MovieSet Dailies

As winter approaches the days start getting shorter and the temperature keeps dropping which makes watching movies at home start to look like a better option than braving the cold weather to go out to the theater.

Lucky for you, Alliance has released a great selection of films that can entertain fans of any genre. Keep your eyes open for Coraline, Nothing Like the Holidays, Away We Go, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Easy Virtue, Sin Nombre and 17 Again.

Coraline

Coraline DVD

If you’re looking for a good family film to watch over Halloween, then pick up Coraline on DVD or Blu-Ray to delight and frighten you in standard 2-D, or eye-popping 3-D.  Coraline tells the story of a young girl who walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life.

On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life – only much better. But when her adventure turns dangerous, and her phony parents try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home – and save her real family.

Directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas), Coraline stars the voice talent of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Keith David and Robert Bailey Jr.

Nothing Like the Holidays

If you’re thinking ahead to Christmas, then why not pick up a new holiday comedy to add to your collection. Nothing Like the Holidays follows a Puerto Rican family living in the area of Humboldt Park in west Chicago who face what may be their last Christmas together.

It’s Christmas time and the far-flung members of the Rodriguez family are converging at their parents’ to celebrate the season and rejoice in their youngest brother’s safe return from combat overseas.

In the course of the eventful week, traditions are celebrated, secretes revealed and major life decisions made when Mrs. Rodriguez announces to her children she is leaving their father Eduardo. The shockwaves from this familial upheaval prompts the Rodriguezes to reevaluate the past and rethink the future.

Directed by Alfredo De Villa, Nothing Like the Holidays stars John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Freddy Rodríguez, Vanessa Ferlito, Alfred Molina and Luis Guzmán. Pick up the DVD for special features including Nothing Like a Family : Cast Reunion, Audio commentary with Freddy Rodriguez, Alfredo De Villa and Robert Teitel, Picture in Picture Video Documentary and Bloopers.

Away We Go

With a hilarious cast including The Office’s John Krasinski and SNL’s Maya Rudolph, you are assured to get a good laugh out of director Sam Mendes’ (American Beauty) Away We Go.

The film follows longtime couple Burt and Verona as they travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family after they find out that Burt’s parents are moving away from Colorado – thereby eliminating the expectant couple’s main reason for living there.

The couple embarks on an ambitious itinerary to evaluate cities  and visit friends and family who just might help them discover “home” on their own terms for the first time.

Staring along side Krasinski and Rudolph are Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara. Get ready for extra laughs with the DVD’s special features including Deleted Scenes, The Making of Away We Go, Feautre Commentary and more!

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Sure you’ve seen Charles Dickinson’s A Christmas Carol re-used in a hundred different ways, but you’ve never seen it like this! From director Mark Waters (Mean Girls) comes the romantic comedy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a film that proves you can’t always run from your past. Celebrity photographer Connor Mead loves freedom, fun and women…in that order.

A committed bachelor who thinks nothing of breaking up with multiple women on a conference call, Connor’s mockery of romance proves a real buzz-kill for his kid brother Paul and a house full of well-wishers on the eve of Paul’s wedding.

Just when it looks like Connor may single-handedly ruin the wedding, he is visited by the ghosts of his former jilted girlfriends, who take him on a revealing and hilarious odyssey through his failed relationships – past, present and future. Together they attempt to find out what turned Connor into such an insensitive jerk and whether there is still hope for him to find true love.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past stars Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Lacey Chabert, Emma Stone and Michael Douglas.

Easy Virtue

Easy Virtue DVD

In Easy Virtue, we find that the twenties have roared, and the thirties have yet to swing. John Whittaker, a young Englishman, falls madly in love with Larita, a sexy and glamorous American woman, and they marry impetuously. However when the couple returns to the family home, his mother Mrs Whittaker has an instant allergic reaction to her new daughter-in-law. Larita tries her best to fit in but fails to tiptoe through the minefield laid by her mother-in-law.

Larita quickly realizes Mrs Whittaker’s game and sees that she must fight back if she’s not going to lose John. A battle of wits ensues and sparks soon fly. Mrs Whittaker manipulates every situation to undermine her, while Larita remains frustratingly calm and engineers sassy ounter attacks. Before long, Mrs Whittaker’s manipulation starts to work on John and Larita feels their love is in danger of slipping away.

In a grand finale, where the secrets from Larita’s past are revealed, she finally makes a break for freedom from the suffocating house.

Written and directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Deser), this comedic romantic period piece stars Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth.

Sin Nombre

If your looking for a more serious and somber film, than look no further than writer/director Cary Fukunaga’s award winning Sin Nombre based on the filmmaker’s firsthand experiences with Central American immigrants seeking the promise of the US.

The film tells the story of Sayra, a teenager living in Honduras, and hungering for a brighter future. A reunion with her long-estranged father gives Sayra her only real option – emigrating with her father and her uncle into Mexico and then the United States, where her father now has a new family.

Meanwhile, Casper, a.k.a. Willy, is a teenager living in Tapachula, Mexico, and facing an uncertain future as a member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang brotherhood. Casper must navigate the psychological gauntlet of his violent existence and the physical one of the unforgiving Mara when Sayra bravely allies herself with him as a train they board journeys through the Mexican countryside towards the hope of new lives.

Sin Nombre has won several awards including the Directing Award and the Excellence in Cinematography Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.  The film stars Paulina Gaytan, Edgar M. Flores, Guillermo Villegas, Gerardo Taracena, Kristyan A. Ferrer and Diana Garcia. Check out the DVD for Deleted Scenes, Feature Commentary with writer/director Cary Fukunaga and producer Amy Kaufman and more.

17 Again

If you enjoyed Tom Hanks in Big, get ready for the reverse with Zac Efron in 17 Again. Directed by Burr Steers, 17 Again asks the question: what would you do if you got a second shot at life? Class of 1989, Mike O’Donnell is a star on his high school basketball court with a college scout in the stands and a bright future in his grasp. But instead, he decides to throw it all away to share his life with his girlfriend Scarlett and the baby he just learned they are expecting.

Almost 20 years later, Mike’s glory days are decidedly behind him. His marriage to Scarlett has fallen apart, he has been passed over for a promotion at work, his teenage kids think he is a loser, and he has been reduced to crashing with his high school nerd-turned-techno-billionaire best friend Ned. But Mike is given another chance when he is miraculously transformed back to the age of 17. Unfortunately, Mike may look 17 again, but his thirty something outlook is totally uncool in the class of 2009. And in trying to recapture his best years, Mike could lose the best things that ever happened to him.

17 Again boasts a star-studded cast including Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon and Michelle Trachtenberg,

Author: Shannon