Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, May 15:
Profound and emotionally stirring, “Taking Chance” chronicles Lt. Col. Michael R. Strobl’s (Kevin Bacon) experience as a military escort for a fallen Marine, 19 year-old Lance Corporal Chance Phelps, whose remains he accompanied home for burial; it bears witness to fallen heroes, paying homage to the silent, virtually unseen ritual and dignified ceremony that escorts provide all casualties.
Clad in leather with heavy metal hair, versatile actor Michael Sheen (“Frost/Nixon,” “The Queen”) stars in “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans,” a prequel to the “Underworld” movies, rewinding time to when the werewolves, or Lycans, led by Lucian (Sheen), rebelled against their vampire masters.
In “Personal Effects,” Ashton Kutcher is a rising star in the NCAA wrestling world until his sister is brutally murdered. Returning home to console his mother (Kathy Bates), he meets a beautiful mature woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) who complicates his desire for vengeance.
Directed by Charles Rand & T. Thomas, the documentary “Kill the Record Labels” features some of the hottest artists in hip-hop music expressing their views regarding the state of the industry, including 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Chamillionaire and more.
From British auteur Terence Davies comes “Of Time and the City,” a visual poem about the director’s life in Liverpool from 1945 to 1973; bonus features include background information and editing room interviews with Davies.
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved “A Little Princess” stars 12 year-old Amelia Shankley in the British mini-series first aired in the U.S. on PBS in 1987. The new deluxe set includes issues 1-6 of the ‘Gigantor’ comic book series from Antarctic Press, published in 2000.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Liam Neeson stars in “Taken” as a former government operative working as a L.A. security guard whose estranged 17 year-old daughter (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped in Paris. Rushing to her rescue, he discovers she’s being held by thugs from an Eastern European prostitution ring, and he has only 96 hours to find her before she vanishes forever into a sex slavery underground that’s seemingly propelled by Saudi oil sheiks. It’s an urgent, hyper-kinetic, pulse-pounding thriller.