Saturday, November 5, 2011

Chasing Liberty

  • Condition: New
  • Format: DVD
  • Closed-captioned; Color; DVD; Widescreen; NTSC
While on a diplomatic trip to Europe with her parents, first daughter Anna (Mandy Moore) escapes the secret service and meets mysterious stranger Ben Calder, who also happens to be an undercover agent.Even when she's playing a girl with a head full of air in a plot full of holes, Mandy Moore manages to make Chasing Liberty wholesomely appealing. It's too bad that "wholesome," in this case, means frolicking around Prague, Venice, and Berlin as the U.S. President's daughter, eluding Secret Service agents, defying her second-term President father (Mark Harmon, totally miscast), and trusting complete strangers in a world where potential terrorism seems like nothing more than a pesky distraction. In other words, first daughter Anna Foster (Moore) is a complete idiot, oblivious to danger in a fluffy rom! antic fantasy that's part Roman Holiday (the good part) and part bubble-gum star vehicle. Don't blame Mandy for daring to shed her good-girl image; even her innocent skinnydipping scene was handled by a "butt double," and she's irresistible as she falls for the mutually smitten Secret Service agent (promising newcomer Matthew Goode) assigned to keep her out of harm's way. Another budding romance involving two bickering agents (Annabella Sciorra, Jeremy Piven) is perfunctory at best, but if you're looking for a picturesque, sweet-natured tour of Europe with a pair of likeable lovebirds, Chasing Liberty makes for a pleasantly brief vacation. --Jeff Shannon

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

  • The magical world of C.S. Lewis' beloved fantasy comes to life once again in PRINCE CASPIAN, the second installment of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA series. Join Peter, Susan, Edmund Lucy, the mighty and majestic Aslan, friendly new Narnian creatures and Prince Caspian as they lead the Narnians on a remarkable journey to restore peace and glory to their enchanted land. Continuing the adventure of T
The magical world of C.S. Lewis beloved fantasy comes to life once again in Prince Caspian, the second installment of The Chronicles Of Narnia series. Join Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy, the mighty and majestic Aslan, friendly new Narnian creatures and Prince Caspian as they lead the Narnians on a remarkable journey to restore peace and glory to their enchanted land. Continuing the adventure of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe with more magic and a brand-new hero, Prince Caspian! is a triumph of imagination, courage, love, joy and humor your whole family will want to watch again and again.More exciting than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian continues the movie franchise based on C.S. Lewis' classic fantasy books. The movie picks up where the first left off... sort of. It's been a year since the Pevensie children--Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley)--returned to England from Narnia, and they've just about resigned themselves to living their ordinary lives. But just like that, they're once again transported to a fantastical land, but one with a long-abandoned castle. It turns out that they are in Narnia again--and they themselves lived in that castle, but hundreds of years ago in Narnia time. They've been summoned back to help Prince Caspian (Stardust's Ben Barnes, resembling a young, cultured Keanu Reeves), the rightful heir to! the throne who's become the target of his power-hungry uncle,! King Mr az (Sergio Castellitto). And he's not the only one threatened: Mraz's people, the Telmarines, have pushed all the Narnians--the talking animals, the centaurs and other beasts, the walking trees--to the brink of extinction. Despite some alpha-male bickering, Peter and Caspian agree to fight Mraz alongside the remaining Narnians, including the dwarf Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) and the swashbuckling mouse Reepicheep (voiced by Eddie Izzard). (Also appearing is Warwick Davis, who was in Willow and the 1989 BBC Prince Caspian.) But of course they most of all miss the noble lion, Aslan, who would have never let this happen to Narnia if he hadn't disappeared. Prince Caspian is epic, evoking memories of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. (Some of the battle elements may seem too familiar, but they were in Lewis's book.) And it's appropriate for kids (Reepicheep could have come out of a Shrek movie), though the tone is dark and there is a lot of death, albeit bloodless. After two! successful films, Disney and Walden Media's franchise has proved successful enough that many of the characters are scheduled to return in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. --David Horiuchi




Stills from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Click for larger image)











Baby Geniuses/Superbabies: Baby Geniuses

  • DVD, Double Feature, Full Screen, Special Features
  • Sony Pictures, both movies 1:33 minutes each
DR. ELENA KINDER IS CONVINCED THAT ALL BABIES ARE BORN KNOWINGTHE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE. HER CAPTIVE STABLE OF BABY GENIUSESDON'T THINK ADULTS ARE READY FOR THAT INFORMATION AND SET OUT TOFOIL HER EVIL PLOT.When babies babble or draw, adults jokingly say they know what the baby is trying to communicate. What if a clinic found that these babblings and doodles were actually very intelligent responses or scribbling of an ancient form of communication? Well, it seems that all it would create is this tepid comedy. Kathleen Turner runs the clinic that believes babies have "universal knowledge" before they learn to speak (and dumb down). What she plans to do with this knowledge is never really understood, but know this: the plans are evil. The secret lives of babies have been pretty adorably fi! lmed previously with Look Who's Talking, but here the babies talk and move via visual effects like the animals in Babe. They also karate chop adults and talk about such adorable things as "diaper gravy." By the time the story (a variation of The Parent Trap) heats up (relatively speaking), there is not much left to engage us except some cute babies that just look odd as effects take over their mouths and movements. --Doug ThomasA SUPER-BABY WITH MYSTERIOUS POWERS COMES TO THE AID OF A NEW SET OF BRILLIANT TODDLERS IN THIS HIGH-ADVENTURE SEQUEL.When babies babble or draw, adults jokingly say they know what the baby is trying to communicate. What if a clinic found that these babblings and doodles were actually very intelligent responses or scribbling of an ancient form of communication? Well, it seems that all it would create is this tepid comedy. Kathleen Turner runs the clinic that believes babies have "universal knowledge" before they learn to ! speak (and dumb down). What she plans to do with this knowledg! e is nev er really understood, but know this: the plans are evil. The secret lives of babies have been pretty adorably filmed previously with Look Who's Talking, but here the babies talk and move via visual effects like the animals in Babe. They also karate chop adults and talk about such adorable things as "diaper gravy." By the time the story (a variation of The Parent Trap) heats up (relatively speaking), there is not much left to engage us except some cute babies that just look odd as effects take over their mouths and movements. --Doug ThomasDr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) is out to dominate the world. Two-year-old Sly is the only person in her way. Dr. Kinder and her partner in crime, Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd), have a covert research lab dedicated to cracking the code to a secret baby language. When Sly escapes from the lab, he joins his twin brother Whit in an effort to expose the nefarious plot. Raised by his uncle (Peter MacNicol), who cares! for special children, Whit is naive to the ways of the world, and is quickly captured by Dr. Kinder. Mistaken for Whit, Sly is taken back to his uncle, where he rallies the other foster babies into a Super commando rescue squad to invade the secret lab in an effort to squash Dr. Kinder's evil plot.When babies babble or draw, adults jokingly say they know what the baby is trying to communicate. What if a clinic found that these babblings and doodles were actually very intelligent responses or scribbling of an ancient form of communication? Well, it seems that all it would create is this tepid comedy. Kathleen Turner runs the clinic that believes babies have "universal knowledge" before they learn to speak (and dumb down). What she plans to do with this knowledge is never really understood, but know this: the plans are evil. The secret lives of babies have been pretty adorably filmed previously with Look Who's Talking, but here the babies talk and move via visual eff! ects like the animals in Babe. They also karate chop ad! ults and talk about such adorable things as "diaper gravy." By the time the story (a variation of The Parent Trap) heats up (relatively speaking), there is not much left to engage us except some cute babies that just look odd as effects take over their mouths and movements. --Doug ThomasBABY HUMAN - DVD MovieStudio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 03/30/2010