The Alphabet Killer

• A ten year old girl is found brutally murdered outside the small blue-collar city of Rochester, New York, and obsessed police detective Megan Paige (Eliza Dushku of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and DOLLHOUSE) suffers a mental breakdown while trying to solve the crime. But when the child-killings resume two years later, Megan s return to the investigation also brings back her own horrific hallucination

An international group of young surfers comes into possession of an ancient artifact, Mamba, an old board game made from the skin and bones of a witch executed during the Spanish Inquisition. At a drunken party one night, they casually decide to play. It’s all fun and games until they find out that curses last forever and death is the ultimate undertow.Disc 1: Season 1-Disc 1 **PILOT WITH COMMENTARY BY CREATOR/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JON HARMON FELDMAN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DAWN PAROUSE, ACTORS ELIZA DUS! HKU AND SHAWN REAVES **"Putting Out Fires" **"Brother's Keeper" **"Past Tense" **Deleted Scenes

Disc 2: Season 1 Disc 2 **"Haunted" **"Star Crossed" with optional Commentary by Creator/Executive Producer Jon Harmon Feldman **"Morning After" **"Closure" **Deleted Scenes

Disc 3: Season 1 Disc 3 **"Murder In the Morgue" **"Reunion" **"The Longest Day" with optional COMMENTARY BY CREATOR/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JON HARMON FELDMAN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DAWN PAROUSE, ACTORS ELIZA DUSHKU AND SHAWN REAVES **"Valentine" **Deleted Scenes

Disc 4: Season 1 Disc 4

**"Drop Dead Gorgeous" **"Daddy's Girl" with optional COMMENTARY BY CREATOR/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JON HARMON FELDMAN, ACTORS ELIZA DUSHKU AND ZACH GALIFIANAKIS **"The Getaway" **Deleted Scenes

Disc 5: Season 1 Disc 5 **"Two Pair" with optional Commentary by Creator/Executive Producer Jon Harmon Feldman and Actor Jason Priestley **"Death Becomes Her" **"Rear Window" **Deleted Scenes

Disc 6: Season 1 Disc 5 **"D.O.! A" **"Two Weddings and A Funeral" with optional COMMENTARY BY ! CREATOR/ EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JON HARMON FELDMAN, ACTORS ELIZA DUSHKU AND ZACH GALIFIANAKIS

**3 FEATURETTES *"FINDING THE CALLING" *"THE TRU PATH" *"EVIL COMES CALLING" **DELETED SCENES **MUSIC VIDEO: ""SOMEBODY HELP ME"" BY FULL BLOWN ROSE **Arrested Development Promo ""Blind" **Easter Egg

Disc 7: Season 2 Disc 1 **"Perfect Storm" **"Grace" **"In the Dark" **"The Last good Day"

Disc 8: Season 2 Disc 2 **"Enough" **"Twas the Night Before Christmas...Again" **"Tru Calling: Opposing Forces"James (Macaulay Culkin) and Heather (Alexis Dziena) along with Ellis (Kuno Becker) and Renee (Eliza Dushku) are two twenty-something couples whose lives are intertwined as they experiment with group sex as a way to sort out the rudiments of a successful relationship â€" sex, love and communication. After a series of mishaps fueled by jealousy, confusion and insecurities; they soon find that true love and lasting relationships (at their core) are ultimately about more t! han sex and breakfast.A ten year old girl is found brutally murdered outside the small blue-collar city of Rochester, New York, and obsessed police detective Megan Paige (Eliza Dushku of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and DOLLHOUSE) suffers a mental breakdown while trying to solve the crime. But when the child-killings resume two years later, Megan’s return to the investigation also brings back her own horrific hallucinations.  Even if she can prove a ‘double initial’ connection to the slayings, will she hang onto her sanity long enough to catch a psychopath? Cary Elwes (SAW), Michael Ironside (STARSHIP TROOPERS), Bill Moseley (THE DEVIL’S REJECTS), Carl Lumbly (ALIAS) and Academy Award® winner Timothy Hutton co-star in this chilling thriller directed by Rob Schmidt.In the spirit of suspense films and television shows that focus on the sleuth’s attempt to make something out of senseless violence, Alphabet Kill! er is less about the murders it details than about the d! etective , Megan Paige (Eliza Dushku of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), who suffers mentally for studying brutality. Though opening scenes show young girls slayed at various wooded Rochester, New York crime scenes, the film quickly digresses into Megan’s stressed relationship with her co-detective lover, Kenneth Shine (Cary Elwes), who watches her obsession with the case spiral out of control. As murders continue, Megan gets psychic leads and is haunted by the ghosts of the wrongly deceased, but cannot solve the case. Megan’s diagnosis as a schizophrenic complicates matters greatly, and elevates the film into deeper story, especially when one senses, through subtle filmic clues, the creepiness of Megan’s therapist, Richard Ledge (Timothy Hutton). Some silly, dramatized enactments of mental illness on Dushku’s part do not help convince the viewer through fine acting, though one may be willing to look past this in hopes for pending potential spookiness. And the! conundrum posed by Megan in her therapy group is engaging: manic people do often excel due to intuition, yet it is their ability to experience the world differently that gets them into trouble. Although the ghosts hallucinations are unconvincing, and Dushku probably could have used more research before she took the role, Alphabet Killer captivates because it shows how convoluted layers of reality can confuse even the sharpest detective. The disturbing thing about Alphabet Killer is not the film itself but the idea behind it: that the majority of what we know and trust is illusory, and that truth is discovered best through madness. --Trinie Dalton

Stills from The Alphabet Killer (Click for larger image)

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The Reader

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Emmy Award®-winner James Gandolfini (All The King's Men, TV's The Sopranos), Oscar®-winner Susan Sarandon (Shall We Dance, Stepmom), Oscar®-nominated Kate Winslet (Titanic, Finding Neverland), Steve Buscemi (Fargo, Reservoir Dogs), Mandy Moore (Chasing Liberty, The Princess Diaries), Emmy Award®-winner Bobby Cannavale (Snakes on a Plane, The Bone Collector), Golden Globe Award®-winner Mary-Louise Parker (Red Dragon, Fried Green Tomatoes), Aida Turturro (Deep Blue Sea, Sleepers), Emmy Award®-winner Eddie Izzard (My Super-Ex Girlfriend, Ocean's Twelve) and Oscar®-winner Christopher Walken (Click, The Wedding Crashers) lead an all-star cast in this down-and-dirty modern day musical set which tells the story of one man's journey into infidelity ! and redemption. Nick (Gandolfini) is an ironworker who builds and repairs bridges. He's married to Kitty (Sarandon), a dressmaker, a strong and gentle woman with whom he has three daughters and must struggle to cope with her husband's betrayal. He is carrying on a torrid affair with a flame haired seductress named Tula (Winslet). It is only through a tragic twist of fate that Nick finally understands the extent of the pain he has inflicted on his family. With time running out he discovers the essential value of Kitty's love and respect. In an imaginative, humorous, and touching way, Romance & Cigarettes explores the cost and value of a relationship through life and death. When the characters can no longer express themselves with language, they break into song, lip-synching the tunes lodged in their subconscious. It is their way to escape the harsh reality of their world - to dream, to remember, and to connect to another human being.Some musicals target families, ot! hers set their sights on more mature audiences (think Chica! go). To judge by appearances, John Turturro's suburban operetta has little in common with Rob Marshall's urban razzle-dazzler, except it also aims for the melodrama-meets-film noir set--and features as much graphic language as Goodfellas. James Gandolfini sets the scene as Queens ironworker Nick Murder (Steve Buscemi plays his best pal). Nick's marriage to Kitty (Susan Sarandon) has hit the skids. His relationships with his daughters (Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker, and John's cousin, Aida Turturro) are just as fraught. Then again, all women, including fiery mistress Tula (Kate Winslet), befuddle the lug. As in the works of Dennis Potter, characters express themselves through song--in this case, a combination of singing and lip-synching. And when they burst into a tune, everyone joins in, from sanitation workers to welders. The material ranges from crooner standards ("A Man without Love") to rock classics ("Piece of My Heart"). Like Potter's The Singing Detective,! fantasy also commingles with reality (Kitty envisions her first love returning from the dead). Turturro's third directorial effort arrives as a labor of love--a difficult labor. When studio restructuring caused delays, he assumed distribution duties himself. Just as passion is rarely tidy, his Coen Brothers-produced movie can be messy--the tender moments play better than the boisterous ones--but the director's passion for his material shines through. It can also be very funny, especially when Cousin Bo (Christopher Walken) shakes a leg to Tom Jones's "Delilah." --Kathleen C. FennessyThe Reader, set in post-WWII Germany, follows teenager Michael Berg as he engages in a passionate but secretive affair with an older woman named Hanna. Eight years after Hanna s disappearance, Michael is stunned to discover her again as she stands on trial for Nazi war crimes. The Reader is a haunting story about truth and reconciliation and how one generation comes to terms with the cri! mes of another. Kate Winslet won and Academy Award and a Golde! n Globe for her performance.What is the nature of guilt--and how can the human spirit survive when confronted with deep and horrifying truths? The Reader, a hushed and haunting meditation on these knotty questions, is sorrowful and shocking, yet leavened by a deep love story that is its heart. In postwar Germany, young schoolboy Michael (German actor David Cross) meets and begins a tender romance with the older, mysterious Hanna (Kate Winslet, whose performance is a revelation). The two make love hungrily in Hanna's shabby apartment, yet their true intimacy comes as Michael reads aloud to Hanna in bed, from his school assignments, textbooks, even comic books. Hanna delights in the readings, and Michael delights in Hanna.

Years later, the two cross paths again, and Michael (played as an adult by Ralph Fiennes) learns, slowly, horrifyingly, of acts that Hanna may have been involved in during the war. There is a war crimes trial, and the accused at one point asks the panel ! of prosecutors: "Well, what would you have done?" It is that question--as one German professor says later: "How can the next generation of Germans come to terms with the Holocaust?"--that is both heartbreaking and unanswerable. Winslet plays every shade of gray in her portrayal of Hanna, and Fiennes is riveting as the man who must rewrite history--his own and his country's--as he learns daily, hourly, of deeds that defy categorization, and morality. "No matter how much washing and scrubbing," one character says matter of factly, "some sins don't wash away." The Reader (with nods to similar films like Sophie's Choice and The English Patient dares to present that unnerving premise, without offering an easy solution. --A.T. Hurley

Stills from The Reader (Click for larger image)

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