| by
Ivana Redwine
Here's a selection of new movies on DVD for November, 2005.
November
1, 2005 "Aliens
of the Deep"
This is a documentary from James Cameron about strange
creatures that live at the bottom of the sea. In its theatrical release, it played
in IMAX 3-D. Using hi-tech submersibles, the filmmakers photographed miles beneath
the surface in places where heat comes up through cracks in the ocean floor. There
the life forms operate by chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis. The documentary
speculates similar life forms may exist elsewhere in the universe, such as on
one of Jupiter's moons. "Millions"
Set
in Britain, this is one of those rare movies that can be enjoyed by both kids
and grownups. The story centers around a pair of brothers—one about eight,
the other about ten—whose mother has recently died. The boys and their father
move to a new suburban community, where the brothers find a bag containing 229,000
pounds in cash only days before the nation is to convert to euros. With good-natured
charm, the movie tells the tale of the boys' struggle in dealing with the money. "The
Perfect Man"
Hilary Duff, Heather Locklear and Chris Noth star in
this comedy. The main character is Holly (Duff), the teenage daughter of single
mom Jean (Locklear). Holly addresses the issue of her mom's search for the perfect
man by sending Jean flowers and emails, making it look as though they come from
a suitor. Holly bases the fictitious admirer on a friend's uncle (Noth), a restauranteur.
But Holly runs into problems when Jean becomes eager to meet the man she believes
is wooing her. "Star
Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"
Starring Hayden Christensen,
Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman, this is George Lucas's follow-on to "Star
Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones" (2002) and the prequel to the original
1977 "Star Wars" movie. In "Sith," Anakin Skywalker (Christensen)
and Padmé (Portman) have the twins who dominate the 1977-83 trilogy. Also,
Anakin transforms into Darth Vader and battles Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor), the
Republic becomes the Empire, and Yoda (voice of Frank Oz) is exiled.
November 8, 2005 "Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory"
Directed by Tim Burton, this whimsical
comedy is based on the book by Roald Dahl, as was the 1971 movie "Willy Wonka
& the Chocolate Factory," which starred Gene Wilder. This time around,
Willy Wonka is played by Johnny Depp, and young Charlie Bucket is played by Freddie
Highmore. Charlie is one of five lucky kids who are taken by the quirky Wonka
on a tour of his visually stunning chocolate factory, where they have wonderful
adventures. The film has entertaining musical numbers. "Christmas
With the Kranks"
Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis star in this holiday
comedy. Luther Krank (Allen) and his wife Nora (Curtis) are suburbanites who become
empty nesters when their daughter joins the Peace Corps. When the Kranks plan
to spend Christmas on a Caribbean cruise, their neighbors put pressure on them
to stay home and lavishly decorate. Then the daughter unexpectedly decides to
come home for the holidays, bringing her Peruvian boyfriend with her, and the
Kranks scramble to get the house ready. "The
Devil's Rejects"
This gruesome horror movie is writer-director Rob
Zombie's follow-up to his earlier "House of 1000 Corpses" (2003). "The
Devil's Rejects" takes place in the backwoods in 1978 and centers around
a family of sadistic killers that includes the clown-faced murderer Captain Spaulding
(Sid Haig) and his two adult offspring, Otis Driftwood (Bill Mosely) and Baby
Firefly (Sheri Moon Zombie). The homicidal trio goes on a torturing and killing
spree while they try to elude the sheriff and bounty hunters.
November 15,
2005 "Madagascar"
Celebrities
voice the principal characters in this computer-animated comedy. A lion (Ben Stiller),
a zebra (Chris Rock), a giraffe (David Schwimmer) and a hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith)
reside at New York's Central Park Zoo. They get out and are put on a ship bound
for Kenya, but they end up on Madagascar, the large island in the Indian Ocean
off the southeast coast of Africa. There they have a series of adventures among
lemurs (one of whom is voiced by Cedric the Entertainer). "The
Skeleton Key"
Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt and Peter Sarsgaard
star in this movie that centers around folk magic in the Louisiana bayous. Caroline
(Hudson) gets a job in an old plantation home taking care of a stroke victim (Hurt).
The victim's wife (Rowlands) gives Caroline a skeleton key that unlocks every
door but one. Soon Caroline senses there's something evil about the place, and
she sets out to learn what is going on. Sarsgaard plays an attorney who becomes
Caroline's confidant. "Stealth"
Josh
Lucas, Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx portray good-looking Navy fighter pilots in
this action movie. The trio is assigned to fly with a new pilotless fighter plane
known as Extreme Deep Invader (acronym EDI, pronounced like the name Eddie). But
EDI goes haywire, doesn't respond properly to commands, and begins doing foreign
military missions on "his" own. This leads to a crisis with the three
pilots called upon to stop the dangerous EDI, whose built-in artificial intelligence
makes "him" difficult to deal with.
November
22, 2005 "The
Honeymooners"
Cedric the Entertainer and Mike Epps star in this comedy
based on the 1950's television sitcom of the same name. The movie is generally
faithful to the spirit of the TV show except that the lead characters are African-American
instead of white. Thus, Cedric the Entertainer plays bus driver Ralph Kramden
(Jackie Gleason on TV), while Mike Epps takes the role of sewer worker Ed Norton
(Art Carney on TV). In the film, the guys' long-suffering wives are played by
Gabrielle Union and Regina Hall. "The
Polar Express"
Adapted from Chris Van Allsburg's children's book,
this animated movie is about kids taking a magical train to the North Pole to
meet Santa. The animation technique used involved filming humans moving about,
then digitally tweaking the results into something that looks rather like a photographed
series of drawings. Robert Zemeckis directed, and Tom Hanks played half a dozen
roles. During this movie's theatrical release, many people saw it in IMAX 3-D
format. "War
of the Worlds"
Steven Spielberg directed this sci-fi film, which stars
Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. The story originated in an 1898 H.G. Wells novel,
induced national panic when it was told in a 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcast,
and was made into a 1953 movie starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson (who appear
in the 2005 film as the grandparents). In Spielberg's version, a divorced father
(Cruise) struggles to save himself and his kids when Earthlings are terrorized
by extraterrestrial aliens.
November
29, 2005 "Deuce
Bigalow: European Gigolo"
This comedy is the sequel to "Deuce
Bigalow: Male Gigolo" (1999), and Rob Schneider is back as the title character,
a male prostitute whose clients are women. This time around Deuce gets in trouble
in Malibu and flees to Amsterdam to visit his pal, a pimp named T.J. Hicks (Eddie
Griffin). When a gigolo is murdered in the European city, Deuce tries to find
the killer by going out with a string of clients. Along the way, he meets a Dutch
police detective and falls for his obsessive-compulsive niece. "March
of the Penguins"
Morgan Freeman narrates this documentary, one of
the most popular of all time. Set in Antarctica, it's about the breeding cycle
of the emperor penguin, a flightless bird that in adulthood stands some three-and-a-half
feet tall and weighs around 75 pounds. To breed, the penguins waddle about 60
miles inland, pair off with a mate, incubate an egg and raise a chick in weather
many degrees below zero. In an earlier French version, penguins "talked"—voice-over
actors were used—but not in this Americanized version. "Mr.
& Mrs. Smith"
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie bring star power and
chemistry to this slick action movie that is darkly comic. Pitt and Jolie play
John and Jane Smith, a couple undergoing marital counseling who have never revealed
to each other that they are both contract killers. The story is set in motion
when John and Jane separately receive instructions to take out the same target.
Then as events unfold, they end up battling each other. But will the conflict
between the two skilled assassins rekindle their romance?
"Sky
High"
In this live-action Disney action-adventure comedy, Sky High
is a special high school that trains youngsters to be superheroes. When 14-year-old
Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano) becomes a freshman there, he is assigned to
the sidekick track, which doesn't sit well with his famous superhero parents (Kurt
Russell and Kelly Preston). But eventually Will's superpowers begin to emerge,
and when a serious threat is posed by super-villains, he does everything he can
to rise to the occasion and set things right.
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