Featurettes/Behind-The-Scenes/Documentaries

Kingdom Of Heaven

It's hard to believe Ridley Scott's handsome epic won't become the cinematic touchstone of the Crusades for years to come. Kingdom of Heaven is greater than the sum of its parts, delivering a vital, mostly engrossing tale following Balian (Orlando Bloom), a lonely French blacksmith who discovers he's a noble heir and takes his father's (Liam Neeson) place in the center of the universe circa 1184: Jerusalem. Here, grand battles and backdoor politics are key as Scott and first-time screenwriter William Monahan fashion an excellent storyline to tackle the centuries-long conflict.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

In The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, director Wes Anderson takes his familiar stable of actors on a field trip to a fantasy aquarium, complete with stop-motion, candy-striped crabs and rainbow seahorses. And though Anderson does expand his horizons in terms of retro-special effects and a whimsical use of color, fans will otherwise find themselves in well-charted waters.

Sin City

The two-disc edition of Sin City easily makes the earlier single-disc theatrical-cut release obsolete by including the regular theatrical cut on the first disc, recutting the movie into four extended segments on the second disc (separated by story line), then piling on an impressive load of bonus features. But there's a catch.

The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener is the kind of thriller that hasn't been seen since the 1970s: Smart, politically complex, cinematically adventurous, genuinely thrilling and even heartbreaking. Mild diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes, The English Patient, Schindler's List) has a loose cannon of a wife named Tessa (Rachel Weisz, The Shape of Things, The Mummy), who's digging into the dirty doings of a major pharmaceutical company in Kenya. Her brutal murder forces Justin to continue her investigation down some deadly avenues.

Domino

Based on the true story of Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley), daughter of film actor Laurence Harvey. Tired and unsuited to the pretentiousness of her high-society LA life, Domino leaves the glittarti behind and sets off to become a bounty hunter. She quickly falls under the wing of veteran hunter Ed Mosley (Mickey Rourke) and his crew and becomes an unlikely natural in the art of bounty hunting.

A History Of Violence

On the surface, David Cronenberg may seem an unlikely candidate to direct A History of Violence, but dig deeper and you'll see that he's the right man for the job. As an intellectual seeker of meaning and an avowed believer in Darwinian survival of the fittest, Cronenberg knows that the story of mild-mannered small-town diner proprietor Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is in fact a multilayered examination of inbred human behavior, beginning when Tom's skillful killing of two would-be robbers draws unwanted attention to his idyllic family life in rural Indiana.

The Legend Of Zorro

The original caped crusader is back! Antonio Banderas and Academy Award-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones (2002, Best Supporting Actress, Chicago) return for more swashbuckling action, adventure and excitement in the explosive cinematic thrill-ride, The Legend of Zorro! Having spent the last ten years fighting injustice and cruelty, Alejandro de la Vega (Banderas) is now facing his greatest challenge: his loving wife Elena (Zeta-Jones) has thrown him out of the house! Elena has filed for divorce and found comfort in the arms of Count Armand (Rufus Sewell), a dashing French aristocrat.

The Wild Bunch

One of the best action movies ever made, in a cleaned-up print restoring crucial parts of the story. No cavalry ever rode in with more epochal impact than the Wild Bunch in the legendary opening scene. Their steel-eyed leader, Pike (William Holden), and his robbers in stolen army uniforms help an old lady across the street, and then spark a massacre led by Pike's old crony Thornton (Robert Ryan), sprung from jail to hunt down his old gang.

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, the happily irresponsible Czech lover of Milan Kundera's novel, which is set in Prague just before and during the Soviet invasion in 1968. Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are the two vastly different women who occupy his attention and to some extent represent different sides of his values and personality. In any case, the character's decision to flee Russian tanks with one of them--and then return--has profound consequences on his life.

Two For The Money

Academy Award winner Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey star in this adrenaline-charged drama about the sexy, high-stakes world of sports betting, where fortunes can be made and lost with the flip of a coin. When Brandon Lang (McConaughey) becomes the protÈgÈ of sports gambling's power player, Walter Abrams (Pacino), he swiftly becomes the golden boy of the high-rolling world for consistently picking football winners. Now, with millions on the line, he finds himself in a deadly game of con-versus-con with his new mentor.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Featurettes/Behind-The-Scenes/Documentaries