“A Cinderella Story: Once Upon A Song” is the third installment in the Cinderella saga by Warner Bros./Premiere in association with ABC Family.  Surprisingly this title is making its DVD debut before airing on cable television. As you may have guessed, as the third film in the franchise, the plot is fairly redundant.  There is not much that is whole-heartedly original here versus the previous two films.  I have to watch what I say here.  Lucy, don’t hate me for saying this, but the premise falls flat with nothing to grab onto.  I love you, but it is true. Our beloved Lucy Hale is the girl up this time around, portraying our Cinderella.  In the first film, Hilary Duff got the attic of a suburban L.A home.  In the second film, Selena Gomez got the guesthouse of a Beverly Hills mansion.  And ...

title: Casanova function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close(); studio: Touchstone (Buena Vista Home Entertainment) MPAA rating: Rated R starring: Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt, Lena Olin, Omid Djalili, Charlie Cox, Natalie Dormer, Helen McCrory, Tim McInnerny DVD release year: 2006 film release year: 2005 director: Lasse Hallström running time: 108 minutes (DVD label says 111 minutes) film rating: Four stars sound/picture rating: Four stars reviewed by: Bill Warren Giacomo Casanova was an adventurer, libertine, magician and traveler who, late in life, wrote his multi-volume memoirs. Movies have been feasting on them as long as there have been movies. Fellini made “Fellini’s Casanova” with Donald Sutherland as the rake of the Renaissance, but it was surprisingly stodgy for Fellini. The same certainly can’t be said for Lasse Hallström’s lively, funny—and underestimated—“Casanova” of 2005.

title: The Woodlanders function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close();  studio: Miramax Home Entertainment MPAA rating: PG starring: Rufus Sewell, Polly Walker, Jodhi May, Tony Haygarth, Cal MacAninch, Emily Woof director: Phil Agland film release year: 1997 DVD release year: 2005 film rating: Two Stars sound/picture rating: One and a Half Stars reviewed by: Paul Lingas “The Woodlanders” is a pleasant enough albeit somewhat drab adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel of the same name. It takes place in Hardy’s Wessex, in the south of England in the 19th century. The events surround the return of Grace Melbury (Emily Woof) from school to her rural hometown, where she is awaited not only by her father (Tony Haygarth) but also by the honest and hardworking woodsman Giles Winterborne (Rufus Sewell). Though there has always been an understanding between Giles and Grace, Mr. Melbury has decided that, because Grace is now an educated woman, the uneducated Giles, of low social stature, is no longer suitable for her.

title: The English Patient function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close(); studio: Miramax Home Entertainment starring: Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe release year: 1996 film rating: Four stars sound/picture: Four stars reviewed by: Bill Warren Contrary to popular lore, not everyone will find 1996's Best Picture Oscar winner 'The English Patient' swooningly romantic. However, writer/director Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's novel is a remarkably intelligent look at love as both pathology and therapy while, at the same time, a work that is epic in both appearance and scope. Minghella has also managed to turn the book's dense, often confusingly elliptical, structure into a multi-layered, yet quite coherent, gripping narrative.

title: Shall We Dance? function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close();  studio: Miramax Home Entertainment MPAA rating: PG-13 starring: Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter, Richard Jenkins, Bobby Cannavale, Omar Miller film release year: 2004 DVD release year: 2005 film rating: Two-and-a-Half Stars sound/picture: One-and-a-Half Stars reviewed by: Paul Lingas “Shall We Dance?” is a surprisingly charming little film that is a remake of the 1996 film by Masayuki Suo. It focuses on an average man with a happy yet average family named John Clark (Richard Gere). Though he has a good job, a nice house in the suburbs, a loving wife Bev (Susan Sarandon) and two children, there is something missing from John’s life. Nothing is remarkably wrong, he just seems settled into his life in such a way that he has grown somewhat complacent in his routine and this fact makes him unhappy.