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DVD Life as a House (New Line Platinum Series)
A respectable tearjerker, Life as a House is a welcome throwback to angst-ridden family dramas like Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment. It falls short of those modern classics, but you'll probably still need Kleenex if you appreciate Kevin Kline's underrated dramatic skills. As the title suggests, Kline's project is a broad metaphor for repairing damaged lives from the foundation up. Playing an architect with terminal cancer, he gives an Oscar®-caliber performance, reaching out to his estranged, nihilistic son (future Star Wars star Hayden Christensen) and ex-wife (Kristin Scott-Thomas) as he wrecks and rebuilds the Malibu cliff-top home that contained his most painful memories. Director Irwin Winkler's flair with actors helps to minimize lapses in a script (by As Good As It Gets scribe Mark Andrus) that occasionally borders on maudlin. Overall, this is a fine reminder that Hollywood hasn't lost its soul to action and special effects. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD Life as a House (New Line Platinum Series)
If You Only Had 45 Days Left - What Would You Do... MUST SEE!
Kevin Klein plays the lead role of a character that is 45 years old, emotionally wounded from a number of bad circumstances in his life, and distanced from his detached and dark 16 year old son who lives with his ex-wife. He decides to take his son for the summer, tear down down his shack of a house (ie. destroy the bad things in his life), and build a new house with his son (ie. Create a house that represents what he would have liked to have done in his life).
This is an emotionally powerful movie, that will make you cry, and motivate you throughout the movie. I was personally moved when my 17 year old son told me that the Kevin Klein character reminded him of myself, and that he has seen the movie dozens of times.
Absolutely entertaining cast, in situations that make you reflective of what you should be doing in life!
Don't judge a boy by his Star Wars
It's such a relief to know that Hayden Christiansen can really act, although the film is carried by the underrated Kevin Kline. I won't re-hash the plot, because all the reviewers have done so. I think this film was wonderfully directed and emotional without hitting everyone in the face. The only thing that's really unrealistic is that Sam, Hayden's character, turns things around a little too neatly and quickly. Otherwise, it's a look at one man's efforts to get things done before he dies. Also includes a nice come-uppance at the end.
ONE OF MY TOP TEN FAVORITES OF ALL TIME
Yes, I love Kevin Kline. Yes, the cast does a remarkable job with a marvelous script, but it's more than that--this movie has heart. It portrays modern life with its heartbreaking realities of divorce, drugs, sexual abuse, and cancer, but it's what it DOES with these issues that is so remarkable. Redemption is very real here. I loved it so much, I looked up the writer and found he wrote AS GOOD AS IT GETS as well. What a man. I watched this with my teenage daughter and it opened a dialogue between us. That alone is worth the price of the DVD. (Warning: Strong subject matter, you might want to view it first to decide if your teen (if you) are ready for it).
Related DVD's Life as a House (New Line Platinum Series)
Shattered Glass is the best film about journalism since All the President's Men. If that seems like lofty praise, consider this: In telling the true story of fallen journalist and pathological liar Stephen Glass, writer-director Billy Ray had to thoroughly and believably demonstrate how Glass--played in a pitch-perfect performance by Hayden Christensen--could single-handedly betray the trust of vigilant editors, writers, fact-checkers, and copyeditors while he falsified numerous highly praised articles as a hot, seemingly gifted reporter for The New Republic magazine in the late 1990s. Making an assured directorial debut, Ray brilliantly explores the delicate office politics that allowed for Glass's ongoing deception, which was diligently exposed by a reporter (Steve... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Hayden Christensen - Chloë Sevigny - Steve Zahn Director(s): Billy Ray DVD Release Date: Released the 23 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Previously criticized for her marginal acting skills, Sofia Coppola made her directorial debut with The Virgin Suicides and silenced her detractors. No amount of coaching from her director father (Francis Coppola) or husband (Spike Jonze) could have guaranteed a film this assured, and in adapting Jeffrey Eugenides's novel, Coppola demonstrates the sensitivity and emotional depth that this material demands. Surely the pain of youth and public criticism found its way into her directorial voice; in the story of four sisters who self-destruct under the steady erosion of their youthful ideals, one can clearly sense Coppola's intimate connection to the inner lives of her characters.
Played in a delicate minor key, the film is heartbreaking, mysterious, and soulfully funny, set in a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kirsten Dunst - Josh Hartnett Director(s): Sofia Coppola DVD Release Date: Released the 19 December 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Comparisons to Dead Poets Society are inevitable, but The Emperor's Club achieves a rich identity all its own. In the honorable tradition of great teacher dramas like Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Kevin Kline is well cast as Mr. Hundert, longtime teacher of classics and assistant headmaster of St. Benedict's Academy for Boys. There he encounters a defiant student and senator's son (Emile Hirsch) who desperately needs--but ultimately rejects--Hundert's lessons on leadership, integrity, and the shaping of character. Adapted from Ethan Canin's short story "The Palace Thief," the film is conventional to a fault, its flashback structure unfolding in Hollywood shorthand. But its noble sentiments remain potently intact, allowing Kline a performance of great emotional nuance while... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kevin Kline - Emile Hirsch Director(s): Michael Hoffman DVD Release Date: Released the 06 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Pay It Forward is a multi-level marketing scheme of the heart. Beginning as a seventh-grade class assignment to put into action an idea that could change the world, young Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with a plan to do good deeds for three people who then by way of payment each must do good turns for three other people. These nine people also must pay it forward and so on, ad infinitum. If successful, the resulting network of do-gooders ought to comprise the entire world. Trevor's attempts to get the ball rolling include befriending a junkie (James Caviezel) and trying to set up his recovering-alcoholic mother (Helen Hunt) with his burn-victim teacher (Kevin Spacey), who posed the assignment.
While this could have turned into unmitigated schmaltz, the acting... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Mimi Leder DVD Release Date: Released the 15 May 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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