Reserved 11-year-old Jess Aarons (Zathura’s Josh Hutcherson) is a
bit of an outsider — both at school and, as the only boy among five siblings
in a working-class family of seven, at home as well. When he strikes
up a friendship with the quirky new girl in his small town, Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb,
from Because of Winn-Dixie and The Reaping), she introduces him to a world of
imagination. Together they create the secret kingdom of Terabithia, a
magical place only accessible by swinging on an old rope over a stream
in the woods near their homes. There they play-act a series of
fantastical escapades against figurative representations of school
bullies and, in the process, change each other for the better.

Based on Katherine Paterson’s popular Newbery Award-winning novel,
Bride to Terabithia is part family drama, part adolescent fantasy – a
movie about friendship, as well as about the power and exhilaration of
a blossoming imagination. Beautifully fleshed out in non-pandering
fashion by screenwriters John Stockwell and David Paterson, and
directed with a clear, streamlined tone by Emmy Award-winning producer Gabor Csupo (The Simpsons), the film mines
a deep reservoir of genuine feeling that’s often missing in adolescent
entertainment, combining it with just the right amount of sensory
pleasures. Robb and Hutcherson are warm and engaging; the
conflicts, schemes and resolutions are also all believably to scale,
resulting in a winning piece of family-friendly entertainment.

Housed in a regular Amray case with a raised-print, hard-stock cardboard slipcover, Bridge to Terabithia is presented on DVD in anamorphic widescreen, preserving the aspect ratio of its theatrical presentation. Two separate audio commentary tracks headline the slate of bonus materials — one from director Csupo, writer Stockwell and producer Hal Leiberman, the other from cast members Hutcherson and Robb, and producer Lauren Levine. Depending on what sort of information you most want to hear — pre-production back story or goofy production anecdotes — each is worthy in its own right. A six-minute featurette on the movie’s special effects work — by Weta Digital, the visionary, Oscar-winning digital arthouse that created the visual masterpiece of Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings trilogy — is a worthwhile inclusion, while “Keep Your Mind Open,” a music video featuring Robb, is pure fluff. Rounding things out is a solid little 15-minute production featurette, including interviews with novelist Paterson and cast and crew members. A- (Movie) B+ (Disc)

It’s summer, and I was just attacked by a velociraptor this past weekend, so what better time, really, to re-post this DVD review of Jurassic Park III, originally from 2001? Oh, there’s also the fact that it costars Téa Leoni, who’s in the just-released You Kill Me, and is also totally hot.

Téa Leoni), contract Grant’s services. Under the
impression that he’s merely serving as a well-paid emcee on a low fly-by, Grant
awakens to discover he’s back in the one place in the world he least wants to
be.

With very few and very minor story qualms aside, Jurassic Park III is
structurally sound; it’s an easy story to buy into, and under director Joe
Johnston’s solid summer romp guidance, there’s plausible suspension of
disbelief. A good deal of credit should also go to the unlikely pinch-hit
writing team of Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (Election), who stepped in and
did such a significant stem-to-stern rewrite that they ended up sharing
screenplay credit with Peter Buchman. It would have been very easy for the
character of Grant, though necessary as a guide and narrative device, to be an
overly cynical and burdensome presence. But he’s not; though often agitated and
exasperated, he’s not grumpy, and we get a surprisingly clear sense of what
Grant feels and has gone through since the events of the original film. By
design, this third installment is a lot more of a straight-up action film than
its predecessors — without the wide-eyed, untainted wonder of these creatures
being (first) brought to life to capture our attention, the filmmakers rightly
realize that the entertainment is in new dinosaurs, new combinations and new
situations.

As one would expect, the DVD is chock full of supplemental extras, including
storyboards, bios, trailers for all three films in the series and an
informative but slightly intrusive feature-length audio commentary from Stan Winston,
animated effects director Dan Taylor and several other techies. The best bets,
though, are a self-guided virtual tour of Winston’s studio, a 3-D look at the
12 dinosaurs created for the film and a special making-of featurette, which
offers viewers insight into the filming of several key set pieces. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

If James Brown was, up until his death, the hardest working
man in show business, Sam Moore couldn’t have been that far behind, as he puts
plenty of heart, soul and sweat into the two shows that comprise this concert
DVD presentation, The Original Soul Man.

As one half of the famous 1960s Stax-minted R&B duo Sam
& Dave — known for their emotional intensity and gospel-infused
call-and-response style — Moore earned seven gold and platinum records and a
1967 Grammy to boot. Supported by the songwriting talents of Isaac Hayes and
David Porter, the group produced a string of hits starting with “You Don’t Know
Like I Know” in ’64, and followed by such classics as “Hold On, I’m Coming,”
“Soul Man” and “Soul Sister, Brown Sugar.” This DVD features two complete mini-concerts
performed by the original soul man. The first set, clocking in at 28 minutes,
was recorded live in Cannes, France
and the second, an 18-minute, three-song affair followed by a rendition of “My
Boyfriend’s Back” by The Angels, comes from the Church Street Station in Kissimmee,
Florida.

Of the two, the former set is the more substantive. Clad in
blue (suit, shirt and, yes, shoes too), Moore has a friendly, welcoming stage
persona, and jokes around a bit between numbers with the crowd (“No, I’m not
going to give you my tie!” he says at one point, when he ditches his yellow-colored
slipknot after “Hold On, I’m Coming.”) It’s funny to see Moore get the French
crowd going with numbers such as “You Got Me Hummin’,” “I Can’t Stand Up” and
“Take What I Want.” The highlight of the show, easily, though, is Moore’s
duet with Carla Thomas on “When Something Is Wrong With My Baby,” a showstopper
in every sense of the word.

The Florida set, I gather from sometime in the ’80s, gives
off a slightly cheesy vibe, though it’s funny to see a crowd boomers shaking
their thing on the dance floor, and three small kids up front near the corner
of the stage, goofing off. The energetic “Wrap It Up, I’ll Take It” (not part of the first
concert) is given a great run here, but it’s “When Something Is Wrong” that
gets everyone slow dancing. That doesn’t stop Moore
from sweating it out, though.

Housed in a regular Amray case, The Original Soul Man is presented on a region-free disc in 1.33:1
full screen, with a Dolby 2.0 stereo audio mix that is adequate if not
mind-blowing. Nit-picking but slightly irritating is the fact that the disc
lists its runtime as 75 minutes, which must be including some of the
self-described “propaganda” clips (not of Moore) that round out the disc,
touting other soul and folk releases from manufacturer Quantum Leap. Moore’s
inclusions, as noted, run well under a combined 50 minutes, so that little fib
marks things down a notch in my book. Other meager bonus features include a
brief biography and discography for Moore,
as well as a scroll-able text history of Stax Records. B (Concerts) C- (Disc)