DVDS THIS WEEK

Last updated: Tuesday, July 1, 2008

DVDS THIS WEEK

Release Date: July 1, 2008

CITY OF MEN

Cast: Darlan Cunha, Douglas Silva, Jonathan Haagensen, Naima Silva, Rodrigo dos Santos

Synopsis: In this long-awaited follow-up to his Academy Award®-nominated film City Of God (2003, Best Director, Fernando Meirelles), producer Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener ) returns to the Brazilian favelas to tell an inspiring tale of friendship and family on the gritty streets of Rio de Janeiro. Growing up in a culture dictated by violence and run by street gangs, teenagers Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) have become close as brothers. With their eighteenth birthdays fast approaching, Laranjinha sets out to find the father he never met, while Acerola struggles to raise his own young son. But when they suddenly find themselves on opposite sides of a gang war, the lifelong friends are forced to confront a shocking secret from their shared past.

DEAD AND GONE

Cast: Gillian Shure, Kathrine Bates, Kyle Gass, Quentin Jones, Zack Ward

Synopsis: You only think you're alone. Trophy husband, Jack Wade, kidnaps his comatose wife, an ex-Hollywood studio executive, in an attempt to kill her and collect on her life insurance after she screwed him out of access to her finances. When she comes back from the dead to haunt him, Jack can't distinguish reality from delirium. His secrets come to the foreground, and he ends up destroying himself, both figuratively and literally. Written by Harry Shannon, EmmyÂ® nominated songwriter and author of The Pressure of Darkness and Daemon, and scored by famed composer Harry Manfredi (Friday the 13th), who praised the film as scary and creepy, witty and sarcastic,' Dead and Gone is destined to be a horror classic.

MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

Cast: David Strathairn, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Norah Jones, Rachel Weisz

Synopsis: After a rough break-up, Elizabeth sets out on a journey across America, leaving behind her life in search of something to mend her broken heart. Waitressing her way through the country, she befriends a troubled cop and his estranged wife and a down-on-her luck gambler with a score to settle. Through these chance encounters, Elizabeth witnesses the true depths of loneliness and emptiness, and begins to understand that her own journey is part of a deeper exploration of herself.

DRILLBIT TAYLOR

Cast: Adam Baldwin, Leslie Mann, Owen Wilson, Alex Frost, Josh Peck

Synopsis: Ryan (Troy Gentile), Wade (Nate Hartley) and Emmit (David Dorfman) attend their first day at high school and they’re pumped until they meet up with Filkins (Alex Frost), a school bully who comes off like a little Hannibal Lecter. Before they become completely engulfed in Filkins’ reign of terror, they seek out some protection by placing an ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine. Their best response and the cheapest comes from Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson), a down-on-his-luck solder of fortune who lives a homeless – he likes to say “home-free” – existence on the beach. He enrolls them in physical and mental training, steeling them - and possibly himself - for the ultimate clash against the forces keeping them down.

MEET THE BROWNS

Cast: Angela Bassett, Sofia Vergara, Tyler Perry, Jenifer Lewis, Rick Fox

Synopsis: A single mother living in inner city Chicago, Brenda has been struggling for years to make ends meet and keep her three kids off the street. But when she’s laid off with no warning, she starts losing hope for the first time – until a letter arrives announcing the death of a father she’s never met. Desperate for any kind of help, Brenda takes her family to Georgia for the funeral. But nothing could have prepared her for the Browns, her father’s fun-loving, crass Southern clan. In a small-town world full of long afternoons and country fairs, Brenda struggles to get to know the family she never knew existed…and finds a brand new romance that just might change her life.

SEX AND DEATH 101

Cast: Julie Bowen, Leslie Bibb, Winona Ryder, Patton Oswalt, Simon Baker

Synopsis: Sex and Death 101 stars Golden Globe nominee Simon Baker (“The Guardian,” The Devil Wears Prada) as Roderick Blank, a successful executive and ‘ladies man,’ whose life is turned around by an email that includes the names of everyone he’s had sex with and ever will have sex with. Oscar® nominee and Golden Globe winner Winona Ryder (The Age of Innocence, Little Women) stars as ‘Death Nell,’ the mysterious femme fatale who becomes an urban folk hero when she targets men guilty of sex crimes against women. The film co-stars Leslie Bibb (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby), Julie Bowen (“Boston Legal”), Sophie Monk (Click, Date Movie), Mindy Cohn (“The Facts of Life”), Dash Mihok (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang), Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille) and Neil Flynn (“Scrubs”).

VANTAGE POINT

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, Matthew Fox, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana

Synopsis: During an historic counter-terrorism summit in Spain, the President of the United States is struck down by an assassin's bullet. Eight strangers have a perfect view of the kill, but what did they really see? As the minutes leading up to the fatal shot are replayed through the eyes of each eyewitness, the reality of the assassination takes shape. But just when you think you know the answer, the shattering final truth is revealed. VANTAGE POINT is a mindbending political action-thriller starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Academy Award® Winner Forest Whitaker (Best Actor 2006, The Last King of Scotland), with Sigourney Weaver and Academy Award® winner William Hurt (Best Actor 1985, Kiss of the Spider Woman).

SHOTGUN STORIES

Cast: Barlow Jacobs, Douglas Ligon, Glenda Pannell, Lynnsee Provence, Michael Shannon

Synopsis: Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.
Son Hayes never speaks of the scars on his back. The shotgun pellets left under his skin make for a sporadic pattern of blue-black dots. The men he works with take bets on how he got them. His brothers, Boy and Kid Hayes, don't discuss it. His past, just like these scars, is never far behind him.
This stands true for the memory of his father, a man that never bothered to give his children proper names. He left the three brothers, Son, Boy and Kid, when they were young. Their last impressions were of a violent drunk who never hesitated to put his own needs ahead of his family. The brothers were left to be raised by their mother, a hateful woman, who to this day blames her children for the life she's been left with and the man she could not keep.
Their father, having left the memory of his children as completely as he left their home, managed to move on and put his life back together. He sobered up, became a devout Christian, married a wonderful woman, and fathered four new sons. All of who received proper names. His life became a model that most would aspire to, a man successful in business, community and family. His only true failing being the sons he turned his back on.
At the beginning of the film, we find Son, Boy and Kid as grown men. The three brothers' lives progress and their futures play out, but their past inevitably comes to claim them. Following a dispute at their father's funeral, a feud begins to simmer between these sons and the new young men their father has raised. It is an anger that has always rested uncomfortably in the background of their lives. However now, it is a thing that will rise up to overtake them all. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.

Source: CelebrityWonder.com

| Tuesday, July 1, 2008

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