Will Smith stars in this film with a bewildering dramatic structure where the viewer is not supposed to be able to grasp what's going on until late in the movie. Smith portrays a man named Thomas who injects himself into the lives of several people, including a blind, piano-playing salesman (Woody Harrelson) and a woman (Rosario Dawson) who needs a heart transplant. It eventually emerges that Thomas has done something in the past for which he seeks atonement. The second word in the film's title is a reference to Shakespeare's
The Merchant of Venice.
Winner of eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, this is an energetic, exhilarating melodrama set in Mumbai. It's a Dickensian rag-to-riches tale filled with color, movement and Oscar-winning music. The protagonist is an orphan named Jamal, who becomes a contestant on
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Shots of him on the TV show are intercut with those of him undergoing a brutal interrogation, while flashbacks reveal his youth in the slums. Jamal's brother and girlfriend are also key story elements, and three different actors portray each of the main characters.
Jason Statham stars in this actioner, the follow-up to
The Transporter (2002) and
Transporter 2 (2005). Statham reprises his role as Frank Martin, the man who transports anything for clients with no questions asked. This time around, his item to be delivered turns out to be a freckled Ukranian babe named Valentina (Natalya Rudakova). Both Frank and Valentina end up wearing bracelets that will explode if they get more than 75 feet from his Audi. But as always, the movie is about car chases and fight sequences. The film's director goes by the interesting name Olivier Megaton.
A series of novels about vampire romance by Stephenie Meyer has sold millions of copies and is now being adapted to the screen. Based on the first book, this movie was directed by Catherine Hardwicke. The main character is Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a 17-year-old girl who relocates from Phoenix to the small town of Forks, Washington. There she meets and falls for the handsome Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), but he is a vampire. He and his family consume only animal blood, but he finds humans tempting, which means he must be very careful about his attraction to Bella.
This DVD contains short films that are companion pieces to the 2009 movie Watchmen[/i]. In the graphic novel [i]Watchmen[/i] a kid reads a (fictional) comic book [i]Tales of the Black Freighter[/i], and the panels he sees are shown, interspersed with the main story. In the original release of the film [i]Watchmen[/i], the comic-within-the-comic was omitted, but this DVD contains an animated version of it in a drawing style imitating that in the graphic novel. "Under the Hood" is a mocumentary based on a (fictional) tell-all memoir by early costumed vigilante Hollis Mason (aka Nite Owl I).
