plus 3, Movie Gallery Receives Court Approval of First Day Motions as Part of ... - Forbes

Movie Gallery Receives Court Approval of First Day Motions as Part of ... - Forbes
Movie review: The Danish `Terribly Happy' creates a moody noir ... - Washington Examiner
Movie review: 'Dear John's' letter of loss and grief stays true to Sparks' formula - Winnipeg Free Press
Ohio executes man who bragged about copying movie scene before killing ... - Los Angeles Times

Movie Gallery Receives Court Approval of First Day Motions as Part of ... - Forbes

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 06:54 AM PST

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BusinessWire - --Employee Wages, Benefits and Customer Programs to Continue; Vendors to Receive Payment for Goods and Services Provided Post-Petition

Movie Gallery, Inc., today announced that it has received interim court approval to utilize its cash on hand to maintain ongoing operations pending a final hearing. The approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division, means that Movie Gallery can continue to pay employee wages, salaries and benefits; continue to honor customer programs, including memberships, gift cards and store credits; and pay vendors for goods and services which the company purchases after the Chapter 11 filing.

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In addition, Movie Gallery received court approval to retain DJM Realty to assist the company in its evaluation and renegotiation of the company's current leases in order to help improve the profitability of the store base going forward. Movie Gallery encourages landlords to respond immediately to the lease restructuring requests by contacting DJM Realty at www.djmrealty.com or 631-752-1100.

The company has also retained Gordon Brothers Group to handle its store closing sales associated with the immediate closure of approximately 760 locations.

The motions were submitted as part of its February 2, 2010, voluntary filing for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

As previously announced, the filing does not include the company's Canadian operations, which will continue business as normal.

Movie Gallery is using this proven, court-supervised process to address its capital structure and reorganize its business operations. Movie Gallery believes it can continue to play a productive role in connecting consumers with the best and most personalized entertainment and intends to emerge from this process with a new and sustainable business model.

Additional information about the Chapter 11 filing and restructuring is available on special restructuring pages of the Movie Gallery (www.moviegallery.com/restructure) and Hollywood Video (www.hollywoodvideo.com/restructure) Web sites. The company has also established the following restructuring information lines:

-- Media: 503-570-5233

-- Customers: 877-244-6684

-- Landlords: 503-570-3006

About Movie Gallery Inc.

Based in Wilsonville, Ore., Movie Gallery, Inc., is the second largest North American video and game rental company, operating stores in the U.S. and Canada under the Movie Gallery, Hollywood Video and Game Crazy brands.

SOURCE: Movie Gallery, Inc.

Movie Gallery, Inc. Media Information Line 503-570-5233

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Movie review: The Danish `Terribly Happy' creates a moody noir ... - Washington Examiner

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 05:46 PM PST

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Years of moviegoing have familiarized us with tales of city folk waylaid in country towns — quirky Southern backwaters and dusty desert holes. It turns out that the convention works especially well in, of all places, rural Denmark.

"Terribly Happy," the Danish foreign film submission to the Oscars, transplants a familiar genre to a small, sparsely populated village on the gray plains of southern Jutland. A police officer, Robert Hansen (Jakob Cedergren), arrives from Copenhagen, transferred for something bad enough to get him cast off to the sticks.

The town is desolate. A grim bog lurks on the outskirts, a swampy pit that, we are told, can swallow a cow whole. The craggy, shifty townspeople seem to regard it as the local courthouse, and a liberally used one, at that.

Locals use the same word for goodbye and hello — "mojn" — a salutation that suggests coming and going might as well be the same thing.

Hanson, clean-cut and upright, arrives with a "by the book" mentality that immediately chafes with the locals, who keep him off balance. Stoically hunched over their beers in the town pub, they bewilder him by knowing his every move.

The authority they better respect is Jorgen (Kim Bodnia), a grizzled and stout tyrant in a cowboy hat. Hanson quickly makes himself Jorgen's enemy by becoming friendly and protective of his attractive, abused wife, Ingelise (Lene Maria Christensen).

It would be a simple enough film if, once the violence picked up, we were left to root for Hansen to outwit the crafty country bumpkins, resist their femme fatale and keep from being sucked into the bog. But "Terribly Happy" throws several wrinkles into the old formula that reveal a much broader and cynical view of corruption. By the end, there is no distance between city and country.

"Terribly Happy," directed by Henrick Ruben Genz, is all moodiness, midnight black comedy and noir mystery. That has earned the film comparisons to a Coen brothers movie, but "Terribly Happy" is more straightforward and less self-aware. The commonality, though, is that Genz playfully inverts genres: The proverbial showdown happens not as a shootout but a drinking contest.

Cinematographer Jorgen Johansson uses a cool, drab pallet to create the tense atmosphere. Evoking the danger of being swallowed up, the camera repeatedly peers at boots meeting the ground, (including a heart-stopping "Tell-Tale Heart" allusion).

"Terribly Happy," an Oscilloscope Laboratories release, is unrated by the MPAA. Running time: 100 minutes. Three stars out of four.

___

Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G — General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.

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Movie review: 'Dear John's' letter of loss and grief stays true to Sparks' formula - Winnipeg Free Press

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 03:37 PM PST

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The movie is called "Dear John," and, yes, there's a character named John and, yes, he's a soldier who, sure enough, receives dozens of letters from his sweetheart back home, including one emotionally wrought missive that begins "Dear John" and ends with him vowing to permanently switch to email.

And because this earnest romance comes from a Nicholas Sparks novel, death and disappointment hover over the events, ready to strike - and strike often. For Sparks, grief is good. Maybe greed, too, given the number of times he has recycled the same themes.

Certainly, if you've seen "Nights in Rodanthe," "A Walk to Remember" or "Message in a Bottle," you know the drill and you're either on board with the box of tissues or waiting in line to see "Avatar" for the umpteenth time while your date suffers for the both of you.

"Dear John" opens with its soldier being wounded in the line of fire. Then the way-back machine takes us to a happier time when John (Channing Tatum) met Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) in the spring of 2001.

John is on leave from his Special Forces unit, visiting his father in South Carolina. Savannah is home on spring break, helping a family rebuild its hurricane-damaged house. He's broody and shirtless. She's bubbly and pure. He has a dark past. She doesn't drink or smoke, though she does curse "in her mind."

Sure, it sounds corny. But director Lasse Hallstrom ("Chocolat") and screenwriter Jamie Linden give the whirlwind romance an appealing, straightforward decency, and Tatum and Seyfried click rather effortlessly. They're not Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams from "The Notebook," but they'll do.

John returns to Germany, and the lovers promise to write for the remaining year of his service. But then 9/11 happens, setting into motion an awful series of events that feels overwrought even by Sparks' operatic standards.

It's easy to understand why Sparks revisits death and loss. His mother was killed in a horseback riding accident when she was 47. His youngest sister, the inspiration for the main character of "Walk to Remember," died of cancer at 33. His father lost his life in an automobile accident at the age of 54.

These events clearly inform his writing, but, by now, there's the feeling that Sparks uses grief as a sales gimmick. The ending of "Dear John" feels manufactured and patently false. Seyfried tries to sell it, but you can tell that she's having a hard time believing the words coming out of her mouth.

There's also a subplot involving John's relationship with his uncommunicative father (Richard Jenkins) that doesn't take hold because it's so thinly sketched. Nevertheless, the movie's most emotional scene comes between these two characters. The scene doesn't come from the novel, nor does the final fate of the couple, which differs significantly from what Sparks wrote. Whether that's an improvement is an assessment best left to the hankie-carrying members of Sparks' fan club.

Two stars out of four.

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