New to On Demand & DVD

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Action

VOD Spotlight: “Sanctum”

June 7, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

Given the number of films he’s made with underwater scenes — such as the dramas The Abyss and Titanic,  as well as underwater documentaries — it’s clear that James Cameron has an affinity for the dangers of water and the claustrophobic pressures of the deep, even after a near drowning on the set of The Abyss. Like Titanic, the underwater adventure Sanctum is based on an actual event. In 1988, film producer and caver Andrew Wight led an expedition into a remote cave in Australia. An intense storm caused the cave entrance to collapse, leaving 15 people trapped underground. A […]

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Comedy

VOD Spotlight: “Just Go With It”

June 7, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

Brooklyn Decker makes a seamless move from modeling to acting in her first major motion picture Just Go With It. Decker’s character Palmer becomes the object of affection of Danny (Adam Sandler), who avoids commitment by telling women he is married. But when he falls for Palmer, instead of telling her the truth about his marital status, he compounds the lie, with hilarious consequences, using his long-suffering assistant (Jennifer Aniston) to play his soon-to-be-ex-wife.

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Horror

VOD Spotlight: “The Rite”

May 17, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

In 2007, there were reports that the Vatican was planning an initiative to install an exorcist in every diocese in the world. Matt Baglio, a reporter living in Rome, was intrigued by this and met with Father Gary Thomas, a priest undergoing exorcism training. He shadowed Fr. Thomas through six months of training, “One of the reasons why I wrote the book the way that I did,” he explains, “is to say, ‘This is the reality of exorcism as the Church teaches it.’” The result was the book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, on which the film […]

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Movies

VOD Spotlight: “The Roommate”

May 17, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

College is a time to stretch your mind, and learn to live independently, which is what dorm life is all about. But for some, it’s also pretty dismal, especially if a roommate isn’t what you expected. In The Roommate, Sara (Minka Kelly), a design student from Iowa, is assigned a room with Rebecca (Leighton Meester), a wealthy girl from Pasadena who, as the film unfolds, develops an obsession with Sara. “Leighton was the first person we cast for this movie,” says director Christian E. Christiansen, whose previous film, Råzone, was about teen bullying. “And she is a fantastic actress. The […]

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Comedy

VOD Spotlight: “The Dilemma”

May 3, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Karl J. Paloucek Some situations are so uncomfortable and ugly, it’s hard to find any levity in them whatsoever. And sometimes, the best thing that can happen to such a circumstance is to exploit it for comedic value. That, in essence, is what Ron Howard has done in his film The Dilemma, starring Vince Vaughn, Kevin James and Winona Ryder. At the heart of the film is the longtime friendship of Ronny (Vaughn) and Nick (James), two entrepreneurs working on a dream of pitching their idea for an electric muscle car to the Chrysler Corporation. (Queen Latifah has a […]

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Action

VOD Spotlight: “The Green Hornet” offers another memorable Kato

May 3, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

“As an irresponsible idiot, I’m quite good,” says Seth Rogen, who stars as Britt Reid, the hard-partying playboy who turns to vigilante crime fighting in The Green Hornet. But as any fan of the Hornet knows, the actor playing Kato is a costar in every sense of the word. It’s actually hard to remember that Van Williams played Reid in the original TV series, but everyone with any interest in the history of superheroes remembers that Bruce Lee was Kato. So it’s particularly fitting that Asian pop superstar Jay Chou should play Kato in the new Green Hornet, as Chou […]

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Drama

VOD Spotlight: “Country Strong”

April 12, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

Gwyneth Paltrow may have won an Oscar for her acting in Shakespeare in Love, but her voice has star power, too, as her role of Kelly Canter in Country Strong demonstrates. Her vocal talent was one of the reasons she was the first choice to play a country superstar. Those who did not see the film were treated to her encore performance of the film’s Oscar-nominated song “Coming Home” at the 2011 Academy Awards. For her costar, Garrett Hedlund (TRON: Legacy), becoming country star Beau Hutton was more difficult. “I’d never played guitar before and definitely never sang for crowds, […]

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Comedy

VOD Spotlight: “Little Fockers”

April 5, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

More than 10 years after Meet the Parents introduced insecure nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) to the overbearing Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) and six years after the mismatched in-laws first got together in Meet the Fockers, the comedy franchise continues. The characters and the stars who play them are older, as Greg and wife Pam (Teri Polo) juggle work and parenthood in a way that families can relate to. “When you’re making the third film in a series, the constant question is ‘How do you keep it fresh and retain what people liked about the first two movies?’” asks […]

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Comedy

VOD Spotlight: “Yogi Bear”

March 22, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

The original Yogi Bear cartoon of the 1960s had Yogi and pal Boo Boo interacting with human campers. They were all animated, but technology has come a long way since then. In the film Yogi Bear, Yogi (voiced by Dan Aykroyd) and Boo Boo (voiced by Justin Timberlake) are created with special effects, and the rest of the cast are real people, but the story of the two picnic basket thieves was carefully rendered to maintain the irreverence and personalities of the two bears — a notion that set well with the two stars of the film. “Every Wednesday afternoon […]