Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Bloodrayne (Unrated Director's Cut)

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

  • ISBN13: 9781400068722
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
The CD Slide Pack is a new form of no-frills CD packaging featuring an outer slipcase with the original cover artwork, and an inner 'slider' including a CD. Note: there is no CD booklet in this package.AS INDIVIDUALS, CONGRESSWOMAN GABRIELLE GIFFORDS and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, showed Americans how optimism, an adventurous spirit, and a call to service can help change the world. As a couple, they became a national example of the healing power to be found in deeply shared love and courage. Their arrival in the world spotlight came under the worst of circumstances. On January 8, 2011, while meeting with her constituents in Tucson, Arizona, Gabby was the victim of an assassination attemp! t that left six people dead and thirteen wounded. Gabby was shot in the head; doctors called her survival “miraculous.”

As the nation grieved and sought to understand the attack, Gabby remained in private, focused on her against-all-odds recovery. Mark spent every possible moment by her side, as he also prepared for his final mission as commander of space shuttle Endeavour.

Now, as Gabby’s health continues to improve, the couple is sharing their remarkable untold story. Intimate, inspiring, and unforgettably moving, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope provides an unflinching look at the overwhelming challenges of brain injury, the painstaking process of learning to communicate again, and the responsibilities that fall to a loving spouse who wants the best possible treatment for his wife. Told in Mark’s voice and from Gabby’s heart, the book also chronicles the lives that brought these two extraordinary people togetherâ€"their humor, their ambiti! ons, their sense of duty, their long-distance marriage, and th! eir desi re for family.

Gabby and Mark made a pledge to tell their account as honestly as possible, and they have done so in riveting detail. Both Gabby and Mark have lived large public lives, but this book takes readers behind many closed doorsâ€"from the flight deck of the space shuttle to the cloakrooms of Congress to the hospital wards where Gabby struggled to reclaim herself with the help of formidable medical teams and devoted family and friends.

Questions are answered with unvarnished candor. How do Gabby and Mark feel about the angry political discourse that was swirling in America at the time of the shooting, and that remains prevalent today? How do they see government living up to the highest possible ideals? And how do they understand and mourn the loss of the people who did not survive that day? Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope is a reminder of the power of true grit, the patience needed to overcome unimaginable obstacles, and the transcendence of love. In ! the story of Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly, we all can see the best in ourselves. As Mark and Gabby’s friends have said: “The two of them are America as we dream it can be.”This UK special edition of the album features all 15 of Gabrielle's hit singles including the recent smash 'Out Of Reach' from Bridget Jones's Diary, and 'If You Ever' (with East 17), plus the brand new bonus track 'If I Walked Away'.Jean (Pascal Greggory), a successful publisher, is acutely aware of and deeply pleased with his high social standing, fine taste, and abundant material possessions, among which he seems to include his wife, Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert). But in a single af2007 release from the British R&B singer/songwriter, her fifth studio album that is a remarkable return to form. She returns to her roots by teaming with producers who played pivotal roles early in her career: Julian Gallagher and The Boilerhouse Boys. The recurring theme of the album is about break-ups, but that! is also offset with echoes of hope and redemption. The Boile! rhouse B oys conceived the idea for the set, which references Paul Weller's Wild Wood. When Weller became aware of the sessions, the Rock icon decided to add his own voice and guitar to the backing tracks as well as to make a cameo appearance in the promotional video for the single 'Why'. Gabrielle is back and stronger than ever! UMTV.Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Hamilton’s ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than one hundred friends and neighbors. The smells of spit-roasted lamb, apple wood smoke, and rosemary garlic marinade became as necessary to her as her own skin.

Blood, Bones & Butter follows an ! unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; the soulless catering factories that helped pay the rent; Hamilton’s own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton’s idyllic past and her own future familyâ€"the result of a difficult and prickly marriage that nonetheless yields rich and lasting dividends.

Blood, Bones & Butter is an unflinching and lyrical work. Gabrielle Hamilton’s story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion. By turns epic and intimate, it marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent.

“I wanted the lettuce and eg! gs at room temperature . . . the butter-and-sugar sandwiches ! we ate a fter school for snack . . . the marrow bones my mother made us eat as kids that I grew to crave as an adult. . . . There would be no ‘conceptual’ or ‘intellectual’ food, just the salty, sweet, starchy, brothy, crispy things that one craves when one is actually hungry. In ecstatic farewell to my years of corporate catering, we would never serve anything but a martini in a martini glass. Preferably gin.”Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2011: Gabrielle Hamilton's memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, is just what a chef's story should be--delectable, dripping with flavor, tinged with adrenaline and years of too-little sleep. What sets Hamilton apart, though, is her ability to write with as much grace as vitriol, a distinct tenderness marbling her meaty story. Hamilton spent her idyllic childhood on a wild farm in rural Pennsylvania with an exhilarant father--an artist and set builder--and Fre! nch mother, both "incredibly special and outrageously handsome." As she entered her teens, however, her family unexpectedly dissolved. She moved to New York City at 16, living off loose change and eating ketchup packets from McDonald’s; worked 20-hour days at a soulless catering company; traveled, often half-starved, through Europe; and cooked for allergy-riddled children at a summer camp. The constant thread running through this patchwork tale, which culminates with the opening of her New York City restaurant, Prune, is Hamilton's slow simmering passion for cooking and the comfort it can bring. "To be picked up and fed, often by strangers, when you are in that state of fear and hunger, became the single most important food experience I came back to over and over," Hamilton writes, and it's this poignant understanding of the link between food and kindness that makes Blood, Bones & Butter so satisfying to read. --Lynette Mong

Guest Reviewer: Anthony Bourdain on Blood, B! ones, an d Butter


Anthony Bourdain is the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, in addition to the bestseller Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour. His work has appeared in the New York Times and The New Yorker, and he is a contributing authority for Food Arts magazine. He is also the host of the Emmy Award-winning television show No Reservations.

Very quickly after meeting Gabrielle Hamilton, I understood why she was a terrific and much-admired chef. I knew that her restaurant, Prune, was ground-breaking, that she seemed to have come out of nowhere, instead of being a product of the "system" (she'! d emerged from the invisible subculture of catering), to open one of the most quirky, totally uncompromising, and quickly-embraced restaurants in New York City. Her purportedly (but not really) Franco-phobic menus were intensely, notoriously personal, her early embrace of the nose-to-tail attitude was way, way ahead the times, and chefs--all chefs--seemed to like and respect her. Almost as quickly, it became apparent that this chef could write.

Short pieces appeared here and there over the years and they were sharp, funny, incisive, unsparing of both author and subjects--straight to the point and pretense-free, like Hamilton herself. She could write really well. And she had, from all accounts, a story to tell. So when it was announced that Blood, Bones, and Butter was in the works, I was very excited.

It was a long wait.

Five years later, I finally got my hands on an advance copy and eagerly devoured it. It was of course brilliant. I ex! pected it to be. But I wasn't prepared for exactly how goddam! n brilli ant the thing was, or how enchanted, difficult, strange, rich, inspiring and just plain hard her life and career--her long road to Prune--had been. I was unprepared for page after page of such sharp, carefully-crafted, ballistically-precise sentences. I was, frankly, devastated. I put this amazing memoir down and wanted to crawl under the bed, retroactively withdraw every book, every page I'd ever written. And burn them.

Blood, Bones, and Butter is, quite simply, the far-and-away best chef or food-genre memoir...ever. EVER. It certainly kicked the hell out of my Kitchen Confidential, which suddenly, in a second, felt shallow, sophomoric and ultimately lightweight next to this...this monster of a book, this--at times--truly hardscrabble life…Blood, Bones, and Butter is deeper, better written, more hardcore, more fully fleshed-out; a more well-rounded story than every sunflower-and-saffron account of soft-core food porn in France. It's as b! ullshit and pretense-free as AJ Leibling--and at least as well written, but more poignant, romantic--even thrilling.

It makes any "as told to" account of famous chef's lives look instantly ludicrous and bloodless. I've struggled to think of somebody/anybody who's written a better account of the journey to chefdom and can't think of anyone who's come even close.

Writing a memoir of one's life as a chef--or even writing about one's relationship with food--has, with the publication of this book, become much more difficult. Hamilton has raised the bar higher than most of us could ever hope to reach. This book will sell a gazillion copies. It will be a bestseller. It will be an enduring classic. It will inspire generation after generation of young cooks, and anyone who really loves food and understands the context in which it is best enjoyed, NOT as some isolated, over-valued object of desire, but as only one important aspect of a larger, richer spectrum of expe! riences. Each plate of food--like the menu at Prune--is the en! d result of a long and sometimes very difficult struggle.

Read this book and prepare to clean your system of all that's come before. It's a game-changer and a truly great work by a great writer and great chef.


Battle: Los Angeles [Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack] (Exclusive Steelbook Packaging) - Arron Eckhart (Blu-ray - 2011)

  • 1080p Hi-Def Blu-ray Transfer
  • Featurettes, Trailers and more bonus features!
  • EXCLUSIVE: Steelbook Packaging!
Witness the end of civilization unfold as hostile alien invaders attack the planet. As people everywhere watch the world’s great cities fall, Los Angeles becomes the last stand for mankind in a battle no one expected. Now it's up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his platoon to draw a line in the sand as they take on an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered in this epic sci-fi action film.Battle: Los Angeles is a war movie first, science fiction second. It's got it all: a burned-out retiring sergeant who gets drawn back in because, dammit, the Marines need him; the guy who's about to get married; the guy who's still a virgin; the guy suffering from shell shock and who just might crack; the newbie officer with a lot of book learning who you ju! st know is going to freeze under pressure and have to be shepherded by that burned-out sergeant, who learned his lessons on the battlefield… and so much more. There's not a moment in this movie you haven't seen before--the only twist is that the enemy is alien, so whatever shred of concern you might have for raining heavy artillery on a fellow human being can be cheerfully cast aside. But clichés are clichés because they are efficient and effective, and despite the profound familiarity of Battle: Los Angeles, there's no denying the movie rips along (though two-thirds of the way through you may have forgotten who was the virgin and who was the shell-shocked guy--but really, does it matter?). The look owes a debt to District 9, a hand-held, vérité grittiness, with most of the CGI carefully given a dingy, dirty look so that it meshes with the urban landscape. Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) does an impressive job of spitting out ham-fisted dialogue l! ike he really, really means it, while the rest of the cast is ! suitably generic. This is an unrepentant love letter to the military; many viewers, faced with the unsettling chaos and moral ambiguities of real wars, will find this mythologizing not only soothing, but even moving. --Bret FetzerWitness the end of civilization unfold as hostile alien invaders attack the planet. As people everywhere watch the world’s great cities fall, Los Angeles becomes the last stand for mankind in a battle no one expected. Now it's up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his platoon to draw a line in the sand as they take on an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered in this epic sci-fi action film. Battle: Los Angeles is a war movie first, science fiction second. It's got it all: a burned-out retiring sergeant who gets drawn back in because, dammit, the Marines need him; the guy who's about to get married; the guy who's still a virgin; the guy suffering from shell shock and who just might crack; the newbie officer with a lot of bo! ok learning who you just know is going to freeze under pressure and have to be shepherded by that burned-out sergeant, who learned his lessons on the battlefield… and so much more. There's not a moment in this movie you haven't seen before--the only twist is that the enemy is alien, so whatever shred of concern you might have for raining heavy artillery on a fellow human being can be cheerfully cast aside. But clichés are clichés because they are efficient and effective, and despite the profound familiarity of Battle: Los Angeles, there's no denying the movie rips along (though two-thirds of the way through you may have forgotten who was the virgin and who was the shell-shocked guy--but really, does it matter?). The look owes a debt to District 9, a hand-held, vérité grittiness, with most of the CGI carefully given a dingy, dirty look so that it meshes with the urban landscape. Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) does an impressive job of spitting out! ham-fisted dialogue like he really, really means it, while th! e rest o f the cast is suitably generic. This is an unrepentant love letter to the military; many viewers, faced with the unsettling chaos and moral ambiguities of real wars, will find this mythologizing not only soothing, but even moving. --Bret FetzerWitness the end of civilization unfold as hostile alien invaders attack the planet. As people everywhere watch the world’s great cities fall, Los Angeles becomes the last stand for mankind in a battle no one expected. Now it's up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his platoon to draw a line in the sand as they take on an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered in this epic sci-fi action film.Battle: Los Angeles is a war movie first, science fiction second. It's got it all: a burned-out retiring sergeant who gets drawn back in because, dammit, the Marines need him; the guy who's about to get married; the guy who's still a virgin; the guy suffering from shell shock and who just might crack; the newbie offi! cer with a lot of book learning who you just know is going to freeze under pressure and have to be shepherded by that burned-out sergeant, who learned his lessons on the battlefield… and so much more. There's not a moment in this movie you haven't seen before--the only twist is that the enemy is alien, so whatever shred of concern you might have for raining heavy artillery on a fellow human being can be cheerfully cast aside. But clichés are clichés because they are efficient and effective, and despite the profound familiarity of Battle: Los Angeles, there's no denying the movie rips along (though two-thirds of the way through you may have forgotten who was the virgin and who was the shell-shocked guy--but really, does it matter?). The look owes a debt to District 9, a hand-held, vérité grittiness, with most of the CGI carefully given a dingy, dirty look so that it meshes with the urban landscape. Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) does an impressive! job of spitting out ham-fisted dialogue like he really, reall! y means it, while the rest of the cast is suitably generic. This is an unrepentant love letter to the military; many viewers, faced with the unsettling chaos and moral ambiguities of real wars, will find this mythologizing not only soothing, but even moving. --Bret FetzerStudio: Asylum Home Entertainment Release Date: 03/22/2011 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: NrStudio: Asylum Home Entertainment Release Date: 03/22/2011 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: NrAn ex-Yakuza, Kenji wants for fresh start in a new place. America. He visits his buddy, Shingo in LA. Shingo s dad was also Yakuza. Now he is a chef in Little Tokyo. But culinary life is not peaceful either. There is a conspiracy in this neighborhood where gangsters are trying to evacuate storeowners from their businesses. And Kenji gets invovled. But when he gets invovled, all hell breaks loose.
Japanese gangs, Korean gangs, the Mafia, every type of criminal imaginable gets involved in what while turn into the most massiv! e street fight you ever witnesses. And Kenji is caught right in the middle. Will he find salvation in a foreign country. To achieve it, he must battle every bad guy in his path and end them, no matter who he is.Marine staff sergeant (aaron Eckhart, "The Dark Knight") and his platoon take on an enemy unlike any they've ever encountered when hostile alien invaders attack the planet in this epic science fiction action hit!

Eden Lake

  • EDEN LAKE (DVD MOVIE)
Like a bad dream turned worst nightmare, Eden Lake is a "relentlessly tense and immaculately paced" (Twitch Film) horror-thriller about modern youth gone wild. When a young couple goes to a remote wooded lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of local kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize the couple in unimaginable ways, and a weekend outing becomes a bloody battle for survival. Eden Lake is "fierce, thought-provoking ... and genuinely shocking" (Time Out London).British director James Watkins’s directorial debut is an overtly moralistic thriller centering around a couple who are trapped and taunted lakeside by a gang of teenage bullies, led by a boy named Brett (Jack O’Connell). Warning signs to stay out of this camping area abound, in the spirit of myriad camping-trip-gone-awry tales, like the cla! ssic Friday the 13th. The challenge, here, is to subvert those warning signs in order to harness some minor sympathy for the alleged victims to be. However, Steve (Michael Fassbender) and Jenny (Kelly Reilly) are too wrapped up in puppy love to turn around, even when their GPS signal advises them to do so. As a gang of wayward kids pick fights with Steve and Kelly, the couple attempts escape... at first. But Steve’s desire for revenge impels him to search for the delinquents’ parents, which becomes the couple’s downfall. A good portion of Eden Lake is devoted to the chase, during which Steve and Kelly look increasingly swampy under caked on layers of blood and mud. These scenes are well done, fast-paced, and here, enacting fear, Kelly Reilly is at her best. But as the film progresses, one sees so many connections between the teens’ violence and the abhorrent behavior of their parents, that Eden Lake leaves no character interpretation up to the v! iewer. Yes, bad parents usually make bad teens. But a deeper i! nvestiga tion into Brett’s inner mind, or his ability to follow through with torture and the sadistic control he exhibits over his gang, would result in less obvious, and possibly more interesting explanations for criminal action. Though many Dimension Extreme films are cutting edge in the horror genre (see Inside), Eden Lake is not one of them. --Trinie Dalton

Bullet

  • BulletMickey Rourke and rap music star Tupac Shakur, in one of his final film roles, star in this gritty urban thriller about what it takes to survive on the street. Also starring Ted Levine, it's a stylish mix of brutality and revenge, it journeys into the dark and underground world of two men who share a bitter hatred and grudging respect. Like Pulp Fiction it is one of the new breed of action f
A classic example of a good idea ruined by Hollywood formulas. Jim Belushi and Tupac Shakur (in his last performance) are two corrupt cops with an effective scheme: they rob and kill drug dealers. Unfortunately, one of their victims turns out to be an undercover agent for the DEA, and the two bad cops have to scramble to find a suspect to pin the murder on. Soon they're caught in a web of missing evidence, false witnesses, and frayed nerves--Gang Related could have been a lean film noir, slow! ly tightening until the men break under the pressure. Unfortunately, this isn't the 1940s, and suddenly the plot takes an absurd twist into the most melodramatic coincidence imaginable. It's too bad. Also featuring the lovely Lela Rochon, James Earl Jones, David Paymer, and a surprise performance by Dennis Quaid. --Bret Fetzer Two killers are hiding where no one will ever find them...behind their badges! Tupac Shakur (in hisfinal and most riveting performance) and James Belushi are two corrupt police detectives caught in a dangerous web of deceit in this "gritty, smart and tough" (CBS-TV) action thriller that will hold you in its grip from start to finish. Detectives Divinci (Belushi) and Rodriguez (Shakur) practice their own deadly brand of street justice: They set up drug deals, seize the money for themselves and then murder the dealers. It's a lucrative racket that has worked without a hitch for months. But when they discover that their latest victim was an under! cover officer with the Drug Enforcement Agency, the two corrup! t cops a re forced to initiate a dangerous scheme to save their own lives. And as their "foolproof" plan begins to spin madly out of control, Divinci and Rodriguez are trapped in a tornado of suspicion, betrayal and murder in which they can trust no one...not even each other.A classic example of a good idea ruined by Hollywood formulas. Jim Belushi and Tupac Shakur (in his last performance) are two corrupt cops with an effective scheme: they rob and kill drug dealers. Unfortunately, one of their victims turns out to be an undercover agent for the DEA, and the two bad cops have to scramble to find a suspect to pin the murder on. Soon they're caught in a web of missing evidence, false witnesses, and frayed nerves--Gang Related could have been a lean film noir, slowly tightening until the men break under the pressure. Unfortunately, this isn't the 1940s, and suddenly the plot takes an absurd twist into the most melodramatic coincidence imaginable. It's too bad. Also featuring the! lovely Lela Rochon, James Earl Jones, David Paymer, and a surprise performance by Dennis Quaid. --Bret Fetzer When their friend Cookie o.d.'s, best buddies and musicians Spoon (Tupac Shakur) and Stretch (Tim Roth) decide it's time to kick their drug habit by putting themselves into detox. But they soon discover that the road to rehab is paved with reams of social service red tape. Spoon and Stretch are just trying to stay alive until they can get treatment. But, between the angry drug dealers, the cops who have mistaken them for murderers, and the people with forms and clipboards, this turns into a task of epic proportions. Thus enfolds their comic adventure to sobriety- a hilarious, action-packed journey from A to Z and back again. Starring: Tim Roth, Tupac Shakur, Thandie Newton Directed by: Vondie Curtis-HallBritish actor Tim Roth and the rapper Tupac Shakur are an unexpectedly charismatic and refreshing duo in this off-beat buddy movie. Closer than two brot! hers, these junkie musicians vow to kick their habits after a ! soul-sha ttering New Year's Eve. Gridlock'd is fueled by characterization, of which there is plenty, as the two play off one another with such finesse you would never know Shakur had been a relative novice to the acting profession. Off-beat humor lightens a bleak reality as these outcasts run smack against a brutal bureaucracy. Except for a tired subplot meant to jazz up the action, director Vondie Curtis-Hall employs an inventive approach in this sadly ignored theatrical release. --Rochelle O'Gorman Bullet Mickey Rourke and rap music star Tupac Shakur, in one of his final film roles, star in this gritty urban thriller about what it takes to survive on the street. Also starring Ted Levine, it's a stylish mix of brutality and revenge, it journeys into the dark and underground world of two men who share a bitter hatred and grudging respect. Like Pulp Fiction it is one of the new breed of action films-powerful, violent and real. Mickey Rourke is Butch "Bullet" Stein and th! e late Tupac Shakur is Tank in this stylish, Julien Temple-directed crime drama. Narrative is secondary to atmosphere in the violent, yet sensitive tale of an ex-con (Rourke) attempting to adjust to life on the outside. The minute Bullet emerges from the pen, however, the blood and profanity begin to flow just as freely as the references to Dali and Picasso (his younger brother is an artist). His drug problem is bad enough, but the biggest threat comes from the Kangol-sporting, eye-patched Tank, who intends to get his revenge for the eye Bullet took from him. Classical music and opera, meanwhile, bump up against hip-hop and Barry White. Despite the billing, this is Rourke's show all the way and Tupac's part is quite small in comparison. Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs) and Adrien Brody (The Pianist) star as Bullet's eccentric brothers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

  • ISBN13: 9781550225488
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Based on the Marvel Comics character, stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze gives up his soul to become a hell-blazing vigilante, to fight against power-hungry Blackheart, the son of the devil himself.

  • Product Measures: 0.5 x 5.5 x 7.5
Once intended as a feature for Johnny Depp, the long-germinating feature film adaptation of Marvel Comics' cult title Ghost Rider stars Nicolas Cage as motorcyclist Johnny Blaze, who transforms into a skull-faced angel of vengeance to battle the forces of evil. Though perhaps a bit too mature for the role, Cage brings a degree of humor to the outrageous proceedings; he's well matched by the Easy Rider himself Peter Fonda, amusingly cast as ! Mephistopheles, the demon with whom Blaze strikes a bargain to save his father, and in turn, causes his transformation into Ghost Rider. Wes Bentley is also fine as Blackheart, the rebellious offspring of Mephistopheles, and Blazes' chief opponent in the film. They're joined by a solid supporting cast which includes Donal Logue, Eva Mendes, and Sam Elliott, but their participation and a relentless barrage of CGI effects can't hide the fact that the story itself, though largely faithful to its comic origins, is rife with clichéd characterizations and glum B-movie dialogue. Fans of the venerable title may cry foul over this adaptation (as they did over helmer Mark Steven Johnson's previous comic-to-movie feature, Daredevil), but less stringent viewers may enjoy the fiery visuals and Cage's typically quirky performance. --Paul Gaita

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Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) was only a teenaged stunt biker when he sold hi! s soul to the devil (Peter Fonda). Years later, Johnny is a wo! rld reno wned daredevil by day, but at night, he becomes the Ghost Rider of Marvel Comics legend. The devil's bounty hunter, he is charged with finding evil souls on earth and bringing them to hell. But when a twist of fate brings Johnny's long-lost love (Eva Mendes) back into his life, Johnny realizes he just might have a second chance at happiness - if he can beat the devil and win back his soul. To do so he'll have to defeat Blackheart (Wes Bentley), the devil's nemesis and wayward son, whose plot to take over his father's realm will bring hell on earth--unless Ghost Rider can stop him. Once intended as a feature for Johnny Depp, the long-germinating feature film adaptation of Marvel Comics' cult title Ghost Rider stars Nicolas Cage as motorcyclist Johnny Blaze, who transforms into a skull-faced angel of vengeance to battle the forces of evil. Though perhaps a bit too mature for the role, Cage brings a degree of humor to the outrageous proceedings; he's well matched by the! Easy Rider himself Peter Fonda, amusingly cast as Mephistopheles, the demon with whom Blaze strikes a bargain to save his father, and in turn, causes his transformation into Ghost Rider. Wes Bentley is also fine as Blackheart, the rebellious offspring of Mephistopheles, and Blazes' chief opponent in the film. They're joined by a solid supporting cast which includes Donal Logue, Eva Mendes, and Sam Elliott, but their participation and a relentless barrage of CGI effects can't hide the fact that the story itself, though largely faithful to its comic origins, is rife with clichéd characterizations and glum B-movie dialogue. Fans of the venerable title may cry foul over this adaptation (as they did over helmer Mark Steven Johnson's previous comic-to-movie feature, Daredevil), but less stringent viewers may enjoy the fiery visuals and Cage's typically quirky performance. --Paul Gaita

In less than a year, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Se! lena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness an! d isolat ed from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. This memoir tells of the sense of loss and directionlessness that led him on a 55,000-mile journey by motorcycle across much of North America, down through Mexico to Belize, and back again. He had needed to get away, but had not really needed a destination. His travel adventures chronicle his personal odyssey and include stories of reuniting with friends and family, grieving, thinking, and reminiscing as he rode until he encountered the miracle that allowed him to find peace.