Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Life Before Her Eyes

  • Based on the novel by Laura Kasischke, this powerful drama, starring Uma Thurman, unfolds in out-of-sequence flashbacks. Recklessly hedonistic teenager Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) and her best friend, a Christian virgin (Eva Amuri), come face to face with a machine-gun-wieldingmate one morning at school in a situation reminiscent of Columbine. Thurman plays the grown-up version of Diana, who has a pe
Firefighter Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) finds his life turned upside-down when his fiancée suddenly calls off their pending nuptials per the recommendation of radio love guru Dr. Emma Lloyd (Uma Thurman). Determined to get back at this "love doctor," Sullivan forges a fake marriage license, "accidentally" marrying him to Emma,who's already engaged to Richard (Colin Firth). But as Patrick's charms begin to wear Emma down, she must decide which of these bachelors is her "Mr. Right." Also s! tarring Sam Shepard, Justina Machado and Isabella Rossellini in this romantic comedy that proves even the experts need to learn a few love lessons now and then.Doctor, heal thyself! That's the wry message underscoring the charming romantic comedy The Accidental Husband, which features Uma Thurman as Emma, a radio "love doctor" who can't quite seem to manage her own love life off the air. The cast is splendid, led by Thurman, who has rarely gotten to show her comic chops, and who really is very funny and has a gift for physical comedy as well. The two bachelors whose lives are accidentally (on purpose?) entangled with hers are played by two dreamboats, Jeffrey Dean Morgan (rugged firefighter Patrick) and Colin Firth (her fiancé, Richard). The chemistry between Emma and both suitors is crackling and captured well on film by director Griffin Dunne. Thurman, Morgan, and Firth are joined by a supporting cast every bit as spot-on as they are: Sam Shepard, Brooke Adams, Is! abella Rossellini, Sarita Choudhury, and Keir Dullea, each of ! whom bri ngs his or her own quirks and charms. The Accidental Husband is very much in the mode of Four Weddings and a Funeral and the Bridget Jones films--which is to say, make a date with it for your next date night. --A.T. HurleyImaginative, impetuous and wild Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) can t wait for her adult life to begin. Diana test her limits as her more conservative friend Maureen (Eva Amurri) watches with concern. But Diana s aura of invincibility is shattered when a moment of life and death decision-making forever changes the lives of the two best friends.

Dinner With Friends

  • From the director of "Moonstruck" comes a movie about food, fun, and infidelity. Gabe and Karen. Beth and Tom. Four close friends, two great couples. Married for 12 years, they planned on eating, drinking, and parenting their way into old age together. But when Gabe and Karen host a dinner to try out some new recipes on their best friends, only one arrives, bringing news that will test their frien
This funny and touching story centers on Kate a forty-year-old respectable and successful headmistress in a small English village who gets together with her single friends Molly a doctor and Janie a local police detective every Monday to drink eat chocolate and decide who is the Saddest of the Week. Things start to turn displeasing between the three friends when Kate begins an affair with Jed a sexy 25-year old ex-pupil and is no longer the Saddest of the Week!System Requirements: Running Time 122 M! inFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: R UPC: 043396079021 Manufacturer No: 07902At first Crush seems to be merely the latest film to portray a clique of boozy, trash-talking women as part of a larger, liberated sisterhood worthy of celebration if not admiration. The lighthearted comedy abruptly detours, however, to expose vicious jealousies with brutal, unexpected consequences. A trio of single women in their 40s, Kate, Janine, and Molly (Andie MacDowell, Imelda Stanton, and Anna Chancellor) engage in a weekly ritual of gin, cigarettes, and joyous male sniping that despite its occasional glimpses of bare insecurity is all good "girl" fun. But when Kate, headmistress at the local school, takes up with a former student (Kenny Doughty) nearly 20 years younger and falls wildly in love, her closest friends, rather than embrace a true departure from social mores, plan instead to sabotage Kate's happiness and bring her to her senses. In one of the most ine! xplicable twists you're likely to see in a comedy, Janine and ! Molly's ploy takes an unexpectedly lethal turn, and Crush goes from amusing, if predictable, to downright nasty, and then back to end on a happy note. The effect is provocative, though perhaps unintended. --Fionn Meade Danger lurks around every corner of the world, yet nothing can stop Bessie Faro (Andie MacDowell, Four Weddings and a Funeral) from putting together the puzzle of her husband Johnnys (Viggo Mortensen, The Road) unexpected deathand secret life. While taking care of his arrangements, Bessie meets a seemingly trustworthy stranger (Liam Neeson, Unknown) and learns that Johnny has stashed a small fortune in bank accounts across the world. As she sets out to hunt down the money, Bessie soon discovers that the only thing more treacherous than liescan be finding out the truth.AT RISK introduces Win Garano (Daniel Sunjata), the rising star of the Massachusetts State Police, when D.A. Monique Money Lamont (Andie MacDowell)! sends him to Tennessee to investigate a cold case that took place more than 20 years before. The calculating Monique thinks she has found the perfect murder to showcase her new crime initiative and Win has no choice but to follow her lead. With the help of his colleague Sykes, Win follows the evidence as it leads him to a killer in Knoxville, and then all the way back to Boston and a crime that hits much closer to home.DINNER WITH FRIENDS - DVD MovieDirected by Norman Jewison and adapted by Donald Margulies from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this acclaimed HBO production offers a welcome antidote to the superficiality of mainstream Hollywood. With the same attention to emotional detail that he brought to Moonstruck, Jewison establishes a delicate balance of anguish and bittersweet humor, reaching peak intensity as two couples confront the aftershocks of infidelity. Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell play the steady pair, committed to surviving every marital ! peak and valley. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette are splitting! up, div ided by his infidelity and forced to reevaluate connections to their long-term friends. While Jewison and cinematographer Roger Deakins expertly translate the stagy material, the revealing, nonjudgmental quality of Margulies's dialogue inspires excellence from this quartet of underrated actors. Funny, painful, and full of truth, Dinner with Friends presents marriage as an organic work in progress, never to be taken for granted, and never guaranteed. --Jeff Shannon