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Video / DVD

New releases

A look at what's headed to the shelves

By Times Staff
Published October 6, 2005

The Amityville Horror

DIRECTOR: Andrew Douglas

CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Philip Baker Hall, Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett, Chloe Moretz

SYNOPSIS: Remake of the 1979 hit about newlyweds moving into a haunted house. Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George replace James Brolin and Margot Kidder; expertly rendered gore replaces cheesy scares.

WHAT WE SAID: St. Petersburg Times film critic Steve Persall gave the movie an F. "The "brains' behind the remake of The Amityville Horror managed to take a bad haunted house movie and make it worse," he wrote. "Everything is so generically scary that none of it makes viewers jump, except the most gullible ones. The most terrifying moment for me was checking my watch in boredom and realizing that another 45 minutes remained."

MPAA RATING: R; strong violence, profanity, brief sexuality and drug abuse

RUNNING TIME: 87 min.

DIRECTOR: David Duchovny

CAST: Robin Williams, Erykah Badu, David Duchovny, Gideon Jacobs, Orlando Jones, Frank Langella, Adam LeFevre, Tea Leoni, Mark Margolis, Stephen Spinella, Anton Yelchin

SYNOPSIS: A sentimental coming-of-age drama/comedy with Duchovny's character flashing back to his 13th summer.

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the movie a C-. "Formulaic and sentimental to a fault, David Duchovny's writing and directorial debut is a first-draft idea in which everyone speaks in poetic words polished to annoyance," he wrote. "It's a coming-of-age film that isn't heartwarming, provocative or funny, although Duchovny seems convinced that's exactly what he's achieving."

MPAA RATING: PG-13; sexual and drug references, thematic elements and language

RUNNING TIME: 97 min.

DIRECTOR: Sydney Pollack

CAST: Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Jesper Christensen, Earl Cameron, Sydney Pollack

SYNOPSIS: Political thriller starring Kidman as an interpreter at the United Nations who may have overheard an assassination plot.

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the movie a C. "For all its slickness and star power, The Interpreter is a surprisingly bland political thriller, a sign that films relying more on talk than action may not have a place in today's entertainment world," he wrote. "Everything is a bit too polished and understated in Pollack's film, with holes in the logic wide enough to drive a car bomb through."

MPAA RATING: PG-13; violence, profanity, brief sexual content

RUNNING TIME: 128 min.

DIRECTOR: Pawel Pawlikowski

CAST: Nathalie Press, Emily Blunt, Paddy Considine, Dean Andrews

SYNOPSIS: A lower-class tomboy (Press) befriends a privileged young woman (Blunt), leading to romance.

WHAT WE SAID: The Times did not review this film. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "This isn't a coming-of-age movie so much as a movie about being of an age. At the end, we understand how completely different these two teenage girls are; how one deals in irony and deception, and with the other what you see is what you get, whether you want it or not."

MPAA RATING: R; sexuality, language and some drug use

RUNNING TIME: 85 min.

[Last modified October 5, 2005, 10:24:08]