Will

on | dvd |
newreleasess
GONE
GO HOME WITH THE BRAVE ONE, AMERICAN GANGSTER OR THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB I BY MARNI WEISZ
FEBRUARY 5
ACROSS THE
UNIVERSE
STARS: Evan Rachel Wood,
Jim Sturgess
DIRECTOR: Julie Taymor
(Frida)
STORY: Taymor fought
hard to preserve her vision of this modern
musical in which the lead actors sing
Beatles tunes. The story follows British
dockworker Jude (Sturgess) who travels
to the States to find his dad and falls in
love with lovely Lucy (Wood) along the way.
DVD EXTRAS: two-disc Special Edition DVD
features eight extended musical
performances, five featurettes, director
commentary
THE JANE AUSTEN
BOOK CLUB
STARS: Emily Blunt,
Kathy Baker
DIRECTOR: Robin Swicord
(debut)
STORY: Five women and
one man form a book club to discuss
Jane Austen’s works and are surprised how
much the 200-year-old stories reflect their
own complicated love lives. DVD EXTRAS:
seven deleted scenes, commentary track,
“Character Deconstruction,” “The Life of
Jane Austen”
THE BRAVE ONE
STARS: Jodie Foster,
Terrence Howard
DIRECTOR: Neil Jordan
(Breakfast on Pluto)
STORY: A radio-show host
(Foster) turns vigilante
after being attacked in the park and
watching as her fiancé is beaten
to death by thugs. After learning
to use a gun she seeks out dangerous
situations and lets her trigger finger
mete out justice.
FEBRUARY 12
BECOMING JANE
STARS: Anne Hathaway,
James McAvoy
DIRECTOR: Julian Jarrold
(Kinky Boots)
STORY: Jane Austen fans
will have fun trying to spot
the events that influenced her books in this
biography of the early 19th-century writer.
Hathaway plays the title role with McAvoy
stepping in as her dangerous but devoted
suitor Tom Lefroy, whose countenance
bears a striking resemblance to a certain
Mr. Darcy. DVD EXTRAS: “Discovering the
Real Jane Austen,” pop-up facts and
footnotes, deleted scenes, director
commentary
WE OWN THE NIGHT
STARS: Joaquin Phoenix,
Mark Wahlberg
DIRECTOR: James Gray
(The Yards)
STORY: In 1980s New York,
a nightclub manager
(Phoenix) has to choose between the
drug-dealing gangsters who frequent his
business and his brother and father, both
cops, who want him to help bring the
criminals down. DVD EXTRAS: “Police
Action: Filming Cops, Cars and Chaos,”
“A Moment in Crime: Creating Late
’80s Brooklyn”
NO RESERVATIONS
STARS: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart
DIRECTOR: Scott Hicks (Hearts in Atlantis)
STORY: Kate (Zeta-Jones) is a top chef at a
trendy Manhattan restaurant. She’s also a
perfectionist who likes things done a
certain way. Then two things happen to
shake up her well-controlled life. Her sister
dies in a car accident and leaves her
daughter (Abigail Breslin) in Kate’s care,
and a rival chef with a completey different
attitude (Eckhart) comes to work for her.
famous 48 | february 2008
FEBRUARY 19
IN THE VALLEY
OF ELAH
STARS: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron
DIRECTOR: Paul Haggis (Crash)
STORY: When a soldier just back from Iraq
disappears from his New Mexico army
base, his father, a Vietnam vet (Jones),
takes it upon himself to investigate.
RENDITION
STARS: Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon
DIRECTOR: Gavin Hood (Tsotsi)
STORY: After her Egyptian-born husband
(Omar Metwally) goes missing on a flight
home from South Africa, a heavily pregnant
woman (Witherspoon) frantically searches
for answers, discovering that the CIA
believes he has terrorist links.
AMERICAN GANGSTER
STARS: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott (A Good Year)
STORY: Inspired by an article in New York
Magazine, this bio-pic traces the rise and
fall of Frank Lucas, an African-American
drug dealer who’s best known for
smuggling heroin into the States in the
coffins of Vietnam soldiers. Russell plays
detective Richie Roberts, trying to make
a case against Lucas.
FEBRUARY 26
THE DARJEELING
LIMITED
STARS: Owen Wilson,
Adrien Brody
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson
(The Royal Tenenbaums)
STORY: After their father
dies, three brothers (Wilson, Brody,
Jason Schwartzman) bond on a train trip
through India. Along the way they nearly
kill each other and have a life-changing
experience in a small village. DVD EXTRAS:
featurettes, “Hotel Chevalier” short film
Spotlight
BABY GONE
FEBRUARY 12
Well, he showed them.
Gone Baby Gone director
Ben Affleck has already been
tapped as 2007’s most
promising new director by
the National Board of Review,
Chicago Film Critics and
Boston Film Critics.
Ben can thank his little
brother Casey Affleck for
contributing to those accolades
via his understated performance
as private investigator
Patrick Kenzie, who’s struggling
to keep his head above water
after being given the toughest
case of his career.
When a four-year-old girl is
seemingly snatched from her
bed in a down-and-out suburb
of Boston, the girl’s aunt
(Amy Madigan) hires Kenzie
and his partner Angie Gennaro
(Michelle Monaghan) to
coax information out of the
neighbourhood’s cop-shy
toughs. The little girl’s mother
(Amy Ryan) is a drug runner
and an addict with a long list
of acquaintances capable
of harming her daughter.
Morgan Freeman plays the
police detective in charge
of the investigation, while
Ed Harris is a cop assigned
to liaise with Kenzie.
The script is based on a
Dennis Lehane novel, and the
movie has much in common
with that other movie based
THE ASSASSINATION OF
JESSE JAMES BY THE
COWARD ROBERT FORD
STARS: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck
DIRECTOR: Andrew Dominik (Chopper)
STORY: The newest member of Jesse James’
(Pitt) band of outlaws is Robert Ford
(Affleck), a young crook who idolizes the
legendary hold-up man, perhaps even
on a Lehane story, director
Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River.
They’re both tense, grimy,
twisty crime pics that take
place in Boston’s underbelly,
but Affleck’s pic has an
intimacy and authenticity that
famous 49 | february 2008
even Eastwood’s can’t match —
probably because Affleck is
from Boston.
In fact, the DVD’s bonus
material kicks off with “Going
Home: Behind the Scenes with
Ben Affleck,” a featurette that
wants to be him. Eventually, and inevitably,
their story rolls toward the fulfillment of
the film’s title as Ford seeks to have Jamestype
fame the only way he knows how.
30 DAYS OF NIGHT
STARS: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George
DIRECTOR: David Slade (Hard Candy)
STORY: If you were a vampire, where would
Casey Affleck as private
investigator Patrick Kenzie
Below: Morgan Freeman (left)
with Ben Affleck
includes a conversation with
both of the Affleck brothers.
Plus, there are the requisite
deleted scenes and Ben Affleck
teams with screenwriter
Aaron Stockard to provide
an audio commentary.
you go? To deepest, darkest Alaska, of
course, where for 30 straight days in winter
there is absolutely no daylight. Hartnett
plays the sheriff of Barrow, Alaska, charged
with saving his town from the descending
bloodsuckers. George plays his ex-wife, who
has to help him with the fight. DVD EXTRAS:
“The Vampire,” “Building Barrow,”
“The Look,” “Night Shoots”