August Rush DVD box set: the “gel” of tear

Going in to August Rush, you've got to be more than willing to accept fairy tale magic; you've got to be looking to embrace it, with all of its whimsy and overzealous sense of wonder. That way, the movie can be sweet as opposed to so precious you feel the need to punt it through a window. It's a fine line, and August Rush is balancing it the whole way through.

The story is a very free modern adaptation of elements from Oliver Twist. We meet Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore), an 11-year-old who runs away from his orphanage rather than be placed with a foster family. He has been told that his parents are still alive and were musicians, and he believes that through the power of music he can find them again…

Well, August Rush DVD box set tells us all about the magic of fate and coincidence, this little boy's love of music comes from some sort of machinations of the gods: His mother Lyla (Keri Russell) is a star concert cellist; his father Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is the guitarist and singer of a rock band. The two meet by coincidence on a rooftop and share one perfect night of moonlight and music, and are separated after. As August is looking for them, they are looking for one another and him. It's a small world, really, that separates August from his parents, but despite the number of coincidences and close calls that have parents and child nearly meeting, it takes them a very, very long time to actually get there.

If you find a story so heavy on the charm appealing, though, then August Rush delivers. If nothing else, August Rush is pleasant, so long as you don't go looking for realism or practicality. In short, the August Rush is every bit as super sweet and precious as it sounds.

The complete series of Black Mirror DVD box set

Black Mirror, a darkly satirical series that aired on Channel 4 in December, is a more serious statement. Over three discrete dramas – 44, 62 and 49 minutes long respectively – the programme explores the dark sides to our modern technological obsessions.

"The National Anthem"

In fact, this first episode, The National Anthem, reads like a condensation of all his past experience; it contains the cynical misanthropy of his old Guardian Screen Burn columns, a smattering of the profane and witty dialogue from his brilliant Nathan Barley comedy series, as well as the kind of behind-the-scenes insight into TV production that his work on programmes such as You Have Been Watching and 10 O’Clock Live may have afforded. One plot point even appears to pay homage to Brooker’s earliest beginnings on the mildly controversial 80s comic, Oink - though we’ll leave that particular reference for you to discover for yourselves.

"15 Million Merits"

The story followed Bing, played by Daniel Kaluuya of recent ‘Fades’ fame, who is bored of his monotonous life which consists of pedalling to earn Merits, the currency of the world. All of this changes when he hears fellow peddle pusher Abi (Jessica Brown Findlay from ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Misfits’) singing in the toilets. He is convinced that she could escape a life of toil by auditioning on reality TV show ‘Hot Shot’ and helps her to enter the programme.

"The Entire History of You"

The Entire History Of You explores the pitfalls of future technology. Given our current appetite for sharing carefully selected chunks of our personal lives on the Internet, the idea of people in the future recording and sharing memories isn’t too much of a stretch, and the way the episode depicts it is quite convincing, and extremely eerie. If you are a fan of Black Mirror, you can now get the complete series of Black Mirror DVD box set at the affordable price. Lucky for you!

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“Love Actually” is all around

“Love Actually” DVD box set is utterly charming and irresistible romantic comedy.

An ensemble comedy on the theme of love in all its variations, this London-set film deals with numerous different interlinked relationships. Hugh Grant plays a new Prime Minister who falls in love with the Number 10 teagirl (an impressive and natural big screen debut from Martine McCutcheon). His sister Emma Thompson worries whether her successful husband (Alan Rickman) is having an affair with his secretary. Meanwhile in Rickman's office, Laura Linney yearns for the love of the chief designer. Colin Firth decamps to France when he finds his wife is cheating on him with his brother, and finds love - despite a language barrier - with his Portuguese housemaid (Lucia Moniz). Liam Neeson struggles to help himself and his son over the death of his wife. Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Rowan Atkinson and Billy Bob Thornton have round out a star-studded cast.

The movie has such inevitable situations as a school holiday concert, an office party, a family dinner, a teenage boy who has a crush on a girl who doesn't know he exists, and all sorts of accidental meetings, both fortunate and not. Richard Curtis always involves a little sadness in his comedies (like the funeral in "Four Weddings"), and there's genuine poignancy in the relationship of a recently widowed man (Liam Neeson) and his wife's young son by a former marriage (Thomas Sangster). Their conversations together have some of the same richness as "About a Boy."

Anyway, this is one of the most beautiful and heartwarming movies to come around in years with involving plotlines, top notch directing, and excellent acting from an all-star cast. I love it.

Se7en DVD box set

Se7en DVD box set is a dark, grisly, horrifying and intelligent thrilling movie may be too disturbing for many people. It tells the story of two detectives - one ready to retire, the other at the start of his career - and their attempts to capture a perverted serial killer who is using the Seven Deadly Sins as his scenario.

As Se7en starts, we are introduced to William Somerset (Freeman), a veteran detective ready to retire from a career of harsh police work. We learn that Somerset is an empathetic person, but is also bitterly burned out due to a career of dealing with violence. Apathy has slowly affected his outlook. Somerset is to meet with David Mills (Pitt), his replacement of sorts; they are to work together during Somerset’s last week. Mills is an ambitious, young detective eager to make an impression . . . and a difference, so needless to say there’s friction.

The look of Se7en is crucial to its effect. This is a very dark film, the gloom often penetrated only by the flashlights of the detectives. Even when all the lights are turned on in the apartments of the victims, they cast only wan, hopeless pools of light.

Lastly, Se7en is well-made in its details, and uncompromising in the way it presents the disturbing details of the crimes. It is certainly not for the young or the sensitive. Se7en is the best serial killer film ever made and gets the highest recommendation. Even though it’s a well thought out and well defined movie, you’ll be thinking about the subtle, implied aspects long after the credits roll. All in all, the movie deserves watching for you.

Music and Lyrics DVD box set: I need inspiration

Music and Lyrics DVD box set is a romantic comedy movie, which pairs Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore for the first time, opens with a pitch-perfect ‘80s-style music video for a catchy tune called “Pop! Goes My Heart,” featuring Grant sporting a bad Flock of Seagulls hairdo. It’s clever, playful and appealing… everything that the rest of the film is not.

The setup, at first glance, seems harmless enough: Grant plays fallen ‘80s pop star Alex Fletcher, a once-cool singer in tight pants who now, 15 years later, sings his old hits to crowds at theme parks. His career is going nowhere, as indicated by his offer to appear on a new show called Battle of the ‘80s Has-Beens, which displays boxing matches between washed-up singers. Tempting, but he clings onto what’s left of his dignity and turns it down.

While he’s home moping one day, he stumbles upon Sophie (Barrymore) temporarily watering his plants as a favor to her friend. She’s the type of cute, bumbling girl who always wanders into a guy’s life in movies when he’s down on his luck. In this case, she also happens to be a savvy lyricist. This comes in handy for Fletcher, a talented musician but lousy writer who is given a chance to create a hit song for pop sensation Cora Corman (Haley Bennett in her debut). It’s a great opportunity to resuscitate his career. And if he falls in love along the way, by golly, so be it.

In the film, Alex and Sophie collaborate, fall in love, fall out of love, and fall back in again. In short, Music and Lyrics offers a little something for everyone while, of course, playing up to the women who dominate romantic comedy audiences. 

He's Just Not That Into You DVD box set: you believe it

He's Just Not That Into You DVD box set seeks to mine the same vein of romantic comedy ore as Love, Actually - the multi-arc story in which characters cross each others' paths and interact in an attempt to show different facets of one emotion.

The problem with most of the film's women is that they are interested in only (a) the opposite sex, (b) dating and (c) marriage. Maybe that's because the script has just so much time. But a film about one insecure woman to another can be monotonous, unless you're a masochist looking to share your pain. If you consider a partner who has no more compelling interests than a, b or c, you're shopping for boredom.

There is one superb monologue, by Drew Barrymore, who complains that she is driven crazy by the ways guys always seem to be communicating in another medium. She calls at home but he doesn't pick up. She calls on his cell, and he e-mails her. She makes text to him. He twitters back and leaves coded hints on MySpace. She tries snail mail. He apparently never learned how to open one. She yearns for the days when people had one telephone and one answering machine, and a guy had either definitely called you, or he had not.

This is a very far from perfect movie, and it ends on an unsatisfactory note. Stop reading now because I am going to complain that most of its stories have happy endings. Not in the real world, they don't. In the real world, the happy endings come only with a guy who's really into you. If someone loves you, he will be with you. If not, it only certifies that He's Just Not That Into You, thus really being painful. But you believe it and lay down.

Elizabethtown DVD box set: a story that touches on loss and life

It is a truth universally acknowledged that amateur travelogues are more engrossing for the one who has traveled than for those hailing the traveler's return. Elizabethtown is a just movie- amateur travelogue. I have invested the "Elizabethtown" DVD box set.

"Elizabethtown" is the kind of film that wastes the one “F” word its rating allows on its soundtrack. But then it’s a Cameron Crowe movie, and long before Zach Braff was kicking ass on movie music, he was locked in a room obsessing over piles of musical snips. Actually, while we’re talking Braff, let’s address this pic’s rather uninspiring trailers, which make it seem a lot like a clone of Garden State. The ads aren’t misleading, in some ways it is. But though Elizabethtown’s premise and predilection for unique, mood-setting music gives it an outer veneer similar to Zach Braff’s critically hugged directorial debut, the emotional impact of Crowe’s local-boy-comes-home movie is entirely different.

It must be said that although Drew and Claire do seem to be falling in love, life with Claire might be maddening. She's the kind of person who would alphabetize alphabet soup. The climax of the movie is a cross-country road journey undertaken by Drew with copious maps, instructions and CDs supplied by Claire, who instructs Drew on exactly where to go and what to see and who to meet and what to feel. All that redeems this exercise in compulsion is the fact that she is right.

Elizabethtown is a moving, emotional, heart-grabbing journey; another unconventional Cameron Crowe movie driven by relatable characters and mood-suited music. It’s not flawless, and without so many really great performances it could have easily turned into nothing but a bunch of ill-fitting parts. People are going to argue that certain scenes should have been cut; others are going to whine over the film’s to-happy-ending. But it’s a wonderfully romantic movie that touches on loss and life.

Reblogged from http://jennyyu.edublogs.org/2013/01/11/elizabethtown-dvd-box-set-a-story-that-touches-on-loss-and-life/