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Starring:Dennis Patrick, William R. Moses, Christopher Blande, Lelia Goldoni, Sonny Gordon, Demi Moore, Victor French, Bryon Murrow, Don Stark, Art Kimbro, Stephen Nichols, Val Avery, Paul Carafotes, Pat Buttram, George Barrows
Director: Silvio Narizzano
Studio: Essex
Product Type: DVD

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Many Directions
Bucharest--the last bastion of the loup garou
Blood and Chocolate...**spoiler**
Just middle of the road, not much blood, not much chocolate.
More chocolate than blood, but that's not such a bad thing...

Blood & Chocolate
Starring: Agnes Bruckner , Hugh Dancy , Olivier Martinez , Katja Riemann , and Bryan Dick
Director: Katja von Garnier
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000OCY7TY
Release Date: 2007-06-12

Amazon.com

When graphic novelist Aiden (Hugh Dancy) travels to Bucharest to research the loup garou legend, he nearly gets devoured in the latest female werewolf film, Blood and Chocolate. In the tradition of Werewolf Woman and Ginger Snaps, Blood and Chocolate stars Vivian Gandillon (Agnes Bruckner), a girl who's forced to face her lupine tendencies in order to discover how capable of loving Aiden she really is. Based on a book by Annette Curtis Clause, the film chronicles the lives of the remaining loup garou who are an extended Romanian family waiting for their pack leader, Gabriel, to select his new mate. His desire for Vivian means trouble when her wish to be with Aiden results in her revealing too much about the clan's secretive lifestyle. In this film, werewolves look fully human until their eyes glow with colored contact lenses while they fly through the air to then land as full-fledged wolves. Gone are the days, apparently, of films showing the transformation in all its hairy, explosive detail. A lack of scenes describing the werewolf metamorphosis make this film more a love story than a monster tale, though two forest gatherings in which the loup garou hunt human sacrifices offer some grizzly satisfaction. Unlike the aforementioned femme werewolf films, Blood and Chocolate features a girl fighting her urge to kill in a bid to unite humans with her brethren, making this movie the most peaceful in its genre. With a tame wolf as protagonist, the potential nightmare is really just a pleasant dream to unite the two disparate worlds. The question is: Do we want that to happen? --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

As a young girl living in the remote mountains of Colorado, Vivian (Bruckner) watched helplessly as her family was murdered by a pack of angry men for the secret they carried in their blood. Vivian survived the attack by running into the woods and changing into a wolf. Ten years later, Vivian is living a relatively safe and normal life in Bucharest, Romania. Vivian spends her days working in a chocolate shop and nights trawling the city's underground clubs, fending off the reckless antics of her cousin Rafe, and his gang of delinquents he refers to as "The Five."

Vivian's life begins to unravel when she has a chance encounter with Aiden (Dancy), an artist researching Bucharest' ancient art and relics for his next graphic novel. Aiden pursues Vivian until she relents and begins to see him, but she can't bring herself to tell him the truth - and lives in fear of showing him who she really is. Even though Vivian has sworn never to kill, she is as much an animal as she is human, and her love for Aiden threatens to cast him to the very wolves who saved her life and who are waiting for their chance to hunt him as prey.

Stills from Blood & Chocolate (click for larger image)

Beyond Blood & Chocolate at Amazon.com

Gothic Horror on DVDs
More from Olivier Martinez
DVDs of "Things That Go Bump"

Customer Reviews:

Many Directions.......2007-06-20

Director Katja von Garnier directed "Iron Jawed Angels," an HBO movie about suffragettes lobbying for the right to vote in the United States starring Hillary Swank that was excellent. Her first film "Bandits" starred Katja Riemann who plays Astrid in "Blood & Chocolate." This film has a great gothic look, but perhaps doesn't build dynamically enough to the final climax, although Aiden's chase sequence is excellent.

Ehren Kruger who wrote screenplays for the "Ring" movies & "Brothers Grimm" teams with Christopher Landon for this film. The screenwriting is probably the MOST controversial aspect of the film. We expect screenplays from books to sometimes telescope events, perhaps leaving out some scenes or even minor characters. Annette Curtis Klause's book had a strong following. So remaking Gabriel's character to have a darker aspect and eliminating Aiden's betrayal of Vivian radically changes the story, as does having Vivian's mother die and trying to blend all of her raising into Astrid's character. Probably, it would be a good idea NOT to let Kruger work on the final Harry Potter screenplay because fans of the book go crazy with as much dramatic license as Kruger has taken with "Blood & Chocolate."

Agnes Bruckner plays Vivian Gandillon. Bruckner was nominated for Best Actress in the Independent Spirit awards for "Blue Car" in 2003. As Vivian, the audience never feels like they deeply identify with her. We get a TV-quality performance of a girl falling in love who has the complication of a crazy family. The fear factor and the seriousness of the consequences never play strongly. Her performance has more romance than horror, when both were needed. She looks very sweet as she works making chocolates. One of the DVD deleted scenes that is chilling has to do with a boy who comes into the shop. We think he's an ordinary customer until he casually comments that the "hunt" will be tonight.

Former boxer Oliver Martinez, who made a big impression in 2002 in Unfaithful (Widescreen Edition) and was also in "Taking Lives" & "S.W.A.T.," plays the dark brooding leader of the pack. The film veers from the book where humans were not hunted to this limited-hunt version. Kata Dobo makes a stunning visual appearance as the bloodthirsty redheaded vampire at the hunts. One of the deleted scenes shows an unclad Martinez walking in the woods after he has switched back from his wolf form. Making the audience not like Gabriel is one of the contradictions that is hard for even a good-looking actor like Martinez to satisfy. How can you be charismatic enough to hold a pack together and romantic enough to earn Astrid's loving loyalty and also be a rather shallow jerk at the same time? Whether this is actor, director or screenwriter, it doesn't play well.

Hugh Dancy plays the human artist Aiden Galvin. Dancy has been in "Black Hawk Down," played Galahad in King Arthur - The Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition) & was nominated for an Emmy for his work in "Elizabeth I." As the romantic lead, he probably is the most successful in the film. Yes, he becomes fearful when faced with Vivian's blood sucking relatives, but he comes across as a very nice guy that the audience roots for to win Vivian's heart.

Bryan Dick's rooftop-hopping Rafe is pompous and repellant. As events unfold, the audience cheers his fate.

Katja Riemann's Aunt Astrid is a complex nervous woman. She is in love and losing love at the same time. Riemann won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice International Film Festival for Rosenstrasse, a film about marriages between Jews & non-Jews during World War II. She is a nervous ball of energy in this movie, always moving in several directions at once. It is an excellent performance.

"Blood & Chocolate" works less well than its producers from "Underworld" might have hoped. The story goes in too many directions at once. It does have a great look. There is enough here to warrant an evening's viewing, then go find the book. Enjoy!

Bucharest--the last bastion of the loup garou.......2007-06-20

They've existed for 5000 years and been hunted by humans. But, in Bucharest, their society is more complex. The people believe in old legends--and accordingly, the Alpha male must change mates every 7 years.

Vivian, who is the next in line, isn't interested in the Alpha male at all. She stumbles upon Aidan who is human or 'meat' and falls for him. The question is--with the pack opposing, can she keep her freedom and him? Prophecies say she is the new hope--but she believes not in destiny but making her own way.

The story's interesting and the backgrounds are lovely. I don't think I've ever seen a film done in Bucharest before, so the scenery is fresh. And, for a movie, some parts of the story are as well. Still, I felt like the story could have been done a bit tighter and I had to ask someone who read the book what the title really meant--that's something of a critical piece of information to misunderstand.

Blood and Chocolate...**spoiler**.......2007-06-17

When I was in High school, I found Blood and Chocolate on the book shelf of the library and thought it had interesting name, so I read it. I loved it, and didn't want to give it back to the library. It was such an interesting and unique book, that I wanted it, and wound up getting my mom to buy it for me.

When I saw several years down the line that they were making a movie from it, I was so excited! I wanted to see it in theaters, but wasn;t able to and just today I got it off of netflix and watched it with my husband. I was very dissapointed in it, (though he liked it quite a bit more than I did).

Yes, it does give a nice new spin on werewolves, which I did enjoy. But I started watching it expecting something a LOT closer to the story than this. They turned a story of teenage angst and struggle for acceptance both of herself and with others, into a Hollywood cliche.

While the characters are similar, the movie is set in a totally different country than in the book, and Vivian lost her parents in the movie, while in the book, her mother plays an important role. So many differences! The only thing it appears is still the same in both the book and the movie, is that they are werewolves, Vivian falls in love with a human, and Gabriel wants her to be his mate. A few other similarities do occur, though they are minor, and the changes in the story make these similarities hard to recognize.

I did enjoy the movie, don't get me wrong, and I would have loved it if I hadn;t read the book first. The lack of gore and greusome tranformation was actually rather a nice change to me, but dangit, I wanted to see the fight for dominanace that is in the book, the passage that Vivian went through from girl to woman. Her final acceptance of who she is, and the acceptance of the pack for who she is. I wanted to see the book I love put to life.

After watching the movie, I went to find my old beat up copy of the book, only to see that I had lost it, so if some of my comparisons are inaccurate, please forgive me, but I do know for a fact that this movie was not the real Blood and Chocolate, just a very expensive knock-off.

Just middle of the road, not much blood, not much chocolate........2007-06-15

Based in Bucharest, Romania, 19 y.o. Vivian (Agnes Bruckner) is a gal living with her aunt after the death of her parents while they lived in the US. She works at the chocolate store below her appartment, hence chocolate. She is struggling with her role in her family, also known as "the pack". Yes, their are rumors she is the next bride to be. Yeah, pretty obvious, they are Werewolves. So what could happen, a chance encounter with another American artist touring Romania...and you guessed it, an unexpeded love blossums at the dismay of the pack leaders. Her new love has a facination with the true Werewolf lore, and strikes a cord with her at his knowledge. Well, she gets accused of spilling the secrets of the pack, and he gets targeted as a threat to the potential bride. And the rest of the movie is predicatble from there, will love win, I won't spoil that. But, overall, I did like the overall underlying new twist on the werewolf legend, but otherwise the movie was not shocking, not much blood or gore (which actually was ok), but just a rehasing of an overall forbidden love trying to be set free. Ok to watch, not a must buy right away, great price here on amazon though. Although this was made by the same people that did the two underworld movies, this movie is lame in comparison to the violence and action. Worth a viewing.

More chocolate than blood, but that's not such a bad thing..........2007-06-13

Despite the somewhat soap opera-ish title of this film, I picked it up because it's from the creators of the Underworld films which were an excellent take on the vampire/werewolf genre and still some of my top favs to date.

First, B&C is being pushed as a werewolf film. These are not the dark brooding monsters we were treated to in the Underworld films, but rather National Geographic wolves down on all fours with humans transformed into them just by jumping into the air and transforming into the wolf in a ball of light.

We meet Vivian, a troubled wolf girl outside the pack. Her family was killed when she was a child. She lives with an aunt who oogles over a fractured affair with the pack leader, who isn't really like a leader at all. He's just some hot guy with sexy hair and a beard. Vivian is distant to the pack and also distant to the movie viewer. It's very hard to get to know her.

The pack is more of a shirtless boy band leaping off walls like acrobats. The leader enforces certain rules upon the pack to keep them alive, including a carefully set-up hunt for a captive human running in the woods who can go free if they can reach the river.

Vivian breaks law by falling for a human, a graphic novel writing tourist who is researching werewolf folklore. He tears up his train ticket to stay with Vivian and spend time with her. Quite the sappy and clean teenage love affair of hand holding and running through fountains.

He kills Vivian's cousin (who is also the pack leader's son), almost by accident, who had been sent by the pack leader to force boyfriend to leave. The hunt is soon on when the human boyfriend becomes the hunted as the pack leader wants to avenge the murder of his son. We finally get to see Vivian as a wolf as she sets out to save her love. Spoiler: The best scene in the movie is where he almost kills Vivian because he doesn't know it's her.

Still lost over the title of the movie? I was too. Vivian works in a chocolate shop, which isn't really important to the plot. Her aunt mentions something of a quote about the taste of blood and chocolate in your mouth. And that's about it. The blood is minimal. The love affair with Vivian and the tourist is quite innocent. The tourist becoming a silver bullet commando in the end to save the day is a bit like your favorite daytime soap opera. The ballet-like leaps through the air and flashes of light among the boy band pack turning into Jack London's wolves is a joke.

I kept thinking my teenage niece would probably just fall in love with this movie, and that's okay. If it had come before the Underworld films, I probably would have enjoyed it more too. It could probably be appreciated more if it had a different title. More blood and gore (like Underworld) would have upped the premise and hype! But that's not really what the film is about. Actually, for those who love shows like Buffy, or 90210, or all those other teen dramas, this movie would have actually made an excellent TV nighttime drama. So, you might like it.

So...overall...not bad, but not all that good either if you are like me and much prefer the dangerous werewolves that scare us to death, not the ones who fall in love with the boy next door.

Bridget Jones's Diary (Collector's Edition)

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Bridget Jones's Diary (Collector's Edition)
Starring: Renée Zellweger , Gemma Jones , Celia Imrie , James Faulkner , and Jim Broadbent
Director: Sharon Maguire
Manufacturer: Miramax
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B0002W4SWC
Release Date: 2004-11-09

Amazon.com

Featuring a blowzy, winningly inept size-12 heroine, Bridget Jones's Diary is a fetching adaptation of Helen Fielding's runaway bestseller, grittier than Ally McBeal but sweeter than Sex and the City. The normally sylphlike Renée Zellweger (Nurse Betty, Me, Myself and Irene) wolfed pasta to gain poundage to play "singleton" Bridget, a London-based publicist who divides her free time between binge eating in front of the TV, downing Chardonnay with her friends, and updating the diary in which she records her negligible weight fluctuations and romantic misadventures of the year. Things start off badly at Christmas when her mother tries to set her up with seemingly standoffish lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), whom Bridget accidentally overhears dissing her. Instead she embarks on a disastrous liaison with her raffish boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, infinitely more likeable when he's playing a baddie instead of his patented tongue-tied fops). Eventually, Bridget comes to wonder if she's let her pride prejudice her against the surprisingly attractive Mr. Darcy.

If the plot sounds familiar, that's because Fielding's novel was itself a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, whose romantic male lead is also named Mr. Darcy. An extra ironic poke in the ribs is added by the casting of Firth, who played Austen's haughty hero in the acclaimed BBC adaptation of Austen's novel. First-time director Sharon Maguire directs with confident comic zest, while Zellweger twinkles charmingly, fearlessly baring her cellulite and pulling off a spot-on English accent. Like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill (both of which were written by this film's coscreenwriter, Richard Curtis), Bridget Jones's stock-in-trade is a very English self-deprecating sense of humor, a mild suspicion of Americans (especially if they're thin and successful), and a subtly expressed analysis of thirtysomething fears about growing up and becoming a "smug married." The whole is, as Bridget would say, v. good. --Leslie Felperin

Description

Academy Award(R) winner Renée Zellweger (Best Supporting Actress, COLD MOUNTAIN, 2003; CHICAGO) and Hugh Grant (LOVE ACTUALLY, TWO WEEKS NOTICE) star in a delightful comedy about the ups and downs of modern romance. Bridget (Zellweger), a busy career woman, decides to turn over a new page in her life by channeling her thoughts, opinions and insecurities into a journal that becomes a hilarious chronicle of her adventures. Soon she becomes the center of attention between a guy who's too good to be true (Grant) and another who's so wrong for her, he could be just right (Colin Firth -- LOVE ACTUALLY)! Based on the best-selling book, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY is another acclaimed crowd-pleaser from the hit makers of FOUR WEDDING AND A FUNERAL and NOTTING HILL.

The Matrix Revolutions (2-Disc Widescreen Edition)

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The Matrix Revolutions (2-Disc Widescreen Edition)
Starring: Mary Alice , Tanveer K. Atwal , Helmut Bakaitis , Kate Beahan , and Francine Bell
Director: Larry Wachowski , and Andy Wachowski
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0001BKAEY
Release Date: 2004-04-06

Amazon.com

Despite the inevitable law of diminishing returns, The Matrix Revolutions is quite satisfying as an adrenalized action epic, marking yet another milestone in the exponential evolution of computer-generated special effects. That may not be enough to satisfy hardcore Matrix fans who turned the Wachowski Brothers' hacker mythology into a quasi-religious pop-cultural phenomenon, but there's no denying that the trilogy goes out with a cosmic bang instead of the whimper that many expected. Picking up precisely where The Matrix Reloaded left off, this 130-minute finale finds Neo (Keanu Reeves) at a virtual junction, defending the besieged human enclave of Zion by confronting the attacking machines on their home turf, while humans combat swarms of tentacled mechanical sentinels as Zion's fate lies in the balance. It all amounts to a blaze of CGI glory, devoid of all but the shallowest emotions, and so full of metaphysical hokum that the trilogy's detractors can gloat with I-told-you-so sarcasm. And yet, Revolutions still succeeds as a slick, exciting hybrid of cinema and video game, operating by its own internal logic with enough forward momentum to make the whole trilogy seem like a thrilling, magnificent dream. -- Jeff Shannon

Description

Provocative Futuristic Action Thriller. The Matrix Revolutions marks the final explosive chapter in the Matrix trilogy.

DVD Features:
DVD ROM Features:Links to The Matrix Online promo site and the official Matix website
Documentaries:REVOLUTIONS RECALIBRATED: The making of the final chapter of The Matrix trilogy, including a segment on Neo Realism: The Evolution of Bullet Time
Documentary:CG Revolution: The incredible special effects arsenal, including the segment Super Big Mini-Models
Featurette:SUPER BURLY BRAWL: Behind the final Neo/Smith showdown, including the segments Double Agent Smith and Mind Over Matter: The Physicality of The Matrix
Other:BEFORE THE REVOLUTION: A 3-D Matrix timeline FUTURE GAMER: THE MATRIX ONLINE: an introduction to the massively mulit-player game
Photo gallery:3-D EVOLUTION: Multidimensional stills gallery
Theatrical Trailer

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Waking Life
Starring: Louis Black , Julie Delpy , Adam Goldberg , Charles Gunning , and Ethan Hawke
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
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ASIN: B00005YU1O
Release Date: 2002-05-07

Amazon.com

Waking Life is a film that never settles down. Or maybe it never wakes up. Regardless, Richard Linklater's animated meditation seems to strike a perfect balance between the plotless meanderings of Slacker and the unquenchable knowledge-seeking of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Any way you look at it, this is a weird, original movie.

As he attempts to figure out what separates dreams from reality, the protagonist (Dazed and Confused's Wiley Wiggins) hears an earful from everyone he stumbles upon. Ramblings range from the scholarly (Linklater's former college professor Robert C. Solomon gives a monologue) to the banal (of which there are plenty). Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Steven Soderbergh, and Adam Goldberg all get animated cameos, basically playing themselves. The dream-centered dialogues eventually grow mind-numbing, but that's OK; the animation steals the show. Each frame of the movie, which was first shot with live actors, was painted over, and the process renders a distorted and trippy collage of sights and sounds. Linklater's film is ultimately quite poignant, but, as with any good journey, you'll need to sit through some fairly tedious moments before reaching the destination. --Jason Verlinde

Description

From the director of Slacker and Dazed and Confused comes one of the most imaginative animated features ever made. This funny, ingenious film, which Rolling Stone Magazine calls "nothing short of amazing," explores the fascinating question: "Are we sleep-walking through our waking state or wake- walking through our dreams"? Join Wiley Wiggins as he searches for answers to lifes most important questions in a world that may or may not be reality in the "most visually alive movie of the year." (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times)

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Contact
Starring: Jena Malone , David Morse , Jodie Foster , Geoffrey Blake , and William Fichtner
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: 0790733226
Release Date: 1997-12-30

Amazon.com

The opening and closing moments of Robert (Forrest Gump) Zemeckis's Contact astonish viewers with the sort of breathtaking conceptual imagery one hardly ever sees in movies these day--each is an expression of the heroine's lifelong quest (both spiritual and scientific) to explore the meaning of human existence through contact with extraterrestrial life. The movie begins by soaring far out into space, then returns dizzyingly to earth until all the stars in the heavens condense into the sparkle in one little girl's eye. It ends with that same girl as an adult (Jodie Foster)--her search having taken her to places beyond her imagination--turning her gaze inward and seeing the universe in a handful of sand. Contact traces the journey between those two visual epiphanies. Based on Carl Sagan's novel, Contact is exceptionally thoughtful and provocative for a big-budget Hollywood science fiction picture, with elements that recall everything from 2001 to The Right Stuff. Foster's solid performance (and some really incredible alien hardware) keep viewers interested, even when the story skips and meanders, or when the halo around the golden locks of rising-star-of-a-different-kind Matthew McConaughey (as the pure-Hollywood-hokum love interest) reaches Milky Way-level wattage. Ambitious, ambiguous, pretentious, unpredictable--Contact is all of these things and more. Much of it remains open to speculation and interpretation, but whatever conclusions one eventually draws, Contact deserves recognition as a rare piece of big-budget studio filmmaking on a personal scale. --Jim Emerson

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The Bridges of Madison County
Starring: Michelle Benes , Brandon Bobst , Art Breese , Annie Corley , and Pearl Faessler
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Out of Africa
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Sophie's Choice

ASIN: 0790729369
Release Date: 1997-03-26

Amazon.com

Some called it a snooze-fest, while others tearfully clutched their Kleenex. In any case, Clint Eastwood was an unusual and (as it turned out) perceptive choice to direct and costar in this lush adaptation of Robert James Waller's phenomenally bestselling novel. Meryl Streep costars as Francesca, the lonely Iowa farmer's wife who is instantly attracted to Robert (Eastwood), the photographer from National Geographic who is in the area to photograph the bridges along Iowa's rural roadways. The two fall in love while Francesca's husband and children are away at a county fair, but the story's passion and lasting appeal derive from their decision to part forever after just a few brief days of intimate connection. Superbly acted with an emphasis on quiet, graceful moments of tender revelation, the film builds to a crescendo of powerful and conflicting emotions. Like David Lean's Brief Encounter (to which it bears marked similarities), The Bridges of Madison County is destined to become one of the classic movie love stories. --Jeff Shannon

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The Heart of the Game
Starring: Ludacris , Joyce Walker (III) , Devon Crosby Helms , Maude Lepley , and Bill Resler
Director: Ward Serrill
Manufacturer: Miramax
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000LXGXX4
Release Date: 2007-02-27

Amazon.com

The Heart of the Game is, simply put, one of the most enjoyable and joyous documentaries ever made. For several years, the movie follows a girls' basketball team called the Rough Riders from a Seattle high school as they strive to win the state championship, and in the process discovers heart-wrenching twists of fate, vivid and compelling characters, colorful dialogue, and a nail-biting conclusion. The Heart of the Game starts with Bill Resler, a professor of tax law who agrees to become the head coach for the girls' basketball program at Roosevelt High School. He swiftly challenges the players with demanding drills and wild metaphors (each year he picks a different theme for the team, from "pack of wolves" to "tropical storm")--and the girls take him on, pulling together into a potent team. But when a girl from a poor neighborhood named Darnellia Russell joins the Rough Riders, her skill takes their fortunes even higher--until she unexpectedly has to quit. From there, the movie takes more and more compelling turns, carried along by the winning personalities of Bill and Darnellia. The Heart of the Game, like Hoop Dreams, works first as an exhilarating sports movie, but has a rich human story that will make it fascinating to people who don't care about basketball. First-time filmmaker Ward Serrill lucked out with the material, but he clearly labored to shape what must have been thousands of hours of footage into a taut, headlong movie. His labor paid off. See this movie. --Bret Fetzer

Description

Go courtside for a true-life rush like no other in this passionate and inspirational documentary in the same powerful tradition as HOOP DREAMS. Director Ward Serrill brings the camera up close and personal to capture the Roosevelt Roughriders girls' basketball team during six turbulent seasons, taking us far beyond the court. You'll meet Bill Resler, the tax professor turned hard-driving unorthodox coach who turns the team around — and Darnellia Russell, the talented inner-city tough girl who battles off-court threats to regain eligibility. You'll meet a real team full of drive, toughness and the unbridled desire to make history.

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The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Starring: Jon Voight , Ellen Burstyn , Jeff Daniels , Dagmara Dominczyk , and Steven Grayhm
Director: Lloyd Kramer
Manufacturer: Lions Gate
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Tuesdays with Morrie
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
ABC News presents Morrie Schwartz - Lessons on Living
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson
For One More Day

ASIN: B0006ZXJ3O
Release Date: 2005-02-08

Amazon.com

Based on the bestseller by Mitch Albom (Tuesdays With Morrie), The Five People You Meet in Heaven takes up where It's A Wonderful Life left off. In the Capra classic, George Bailey gets a vision of life without him. In this Hallmark Hall of Fame production, Eddie (Jon Voight), an amusement park maintenance man and war veteran, ends up in Heaven after an accident takes his life. There he meets five people from his past: the Blue Man (Jeff Richards), the Captain (Michael Imperioli), Marguerite (Dagmara Dominczyk), Ruby (Ellen Burstyn), and Tala (Nicaela and Shelbie Weigel). Each shows him how he impacted their life or they his--and not always for the better. (In these flashbacks, Callahan Brebner and Steven Grayhm play the young Eddie.) The point may seem simplistic--everyone is connected--but The Five People You Meet in Heaven finds a unique and engaging way to make it. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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Defending Your Life
Starring: Wil Albert , Sage Allen , Gary Beach , Roger Behr , and Beth Black
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Mother
Death Becomes Her
Heaven Can Wait
Real Life
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (WS)

ASIN: B000056WRG
Release Date: 2001-04-03

Amazon.com

Albert Brooks proves there's laughs after death with this almost heavenly comedy--almost heaven as in Judgment City, where recently perished Daniel Miller (Brooks) learns whether he is worthy of advancing to a higher plane of existence or will be sent back to earth for another incarnation.

His fate will be determined in a very special trial, during which scenes from his life are replayed on a giant screen. "Isn't it realistic?" a judge asks. "It makes some people nauseous." While the steely prosecutor (Lee Grant) will try to prove that Daniel failed in life to face his fears and insecurities, his glad-handing, reassuring defender (Rip Torn) will argue on behalf of this hapless "little brain" (a Judgment City term for residents of earth).

As Woody Allen did for the future in Sleeper, so does Brooks create an original vision of the afterlife. In Judgment City, white-robed residents can eat as much as they want without guilt or fear of gaining weight. They can also visit the Past Lives Pavilion, where they are greeted by a hologram of--who else--Shirley MacLaine.

Daniel finds himself touched by an angel. Meryl Streep gives an enchanting performance as Julia, whose exemplary life is in stark contrast to his. During her trial, the court watches in rapture as she saves not only children, but a cat from a burning building.

Daniel and Julia are a match made in Judgment City, but first Daniel must summon up the courage to express his true feelings for her, or she will surely advance without him.

Defending Your Life is Brooks's most ambitious film and, with Mother, his most accessible. --Donald Liebenson

Description

Immediately following his death by bus, Daniel finds himself in the afterlife facing his past. If you can't make a case for having lived a full and fearles

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In 1994, director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life) made Before Sunrise, a gorgeous poem of a movie about two strangers (played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) wandering around Vienna, talking, and falling in love. Ten years later, Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy have returned with Before Sunset, which reunites the same characters after Hawke has written a book about that night. Delpy appears at the final book reading of his European tour; they have less than two hours before Hawke has to catch a flight to New York...and in that time, they walk around Paris, talk, and fall in love all over again. It sounds simple, perhaps dull, but it's written with such skill and care and acted with such richness that it's a miracle of filmmaking. On its own, Before Sunset is moving and wonderful; seen right after Before Sunrise, it will break your heart. --Bret Fetzer

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