Home Video Releases // December 23

Here’s a run down of some of the movies available on Home Video platforms on December 23 2014.

Dr. Cabbie

[projekktor id=’15072′ poster=’https://www.www.chch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/drcabbie-fi.jpg’]

Dr. Cabbie is a Indian-Canadian comedy film directed by Jean-François Pouliot. The film stars Vinay Virmani, Kunal Nayyar, and Adrianne Palicki. From the official synopsis:

An unemployed doctor-turned-cab driver becomes a local hero when he converts his taxi into a mobile clinic. DR.CABBIE is a heartwarming comedy about a young Indian doctor who immigrates to Canada and faces roadblocks in his effort to heal others but discovers his true purpose, and true love, along the way.

Entertainment One & First Take Entertainment recently announced plans to develop and produce a television adaptation based on the film.

Dr. Cabbie is rated PG.

The Good Lie

[projekktor id=’15199′ poster =’https://www.www.chch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/thegoodlie-fi.jpg’]

The Good Lie is a drama film directed by French Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau (Monsieur Lazhar). From the official synopsis:

They were known simply as “The Lost Boys.” Orphaned by the brutal civil war in Sudan, which began in 1983, these young victims traveled as many as a thousand miles on foot in search of safety. Fifteen years later, a humanitarian effort would bring 3600 lost boys, as well as girls, to America. In “The Good Lie,” Philippe Falardeau, (writer and director of the Oscar-nominated Foreign Language film “Monsieur Lazhar”) brings the story of their survival and triumph to life. Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon (“Walk the Line”) stars alongside Sudanese actors Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal, and newcomer Kuoth Wiel, some of whom were also children of war and lived through traumatic events not unlike those depicted in the film.

The film is based on real life events surrounding the Lost Boys, but the characters are all fictional. “It is inspired by the collective experience of the Lost Boys,” explains director Philippe Falardeau, “who were able to flee the destruction of their villages when the north, which had the military apparatus, began pounding the south, annihilating everything and everyone in their path. Many boys were able to escape because they were in the fields taking care of the cattle.”

The Good Lie is rated 14A.

Swearnet

[projekktor id=’14671′ poster=’https://www.www.chch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/swearnet-fi.jpg’]

SwearNet is a Canadian comedy film directed by Warren P. Sonoda. The film is a quasi-documentary that catches up with Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay, and Mike Smith – more commonly known as the Trailer Park Boys – after their TV series is cancelled. Their attempts to get back on TV are hindered when the CTC network dubs their new show ideas too explicit for television. With nowhere to turn, the boys decide to start their own internet channel called SwearNet, giving them the freedom to make shows that they want without censorship.

The basic idea of SwearNet is grounded in reality. As the Trailer Park Boys got more popular, they trio wanted to get more outrageous with their characters. But television executives had to rein them in, censoring much of their later material. “This is a meta-comedy,” says director Warren P. Sonoda. “The stars of this movie play themselves. It’s hard sometimes to tell when they are ‘acting’ and when they are ‘themselves’ because it sometimes merges, but they are always very, very aware of what the funny is, what the joke is or where the humour lies and they sometimes forget that they are playing characters who happen to be themselves but they have a good time doing it man.”

SwearNet is rated 18A.

The Trip to Italy

The Trip to Italy is the sequel to 2010’s road trip comedy The Trip, directed by Michael Winterbottom. Like its predecessor, the film is an edited version of the BBC series that aired over six episodes. The stars, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, are on a journey filing restaurant reviews throughout Italy, starting in the North and finishing on the island of Capri. Much of the conversation between the two friends is improvised, with each man portraying an exaggerated version of themselves. If you’re a fan of British comedy and improvisation, then chances are you’ll enjoy The Trip to Italy.

A theme from the first film that was applied to the second is the idea that the duo are following in the footsteps of British literary icons. In the first film it was Coleridge and Wordsworth that they emulated, and this time it was the romantic poets George Gordon Lord Byron  and Percy Bysse Shelley. The restaurants and hotels that Coogan and Brydon visited in The Trip to Italy are some very prestigious properties and have ties to the authors.  The Casa Magni in Lerici, for example, is the house that Shelley and his wife Mary were living in at the time Shelley was shipwrecked.

The Trip to Italy is rated 14A.