April DVD Releases

Adam Sandler stars in this Disney family comedy. He plays the main character Skeeter, a maintenance man in an upscale hotel. While his sister (Courteney Cox) is out of town, he baby-sits her two kids and their pet guinea pig Bugsy. He tells the children bedtime stories about things like Old West cowboys, a battle in outer space and a chariot race in the ancient world, and the stories are shown coming to life on the screen. Also, Skeeter gets into a rivalry with the hotel manager (Guy Pearce), and he becomes romantically attracted to his sister's pretty friend (Keri Russell).

Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway star in this lightweight comedy. Liv (Hudson), an attorney, and Emma (Hathaway), a schoolteacher, have been best friends since childhood, and both always dreamed of getting married at New York's Plaza Hotel. As luck would have it, each woman decides to marry her boyfriend at about the same time, and each begins to arrange for her lavish dream wedding. But due to a scheduling snafu, only one of the ceremonies can take place at the Plaza. That's when the former best friends become mortal enemies, with each woman trying to torpedo the other's plans.

Four actors received Academy Award nominations for their performances in this drama: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis. Also, for transposing his own hit stage play to the screen, John Patrick Shanley got an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. The story is set in 1964 at a Catholic church and school in the Bronx. The straitlaced principal, Sister Aloysius (Streep), comes to believe that likable Father Flynn (Hoffman) is behaving inappropriately with a troubled 12-year-old male student, but the evidence is ambiguous.

Nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, this historical drama is based on a true story. Among the film's other Oscar nominations are Best Director (Ron Howard), Best Actor (Frank Langella) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Morgan working from his own stage play). The story is about the 1977 confrontation between British TV personality David Frost (Michael Sheen) and former President Richard Nixon (Langella). Frost risked his own money in hopes of rejuvenating his floundering career, while the disgraced Nixon was seeking absolution.

Cute canines are the stars of this family comedy based on the children's novel by Lois Duncan. The main human characters are 16-year-old Andi (Emma Roberts) and her 11-year-old brother Bruce (Jake T. Austin). Orphans living with foster parents in a place where dogs are not allowed, Andi and Bruce shelter their pet Jack Russell in an abandoned hotel. The siblings expand their project by taking in a whole bunch of stray pooches, and Bruce, who is a mechanical genius, automates caring for the dogs. Lisa Kudrow plays a foster mom, and Don Cheadle a social worker.

People who have a working knowledge of the story in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice will likely enjoy this lighthearted fantasy, which was originally seen as a three-hour, four-part British TV miniseries. Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) is a 21st-century Londoner with a boring job in a bank. With her unromantic, beer-guzzling boyfriend on her couch, a time portal appears in her apartment. Later, she goes through it and is transported to Pride and Prejudice's 19th-century Bennet household. Culture clash abounds as Amanda becomes embroiled with the Bennet family and Mr. Darcy.

Not to be confused with the 1946 Alfred Hitchcock classic, this is a 2009 biopic about the 1990s hip-hop artist known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G. In the movie, Biggie is played as a youth by his real-life son, but as an adult by Jamal "Gravy" Woolard. His mom is portrayed by Angela Bassett. Biggie grew up in Brooklyn and became a street drug dealer. But he began rapping and his demo tape was heard by record producer Sean "Puffy" Combs (Derek Luke). Biggie became famous, but at age 24 he was killed in a drive-by shooting. The film has a strong soundtrack.

This is a reimagining of the 1951 sci-fi classic with Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, the old Michael Rennie role, and Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, played by Patricia Neal in the original. The story remains more or less the same, featuring the landing of a massive spaceship containing Klaatu and a robot called Gort. But this time around, the aliens are upset because humankind is destroying the Earth ecologically. John Cleese now plays Prof. Barnhardt, winner of a Nobel Prize in altruistic biology, and Kathy Bates portrays the US Secretary of Defense. Jaden Smith plays Helen's stepson.

Kate Winslet won a Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in this drama, and the film was nominated for four additional Oscars including Best Picture. A faithful adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel, the movie takes place in Germany from 1958 to 1995. The story centers on the relationship between Hanna Schmitz (Winslet) and Michael Berg (played as a young man by David Kross, as an older man by Ralph Fiennes). At age 15 Michael has a sexual relationship with the 30-something Hanna, but she disappears and years later he finds her on trial for war crimes.

Based on the old comic strip by Will Eisner, this movie was written and directed by Frank Miller and stars Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johannson. The Spirit (Macht) is a masked crime-fighter in Central City. He was once a cop named Denny Colt who was killed, but was reincarnated with the ability to recover from any injury. The villain is the malevolent Octopus (Jackson), who is seeking the Blood of Heracles, which can make him immortal. Other characters are the sexy Sand Saref (Mendes) and the Octopus' sidekick Silken Floss (Johannson).