DVDs For Parents

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Julie & Julia

Starring Meryl Streep in her Golden Globe® winning performance and Amy Adams - Written and Directed by Nora Ephron  - JULIE & JULIA

Blu-ray™ and DVD Extras Include the Behind-the-Scenes Featurette “Secret Ingredients: Creating Julie & Julia” and Commentary by Nora Ephron

Exclusive Blu-ray ™ Bonus Materials Feature a Tour of Julia Child’s Kitchen in the Smithsonian Institution, a look into Julia’s Off-Screen Life and Cooking Lessons from World Famous Master Chefs Including Julia Child

In Addition, the Blu-ray ™ Disc Features movieIQ, Which Allows Viewers to Access Some of Julia Child’s Recipes That Were Either Prepared or Mentioned in the Film

The Kitchen Heats Up on Blu-ray™ and DVD on 8th March 2010

Meryl Streep, Golden Globe® winner 2010: Best Actress in a Comedy-Musical (Julie & Julia), Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, and Chris Messina star in the delightfully delicious hit comedy Julie & Julia coming to Blu-ray™ and DVD on 8th March 2010 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Two women from different decades come together through their own true stories of culinary exploration when dissatisfied writer Julie Powell (Adams) decides to cook and blog her way through Julia Child’s (Streep) book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which launched Child’s career. Nora Ephron seamlessly melds the two remarkable, true stories into a comedy that proves that if you have the right combination of passion, obsession and butter, you can change your life and achieve your dreams.

Blu-ray and DVD special features include commentary by writer/director Nora Ephron and the behind-the-scenes featurette “Secret Ingredients: Creating Julie & Julia,” which features interviews with the cast and crew. The DVD also includes a cut-down version of the original cookbook, with all the recipes featured in the film and more.

A culinary legend provides a frustrated office worker with a new recipe for life in Julie & Julia, the true stories of how Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) life and cookbook inspired fledgling writer Julie Powell (Amy Adams) to whip up 524 recipes in 365 days and introduce a new generation to the magic of French cooking. Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) co-stars in director Nora Ephron’s delicious comedy about joy, obsession and butter. Bon appétit!

To see a trailer click on the link below:

Chance in a Millon

THE CLASSIC 80S SITCOM COMES TO DVD FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME!

“… hilarious anarchy… marvellous teamwork from Simon Callow and Brenda Blethyn…” – Sunday Times Chance In A Million, the classic 1980s series widely regarded as one of the best sitcoms of its day, comes to DVD for the very first time! Starring award-winning UK talent Simon Callow (Four Weddings And A Funeral) and Brenda Blethyn (Little Voice).

Follow Tom and his long-suffering girlfriend Alison through a series of bizarre and hysterical coincidences that make this series the fondly remembered gem that it is. Written and directed by Michael Mills (Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em), this series is one of the most eagerly anticipated series yet to be released on DVD. 

OUT TO BUY ON DVD – 1 MARCH 2010

RRP £19.99

Jimmy's Farm Series 1

ALL FOUR EPISODES OF THE HIT BBC SHOW PLUS ‘BACK ON JIMMY’SFARM’

“Winston Churchill once wrote, ‘An optimist sees an opportunity in everything.’ I think Churchill would have liked Jimmy Doherty.” – The Independent

28 year-old Essex boy Jimmy Doherty wants to be a pig farmer and make the best sausages money can buy. But he knows less about farming than pigs know about flying. The closest he’s been to animal husbandry is studying insects at university.

Undaunted, he’s chucked in city life, borrowed £55,000 and bought a derelict farm in Suffolk. His parents aren’t pleased. His girlfriend Michaela thinks he’s mad.

With the same engaging, laddish charm as his childhood friend Jamie Oliver, who also appears in the series, you cannot help but root for Jimmy in his bid to bring traditional farming and real food back to the nation.

OUT TO BUY ON DVD – 22 FEBRUARY 2010

RRP £19.99

Time Traveller's Wife

‘Your future is my past.  For you, none of it has happened yet, but for me…I’ve known you since I was six’. - Clare 

‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’, the wonderful romantic fantasy based on Audrey Niffenegger’s best-selling book about love between two people that transcends time, is released by Entertainment in Video on rental and retail DVD and Blu-ray on February 8.

Heading the cast of the film which took nearly £8 million at the UK box office are Rachel McAdams (‘Sherlock Holmes’; ‘The Notebook’; ’Wedding Crashers’) and Eric Bana (‘Hulk’; ‘Star Trek’; ‘Munich’) who play the two central characters Clare and Henry.

Co-starring with the pair are Arliss Howard (‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’); ‘Amistad’; ‘Natural Born Killers’). Ron Livingston (‘The Cooler’; ‘Adaptation’; ‘Office Space’) and Stephen Tobolowsky (‘Groundhog Day’; ‘Wild Hogs’; ‘Failure To Launch’). 

Henry is a time traveller. He is cursed with a rare genetic disorder called Chromosome Impairment which causes him to live his life on a shifting timeline.  Without warning he has an epileptic-type fit causing him to suddenly vanish and hurtle backwards and forwards through the years with no control.

The day Henry saw Clare for the first time, she had known him for years.  From the time she was a young girl he had been her best friend, confidante and not-so-secret crush. On his travels back in time, he had met the girl who would become his wife.

Life with Henry is not easy for Clare as she has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences but she believes they are destined to be together, even though she never knows when they will suddenly be separated and when they will be reunited.

Henry is the only true love she has ever known and she is desperate to build a life with him despite the fact that his travels will suddenly force them apart without warning.

‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ was directed by Robert Schwentke (‘Flightplan’) from a screenplay by Academy Award® winner Bruce Joel Rubin (‘Ghost’). 

Despite its title Robert Schwentke says his film is first and foremost a love story. “It is an emotional journey about two people in a relationship and the time travel is the catalyst for things that both strengthen and test their bond”, he explains. “You could argue that time travel is the thing that brought them together but it ultimately causes all sorts of conflicts”.

‘The Time Travelers’ Wife’ has a run time of approx 103 minutes and a 12 certificate.

Retail  DVD                   EDV9633                  £19.99                  

Blu-ray                           EBR5139                  £24.99

Bonus features

- DVD bonus:

• The Time Traveler’s Wife - Love Beyond Words
• Theatrical Trailer

- Blu-Ray bonus:

• An Unconventional Love Story
• The Time Traveler’s Wife – Love Beyond Words

Creation

Creation tells the remarkable story behind one of the most revolutionary theories known to humanity.  Paul Bettany (BAFTA Award ® Nominee: Master & Commander) plays the great scientist Charles Darwin at the pointin his life where his book “On the Origin of Species” has been written, but remains unpublished. 

A warm and loving family man, we see Darwin experience his theories first-hand as he battles against illness; his own and that of his beloved daughter, Annie (Martha West).  He is further torn by the compulsion to publish his revolutionary ideas and the potentially devastating effect they will have on society and in particular, his devoutly Christian wife, Emma (Jennifer Connolly).

Directed by Jon Amiel (BBC’s The Singing Detective) and adapted from Randall Keynes’ book Annie’s Box by John Collee (Master & Commander), Creation is a deeply moving and inspirational story about how one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known overcame all obstacles and created one of the most explosive ideas in history.

RRP: £17.99, available from 18th January 2010

To see a trailer click on the link below:

James May’s Toy Stories

Released exclusively by 4DVD

Best-known for his role on Top Gear as one of the three musketeers, James May embarks on a new mission of fun with the release of James May’s Toy Stories, available to own on Monday 7th December, courtesy of 4DVD.  Never one to turn down a challenge, James takes on some madcap toy adventures in a bid to get children out of their bedrooms and away from their playstations and parents re-embracing the child within. Priced £19.99

In six toy-tastic episodes that feature extraordinary feats of engineering, James takes time out with some of Britain’s best loved toys - putting generations of families at the heart of some ludicrously ambitions undertakings and reminding us all of the precious joys of creativity and quality family entertainment.  “For too long now we have regarded the great toys as mere playthings” said James. “It’s time to use them to bring people together and achieve greatness.  And I bet it’ll be a right laugh as well.” 

Taking on the biggest toy challenges of all time, James attempts to build the world’s first full-size house made of Lego, the world’s first Plasticine garden, the world’s biggest ever model plane, the world’s greatest model train set, a world record beating Scalextric track, and a life-size bridge made out of Meccano; did you expect anything less from our renowned caravan stunt man? Brick by brick- that’s 3.4 million bricks to be precise- we see James and 1200 volunteers work around the clock to build a magical two storey residence using the full array of Lego colours. 

Petal by petal, we witness the creation of Chelsea flower show’s first ever non-organic exhibit in its 150 years of history- that’s 1365kgs of Plasticine and 24 different colours.  Track by track, we can watch James build the world’s greatest model train by laying 16km of toy track along the old Barnstaple to Bideford seaside route in Devon.  From paint to glue to sanding, we watch in awe as the master of fun creates a full size model Spitfire spanning 11m, 8.8m long and 3.3m tall.  And finally, just in case these remarkable challenges haven’t got you racing to get down to the store, prepare for two hours of sheer genius as James and 350 volunteers build a world beating Scalextric track on what was the world’s first racetrack, and a life-size bridge made entirely out of Meccano - a world first! 

The DVD also includes outstanding deleted scenes and an exclusive interview with the charismatic James May, who reminds us all of the importance of family and imagination with this brilliant exploration of toys, putting batteries right back into the drawer.    

Emma

Emma is a fresh and witty adaptation of Jane Austen's comic masterpiece by award-winning writer Sandy Welch (Jane Eyre, North And South, Our Mutual Friend). Providing a rich insight into one of the author's most complexcharacters, Emma is spread over four hour-long episodes. This compassionate and humorous story of self-deceit and self-discovery is released on DVD from 30th November.

Romola Garai (Atonement, Vanity Fair) plays the beautiful, clever and rich Emma Woodhouse, a young woman who dominates her small provincial world of Highbury. Misguidedly believing that she is a skilled matchmaker, Emma repeatedly attempts to pair up her friends and acquaintances, often with regrettable consequences. Certain of her talents, she plays a dangerous game when she persuades her new friend, the young, pretty and socially inferior Harriet to reject an advantageous marriage proposal to a local farmer in favour of dashing Mr Elton. So begins a story which challenges Emma's naivety and her social preconceptions.

The stellar cast includes Jonny Lee Miller (Endgame, Byron), Michael Gambon (Harry Potter, Cranford), Tamsin Greig (The Diary Of Anne Frank, Green Wing), Robert Bathurst (Cold Feet) and Jodhi May (Einstein And Eddington, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard).

John Motson's World Cup Heroes and Villains

Released exclusively by 4DVD on 23rd November 2009, priced £19.99.

British broadcasting legend and all-round football expert John Motson takesus through his definitive list of World Cup Heroes And Villains. With England qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, John Motson's World Cup Heroes and Villains is a must for all football fans and is available to own on Monday 23rd November courtesy of 4DVD.

World Cup fever is here, and with every fan counting down the days to the biggest sporting event in 2010, World Cup Heroes and Villains is the perfect way to get even more excited! The voice of football and legendary commentator, John Motson, guides us through a celebration of the greatest goals and golden moments, as well as all the traumas and tribulations that can torment a nation.

John Motson is an institution whose commentaries are part of the fabric of football. Having one of the most recognisable voices, he has described thousands of goals, magic moments and heartbreaking decisions for 40 years. He is a national treasure and his reputation for statistic filled commentaries is a perfect vehicle for this compilation of his World Cup Heroes and Villains.

The DVD is the ultimate collection of the World Cup’s most talented performers, featuring:

• Pele and the brilliance of Brazil
• Maradona’s magic (and madness)
• The Dutch masters Cruyff and Bergkamp
• England’s finest from the boys of 66 through Gazza to the present day

With football being a game of two halves there are moments when the hopes and dreams of a nation are crushed by a moment of madness, the DVD also features:

• Zidane’s head butt
• Zaire conceding 9 in one game
• Aldo’s touchline tantrum
• Valderama’s bad hair days
• Scotland – virtually every campaign involving them has been a nightmare!

In addition to the best and the worst footballers, referees are not let off the hook as there are the worst sendings off, plus all those crazy fans, silly celebrations and the biggest tantrums going.

John Motson's World Cup Heroes and Villains has nine exciting sections that will make us cry with tears of joy and despair:

Section 1: Greatest Goals

Section 2: Red Mist, Red Cards and Referees

Section 3: Close Encounters

Section 4: Dodgy Defenders

Section 5: Keeper Classics and Clangers

Section 6:  The Beautiful Game: Shocks and Surprises

Section 7: Controversies and Conspiracies

Section 8: World Cup Crazy

Section 9 Heroes: the Beautiful Game: Fantastic Finals

MOON

Moon is set in the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job, made harder by a broken satellite that allows no live communications home. Taped  messages are all Sam can send and receive. What was so enjoyable about this film is that it pays homage to the 1970's golden age of science fiction,
the director Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie has) has done an excellent job with this one, with lots of references to that golden age with the main computer reminding you of HAL from '2001 A space Odesy' All in all its a thumbs up for 'Moon' and highly recommended for all those science fiction fans of yesteryear, lets hope that the 'style' that 'Moon' was shot in makes a come back.

By Nick McLean, Fife.

Starring Sam Rockwell and Featuring the Voice of Academy Award® winner Kevin Spacey in this Thrilling Sci-Fi Film

Available on Blu-ray™ High-Def and DVD on 16 November, 2009

A taut, psychological sci-fi film in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the critically acclaimed MOON debuts on DVD and Blu-ray Disc™ on 16 November, 2009, courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Marking the directorial debut of Duncan Jones, MOON is a gripping sci-fi thriller which stars Sam Rockwell (Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, Frost/Nixon) and features the voice of two-time Academy Award® winner Kevin Spacey (Best Supporting Actor, The Usual Suspects, 1995; Best Actor, American Beauty, 1999). Blending wonderfully old-school science fiction with incredibly prescient themes, MOON is a blistering experience and Jones’ debut marks the arrival of a genuinely exciting new British talent.  Also included is Duncan Jones’ short sci-fi film Whistle, about a man with a refined skill to predict human behaviour who is torn between his work and his family in this melancholy tale about the future of assassination. MOON has been nominated for four Spike TV Scream Awards, and was the winner of the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It was also included in the official selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is nearing the end of his contract with the mining company, Lunar, for whom he has been a faithful employee for three long years. His home has been Sarang, a moon base where he has spent his days alone mining Helium 3, the precious gas that holds the key to solving Earth's energy crisis. Isolated and determined, Sam has followed the rules obediently and his time on the moon has been enlightening but uneventful. He does his job mechanically and spends most of his time dreaming of his imminent return to earth, his wife and young daughter. Finally he will have someone to talk to beyond “Gerty”, the base’s well-intentioned, but rather uncomplicated computer. 

Two weeks shy of his departure from Sarang, Sam starts seeing and hearing things and when a routine extraction goes horribly wrong, he discovers that Lunar has its own plans for replacing him and that the new recruit is eerily familiar. Now Sam has to confront the discovery that the life he has created may not be his own.

To see a trailer click on the link below:

My Sister’s Keeper

‘My Sister’s Keeper’, Nick Cassavetes’s child-cancer-courage tearjerker based on Jodi Picoult’s 2004 bestseller, is being released by Entertainment In Video on rental and retail DVD and Blu-ray on November 23.

The star studded cast is headed by Cameron Diaz (‘Charlie’s Angels’; ‘Being John Malkovich’; ‘Something About Mary’), Alec Baldwin (‘The Departed’; ‘The Cooler’), Jason Patric (‘Sleepers’) and Abigail Breslin (‘Little Miss Sunshine’).

Sara and Brian Fitzgerald’s (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) life with their young son and their two-year-old daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) is forever altered when they learn that Kate has leukemia. 

The parents’ only hope is to conceive another child specifically to save Kate’s life.  For many people, genetic engineering on such a scale would raise both moral and ethical questions but for the Fitzgeralds … and Sara in particular … there is no choice but to do whatever it takes to keep Kate alive.  And what it takes is Anna (Abigail Breslin).

Kate and Anna share a bond closer than most sisters and although Kate is older, she relies on her little sister hugely to help her through life.

Anna, however, is coming to terms with the realization that she was brought into the world to be a donor for her sister which not surprisingly she finds increasingly hard to cope with.

The girls have to endure a series of painful but ultimately futile medical procedures and hospital stays but they see it as just another part of their close-knit family’s otherwise normal life. 

Sara, a loving wife and mother who gave up her career as a high-flying attorney to care for her daughter, is sometimes emotionally overwhelmed by the single-minded carer she has become in her efforts to save Kate. 

Her strong and supportive husband Brian (Jason Patric) is often rendered powerless by his wife’s strength and determination while their only son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) drifts and is at times all but forgotten as Kate and Anna take centre stage.

However, when Anna is asked to donate one of her kidneys to help Kate she decides that she’s suffered enough and hires her own lawyer (Alec Baldwin) who initiates a court case to seek what he describes as ‘medical emancipation’.  The court action divides Anna’s family and leaves Kate’s rapidly failing body in the hands of fate.

My Sister’s Keeper has a 12 certificate and a run time of approx 109 minutes.

Coco Before Chanel

(released on 23rd November 2009, Optimum Home Entertainment)

A little girl who is sent with her sister to an orphanage in the heart of France, who waits in vain every Sunday for her father to come for her…

A cabaret performer with a weak voice who sings to an audience of drunken soldiers…

A humble seamstress, who stitches hems at the back of a provincial tailor's shop…

A young, skinny courtesan, to whom protector Etienne Balsan offers a safe haven, amongst the idle and decadent…

A woman in love who knows she will never be anyone’s wife, refusing marriage even to Boy Capel, the man who returned her love…

A rebel who finds the conventions of her time oppressive, and instead dresses in her lover's clothes…

This is the story of Gabrielle Chanel, who begins her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey becomes the legendary couturier who embodied the modern woman and became a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style.

Angels & Demons

The launch will coincide with the publication of Dan Brown’s new novel The Lost Symbol, the follow-up to his No.1 international phenomenon The Da Vinci Code. Published in the UK by Transworld Publishers, a division of The Random House Group, the novel will be available from September 15th 2009.

In Ron Howard's thrilling follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, expert symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) follows ancient clues on a heart-racing hunt through Rome to find the four Cardinals kidnapped by the deadly secret society, the Illuminati. With the Cardinals' lives on the line, and the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor) desperate for help, Langdon embarks on a nonstop, action-packed race through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, and the most secretive vault on Earth!

Based on the novel by Dan Brown, Angels & Demons was directed by Ron Howard from a screenplay by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman. Dan Brown and Todd Hallowell serve as executive producers, with Brian Grazer, Ron H

oward and John Calley as producers.

The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the box office smash Angels & Demons, coming to DVD, Blu-ray Disc™ and PSP on September 14th from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Alongside the release of the new Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol on 15 September, the release of Angels & Demons will be the home entertainment event of the year. Two-time Academy Award® winner Tom Hanks (Best Actor: Forrest Gump, 1994 Philadelphia, 1993), Academy Award winner Ron Howard (Best Director and Best Picture, A Beautiful Mind, 2001), and bestselling author Dan Brown team up with Ewan McGregor (Star Wars trilogy, Big Fish), Ayelet Zurer (Adam Resurrected, Vantage Point), and Stellan Skarsgård (Mamma Mia!) on a thrilling journey through Rome as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) discovers the shocking truth about the Illuminati, an ancient secret brotherhood who will stop at nothing to destroy its eternal enemy, the Catholic Church.