Let's take a look at the best new movies on DVD for December 2008.
1. 'Burn After Reading'
The Coen brothers wrote and directed this quirky comedy that stars Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton. Osborne Cox (Malkovich) loses his job at the CIA and begins to write his memoirs. His wife (Swinton) is having an affair with a US marshal named Harry Pfarrer (Clooney). But Harry gets a date with Linda Litzke (McDormand), a fitness center employee seeking money for cosmetic surgery. She and coworker Chad Feldheimer (Pitt) obtain Cox's memoirs, mistake them for secrets and try to sell them to the Russians.2. 'Ghost Town'
Ricky Gervais, Téa Leoni and Greg Kinnear star in this comedy. The main character is Manhattan dentist Bertram Pincus (Gervais), a bachelor with no friends. While having a routine colonoscopy, he has a near-death experience that leaves him with the ability to communicate with ghosts. The deceased have unfinished business, and they pester him to take care of it. One of the ghosts is Frank (Kinnear), who fears his widow, an Egyptologist named Gwen (Leoni), is about to make a bad marriage. As Pincus gets to know Gwen, he starts to fall for her.3. 'Horton Hears a Who!'
Dr. Seuss stories were the basis for the live-action movies How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat, but Horton Hears a Who! is an animated film from the makers of the Ice Age movies. Horton (voice of Jim Carrey) is an elephant in the jungle, and one day he hears voices coming from what looks like a speck of dust. On that speck is a town inhabited by creatures known as Whos. The mayor of the town is voiced by Steve Carell. The story is about the struggle to keep the Whos from being destroyed. Other actors heard are Carol Burnett, Will Arnett and Seth Rogen.4. 'Man on Wire'
This documentary centers on an audacious feat accomplished on August 7, 1974, when a Frenchman named Philippe Petit walked across a cable strung between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. (The film makes no reference to the destruction of the towers in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.) The cable was 200 feet long and at a height of 1,350 feet above the ground. The stunt was illegal and required months of preparation. Told through archival footage and photos, interviews and reenactments, the story unfolds like a thriller.5. 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian'
This fantasy film is the second based on the seven-part series of books written by C.S. Lewis. The earlier movie was 2005's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Between films, the four Pevensie siblings spend a year of their lives in England, but they return to Narnia to find that 1300 years have passed there. The lion Aslan (voice of Liam Neeson) is still around, but much has changed. An evil usurper is preventing the rightful king, Prince Caspian, from becoming ruler. An important new character is the Red Dwarf (Peter Dinklage). This time around, there are big battles.6. 'The Dark Knight'
In this sequel to Batman Begins (2005), Christopher Nolan is back as director, as is Christian Bale in the dual roles of the Caped Crusader and Bruce Wayne. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman reprise their roles from the earlier film, but Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Rachel was Bruce Wayne's longtime love, but she is now dating District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). But The Dark Knight is mostly about the battle of wills between Batman and the movie's creepy, demonic villain, the Joker (the late Heath Ledger).
