Category Archives: DVDs

“The Day The Dinosaurs Died” investigates the greatest vanishing act in the history of our planet

Reflecting NOVA’s unparalleled 44-year-old commitment to long-form science programming, this installment examines the latest evidence surrounding one of the greatest mysteries in Earth’s history–the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs.  Through interviews, footage of scientists working at sites around the world and stunning digital recreations of events from 66 million years ago,  NOVA: The Day the Dinosaurs Died vividly brings to life the compelling scientific inquiry around this epic catastrophe.

PBS Distribution releases the program on DVD March 20.  It is also available for digital download.

At the end of the Cretaceous Era, after 170 million years of dominance, more than 700 species of dinosaurs disappeared from the fossil record virtually overnight.  In the 1980s, the hypothesis emerged that an asteroid impact was the catalyst.  But the supporting evidence, including the exact nature of the global chain reaction an asteroid impact may have initiated, has been slowly emerging over decades.  The Day the Dinosaurs Died details the efforts of scientists to flesh out what happened in the days and weeks after the asteroid impact.  Will they find the smoking gun that provides definitive proof?

The program visits an unprecedented, multidisciplinary scientific expedition to drill into the Chicxulub Crater site off the coast of Mexico, the leading suspect for the impact site.   It also travels to South Dakota, Argentina and other sites where paleontologists hunt fossils.  Finally, the program visually reconstructs the hell on earth–tidal waves, dust clouds, sudden mountain formation– that wreaked global havoc and doomed the dinosaurs.

“All the Money in the World” proves why Christopher Plummer really deserved the naked golden man known as Oscar

I still think Christopher Plummer should have won the Oscar for his marvelous performance as billionaire J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World. He got to work a little more than a month  before the film’s theatrical release; Plummer replaced Kevin Spacey after KS made some nasty headlines over his love for young boys. (The recasting tale in told in one of the Blu-ray and DVD’s extras, “Recast, Reshot, Reclaimed”.

All the Money in the World follows the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III (played by Charlie Plummer) and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother Gail (Michelle Williams) to convince his billionaire grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom. When Getty Sr. refuses, Gail attempts to sway him as her son’s captors become increasingly volatile and brutal. With her son’s life in the balance, Gail and Getty’s advisor (Mark Wahlberg) become unlikely allies in the race against time that ultimately reveals the true and lasting value of love over money. Just to be safe, the film is advertised as being “inspired by historical events. Certain scenes, characters and dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.”

This Oscar-nominated thriller makes its eagerly awaited home entertainment debut with must-own bonus features, including eight deleted scenes and three featurettes inspired by the true events of this shocking tale and an inside look at its already-legendary production.

Join director Ridley Scott and the cast and crew as they discuss the fast-paced and exciting way Scott filmed this epic movie–including looks into the wardrobe, locations and score- in “Ridley Scott: Crafting a Historical Thriller.” In “Hostages to Fortune: The Cast,” hear from the award-winning cast as they share the research they did to connect to their real-life characters. Finally, go behind the scenes of this unprecedented film’s production with “Recast, Reshot, Reclaimed,” which offers an inside look at the urgent recasting of the character J. Paul Getty, a little over a month before the movie’s theatrical release.

The Harlem crime saga “Honor Up” comes to Blu-ray and DVD

It’s a violent flick, but not a boring one. Executive produced by Kanye West, Honor Up  is written and directed by Damon Dash and follows the character OG, played by Dash, who is torn between his dedication to his family and honoring his street code.

The film also stars rappers Cam’ron, Murda Mook, Blackface and Smoke DZA, and features an appearance by Nicholas Turturro. Dash stars as OG, a drug lord’s lieutenant struggling to maintain the code of honor—protect the family—within his unruly crew after a Harlem shootout. Also featuring Stacey Dash, this film reveals a deadly underworld where beats pound as bullets fly, and even outlaws must live by the code.

The Harlem crime saga arrives on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital April 17 from Lionsgate. The film is currently available On Demand.

THE SOUNDTRACK TO “CHARLOTTE’S WEB” COMES TO LIFE ON Varèse Sarabande

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.” 
― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
Every time we read the book or watch the animated film (yes, the book is much better;  no wonder it won the Newbery Medal from the American Library Association), we think of White’s genius and the web of life lessons he has woven.
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Varèse Sarabande has just released the first-ever CD of the film’s soundtrack. The album features original songs and lyrics by the legendary duo of Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, with performances by the film’s stars Debbie Reynolds, Agnes Moorehead and Paul Lynde. GayS relish this trio: Paul was a major queen, and rumors still exist that Debbie and Agnes were long-time lovers.
The film was released in 1973. Young farm pig Wilbur (voiced by Henry Gibson) attempts to avoid a dire fate. Of all the barnyard creatures, Wilbur’s staunchest ally is Charlotte (voiced by Reynolds), a thoughtful spider who devises an intriguing plan to keep the gentle little swine out of the slaughterhouse. Although Charlotte’s efforts, which involve words written in her delicate web, seem far-fetched, they may just work.

Kendra relocates from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Oh no! Will her marriage survive? What about a seventh season?

Not every girl next door in a former Playboy model. Unless you’re Kendra W. Bassett. No, the “W” does not stand for “wonderful” but “Wilkinson”, her maiden name before she hooked up with and married her husband, Hank Bassett. He’s now making the transition from NFL football player to business man   and she’s balancing motherhood and her business ventures.

And so they star in Kendra on Top in, as some call it “the shocking reality series that follows America’s favorite reality queen.” In the upcoming Kendra on Top:  Season Six (MPI Media Group), Kendra relocates from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for a life-changing opportunity, one that could propel her career in a dynamic new direction.

But will her time away from her family and friends have a disastrous effect? And can her marriage to survive the distance?
Meanwhile, rumors of a tell-all book resurface, fracturing an already fragile relationship with her mother, Patti. When Kendra finds out, she’s forced to give her mother an ultimatum: Forget about writing the book or never see your grandchildren again.
The season culminates in a shocking reunion you’re going to have to see to believe. It’s all in the new double-DVD set of all 16 episodes of the hit reality show.

We now run toward the great news about a great city. And a great marathon.

We love that source known as “unknown”. And we often love his/her quotes. Like this one: “Running is nothing more than a series of arguments between the part of your brain that wants to stop and the part that wants to keep going.”

We now run to tell you about a great new First Run Features film, that honors a city and its historic marathon. From its humble origins 120 years ago to the present day, Boston immerses the viewer into the wondrous kaleidoscope of the oldest annually contested marathon in the world.

Evolving from a workingman’s challenge to welcoming foreign athletes and eventually women, the iconic race
played no small part in paving the way for the
modern marathon and mass participatory sports.

Narrated by Oscar winning Boston native Matt Damon, Boston features many of running’s greatest champions including Shalane Flanagan, Meb Keflezighi, Bill Rodgers, Frank Shorter and Joan Benoit Samuelson.

The documentary pays such homage to Boston that its Executive Produced is  Academy Award nominee and Boston Marathon competitor Frank Marshall; its original soundtrack was recorded by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Face it: I will come in last. Boston (the city and documentary) always comes in first.

“Slavery and the Making of America” is a must-see, must-own piece of history

Black History Month is winding down, but there’s one more PBS Distribution program that is a must-see, must-own DVD.  Slavery and the Making of America, produced by THIRTEEN/WNET New York, is a landmark series documenting the history of American slavery from its beginnings in the British colonies through the years of post-Civil War Reconstruction.  The program examines the integral role slavery played in shaping the new country’s development, challenging the long held notion that it was exclusively a Southern enterprise.

Through the remarkable stories of individual slaves, the program offers fresh perspectives on the slave experience and testifies to the active role that Africans and African Americans took in surviving their bondage and shaping their own lives.

Tirelessly leading the fight for racial and labor justice, Dolores Huerta has evolved into one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century

She is one of the most important, yet least known activists of our time. Tirelessly leading the fight for racial and labor justice, Dolores Huerta evolved into one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century—and continues the fight to this day, at 87.

With unprecedented access to this intensely private mother of eleven, Dolores (PBS Distribution) chronicles Huerta’s life from her childhood in Stockton to her early years with the United Farm Workers, from her work with the headline-making grape boycott launched in 1965 to her role in the feminist movement of the ’70s to her continued work as a fearless activist. Featuring interviews with Gloria Steinem, Luis Valdez, Hillary Clinton, Angela Davis, her children and more, Dolores is an intimate and inspiring portrait of a passionate champion of the oppressed and an indomitable woman willing to accept the personal sacrifices involved in committing one’s life to social change. The film is released March 27.

“In the 1970s, the national grape boycott that Dolores Huerta helped organize played out in the small rural Minnesota farming community where I grew up—supported by our Catholic church along with tens of thousands of religious organizations across the country,” says Lois Vossen, Independent Lens executive producer. “More than forty years later, Dolores is still an indefatigable architect for social change on behalf of poor, underrepresented people, urging them to seek self-determination with her refrain ‘Si Se Puede’ (‘Yes We Can’).”

It was in 1955 that she would meet a likeminded colleague, CSO Executive Director César E. Chávez. The two soon discovered that they shared a common vision of organizing farm workers and in 1962 they launched the National Farm Workers Association, which would evolve into the United Farm Workers and bring national attention to the conditions faced by farm laborers.

Dolores’s lobbying and negotiating talents helped secure Aid for Dependent Families (AFDC) and disability insurance for farm workers; she was also instrumental in the enactment of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which granted California’s farm workers the right to collectively organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions. While the farm workers lacked financial capital, they were able to wield significant economic power through hugely successful national boycotts. As their principal legislative advocate, Dolores became one of the UFW’s most visible spokespersons.

While directing the first National Boycott of California Table Grapes out of New York, Huerta met Gloria Steinem and was introduced to the burgeoning feminist movement which rallied behind the farm workers’ cause. Having found a supportive voice with other feminists, Huerta began to challenge gender discrimination within the farm workers’ movement.

At age 58, Dolores suffered a life-threatening assault while protesting against the policies of then-presidential candidate George Bush in San Francisco. Following a lengthy recovery, she began to focus on women’s rights, traversing the country on behalf of the Feminist Majority’s “Feminization of Power: 50/50 by the Year 2000” campaign which encouraged Latinas to run for office.

Dolores continues to work tirelessly developing leaders and advocating for the working poor, women, and children as founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in March of 2013 and has received numerous awards including The Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award from President Clinton in 1998, Ladies Home Journal’s “100 Most Important Woman of the 20th Century,” and nine Honorary Doctorates from U.S. universities. In 2012, President Obama bestowed Dolores with her most prestigious award, The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The real former NYPD officer tells his tale in “Frank Serpico”

In the early ’70s, one man stood up to the New York City police force. Hailed as a hero by many, hated by others, officer Frank Serpico made headlines when he blew the whistle on a culture of bribery and corruption within the department.
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His one-man crusade for police reform inspired the 1973 Al Pacino film that bears his name, but the real-life saga is as gripping as anything Hollywood could dream up.
Now, in Frank Serpico (IFC Films), Frank tells his story in his own words: From his Italian-American roots in Brooklyn to his disillusionment with the NYPD to his riveting account of a dramatic drug bust (and possible set-up)
that ended with him being shot in the face.
Featuring music by Jack White and interviews with Serpico’s associates and admirers, including writer Luc Sante and actor-filmmaker John Turturro, this is an inspiring, all-access portrait of a courageous man who refused to betray his ideals.
Save the date: Frank Serpico is released March 13.

“The Paris Opera” hits all the high notes when it comes to a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary

Sweeping in scope yet full of intimate moments, Film Movement’s The Paris Opera,  offers a candid look behind the scenes of one of the world’s foremost performing arts institutions. Over the course of one tumultuous season, director Jean-Stéphane Bron nimbly juggles multiple storylines, from ballet and opera rehearsals, to strike negotiations, last minute crises and ticket disputes, revealing the dedication of the talented personnel who bring breathtaking spectacles to the stage night after night.

 
It’s Autumn 2015 and, at the Paris Opera, new director Stéphane Lissner is putting the finishing touches to his first press conference.  Backstage, artists and crew diligently prepare to raise the curtain on a new season with Schönberg’s opera, Moses and Aaron.  However, the announcement of a strike and arrival of a 2000-pound bull in a supporting role complicate matters greatly.  As the season progresses, more and more characters appear, playing out the human comedy in the manner of a documentary Opera.  Enter promising young Russian singer, Mikhail Tymoshenko, who begins at the Opera’s Academy; in the hallways of Opera Bastille, his destiny will cross paths with that of Bryn Terfel, one of the greatest voices of his time.  And Lissner will have to weather star choreographer Benjamin Millepied jumping ship soon after taking over as director of ballet at Palais Garnier.  But when the terrorist attack at The Bataclan plunges the city into mourning, the company recognizes the show must go on.
And it does.