Kathmandu:

It’s either feast or famine on the DVD front and at the moment Suwal and Jenish in Pulchowk are churning out watchable movies. The cute 2003 film about family that can be a tearjerker, In America is here and worth the wait. Critic Brett Fetzer rhapsodises, “In America stars the incandescent Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine as two young Irish parents who have lost their only son. Trying to run away from their grief, they move from Canada (illegally) to a junkie-infested apartment building in New York City with their two daughters, Christy (Sarah Bolger) and Ariel (Emma Bolger). Though they struggle with meagre jobs and suffocatingly hot weather, a friendship with an artist in an apartment below them (Djimon Hounsou)

becomes a catalyst that allows them to rebuild their family.” And there’s fulsome praise from film writers,”Summarising, In America is a highly recommended touching, powerful, sensitive,

positive and magnificent movie. My vote is nine.” — Claudio Carvallho.

“Offering yet another noble savage chest-bearing role for the excellent Djimon Hounsou — that’s not quite enough to stop you being swept into the film’s warm afterglow. It’s flawed but still wonderful.” — David Brill. Of First Daughter film writer David Horiuch writes, “Playing the president’s kin in the modern fairy tale First Daughter is the most grown-up role yet for cutie Katie Holmes. Samantha McKenzie (Holmes) has lived all her life on the edge of the political spotlight, but she hopes she’ll get away from it all when she leaves the White House for college. No such luck. Even though she’s able to make friends with her roommate (singer Amerie) and meet a nice guy (Marc Blucas), security is tight in an election year, and the Secret Service follows her wherever she goes. First Daughter isn’t particularly original (it was the working title for Mandy Moore’s Chasing Liberty, which opened in theatres earlier the same year), but it’s a chuckle-inducing girlie movie that’s worth watching for Holmes. Also, Michael Keaton is especially likable as a president and dad.”

A fans adds, “Let’s bring the characters back for a sequel to this great family film.” Breakin’ All The Rules has Jamie Foxx breaking pace with a comedy. The film is almost a mix between a comedy of errors and a French Farce. Say’s a Movie Maven, “Jamie Foxx proves a winning romantic lead in the surprisingly subtle Breakin’ All the Rules. When Quincy (Foxx) gets brutally dumped by his fiancee, he researches the psychology of firing employees to create a break-up guide — a guide to a kinder, gentler break-up. His cousin Evan (Morris Chestnut) is afraid that his girlfriend is going to dump him, so he asks for Quincy’s help, setting in motion a web of mistaken identities that snares Evan’s girlfriend Nicky (Gabrielle Union), Quincy’s boss Philip (a wonderfully squirmy Peter MacNicol), and a blithe gold digger named Rita (Jennifer Esposito). Add in some unpredictable plot twists, genuine chemistry between Foxx and Union, and the result is genuinely fun.”

When it comes to Breakin’ All The Rules, it seemed the cast was more drawn to who they’d be working with than what they would be working on. Says Gabrielle Union, “I was like, well, who’s in it? And they said, Jamie Foxx, Morris Chestnut, and I said, well, they’re my friends. And my neighbours, we can carpool to work, this is perfect.” Says Jamie Foxx, “It was a pretty good script, but you know, I’ve been hanging out with Gabrielle for so many years, Morris Chestnut, we just wanted to get together and do something fun, and we thought this was a fun thing to do.”