The Sea Inside," in which Javier Bardem played a suicidal quadriplegic, the movie boasts an equally fine lead performance, by Mathieu Amalric, and matches that film's broad appeal.

A vivacious and charismatic magazine editor, Bauby is stricken at 43 with the cerebro-vascular incident that first plunges him into a coma and then leaves him with what is called "locked-in syndrome." His brain works perfectly but his body doesn't, save the left eye. It is from that eye's point-of-view that the film is almost entirely told and Janusz Kaminski's cinematography does marvels in suggesting the suffocating horror of Bauby's predicament and the wide variety of images that bring him joy and hope.

A brief period of self-pity is overcome by the painstaking attention of his therapists, Henriette (Marie-Josee Croze) and Marie (Olatz Lopez Garmendia), who develop the pattern whereby he blinks at letters of the alphabet in order to form words and then sentences. Celine (Emmanuelle Seigner), the mother of his three children, whom he had abandoned shortly before he had his stroke, also nurses him devotedly. Among many scenes of tender mercy, she translates when Bauby's new lover calls to speak to him only to say that she cannot bear to see him in his current state. Celine must translate his blinking reply: "Each day I wait for you."

Street sees Blu-ray delay

Since Blu-ray Disc's victory in the HD-DVD format war, data has trickled in suggesting a sales boost for Sony's fledgling technology. But if the pace doesn't quicken, home video might not return to sustained growth mode for several years.

In December, when the format wars were raging and next-generation DVD players and movies were a popular Christmas gift, 63% of next-gen DVDs sold in the U.S. were Blu-ray.

In March, however, the first full month after the format war ended, Blu-ray's advantage swelled to 81%, according to Redhill Group.

In the first quarter this year, 4.9 million next-gen movies were sold, 3.8 million of which were Blu-ray. That's half of the 9.8 million copies of 536 different titles that have been sold in the U.S. since the inception of Blu-ray and HD DVD.

However, the numbers -- while impressive since mid-February, when HD DVD threw in the towel -- don't make up for sagging traditional DVDs, sales of which might have peaked two years ago in terms of revenue.

Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet figures that wholesale DVD revenue worldwide, for theatrical releases only, came in at $25 billion in 2006, dropped to $23.1 billion last year and will further decline to a projected $21.4 billion this year.

"The industry appears to be lowering pricing to keep demand aloft," he said in his recent 2008 studio forecast.

Library titles have seen the biggest decline in DVD sales. While Disney makes an exceptional $2.3 million per year on each of its 990 library titles, most other studios generate only $300,000 per title. Time Warner, with 6,600 library titles, makes the least per title because a large number of them are in black and white.

Bernstein Research analyst Michael Nathanson also crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that, even since the end of the format war, folks are only mildly interested in Blu-ray discs.

At the end of 2007, there were at least 3.5 million Blu-ray players in U.S. homes. At most, each of those households had purchased an average of three Blu-ray titles. Nathanson said that the same point in the adoption curve of standard DVD players, each household had purchased as many as 30 DVDs. The disparity isn't surprising, though, considering most Americans are so happy with their switch from VHS to DVD that they just don't see the value proposition of making another switch to Blu-ray any time soon.

Plus, since the vast majority of Blu-ray players are in homes because Sony has embedded them into the PlayStation 3 video game consoles, many consumers don't seem to care that they even have a Blu-ray player.

Until stand-alone Blu-ray players -- the cheapest is about $370 -- fall to below $200, Americans en masse won't adopt the new technology, experts predict. Nathanson predicts in a recent 27-page report that that won't happen until the end of 2009.

In addition, he says, many Blu-ray households will only upgrade small portions of their libraries, particularly their favorite action and sci-fi films. "We have a hard time understanding why consumers will rush out to Best Buy to pick up the Blu-ray version of 'Caddyshack' or 'Sleepless in Seattle,' " he said.

The analyst figures that early Blu-ray adopters eventually will average about six to 10 titles apiece. But, with the extra $10-$15 per unit Blu-ray commands, it might be enough to put home video back into growth mode.

Taking into account that Blu-ray sales will cannibalize a large portion of standard DVD sales, Nathanson says that during the 2007-2011 period, home video could boast a 2.4% compounded annual growth rate in revenue. Without Blu-ray, he estimates home video would have lost 2.2% each year during that same time frame.

His forecast assumes that stand-alone Blu-ray players, in about 1% of U.S. households by the end of this year, will expand their reach to 25% by the end of 2011. He also assumes that the average price of a Blu-ray disc will drop from $28.50 this year to $24.43 in 2011 and that overall revenue from Blu-ray movies sold in the U.S. will rise from $260 million this year to $4.24 billion in 2011. [Source from Hollywood Reporter]

Blu-ray Sales Up 351%

One of the reasons movie studios are hoping consumers adopt Blu-ray is in order to offset continually declining DVD sales. Since they plateaued three years ago, DVD sales have slowly decreased. The first quarter of this year was no different, showing an overall drop in DVD sales of 1.2% from Q1 2007. However, Blu-ray sales saved the day - just as studios have hoped they would - and when combined with DVD sales resulted in an overall increase in sales of 1% over last year.

Steve Beeks, president and co-COO of Lionsgate commented, "Blu-ray had its second-best week ever in the seven days ending March 23, and we anticipate Blu-ray sales of $800 million to $1billion-plus for all of 2008, up dramatically from approximately $300 million last year."

With the format war now over, studios are looking forward to the rest of the year as more and more consumers adopt the high definition format. [Source from Hollywood Reporter]

Blu-ray 22nd April Release

National Geographic: Six Degrees Could Change the World (Blu-ray)

National Geographic Video / 2008 / Unrated
Street Date: April 22, 2008

Overall Grade Recommended




Genres: Documentary

Plot Synopsis: In the 2004 eco-thriller The Day After Tomorrow, director Roland Emmerich dramatized the potential consequences of accelerated global warming. By combining stock footage with computer-generated imagery, the National Geographic special Six Degrees Could Change the World serves as a sort of nonfiction counterpoint. As NASA climate scientist James Hansen cautions, even two degrees Celsius represents a tipping point (from which there is no return). Based on Mark Lynas's Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet and narrated by Alec Baldwin, the program roams from the bushfire-ravaged suburbs of Southern Australia to the drought-stricken farmlands of Nebraska to the rapidly melting glaciers of Greenland. In the process, aerospace engineers, marine biologists, and ordinary citizens share their experiences and predictions. In the end, it's the actual events--rather than the speculative scenarios--that prove most alarming, like the 30,000 deaths that resulted from 2003's European heat wave. While a skeptic might dismiss that tragedy as a statistical anomaly, every continent bears the scars of climate change, like the deforestation of the Amazon and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. In order to inject some levity, Six Degrees detours to look at a British grape grower who has actually benefited from his country's drier environment and the carbon footprint involved in the creation of that all-American favorite, the cheeseburger (suffice to say, it's considerable). While some of the special effects are hokey--Hansen sitting at a floating desk, for example--the preponderance of compelling data helps to compensate for such lapses. --Kathleen C. Fennessy [Amazon.com]

The Orphanage (Blu-ray)

New Line Home Entertainment / 2007 / 105 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: April 22, 2008

Genres: Foreign, Horror

Starring: Roger Príncep, Fernando Cayo, Belén Rueda
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Plot Synopsis: The Orphanage, presented by Oscar-Nominee Guillermo del Toro, centers on a Laura (Belén Rueda from The Sea Inside) who purchases her beloved childhood orphanage with dreams of restoring and reopening the long abandoned facility as a place for disabled children. Once there, Laura discovers that the new environment awakens her son's imagination, but the ongoing fantasy games he plays with an invisible friend quickly turn into something more disturbing. Upon seeing her family increasingly threatened by the strange occurrences in the house, Laura looks to a group of parapsychologists for help in unraveling the mystery that has taken over the place.

Disc Features:
• Featurettes: "When Laura Grew Up: Constructing The Orphanage," "Horror in the Unknown: Make-Up," "Rehearsal Studio," "About the Filmmakers"
• Still Gallery
• Theatrical Trailers

One Missed Call (Blu-ray)

Warner Home Video / 2008 / 87 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: April 22, 2008

Genres: Suspense Thriiler
Starring: Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns, Ana Claudia Talancón
Director: Eric Valette

Plot Synopsis: Yet more modern technology falls prey to the influence of eeeeevil spirits in One Missed Call, a horror flick following firmly in the footsteps of The Ring, Pulse, and other remakes of Japanese creepfests. Good-looking young people are receiving voice-mails that prefigure their gruesome deaths; Beth (Shannyn Sossamon, 40 Days and 40 Nights) and Jack (Ed Burns) race against time to find the source of this cell-phone curse, leading them to a dark and treacherous burnt-out hospital. Little is fresh here--One Missed Call apes every other Japanese horror remake, using corpse makeup, blurry images at the corner of the screen or just out of sight, lots of ambient rattles and gasps, spooky-looking children, and the slow, trembling turn towards a ringing phone... which stopped being scary about four or five movies ago. But for fans of this particular subgenre, One Missed Call may evoke the warm, enjoyable familiarity that devotees of 1970s horror feel towards the repetitive output of Hammer Films. Ray Wise (Reaper, Twin Peaks) has a bit of fun as a cynical TV producer; comedian Margaret Cho has such a brief, throwaway part as a skeptical cop that one wonders if the rest of her role is on the cutting room floor; and Meagan Good (Brick, Stomp the Yard) gets prominent billing but is hardly in the movie at all. --Bret Fetzer [Amazon.com]

Disc Features: 'One Missed Call' bombed at the box office, so it's no surprise that Warner shows a complete lack of faith in its video release. There is nary an extra here -- not even a trailer. Talk about getting no dial tone...

Forbidden Kingdom Is The King of Box Office Weekend

LAST WEEKEND Audiences were fired up for the first-ever showdown between martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li as their new fantasy actioner The Forbidden Kingdom opened at number one at theaters across North America. Those in search of laughs powered the starless breakup comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall into second place with a strong debut of its own. Targeting different audiences, the one-two punch was enough to propel the overall box office ahead of last year's levels by a respectable margin.Lionsgate scored its first top spot debut of the year with Kingdom which grossed $21.4M from 3,151 theaters over the weekend, according to final studio figures. The PG-13 adventure film averaged a solid $6,792 per location and saw much of its support from young male audiences and fans of martial arts movies. In the film, an American teen mysteriously travels back to ancient China and embarks on a quest to free the famed Monkey King. Chan and Li, who each got to play a double role, provided the starpower to pull in paying audiences. Reviews were mixed.

Opening in second place with a solid debut of its own was the raunchy relationship comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall which grossed $17.7M from 2,798 theaters. The R-rated pic about a man coping with being dumped by his celebrity girlfriend averaged a commendable $6,335 and played best to adult women. The Sarah bow was below what producer Judd Apatow has seen in the past with his R-rated summer comedies The 40-Year-Old Virgin ($21.4M), Knocked Up ($30.7M), and Superbad ($33.1M). However, it was stronger than the debuts of his latest offerings Walk Hard ($4.2M) and Drillbit Taylor ($10.3M). Since the surprise success of Virgin in 2005, studios have used Apatow's name and resume to market anything he remotely has been involved in.

Sony claimed three of the next four slots. Last weekend's number one film Prom Night crumbled by 58% to $8.7M and pushed its ten-day tally to $32.1M. A $45M final seems likely.

The Al Pacino crime drama 88 Minutes was rejected by moviegoers and collected only $7M in its opening weekend. The Sony release averaged a mild $3,209 from 2,168 locations and was panned by critics from coast to coast. The R-rated pic opened in numerous other countries around the world last year and was finally dumped into the late spring graveyard in the North American market.

The kid adventure Nim's Island grossed $5.7M, off 38%, giving Fox $32.9M to date. Sony's blackjack hit 21 followed dropping 47% to sixth place with $5.5M and upped its cume to $70M.

The Keanu Reeves cop thriller Street Kings tumbled in its second weekend falling 67% to $4.2M. With $20.1M in ten days, look for Fox Searchlight to finish with $25-27M. Toon smash Horton Hears a Who declined by just 41% to $3.5M leaving the year's top film with $144.4M. Next was was the George Clooney flop Leatherheads with $3M, down 51%, for a total of $26.6M ~ Boxofficeguru.

#	Title	Apr 18 - 20			Theaters			Cumulative	Distributor
1	The Forbidden Kingdom	$ 21,401,121			3,151			$ 21,401,121	Lionsgate
2	Forgetting Sarah Marshall	17,725,330			2,798			17,725,330	Universal
3	Prom Night	8,670,364			2,700			32,133,926	Sony
4	88 Minutes	6,957,216			2,168			6,957,216	Sony
5	Nim's Island	5,687,072			3,277			32,894,115	Fox
6	21	5,520,362			2,903			70,004,505	Sony
7	Street Kings	4,179,505			2,469			20,058,143	Fox Searchlight
8	Horton Hears A Who	3,511,834			2,670			144,418,495	Fox
9	Leatherheads	3,049,465			2,798			26,605,235	Universal
10	Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed	2,970,848			1,052			2,970,848	Rocky Mountain
11	Superhero Movie	1,608,072			1,880			23,604,200	MGM
12	Smart People	1,600,687			1,119			6,805,392	Miramax
13	The Ruins	1,209,263			1,857			15,828,143	Paramount
14	Drillbit Taylor	894,990			1,367			29,782,431	Paramount
15	Meet the Browns	700,271			675			41,159,982	Lionsgate
16	10,000 B.C.	603,380			855			92,826,810	Warner Bros.
17	Under the Same Moon	585,132			454			11,187,306	Weinstein Co.
18	Shine A Light	567,933			220			3,755,976	Par. Classics
19	The Bank Job	412,851			473			29,206,841	Lionsgate
20	College Road Trip	406,528			650			42,918,585	Buena Vista

Forbidden Kingdoms In Theatres This Week 18th April

Things are getting better and better. With two king of kungfu star Jet Li and Jackie Chan in one movie for the first time, I really do hope that it will be an 'Awesome' movie experience. Watch it on theaters this week [Reminder: buy your tickets early coz as expected with star driven take into account 'Forbidden Kingdoms' will be a massive blockbuster throughout Asian countries indeed]

Forbidden Kingdoms
Copyright © 2008 Lionsgate Pictures

A discovery made by a kung fu obsessed American teen sends him on an adventure to China, where he joins up with a band of martial arts warriors in order to free the imprisoned Monkey King.