- CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION (DVD MOVIE)
Laura Linney stars in her Golden Globe®-winning role as Cathy Jamison, a 42-year-old schoolteacher who has always played by the rules. That is, until she receives a life-changing diagnosis. But instead of giving up, Cathy decides to live it up! Nothing and no one is safe, including her self-absorbed family, her cantankerous neighbor, and her smart-ass students. Oliver Platt (TV’s
Huff) and Gabourey Sidibe (
Precious) shine in this talented ensemble. Brutally honest, unapologetically funny and perfectly profound,
The Big C is a surprisingly different comedy that reminds us that life is always worth living on our own terms.
1. Pilot - A diagnosis of terminal cancer inspires Cathy to live life to the fullest, free and uninhibited, for as long as she can. A pool in her backyard is at the top of her to-do list.
2. ! Summertime - After Dr. Todd tells Cathy just how little time she has left, she insists that her son Adam stay home with her instead of attending summer soccer camp.
3. There’s no C in Team - As she fends off both Paul’s pleas to revive their marriage and a cancer support group’s cheery efforts, Cathy is stunned to learn that Marlene’s dog can sense her cancer.
4. Playing the Cancer Car - At the suggestion of his therapist, Paul jump-starts his single life by returning to rugby. Cathy tries on impulsiveness by cashing out her retirement fund to buy a new sports car.
5. Blue-Eyed Iris - Cathy looks to reclaim her sexuality with a “Trip to Brazil†and a new man. While Paul gets the attention of a Rugby groupie, Sean gets a “new†suit courtesy of Marlene’s dead husband.
6. Taking Lumps - When a new lump reveals that her cancer is getting worse, Cathy questions her dalliance with Lenny as she looks to reunite her family for an annual char! ity bathtub race.
7. Two for the Road - Cathy persuades ! Sean to join her on a trip to surprise their dad for his birthday, leaving Adam and Paul at home for a long needed boys’ weekend together. Paul gets a sobering wake-up call from Marlene.
8. Happy Birthday, Cancer - When Paul throws her a surprise party for her 43rd birthday, Cathy is conflicted about her plans to join Lenny for the weekend in the Bahamas. Sean begins an affair with Rebecca (Cynthia Nixon), Cathy’s old college friend.
9. The Ecstasy and the Agony - As things continue to heat up with Lenny, Cathy decides to experiment with Ecstasy. After witnessing her affair, Paul tells Cathy he wants a divorce.
10. Divine Intervention - Realizing that her recent decisions have real and lasting consequences, Cathy finally tells Paul that she has cancer as she looks to make amends with those around her.
11. New Beginnings - Adam meets a girl at the bus stop. Cathy, Rebecca and Marlene enjoy lunch at a strip club. Paul’s spontaneous display of solidarity p! rompts Cathy to seek out a cure.
12. Everything that Rises Must Converge - Cathy and Dr. Todd head to Canada to try an alternative bee venom treatment from the “Bee Man†(Liam Neeson). Paul moves back home. Laura Linney is so radiant as the terminally (and secretly) cancer-stricken Cathy in
The Big C that the viewer briefly is reminded of
Love Story, in which Ali McGraw, also terminally ill, became more and more radiant as her not-quite-believable death approached. But there the similarity ends. Linney's performance as Cathy is utterly believable, and charming, even if Cathy's actions aren't always respectable. Linney is diagnosed early in the season with terminal melanoma that's spread through her body, and she keeps her diagnosis from her husband (Oliver Platt, never better) and her son, Adam (Gabriel Basso). The idea for
The Big C haunts the viewer throughout the episodes--what would you do if you knew you were only going to live a short w! hile longer? How would you approach your relationships--and wo! uld you keep them? What kinds of risks would you take? Linney's Cathy, until now a responsible schoolteacher, begins to question her life of "staying within the lines," and begins to take chances that baffle her family. The supporting cast is divine, including Gabourey Sidibe (
Precious) as a student Cathy is tutoring and coaching--and often annoying. Idris Elba (
Luther) is a hunky handyman at Cathy's school, who becomes the object of Cathy's careless flirtations, and John Benjamin Hickey is hilarious as Sean, Cathy's living-off-the-grid brother. But with all the wry humor,
The Big C has some sad, anguished moments--including the first-season finale, which should not be watched without a box of tissues.
The Big C features Linney at her finest, a very believable character facing an all-too-believable fate--and managing to live her life out loud. Extras include candid interviews with the cast, deleted scenes, and outtakes. --
A.T. HurleyA single mother! still living in the house she grew up in struggles to deal with her drifter brother when he comes home for a visit.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 2-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVD
You Can Count On Me starts with a terrible car crash that instantly orphans a little boy and his older sister. At film's end, that boy, now a grown-up nomad and ne'er-do-well, takes off by Greyhound after a brief reunion with his sister, who lives at permanent anchor in their unspoiled hometown. The sibling saga that unreels between wrenching collision and bittersweet separation celebrates the idiosyncratic ways wounded folk like Terry (Mark Ruffalo) and Sammy (Laura Linney) put one foot in front of the other, both energized and hamstrung by the knowledge that nothing is ever certain in the road-movie of life. During his visit, Terry roils Sammy's becalmed existence, mostly by "fathering"--for good and ill--her overprotected 8-y! ear-old (Rory Culkin), sneaking him out to play empowering bar! pool, l ater introducing him to the weaselly dad he's fantasized into a superhero. Sammy starts a torrid affair with her married boss at the bank (Matthew Broderick gives delicious bureaucratic smarm), and considers marrying her sometime suitor (Jon Tenney), sweetly dull yet dependable. The narrative peaks here are human-sized, elevated by gentle humor and clear-eyed faith in the existential importance of these intersecting small-town lives. Linney is simply superb as Sammy, wild girl gone good, involuntarily "mothering" every man in her life. An authentic original, newcomer Ruffalo gives his modern-day Huck Finn a drawling, James Dean delivery tuned somewhere between a screwup's whine and the twang of pothead wisdom. (Hard to think of another recent film that so deftly nails down the rich dynamics of everyday conversation--the starts and stops, circumlocutions, clichés, sudden veers into revelation and eloquence.) This is that rarity, an action movie of the heart: no exp! losions or epiphanies, yet everything evolves through the catalysts of character and experience.
--Kathleen MurphyLOUISE IS A DIVROCED 30 SOMETHING ADMISSION'S OFFICER ATCOLUMBIA. WHEN A GRADUATE SCHOOL APPLICATION CROSSES HER DESK,SHE ARRANGES TO INTERVIEW THE YOUNG PAINTER. WHEN SCOTT APPEARS HE BEARS AN UNCANNY RESEMBLENCE TO LOUSE'S HIGH SCHOOL LOVE, AN ARTIST WHO DIED IN A CAR CRASH 20 YEARS EARLIER.A May-December romance turns metaphysical in
P.S., from the director of the critically acclaimed
Roger Dodger. Louise (Laura Linney,
You Can Count On Me,
Kinsey) has a warm friendship with her ex-husband and a satisfying position as an admissions officer for Columbia University, but she's never gotten over losing her first love from high school. When a young man with the same name, face, and artistic talents (Topher Grace,
Traffic) as her lost love suddenly arrives for an admissions interview, Louise tumbles into an abrupt and ques! tionable relationship.
P.S. is at its best when it foll! ows the tics and foibles of human behavior; Linney and Grace both give vivid, lively performances. But every time reincarnation rears its head, the movie flounders, particularly in clumsy scenes with Louise's predatory best friend (Marcia Gay Harden,
Mystic River), who stole Louise's boy so long ago. Fortunately (or strangely), that element is almost a tacked-on subplot; center stage is the romance between Linney and Grace, which glows sweetly. Also featuring Gabriel Byrne (
The Usual Suspects,
Miller's Crossing) and a woefully underused Paul Rudd (
The Shape of Things,
Clueless).
--Bret FetzerWhen obsessive, introverted artist Lyle Maze wants to broaden his work, his best friend's girlfriend Callie agrees to pose for him. But as the paint dries, they both begin to realize that there's more to their friendship than meets the eye. Now, they are faced with one of life's big questions... Can a man and a woman just remain friends?An ambitious U.S.! senator reflects on his life after the death of a former childhood friend and lover who had kept in contact with him only through years of correspondence.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 7-FEB-2006
Media Type: DVDLiam Neeson stars as Alfred Kinsey, a man driven by scientific passion and personal demons to investigate the elusive mystery of human sexuality. Laura Linney garnered a Best Actress OscarÂ(r) nomination for her compelling performance as KinseyÃ"â??s free-thinking wife. This provocative drama dares to lift the veil of shame from a society in which sex was hidden, knowledge was dangerous and talking about it was the ultimate taboo.One of the best films of 2004,
Kinsey pays tribute to the flawed but honorable man who revolutionized our understanding of human sexuality. As played by Liam Neeson in writer-director Bill Condon's excellent film biography, Indiana University researcher Alfred Kinsey ! was so consumed by statistical measurements of human sexual ac! tivity t hat he almost completely overlooked the substantial role of emotions and their effect on human behavior. This made him an ideal researcher and science celebrity who revealed that sexual behaviors previously considered deviant and even harmful (homosexuality, oral sex, etc.) are in fact common and essentially normal in the realm of human experience, but whose obsession with scientific method frequently placed him at odds with his understanding wife (superbly played by Laura Linney) and research assistants. In presenting Kinsey as a driven social misfit, Condon's film gives Neeson one of his finest roles while revealing the depth of Kinsey's own humanity, and the incalculable benefit his research had on our collective sexual enlightenment. With humor, charm, and intelligence,
Kinsey shines a light where darkness once prevailed.
--Jeff Shannon28-year-old Kansas University doctoral student Omar Razaghi has won a grant to write a biography of Latin American writer J! ules Gund. Omar must get through to three people who were close to Gund - his brother, widow, and younger mistress - so he can get authorization to write the biography.The Merchant-Ivory filmmaking team (
Howards End,
A Room with a View) always took scrupulous care in their literary adaptations, bringing a tasteful point of view and a certain erudite wit.
The City of Your Final Destination, based on a novel by Peter Cameron, has a literary concept even more page-bound than their usual productions, so director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala--longtime producing partner Ismail Merchant died in 2005--truly have their hands full. The setting is a country estate in Uruguay, the former home of a celebrated writer who committed suicide on the property. The survivors have repeatedly turned down the requests of a would-be biographer (Omar Metwally) to write about the dead man, so the scribe takes it upon himself to show up on their doorstep, lea! ving behind his somewhat pushy girlfriend, played by Alexandra! Maria L ara (
The Reader). He discovers an unusual family unit: the writer's widow (Laura Linney) and his mistress (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are living under the same roof, and a hedonistic brother (Anthony Hopkins) is also ambling about the property, his boyfriend (Hiroyuki Sanada) close at hand. Some days pass in idleness, as the subject of the biography comes and goes… an interlude that was perhaps more compelling in the novel than it is in the film. Ivory's touch seems tired, and the actors (an impressive ensemble, to be sure, including Norma Aleandro as a loud local lady) appear to be operating in their own zones and their own styles. Although the very handsome setting creates a pleasant lazy-Sunday atmosphere, the effect tends to tip over a bit too far into the soporific, and the whole thing might make you want to curl up with a good book instead.
--Robert Horton
