Awake

• Awake turns the disturbingly real phenomenon of anesthetic awareness - in which surgery patients, through completely paralyzed, are conscious of everything they are experiencing, including the pain - into a "completely absorbing" thriller (Roger Ebert). When failed anesthesia leaves a rich young tycoon (Hayden Christensen, Star Wars) alert but immobilized during open heart surgery, he over

AWAKE is a sexy, psychological thriller about a common occurrence called "anesthetic awareness" a horrifying phenomenon wherein a patient's failed anesthesia leaves him fully conscious but physically paralyzed during surgery. The patient's charming new wife is forced to struggle with her own demons as a terrifying drama unfolds around the couple.There's a hint of classic noir in the twists and turns that make up Awake, a medical thriller that hinges on an alarming real-life condition known as anesth! esia awareness, which keeps surgery patients awake but immobile during surgery. Hayden Christensen is top-billed as the scion of a wealthy banking family in desperate need of a heart transplant. Seconds after the operation commences, he discovers that he is fully conscious, yet unable to move; and what's worse, the entire procedure is slated to fail in order to claim his considerable fortune. Once the scheme is set in motion, Awake moves into high gear, and the stock characters established in the exposition-heavy opening show their true (and decidedly scurrilous) colors. Unfortunately, the suspense is undone by Christensen undergoing what appears to be a confusing out-of-body experience, and a conclusion that begs for more suspension of disbelief than most audiences will be able to summon up. Christensen and Jessica Alba (as his new bride) are attractive but bland; instead, it's Howard who delivers as the film's conflicted antihero. The supporting players, including ! Lena Olin as Christensen's overprotective mom, Christopher McD! onald, a nd Arliss Howard also lend considerable credence to the material. -- Paul Gaita

The Young Victoria [Blu-ray]

• Condition: New
• Format: Blu-ray
• AC-3; Color; Dolby; Subtitled; Widescreen

From Jane Campion, Academy Award winner of The Piano, comes a sweeping love story that will carry you back through time to experience the passion and romance between acclaimed poet, John Keats and his beloved muse. London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year old English poet, John Keats, and the girl next door Fanny Brawne, an outspoken student of high fashion. This unlikely pair began at odds, he thinking her a stylish minx, while she was unimpressed not only by his poetry but also by literature in general.
Add Jane Campion's rich, sensuous, quietly thrilling Bright Star to the very short list of admirable films about writers. In this case the writer is John Keat! s (Ben Whishaw), the Romantic poet who died at age 25 believing himself a failure. The movie, set during his last several years, focuses on his playful friendship with and evolving love for Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), the independent-minded young woman who lived next door in Hampstead Village and was, in her own fashion, an artistic spirit. Completing an ineffably fraught constellation--not exactly a romantic triangle--is Keats's host Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider), who loves, esteems, and regards Keats with both pride and envy, and engages in an unstated rivalry for Fanny. All three performances are superb, with Whishaw adding to his gallery of artist figures (the olfactorily obsessed murderer in Perfume, one of the Bob Dylans in I'm Not There), and Cornish and Schneider taking top acting honors for 2009. As in Campion's The Piano, others are party to the central story, and they have identities, personalities, and claims to intelligence and ! understanding that we appreciate without having it announced i! n dialog ue. Kerry Fox (redheaded wild girl of Campion's An Angel at My Table nearly two decades ago) evokes Fanny's mother with a few brushstrokes, and Fanny's young sister and brother are watchful presences and de facto co-conspirators in the courtship. In addition, Bright Star is the rare period movie to convey--without being insistent--what it was like to be alive in another era, the nature of houses and rooms and how people occupied them, the way windows linked spaces and enlarged people's lives and experiences, how fires warmed as the milky English sunlight did not. And always there is an aliveness to place and weather, the creak of boardwalk underfoot and the wind rustling the reeds as lovers walk through a wetland. Poetry grows from such things; at least, Jane Campion's does. --Richard T. JamesonEmily Blunt and Rupert Friend star in the lavish historical drama, THE YOUNG VICTORIA. Resolved to establish her authority over those who rule in her stead! , a young and inexperienced Queen Victoria (Blunt) draws strength from the love of Albert (Friend), the handsome prince who’s stolen her heart. Based on the courtship and early reign of England’s longest-serving monarch, THE YOUNG VICTORIA is a majestic tale of romance, intrigue and power.


Stills from The Young Victoria (Click for larger image)

The epic romance of one of the most celebrated poets in the English language

Coming to theatres in September 200! 9 is the tragic love story of nineteenth-century poet John Keats and the love of his life, Fanny Brawne. Keats died at the young age of twenty-five, leaving behind some of the most exquisite and moving verse and letters ever written, inspired by his deep love for Fanny. Bright Star is a collection of Keat's romantic poems and correspondence in the heat of his passion, and is a dazzling display of a talent cut cruelly short.Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend star in the lavish historical drama, THE YOUNG VICTORIA. Resolved to establish her authority over those who rule in her stead, a young and inexperienced Queen Victoria (Blunt) draws strength from the love of Albert (Friend), the handsome prince who’s stolen her heart. Based on the courtship and early reign of England’s longest-serving monarch, THE YOUNG VICTORIA is a majestic tale of romance, intrigue and power.


Stills from The Young Victoria (Click for larg! er image)