MomReviews

The curtain is going up on THE SUITE LIFE OF ZACK & CODY: LIP SYNCHIN’ IN THE RAIN! Get ready to laugh out loud at four outrageously funny episodes from the hit Disney Channel original series packed with mischief mayhem and music! Plus discover if Dylan and Cole Sprouse are exactly alike in the exclusive “Twin-Tastic” bonus feature loaded with fun facts and cool trivia about real-life twins and watch the sidesplitting gag reel featuring hilarious never-before-seen moments from the entire cast! TV’s funniest identical twins Zack and Cody (Dylan and Cole Sprouse) and their friends Maddie and London (Ashley Tisdale and Brenda Song) are feeling the beat — and the results are hilarious! Their school is putting on a production of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL and total chaos ensues when London beats out Maddie for the role of Sharpay! It looks like Maddie will do all the work and London will get all the glory but the twins have a plan to reveal the real star of the show.
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GIVEAWAY: I have two DVDs to give away! All you need to do for an entry is leave a comment on this post with your real first name and a valid email address. Everyone who posts the MomReviews Giveaways badge shown below also get an automatic entry, tell me in your post if you’ve posted the badge.

I will give you an extra entry if you Stumble this post, add it to Digg, submit it to Kirtsy, or mention it on your own blog with a link back. Please leave that information in your comment.

I’ll choose two winners at random on Friday, July 11th and will email them for their addresses. Good luck!

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Even though she’s two and a half and these DVDs are meant more for younger babies, my daughter loves the DVD Baby’s First Sounds from Baby Einstein! This DVD focuses on five basic sounds: ”ah,” ”buh,” ”duh,” ”ee,” and ”mm.” Then, these sounds are connected to simple words in languages such as English, Spanish, Chinese and French and reinforced with fun puppet shows, familiar nursery rhymes and real-life images of loving parents spending together-time with their babies — all accompanied by beautiful classical music in the Baby Einstein tradition.

If your child watches TV shows where the characters speak Spanish or Chinese, the foreign language sections on this DVD will seem familiar. The music scenes are adorable, in fact my daughter asks for this “Puppets” scene over and over:

It cracks her up! I love the quality of Baby Einstein DVDs, the classical music and the terrific production quality. I like knowing that my daughter is learning something and isn’t watching commercials So, there you go, some info about Baby Einstein’s Baby’s First Sounds. Thanks for reading!

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There’s a reason why the Thomas the Tank Engine series has been around for so long, kids just love it! The newest DVD for Thomas lovers is Thomas and Friends-Engines and Escapades, which we reviewed for Parent Bloggers Network.The DVD contains six episodes-Duncan Does It All, Sir Handel in Charge, Cool Truckings, Ding-a-Ling, Skarloey Storms Through and Wash Behind your Buffers. These episodes feature not only trains, but new friends like Madge the truck, who is strong enough to carry James the train. I’m all about my daughter seeing strong female characters, so that was a plus for me.

The DVD also contains a new song about Thomas’ friends the “Narrow Gauge Engines”, which run on Narrow Gauge track. They are Rusty, Duncan, Fearless Freddie, and Mighty Mac, and they are run by a new character Mr. Percival. Narrow Gauge engines are smaller, but strong as the song says. They can take loads of things to places the larger engines can’t go. Make sure your child knows before watching that they won’t be seeing much of Thomas in this one.

These six episodes do, however, contain the same great lessons that Thomas has always taught-that whether you or big or small, be brave, be confident about who you are, be supportive of your friends, say you are sorry when it’s necessary, work together as a team. These are great lessons no matter who is teaching them!

And then be prepared to be standing at the sink brushing your teeth and singing “They are the narrow gauge engines, running on narrow gauge track”, because that song is stuck in my head now! For more great reviews of this DVD, please visit Parent Bloggers Network.

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From the Producers of “The Sixth Sense” comes “The Invisible”, a spooky, supernatural, action-thriller about a boy who must solve his own attempted murder before he dies for real. Starring Justin Chatwin (”War of the Worlds”) as Nick, “The Invisible” is the story of high school student Nick, who crosses paths with Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva from TV’s “Vanished”), who is surprising as the school bully, a petite thing who hides her long hair under knit caps and has what can best be described as her own minions to do her bidding.

When Annie gets in trouble and Nick’s best friend Pete blames Nick in an attempt to keep Annie’s gang from punishing him (some best friend, but in his defense, he thought Nick had left for writing school in London), Annie’s gang tracks Nick down and she brutally beats him, and then thinking he is dead, leaves his body where it will be difficult to find. The problem is, Nick isn’t dead. And he’s walking around in Limbo, and the only person with whom he can communicate is, ironically, Annie.

I liked this movie. Justin Chatwin turns in a good performance as the mopey sort-of-outsider who has to rely on his former enemy to help him lead detectives and his grieving mother to his unconscious body before he dies for real. The supporting cast includes Oscar Winner Marcia Gay Harden (”Pollock”) as Nick’s widowed mother, Chris Marquette (”Joan of Arcadia”) as Pete, and Margarita Levieva (TV’s “Vanished”) as Annie. Some reviews I have read called the ending too neat, but I like a bittersweet ending. Annie saves Nick, Nick saves Annie in a way, the end.

Rated PG-13 with a running time of 102 minutes. DVD extras include:

# Commentary by: Director David S. Goyer and writer Christine Roum,Writer Mick Davis
# Dolby Digital 2.0
# Over 13 minutes of deleted scenes
# 30 Seconds to Mars: “The Kill” music video
# Sparta: “Taking Back Control” music video

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We watched the movie “The Hoax” starring Richard Gere the other night. It is the true story of Clifford Irving, a writer who made up a story about being hired by Howard Hughes to write his biography. Oscar®-nominated director Lasse Hallström spins a thrilling true story of the man who nearly pulled off the biggest media scam of the 20th century in The Hoax, released on DVD October 16th from Miramax Home Entertainment. Starring Golden Globe® Winner Richard Gere, Alfred Molina, Marcia Gay Harden and a terrific supporting cast, The Hoax is based on Clifford Irving’s controversial autobiography by the same name.

Richard Gere (“Chicago”) assumes the identity of Clifford Irving, a novelist who in the 1970s penned a bogus autobiography of reclusive playboy billionaire Howard Hughes. Screenwriter William Wheeler based his “Hoax” script on Irving’s own tell-all book by the same name. Son of a successful cartoonist, Irving was a critically acclaimed novelist with modest book sales in the early 1970s when publisher Andrea Tate (Hope Davis) turns down his newest effort. So Irving and friend Dick Susskind, portrayed by Alfred Molina (“Spider-Man 2”), conceived of a faux Hughes bio as a way to reinvigorate Irving’s literary career and make a few bucks.

Encouraged by greedy publishing executive Shelton Fisher, played by Stanley Tucci (”The Devil Wears Prada”), Irving began writing the Hughes biography and forging letters supposedly written by the aviator himself. Irving was eventually brought down by his own overreaching conspiracies, hoping to rope the Nixon administration and the real Howard Hughes into his counterfeit literary web. Irving and Susskind were carted off to prison for a few years and forced to return the $1 million paid out by duped publishers McGraw-Hill and Life magazine.

Academy Award® winner Marcia Gay Harden (“Pollock,” 2000) portrays Irving’s hippie painter wife Edith, with Julie Delpy (“Before Sunset”) as Irving’s mistress Nina Stanley, and Hope Davis (”The Weather Man”) as Andrea Tate. Gere gives a stunning performance, as the movie progresses and his character gets more and more tangled in the web of lies, Gere’s face slowly turns from handsome and sly to painful and worried. Watch for a scene where he is questioned by CIA-operatives hired by Hughes, or is he? It’s compelling all the way to the inevitable conclusion.

As you know, Bonus Features are a plus for me, and this DVD is packed with them:

DVD Bonus Features

• “Stranger than Fiction”
A “making of,” in-part, but with more conjecture on Clifford’s motivation

• Deleted Scenes
Over 13 minutes worth with optional commentary by Director Lasse Hallström and Writer William Wheeler

• “Mike Wallace: Reflections On A Con”
Mike Wallace on his encounters with Clifford during the 1970’s 60 Minutes interview in which he swore the book was not a fake, and the follow-up interview done 27 years later

• Feature Audio Commentary
Watch the film from Director Lasse Hallström and Writer William Wheeler’s perspective or with commentary from Producers Leslie Holleran and Josh Maurer

• “Business as Pleasure”
Watch as the camera rolls while Richard Gere and Alfred Molina ad-lib the scene at Café des Artistes

• “Nixon’s the One”
As an easter egg, a full-length Richard Nixon campaign song by Vic Caesar (I couldn’t find this!)

Directed By:

Lasse Hallström, who catapulted to Hollywood notoriety in 1985 with his poignant comedy “My Life as a Dog.” The coming-of-age tale set in 1950s Scandinavia earned a pair of Oscar nominations, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Hallström’s credits also include “Chocolat” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.”

Technical Info:

Suggested retail price: $29.99 U.S.
Feature run time: 115 Minutes
Rated: “R.” Bonus materials not rated, and subject to change.

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