Recommended DVD Box Sets for Christmas Gifts

Here are some suggestions for DVD box sets as possible Christmas and holiday gifts. All are available from Amazon.com. Hold your mouse over the links for more information.

Addams Family: Complete Series Gift Set

BBC Planet Earth: Complete Series

The Coen Brothers Gift Set

Ford at Fox

Harry Potter Limited Edition Gift Set

Ingmar Bergman: Four Masterworks

James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set

Ray Harryhausen in Color Gift Set

United Artists 90th Anniversary Gift Set

I'm Not There

"I'm Not There" gets a recommendation from Carina Chocano:

Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" is a film about Bob Dylan, but it's as far away from a movie like "Ray" or "Walk the Line" as it can be and still be considered an example of the same genre. A meticulous deconstruction of the legend, "I'm Not There" is the anti-biopic. It stars Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw as Bob Dylan. None of the characters they play are called Bob Dylan, however (nor Robert Zimmerman, Dylan's real name, for that matter), and only some of them look or sound like him. (Blanchett takes top honors for both.) Read Chocano's entire review of I'm Not There

I'm Not There Synopsis
Several actors portray legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan at different stages in his personal life and career. In 1959 a guitar-strumming youth (Marcus Carl Franklin) rides the rails, calling himself 'Guthrie.' Then a man named Jack (Christian Bale) emerges in New York's Greenwich Village, followed by Robbie (Heath Ledger), Jude (Cate Blanchett) and other personalities.

Opened November 21, 2007
Runtime: 2 hr. 15 min.
R for language, some sexuality and nudity
Cast: Christian Bale, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere
Director: Todd Haynes
Genres: Musical Drama, Biography [feature], Drama

How to Cook Your Life

Kenneth Turan gives "How to Cook Your Life" a recommendation:

This is an unexpectedly charming and enlightening film, a documentary that makes the most of the intersection of Zen Buddhism and cooking in the life of Edward Espe Brown, author of the celebrated Tassajara Bread Book. An inspired idea.
LA Times Capsule Review How to Cook Your Life

Synopsis:
Self-depreciating Zen Buddhist priest, chef, and Tessajara Bread Book author Edward Espe Brown takes over Buddhist center kitchens around the world to school viewers in the joys of organic cooking as filmmaker Doris Dörrie rolls camera to explore just how Zen wisdom and a sharp chef's knife can be the key components to a meal that nourishes both the body and the soul. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Doris Dörrie - Director, Screenwriter, Cinematographer
Run Time: 1:33
Release November 2007

Enchanted

Kenneth Turan gives "Enchanted" a recommendation saying:

This is one film that lives up to its name. An adroit combination of wised-up and happily-ever-after, its story of an animation princess thrust into New York's gritty reality gently mocks the mighty Disney fantasy machine without losing the core of the franchise's family appeal. Amy Adams is as good as it gets in the princess role.

Synopsis:
The tale follows the beautiful princess Giselle (Amy Adams) as she is banished by an evil queen (Susan Sarandon) from her magical, musical animated land – and finds herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan. Shocked by this strange new environment that doesn’t operate on a happily ever after basis, Giselle is now adrift in a chaotic world badly in need of enchantment. But when Giselle begins to fall in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) who has come to her aid – even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale prince (James Marsden) back home – she has to wonder: Can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world?


Opened November 21, 2007
Runtime: 1 hr. 47 min.
PG
Cast: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall
Director: Kevin Lima
Genres: Fairy Tales & Legends, Comedy, Family-Oriented Comedy

War/Dance

Kenneth Turn gives "War/Dance" his Critics' Choice" medallion writing:

An enormously emotional and spiritually uplifting documentary that follows war-torn children from a Ugandan refugee camp as they compete in a national music competition. "It is difficult for people to believe our story," one of the participants says. "But if we don't tell you, you won't know." And if you don't know, you will be missing something quite special.

Synopsis:
Since the 1980's, Uganda has been in a state of civil war, with the nation's leadership violently contested by a revolutionary force known as the Lord's Resistance Army (or L.R.A.). The fighting is fiercest in the North of Uganda, and there the L.R.A. recruit many of their soldiers by abducting children from refugee camps and homes in the poverty-stricken villages, where electricity and running water are still luxuries known only to a few. However, in the village of Patongo, located deep in Uganda's war zone, a group of students (many of whom escaped from the clutches of the L.R.A.) struggles to rise above the violence and desperation that surrounds them. Each year, a student music festival is held in Kampala, Uganda's capitol city, in which children from around the country compete for prizes in performing traditional music and dance. When the students of the Patongo Primary School are invited to compete for the first time, the children are both thrilled at their opportunity and determined to prove that in a place of violence and want, creativity and talent can still take root. War Dance is a documentary about the Patongo Primary School's long journey to the Kampala Music Festival and the experiences, both good and bad, which informed them. War Dance received its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Awards:
Won Best Director - Documentary Sundance Film Festival 2007

Won Natasha Isaacs Cinematography Award Chicago International Documentary Festival 2007

Steal a Pencil for Me

Kevin Crust gives "Steal a Pencil for Me" a Critic's Choice award.

It's a scenario that sounds like the romantic tragicomedy Woody Allen never wrote (but might have): Unhappily married, impoverished Dutch Jewish accountant Jack Polak meets young, wealthy beauty Ina Soep at a birthday party and is instantly smitten. Unfortunately, it's 1943 and Holland is occupied by the Nazis. Within months, Jack, Ina and Jack's wife, Manja, are all picked up and find themselves in the same concentration camp.

But this is no piece of fiction. Director Michèle Ohayon's striking documentary "Steal a Pencil for Me" tells this most unusual love story with grace and compassion. Through the Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps, Jack and Ina's relationship -- kept alive primarily through letters -- survives against all odds.

Synopsis: A man, his wife, and the women he has fallen deeply in love with experience jealousy and heartbreak while housed together in the same barrack of a World War II-era concentration camp in Oscar-nominated director Michele Ohayon (Cowboy Del Amore)'s unflinching look at love in a land ravaged by war. His marriage already failing when he and his wife were assigned to live in a concentration camp, Jack soon found comfort in the arms of new love interest Ina. Though his wife voiced vehement objection to the relationship, Jack continued to communicate with his newfound love in a series of furtively-penned love letters. It was through these clandestine correspondences that Jack and Ina were eventually able to gain the strength needed to get through such a dark time, but as the war draws to a close all three survivors are forced to make some difficult, and potentially life-altering, decisions. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Released November 2007
In English and Dutch with English subtitles.
Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.
Documentary Drama

No Country for Old Men

Kenneth Turan's capsule review of "No Country for Old Men" says it all - don't see this movie if you don't have a stomach for violence. Despite it all, Turan recommends the movie:

With this intense, nihilistic thriller, the Coen brothers drop the mask. They've put violence on screen before, lots of it, but not like this..."No Country For Old Men" doesn't celebrate or smile at violence, it despairs of it, despairs of its randomness, pervasiveness and inescapability, of the way it eats at the soul of society and the individuals in it.

Capsule review of "No Country for Old Men" by Kenneth Turan

Llewelyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a sentry of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back trunk. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law--namely aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell--can contain. Moss tries to evade his pursuers, in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives, as the crime drama broadens.

Opened November 2007
2 hr. 2 min.
R - strong graphic violence and some language
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald
Director: Joel Coen
Genre: Crime Thriller, Thriller

American Gangster

Kenneth Turan writing for the LA Times raves about "American Gangster", saying:

It takes nerve to call a film "American Gangster": It's more than a movie title, it's the name of a venerable genre that dates to cinema's beginnings. But once you see this finely made and richly satisfying film, you understand it's the only title possible.

Review of American Gangster by the LA Times' Kenneth Turan

Synopsis
Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) earns his living as a chauffeur to one of Harlem's leading mobsters. After his boss dies, Frank uses his own ingenuity and strict business code to rise up as one of the inner city's most powerful crime bosses. Meanwhile, veteran cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) senses a change in organized crime's power structure, and looks for ways to bring his opponent to justice. (Times and tickets at Fandango.com)

Opened November 2007
2 hr. 37 min.
R - violence, pervasive drug content and language, nudity and sexuality
Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Josh Brolin
Director: Ridley Scott
Genre: Crime Drama, Gangster Film, Crime

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Kenneth Turan gives "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" a recommendation:

A tense anti-caper that's part thriller and part Greek tragedy, the crime is such a prize specimen in the gallery of regrettable decisions that director Sidney Lumet gets the scene of the crime out of the way early, then keeps coming back to it for the rest of the movie, as if trying to figure out how all of these well-intentioned people got here in the first place.

Synopsis from Fandango

Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a debt-ridden broker, needs some quick cash. He ropes his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke), into a scheme to commit the perfect crime: to rob their parents' (Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris) jewelry store. The scheme goes horribly awry, and the family patriarch takes justice into his own hands, unaware that the criminals he is hunting are his own sons.


Opened October 2007
1 hr. 57 min.
Rated R
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris
Director: Sidney Lumet
Genre: Crime Thriller, Crime, Family Drama

Dan in Real Life

Kenneth Turan in reviewing "Dan in Real Life" writes

...if what you want is a star-driven sophisticated romantic comedy that is successfully aimed at actual adults..."Dan in Real Life" is such a film. Starring contemporary comedy giant Steve Carell and Oscar-winning French high-culture heroine Juliette Binoche, a coupling as unlikely as it is delicious, "Dan" offers the most pleasing kind of unforced charm as it uses a terrific plot device to examine the conflicts between family and romance as well as the joy and pain of being in love.

Review of Dan in Real Life by Kenneth Turan, LA Times

Dan Ashburn is a devoted single father and renowned advice columnist. When his entire extended family gets together for a reunion in a beach-front house, he unexpectedly meets Beth, the woman of his dreams. She is smart, funny, beautiful and she just happens to be his brother Lowell's girlfriend. The man with all the answers finds that the hardest advice to take is his own.

Release Date: October 2007
Running Time: 1 hr. 35 min.
PG-13
Cast: Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook
Director: Peter Hedges
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Comedy Drama