Family Gatherings

Little Miss Sunshine

Despite their individual problems and disappointments, the Hoovers decide to support young daughter Olive's dream of competing in a California beauty pageant.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 5-FEB-2007
Media Type: DVD

Pile together a blue-ribbon cast, a screenplay high in quirkiness, and the Sundance stamp of approval, and you've got yourself a crossover indie hit. That formula worked for Little Miss Sunshine, a frequently hilarious study of family dysfunction. Meet the Hoovers, an Albuquerque clan riddled with depression, hostility, and the tattered remnants of the American Dream; despite their flakiness, they manage to pile into a VW van for a weekend trek to L.A. in order to get moppet daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) into the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Much of the pleasure of this journey comes from watching some skillful comic actors doing their thing: Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette as the parents (he's hoping to become a self-help authority), Alan Arkin as a grandfather all too willing to give uproariously inappropriate advice to a sullen teenage grandson (Paul Dano), and a subdued Steve Carell as a jilted gay professor on the verge of suicide. The film is a crowd-pleaser, and if anything is a little too eager to bend itself in the direction of quirk-loving Sundance audiences; it can feel forced. But the breezy momentum and the ingenious actors help push the material over any bumps in the road.-- Robert Horton

Beyond Little Miss Sunshine

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Stills from Little Miss Sunshine

Hannah and Her Sisters

An intimate look at three sisters and the relationships they have with each other and the men in their lives.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: HERSHEY/FISHER/CAINE/FARROW/WI
Title: HANNAH & HER SISTERS
Street Release Date: 09/21/2004
Domestic
Genre: COMEDY VIDEO

Considered by many to be Woody Allen's best film, even over Annie Hall. Hannah and Her Sisters follows a multitude of characters: Hannah (Mia Farrow), who plays den mother to her extended family; her sister Lee (Barbara Hershey), emotional and a bit of a flake, who's involved with a much older artist (Max Von Sydow), who treats her like a child; and Hannah's other sister, Holly (Dianne Wiest), a neurotic who feels incapable of managing her life. Hannah's husband Elliot (Michael Caine) falls in love with Lee, which sets off a series of upheavals. Allen gives one of his best performances as Hannah's ex-husband Mickey, who--much like Allen himself--is obsessed with death and unhappiness. But a simple summary doesn't begin to capture the warmth and intimacy of this movie; though the story follows a capsizing family, the outcome is surprising, joyous, and richly human. --Bret Fetzer

The Family Stone (Widescreen Edition)

Sarah Jessica Parker Diane Keaton and Rachel McAdams lead an all-star cast in The Family Stone. Join the eccentric Stone family for a holiday gathering filled with unexpected surprises. Before the festivities are over love affairs will unravel new ones will form outrageous secrets will be revealed and the family will come together like never before.System Requirements:Running Time: 106 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 024543234029 Manufacturer No: 2233402

For anyone who views holiday gatherings with equal parts joy and dread, The Family Stone offers plenty of comedy to identify with. Writer-director Thomas Bezucha's slapstick premise begins when Everett (Dermot Mulroney) brings his fiancé Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) home to meet his family for Christmas. It's an instant disaster when parents Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) agree with their gay, deaf son Thad (Ty Giordano, who is actually hearing impaired), pot-smoking son Ben (Luke Wilson) and daughters Amy (Rachel McAdams) and Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) that Meredith is way too uptight to be welcomed into their family. Meredith recruits her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to help her thaw the Stone family cold front, and after building a solid emotional foundation for his holiday comedy, Bezucha starts to stack the deck with plot developments that, while heartwarming, border on the absurd. You either go with the movie's flow or you don't, and with this appealing cast (featuring some really nice work by Keaton, Nelson, Parker and Danes) it's easy to forgive Bezucha's unlikely blend of yuletide cheer, petty animosities, and romantic tables turned in the blink of an eye. Toss in a case of terminal illness and you've got a sad-happy tearjerker that works in spite of itself. If you don't recognize at least part of your own holiday clan in The Family Stone, you probably haven't been paying attention. --Jeff Shannon

Home for the Holidays

Director Jodie Foster dishes up a heaping helping of holiday hilarity (NBC-TV) with this laugh-out-loud comedy from screenwriter W.D. Richter about family food and finding acceptance with the people you love. Home for the Holidays is a wickedly funny film that s so true it hurts (Entertainment Today)!In a span of 36 hours Claudia Larson (Hunter) has managed to lose her job make out with her boss and learn that her daughter (Danes) is planning to go all the way. But Claudia s fortunes actually take a turn for the worse when she flies home to endure an even more grueling trial: the family Thanksgiving! Beset by a neurotic mother (Bancroft) kooky father (Durning) eccentric brother (Downey Jr.) and compulsively normal sister (Stevenson) Claudia struggles to maintain her calm. But as sparks fly tempers flare and turkeys go airborne Claudia manages to recapture the zaniness of her childhood and discover that the most important things in life are the memories she shares with family and for that she can only be thankful!System Requirements: Running Time 103 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 027616865700 Manufacturer No: 1002359

Holly Hunter plays a Chicago-based single mom who--on the day before Thanksgiving--loses her job and is informed by her daughter of the latter's intention to surrender her virginity while on a weekend-long affair. If that's not enough, Hunter's character then has to fly to Baltimore to join her fractious family for another difficult Thanksgiving. Robert Downey Jr. is terrifically charming as her prankish, gay brother, and Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning show plenty of comic resilience during the predictably interesting Thanksgiving dinner scene. The script by W.D. Richter (Brubaker) avoids the usual clichés in family dramas--the deepest, darkest secret revealed here involves the painfully sweet revelation of a 40-year-old crush. Jodie Foster, directing her second feature, focuses instead on the inevitable softening of old grudges and disappointments with time. This is a wise as well as wonderfully fun movie. --Tom Keogh

The Ref

A burglar who takes a family hostage on Christmas Eve finds himself the victim of their endless bickering and fighting.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 4-MAR-2003
Media Type: DVD

Caustic wit gets a full-body workout in this 1994 comedy, in which a cat burglar (Denis Leary) gets trapped in an affluent Connecticut neighborhood and is forced to hold a bickering couple hostage on Christmas Eve, only to discover that their Yuletide spirit is anything but cheerful. Caroline (Judy Davis) and her husband, Lloyd (Kevin Spacey), have been at each other's throats for so long that they've developed domestic arguments into an art form, and the would-be kidnapper turns into a reluctant mediator, even after he's got the battling couple wound up in bungee cords. The situation grows even more complicated when the couple's smart-aleck son comes home from military school, but it's not the plot here that's a top priority. Instead it's the sheer pleasure of witnessing a three-way verbal jousting match, written with razor-sharp skill and delivered by actors who are perfect for their roles. The movie's got a dark edge, but it never gets too dark--you know that it's not going to slide into more seriously damaging territory, so you can sit back and enjoy the volleys of scathing insults and sarcasm the way you would a Don Rickles performance. If that sounds like your idea of entertainment, The Ref will serve it up with style. --Jeff Shannon

Soul Food

Soul Food is the kind of movie that seems to have been blessed throughout its low-budget production, and it's got a quality of warmth and charm that fits perfectly with its authentic drama about a large African-American family in Chicago. Twenty-eight-year-old writer-director George Tillman Jr. drew autobiographical inspiration from his upbringing in Milwaukee, and on a well-spent $6.5 million budget he succeeded where similar films (including Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back) fell short: He depicts his many characters with such depth and sympathy that, by the time they have weathered several family crises, we've come to care and feel for them and the powerful ties that bind them together. As seen through the eyes of Tillman's young alter ego Ahmad (Brandon Hammond), the film primarily focuses on the rivalries and affections that rise and fall among Ahmad's mother (Vivica A. Fox) and her two sisters (Vanessa L. Williams, Nia Long). Through them, and through the weekly Sunday dinners cooked with love by their mother, Big Mama (Irma P. Hall), we witness marital bliss and distress, infidelity, success, failure... in short, the spices of life both bitter and sweet. But when Big Mama falls into a diabetic coma, Ahmad watches as his family begins to fall apart without the stability and love that Big Mama provided with every Sunday meal.

Tillman's touch can be overly nostalgic, melodramatic, and cloyingly sentimental, but never so much that the movie loses its firm grip on reality. As a universal portrait of family life, Soul Food ranks among the very best films of its kind--believable, funny, emotional, and always approaching its characters (well-played by a uniformly excellent cast) with a generous spirit of forgiveness and understanding. As satisfying as one of Big Mama's delicious dinners, Soul Food is the kind of movie that keeps you coming back for more. --Jeff Shannon

Sunday dinner at Mothers Joe's (Irma P. Hall) is a mouth watering, 40 year tradition. As seen through the eyes of her grandson Ahmad (Brandon Hammond), love and laughs are always on the menu, despite the usual rivalries simmering between his mom Maxine and her sisters Teri an bird. But when serious bickering starts to tear the family apart, the good times suddenly stop. Now it's up to Ahmad to get everyone back together and teach them the true meaning of soul food.

About Schmidt

While confirming Jack Nicholson's status as an American national treasure, About Schmidt is sure to provoke polarized reactions. Stoked by the success of Election, director Alexander Payne and cowriter Jim Taylor have altered Louis Begley's novel to suit their comedic agenda, turning Nicholson's titular character into a 66-year-old, newly retired Omaha insurance actuary, weary from decades of drudgery and passionless marriage. When his wife suddenly dies, he attempts to reclaim his life in a king-sized Winnebago, desperate to convince his daughter (Hope Davis) not to marry the Denver dimwit (Dermot Mulroney) whose mother (Kathy Bates) has her own baggage of peculiar peccadilloes. Nicholson perfectly (and often hilariously) nails the seething anger beneath his character's façade of resignation, but Payne and Taylor convey cold-hearted contempt for these Midwestern malcontents. Think of this as Ikiru with bleaker humanity, until Schmidt finds meaning--and some small reward--in a quiet gesture of goodwill. Love it or hate it, About Schmidt is a movie you won't soon forget. --Jeff Shannon

Warren Schmidt (Nicholson) is about to taste a not so sweet slice of life. When he retired, he and his wife Helen had big plans, but an unexpected twist changed everything. Now, all of Schmidt's attention is focused his daughter's upcoming wedding to a loser waterbed salesman. From meeting hippie parents to sponsoring a Tanzanian foster child, Schmidt embarks on a search for answers...and discovers that life is full of trick questions.

DVD Features:
DVD ROM Features
Deleted Scenes
Theatrical Trailer:Deleted Scenes - 9 scenes Woodmen Sequences Theatrical Trailer - 16X9 Widescreen More theatrical trailers from New Line: Unconditional Love I Am Sam Link to Original Website Childreach.org link

The Family Stone (Full Screen Edition)

Sarah Jessica Parker Diane Keaton and Rachel McAdams lead an all-star cast in The Family Stone. Join the eccentric Stone family for a holiday gathering filled with unexpected surprises. Before the festivities are over love affairs will unravel new ones will form outrageous secrets will be revealed and the family will come together like never before.System Requirements:Running Time: 106 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 024543234142 Manufacturer No: 2233414

For anyone who views holiday gatherings with equal parts joy and dread, The Family Stone offers plenty of comedy to identify with. Writer-director Thomas Bezucha's slapstick premise begins when Everett (Dermot Mulroney) brings his fiancé Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) home to meet his family for Christmas. It's an instant disaster when parents Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) agree with their gay, deaf son Thad (Ty Giordano, who is actually hearing impaired), pot-smoking son Ben (Luke Wilson) and daughters Amy (Rachel McAdams) and Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) that Meredith is way too uptight to be welcomed into their family. Meredith recruits her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to help her thaw the Stone family cold front, and after building a solid emotional foundation for his holiday comedy, Bezucha starts to stack the deck with plot developments that, while heartwarming, border on the absurd. You either go with the movie's flow or you don't, and with this appealing cast (featuring some really nice work by Keaton, Nelson, Parker and Danes) it's easy to forgive Bezucha's unlikely blend of yuletide cheer, petty animosities, and romantic tables turned in the blink of an eye. Toss in a case of terminal illness and you've got a sad-happy tearjerker that works in spite of itself. If you don't recognize at least part of your own holiday clan in The Family Stone, you probably haven't been paying attention. --Jeff Shannon

Rocket Gibraltar

Burt Lancaster gives one of the most memorable performances of his career... ...in the critically-acclaimed ROCKET GIBRALTAR. Lancaster stars as Levi Rockwell a writer professor comic and lover of the sea who is about to turn 77. In celebration of the event Levi's four children and eight grandchildren return to his home on the idyllic shores of Saggaponack New York. Featured as one of the eight Rockwell grandchildren is Macaulay Culkin star of Home Alone and My Girl. The Rockwell clan is a close-knit family who share a warm relationship with Levi. But what begins as a joyful day marking a milestone in a man's life turns into a surprisingly ironic and moving event as the grandchildren honor Levi's most cherished wish. A provocative film that crosses generations and is similar in spirit to The Big Chill Susan Granger of WMCA Radio called ROCKET GIBRALTAR "A total 10. Not since On Golden Pond has there been such a loving film."System Requirements:Running Time: 99 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG UPC: 043396101456 Manufacturer No: 10145

The Celebration

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD

Rising to the challenge of Dogma 95's self-imposed restrictions on aesthetic freedom, Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration is a remarkable example of the way limits can give rise to creative opportunity. (Dogma 95 is a Danish filmmakers collective that also includes Lars von Trier, director of Breaking the Waves. The group crafted a manifesto in which its members vow to eschew special lighting, optical effects, props, and the visible imprint of a director's personality in order to attain higher truths yielded by characters.) The Celebration, shot with a small video camera and transferred to 35mm film, concerns a black-tie birthday gathering for a family patriarch, Helge (Henning Moritzen), which erodes into a battle after long-suppressed secrets are revealed and the chance to settle old scores presents itself. Among the grievances are an accusation of incest and the responsibility for the death of a child--gruesome stuff, but Vinterberg doesn't characterize the partying crowd's reaction in quite the way one might have expected. In fact, the whole of The Celebration is about unexpected perspectives and vantage points emerging from out of nowhere, largely due to Vinterberg's free hand at editing the film in such a way as to yank truth from every corner. This is a strong work that belies skepticism over Dogma 95's bare-bones trendiness, and is perhaps a harbinger of great work to come from Vinterberg. --Tom Keogh