DVD Title: The Illusionist
DVD Release Date: January 9, 2007
Starring: Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, Paul Giamatti, Rufus Sewell, Eddie Marsan
ASIN: B000K7VHQ4
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DVD Review: This elegant fable of art, love and politics is set in Vienna circa 1900. Eisenheim is a poor young boy who loves magic, he falls in love with Sophie, a beautiful girl from a class far above his own. Pulled apart by her parents, the young man left Austria to explore the world. He returns years later to Vienna as “The Illusionist.” By astonishing audiences he becomes a people’s hero, such that he is suspected of fomenting a “spiritual republic.” This puts him in direct conflict with the powers of the Austro-Hungarian government, specifically Crown Prince Leopold, who happens to be engaged to Sophie.

DVD Review: This movie was pretty good, but it was misleading. It was not really about “The Black Dahlia” or a similar cautionary tale. “The Black Dahlia” mystery serves as a backdrop to two fictional homicide detectives, who become obsessed with the case. Their investigation leads them to ignore all the vice and despair around them. In that sense it is a stylish noir production.

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DVD Title: The Prestige
DVD Release Date: February 20, 2007
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, David Bowie
ASIN: B000LC55F2
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DVD Review: Set in London at the turn of the century, “The Prestige” tracks the spiraling game of one-upmanship played by two celebrity magicians who began their careers as co-apprentices and descended into a bitter rivalry. Their rivalry takes them both to the peak of their careers, but with terrible consequences.

DVD Title: Tsotsi
DVD Release Date: July 18, 2006
Starring: Presley Chweneyagae, Mothusi Magano, Israel Makoe, Percy Matsemela, Jerry Mofokeng.
ASIN: B000FC2FX8
Rating:
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DVD Review: “Tsotsi” is a fresh and vivid crime story set in South Africa. The film centers on Tsotsi and his group of aimless, destructive buddies. Tsotsi’s life of thievery and murder is thrown upside down when a carjacking episode leaves him caring for a young baby. Repressed memories of his own wretched childhood surface and watching the realisation of what he’s become dawn on him is powerful stuff.

DVD Title: L’ Enfant
DVD Release Date: August 15, 2006
Starring: Jérémie Rénier, Deborah Francois, Fabrizio Rongione, Jérémie Segard, Olivier Gourmet.
ASIN: B000G0O5IM
Rating:
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DVD Review: Bruno lives for the moment. Everything that falls into his possession is converted into hard cash. He is cold and detached from reality, a machine. His girlfriend, Sonia, is desperate to find anything to cling to, and wont let go no matter how horrific their actions. “L’Enfant” is an investigation of the societal forces that create such misguided people, such overgrown children.

DVD Title: Cache (Hidden)
DVD Release Date: June 27, 2006
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Benichou, Annie Girardot, Lester Makedonsky.
ASIN: B00000F7E6
Rating:
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DVD Review: The premise is fiendishly simple: A parisian couple Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) start receiving videotapes of their home from an anonymous stalker. Panicked reviewing of the tapes reveals no hint of who could be making them or how; in time, they’re joined by anonymous phone calls, crude drawings of bloodied figures and videos of other, equally significant locales. The film is a brilliantly sinister mystery fraught with guilt, deceit and denial.

DVD Title: The Squid and the Whale
DVD Release Date: March 21, 2006
Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, Halley Feiffer.
ASIN: B000CS464G
Rating:
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DVD Review: “The Squid And The Whale” is a terrific film exploring the fall-out from a mid-80s divorce. The way this film shows us the damage done to two young boys caught in the middle of this divorce is unblinking. Both boys suffer different kinds of psychological damage in the process of the family’s breakup. Although the story is told from the children’s point of view, it very revealing of the adults. This film has the ring of truth to it and it gets all the seamy little details right; the jealousy, the envy, the pain of loss, the petty disputes over property.

DVD Title: The Libertine
DVD Release Date: July 4, 2006
Starring: Johnny Depp, Samantha Morton, John Malkovich, Paul Ritter, Stanley Townsend.
ASIN: B000F7CECK
Rating:
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DVD Review: Johnny Depp delivers one of the best performances of his career in “The Libertine,” a gem from debut director Laurence Dunmore. Depp shines through the murky gloom of 17th-century England in this biopic about the little-known John Wilmot, aka the Earl Of Rochester, an unlikable man who somehow near the end wins almost everyone over.

DVD Title: Syriana
DVD Release Date: June 20, 2006
Starring: Kayvan Novak, George Clooney, Amr Waked, Christopher Plummer, Jeffrey Wright.
ASIN: B000F7CMRM
Rating:
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DVD Review: “Syriana” is an oil-based soap opera set against the world of global oil cartels. From writer/director Steven Gaghan, the Academy Award winning writer of “Traffic,” “Syriana” pushes the boundaries of political correctness. A potboiler of the most pressing kind, the film wraps itself unabashedly around the politics of the Middle East without passing judgment or standing on a soapbox.