Susan Granger’s DVD UPDATE for week of Friday, Dec. 3rd
Do you know who Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman are? Probably not. But I’ll bet you’ve sung “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from “Mary Poppins.” These – and many others – were written by two Disney songwriters, brothers who were estranged for years yet working together on a daily basis. Their intriguing story is told in “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story” – and it’s worth watching.
Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz team up in “Knight and Day,” a spectacular, stunt-filled escapade that careens to exotic locales around the globe as he kidnaps her for an exhilarating, if exhausting, thrill ride. “Cairo Time” is just the opposite: a leisurely-paced character-study, set in exotic Egypt with Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig.
Based on the true story of how a 17 year-old broke the Sicilian Mafia’s code of silence, “The Sicilian Girl” stars Veronica D’Agostino as Rita Atria, who risks her life to avenge the murders of her father and brother, and Gerard Jugnot as Paolo Borsellino, the brave Palermo judge who rises to the challenge of taking down The Family. And Danish director Refn’s “Valhalla Rising” is a brutally beautiful, pre-Christian Viking tale.
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” tells the somewhat incoherent tale of how, years ago, the magician Merlin battled with evil Morgana Le Fay, trapping her in a nested-doll-like container that’s been guarded ever since by his disciple (Nicholas Cage). Inadvertently, a 10 year-old who grows up to be a NYU physics nerd (Jay Baruchel) releases the evil spirit (Alfred Molina). This movie was one of the summer’s major disappointments.
Set in Sporks, Washington, the pointless, stale bloodsucker spoof “Vampires Suck” pairs Becca Crane (Jenn Proske), daughter of the local sheriff (Diedrich Bader), and Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter), parodying Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
PICK OF THE WEEK: HBO’s dynamic made-for-television movie “The Special Relationship” focuses the close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical ties between Great Britain and the United States with dazzling performances by Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, Dennis Quaid as Bill Clinton and Hope Davis as Hillary Clinton.