Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night (Guitar Recorded Version)

  • 64 Pages
  • Includes 13 Songs
  • TAB
  • Artist: The Beatles
A Hard Day's Night: Music on Film Series is the story of the making of the greatest rock-and-roll movie of all time. Beginning with introductions to the film's stars - chronicling their rise from a raggedy teenage skiffle band to the biggest pop act in the world - the book goes on to tell how the American film company United Artists wanted to make a quick, low-budget movie starring the Fab Four so its record division could put out a motion picture soundtrack album full of new Beatles songs, in order to allow the studio to cash in on the incredible wave of Beatlemania then sweeping the planet. Director Richard Lester, producer Walter Shenson, and screenwriter Alun Owen were hired to churn out just another cheap exploitation film, but instead used the opportunity to create a startlingly fresh and original movie that brok! e new ground both in subject matter (instead of simply following genre tradition and sticking the band in some corny made-up plot, they had the Beatles play themselves in a narrative based on their own incredible real-life experiences) and in form (Lester's inspired, surrealist approach to the film's musical numbers kicked off the entire music video revolution). Covered is the film's frantic six-week shoot, the lively recording sessions that resulted in seven great new Beatles songs, and how both the film and the album met with great critical and popular success.

CHRIS O'DELL WASN'T FAMOUS. SHE WASN'T EVEN ALMOST FAMOUS. BUT SHE WAS THERE.

She was in the studio when the Beatles recorded The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be, and when Paul recorded "Hey Jude," she sang in the chorus.

She was at Ringo's kitchen table when George Harrison said, "You know, Ringo, I'm in love with your wife." And Ringo repl! ied, "Better you than someone we don't know."

She typed t! he lyric s to George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. She lived with George and Pattie Boyd at Friar Park, developed a crush on Eric Clapton, and unwittingly got involved in the famous love story between Eric and Pattie.

She's the subject of Leon Russell's "Pisces Apple Lady," a song he wrote to woo her. Other rock legends with whom she was intimate include Ringo, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan.

She worked with the Rolling Stones as their personal assistant on their infamous 1972 tour and did a drug run for Keith Richards.

She's "the woman down the hall" in Joni Mitchell's song "Coyote" about a love triangle on Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour. She's the "mystery woman" pictured on the back of the Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street. She's the "Miss O'Dell" of George Harrison's song about her.

Miss O'Dell is the remarkable story of an ordinary woman who lived the dream of millions -- to be part of rock royalty's trusted inner circle. I! llustrated with private photographs and jam-packed with intimate anecdotes, Miss O'Dell is a backstage pass to some of the most momentous events in rock history.Our matching folio to The Beatles' timeless and glorious third album features note-for-note transcriptions with tab for these 13 Lennon & McCartney jewels: And I Love Her * Anytime at All * Can't Buy Me Love * A Hard Day's Night * I Should Have Known Better * I'll Be Back * I'll Cry Instead * I'm Happy Just to Dance with You * If I Fell * Tell Me Why * Things We Said Today * When I Get Home * You Can't Do That.

The Visitor

  • Condition: New
  • Format: DVD
  • Anamorphic; Color; Dolby; DVD; HiFi Sound; NTSC; Surround Sound; THX; Widescreen
Frozen River is a dramatic feature film which takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women- one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances- are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Melissa Leo (21 Grams, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, television's Homicide: Life on the Street) plays Ray, Misty Upham (Edge of America, DreamKeeper, Skins) plays Lila, and Oscar nominee Michael O'Keefe (The Great Santini, Caddyshack, Ironweed) plays the New York State Trooper who ultimately brings the two to justice.When her husband runs off with the payment for their new home, Ray (Melissa Leo, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) turns to crime to keep herself and her two sons afloat. A chance encounter with Lila (Misty Upham, Edge of America), an equally desperate young Mohawk woman, leads Ray to smuggling illegal immigrants by driving across the frozen Hudson River onto tribal land. But with every trip, things go wrong in small and not-so-small ways, until Ray finds herself pushed into a more desperate corner than ever before. Leo delivers a gritty, restrained, but richly compelling performance; her raw face, beautiful but worn down by life, radiates a weary defiance. Frozen River has scenes as tense as any Hollywood thriller, but so grounded in the fully developed characters of these two women that the taut suspe! nse grips the full spectrum of your emotions. This is an impre! ssive de but by writer/director Courtney Hunt, featuring excellent supporting performances by Charlie McDermott (The Ten) as Ray's unhappy oldest son and Michael O'Keefe (The Great Santini) as a suspicious state trooper. --Bret Fetzer


Stills from Frozen River (click for larger image)

Frozen River is a dramatic feature film which takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women- one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances- are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Melissa Leo (21 Grams, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, television's Homicide: Life on the Street) plays Ray, Misty Upham (Edge of America! , DreamKeeper, Skins) plays Lila, and Oscar ! nominee Michael O'Keefe (The Great Santini, Caddyshack, Ironweed) plays the New York State Trooper who ultimately brings the two to justice.When her husband runs off with the payment for their new home, Ray (Melissa Leo, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) turns to crime to keep herself and her two sons afloat. A chance encounter with Lila (Misty Upham, Edge of America), an equally desperate young Mohawk woman, leads Ray to smuggling illegal immigrants by driving across the frozen Hudson River onto tribal land. But with every trip, things go wrong in small and not-so-small ways, until Ray finds herself pushed into a more desperate corner than ever before. Leo delivers a gritty, restrained, but richly compelling performance; her raw face, beautiful but worn down by life, radiates a weary defiance. Frozen River has scenes as tense as any Hollywood thriller, but so grounded in the fully developed characters of these two women t! hat the taut suspense grips the full spectrum of your emotions. This is an impressive debut by writer/director Courtney Hunt, featuring excellent supporting performances by Charlie McDermott (The Ten) as Ray's unhappy oldest son and Michael O'Keefe (The Great Santini) as a suspicious state trooper. --Bret Fetzer


Stills from Frozen River (click for larger image)

!

17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods. Challenging her outlaw kin’s code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth. Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone is the winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize.Hailed as "one of the year's most intriguing dramas" (Claudia Puig, USA TODAY), The Visitor stars Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) in a perfect pe! rformance (Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY) as Walter, a disaffected college professor who has been drifting aimlessly through his life. When, in a chance encounter on a trip into New York, Walter discovers a couple has taken up residence in his apartment in the city, he develops an unexpected and profound connection to them that will change his life forever. As challenges arise for his tenants, Walter finds himself compelled to help his new friends, and rediscovers a passion he thought he had lost long ago. The year's first genuine must-see film" (Ann Hornaday, THE WASHINGTON POST) about rediscovering life's rhythms in the most unexpected places A deeply moving drama built around longtime character actor Richard Jenkins, The Visitor is a simmering drama about a college professor and recent widower, Walter Vale (Jenkins), who discovers a pair of homeless, illegal aliens living in his New York apartment. After the mix-up is resolved, Vale invites the cou! ple--a young, Syrian musician named Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and h! is Seneg alese girlfriend (Danai Gurira--to stay with him. An unlikely friendship develops between the retiring, quiet Vale and the vital Tarek, and the former begins to loosen up and respond to Tarek’s drumming lessons as if something in him waiting to be liberated has finally arrived. All goes well until Tarek is hauled in by immigration authorities and threatened with deportation. His mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), turns up and stays with Vale, sparking a renewed if subdued interest in courtship. But the wheels of injustice in immigration crush all manner of hopes in post-9/11 America. Vale soon realizes his unexpected capacity for anger over Tarek’s plight, and the positive changes to his personal life that emerged from a deep involvement with his friend and Mouna, might be the only legacy he takes from this experience. Writer-director Thomas McCarthy has created a wonderfully measured story about change and renewal, and put it all on the shoulders of Jenkins, a largely unheral! ded but masterful performer whose time for renown has surely come. --Tom Keogh

Stills from The Visitor (click for larger image)







Beyond The Visitor


On Blu-ray

Soundtrack CD

Also directed by Tom McCarthy


Gone, Baby, Gone: A Novel

  • ISBN13: 9780061336218
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Gone Baby Gone is Ben Affleck s directorial debut, adapted by Affleck from the novel by Dennis Lehane "Mystic River".
It is an intense look inside an ongoing investigation about the mysterious disappearance of a little girl. As two young private detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) hired to take the case get closer to finding her, they discover that nothing is as it seems and more dangerous than they ever thought possible. Also starring Academy Award® winners Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) and Ed Harris (Pollack).For his initial offering as director, Ben Affleck returns to the site of his first Oscar: South Boston. (He and Matt Damon shared the award for Good Will Hunting! .) Hot on the heels of his moving turn in Hollywoodland, Affleck's Dennis Lehane adaptation marks one of the more seamless actor-to-filmmaker transitions in recent years. Ostensibly, a procedural about the search for a missing child, class and corruption emerge as his primary concerns. First off, there's low-rent private eye Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck, equally adept in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Then there's the girl's drug mule mother, Helene (Amy Ryan, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead). She and Patrick grew up in Dorchester, but he took a different path, setting up an agency with his girlfriend, Angie (Michelle Monaghan). Helene's aunt, Bea (Amy Madigan), hires the duo to augment the investigation, and they team up with Captain Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Bressant (Madigan's husband, Ed Harris). The authorities don't appreciate the interference, but Patrick knows how to get the local populace talking, an! d he soon finds there's more to the story than anyone could po! ssibly i magine. Hard-hitting, but never soft-headed, the evocative end result proves Affleck has a flair for this directing thing and that his little brother can carry a major motion picture with aplomb. Gone Baby Gone belongs on the list of great Boston crime dramas, along with The Departed and Mystic River, Clint Eastwood’s take on Lehane. --Kathleen C. FennessyGone Baby Gone is Ben Affleck s directorial debut, adapted by Affleck from the novel by Dennis Lehane "Mystic River." It is an intense look inside an ongoing investigation about the mysterious disappearance of a little girl. As two young private dete ctives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) hired to take the case get closer to finding her, they discover that nothing is as it seems and more dangerous than they ever thought possible. Also starring Academy Award® winners Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) and Ed Harris (Pollack).For his initial offering as director, Ben! Affleck returns to the site of his first Oscar: South Boston. (He and Matt Damon shared the award for Good Will Hunting.) Hot on the heels of his moving turn in Hollywoodland, Affleck's Dennis Lehane adaptation marks one of the more seamless actor-to-filmmaker transitions in recent years. Ostensibly, a procedural about the search for a missing child, class and corruption emerge as his primary concerns. First off, there's low-rent private eye Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck, equally adept in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Then there's the girl's drug mule mother, Helene (Amy Ryan, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead). She and Patrick grew up in Dorchester, but he took a different path, setting up an agency with his girlfriend, Angie (Michelle Monaghan). Helene's aunt, Bea (Amy Madigan), hires the duo to augment the investigation, and they team up with Captain Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Bressant (Madigan's husb! and, Ed Harris). The authorities don't appreciate the interfer! ence, bu t Patrick knows how to get the local populace talking, and he soon finds there's more to the story than anyone could possibly imagine. Hard-hitting, but never soft-headed, the evocative end result proves Affleck has a flair for this directing thing and that his little brother can carry a major motion picture with aplomb. Gone Baby Gone belongs on the list of great Boston crime dramas, along with The Departed and Mystic River, Clint Eastwood’s take on Lehane. --Kathleen C. FennessyGone Baby Gone is Ben Affleck s directorial debut, adapted by Affleck from the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River).
It is an intense look inside an ongoing investigation about the mysterious disappearance of a little girl. As two young private detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) hired to take the case get closer to finding her, they discover that nothing is as it seems and more dangerous than they ever thought possible. Also starring Academy Award® wi! nners Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) and Ed Harris (Pollack).For his initial offering as director, Ben Affleck returns to the site of his first Oscar: South Boston. (He and Matt Damon shared the award for Good Will Hunting.) Hot on the heels of his moving turn in Hollywoodland, Affleck's Dennis Lehane adaptation marks one of the more seamless actor-to-filmmaker transitions in recent years. Ostensibly, a procedural about the search for a missing child, class and corruption emerge as his primary concerns. First off, there's low-rent private eye Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck, equally adept in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Then there's the girl's drug mule mother, Helene (Amy Ryan, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead). She and Patrick grew up in Dorchester, but he took a different path, setting up an agency with his girlfriend, Angie (Michelle Monaghan). Helene's aunt, Bea (Amy Madigan), hires the duo to augment th! e investigation, and they team up with Captain Doyle (Morgan F! reeman) and Detective Bressant (Madigan's husband, Ed Harris). The authorities don't appreciate the interference, but Patrick knows how to get the local populace talking, and he soon finds there's more to the story than anyone could possibly imagine. Hard-hitting, but never soft-headed, the evocative end result proves Affleck has a flair for this directing thing and that his little brother can carry a major motion picture with aplomb. Gone Baby Gone belongs on the list of great Boston crime dramas, along with The Departed and Mystic River, Clint Eastwood’s take on Lehane. --Kathleen C. FennessyGONE BABY GONE is Ben Affleck s directorial debut, adapted by Affleck from the novel by Dennis Lehane "Mystic River." It is an intense look inside an ongoing investigation about the mysterious disappearance of a little girl. As two young private dete ctives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) hired to take the case get closer to finding her, they discover that n! othing is as it seems and more dangerous than they ever thought possible. Also starring Academy Award® winners Morgan Freeman (MILLION DOLLAR BABY) and Ed Harris (POLLACK).For his initial offering as director, Ben Affleck returns to the site of his first Oscar: South Boston. (He and Matt Damon shared the award for Good Will Hunting.) Hot on the heels of his moving turn in Hollywoodland, Affleck's Dennis Lehane adaptation marks one of the more seamless actor-to-filmmaker transitions in recent years. Ostensibly, a procedural about the search for a missing child, class and corruption emerge as his primary concerns. First off, there's low-rent private eye Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck, equally adept in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Then there's the girl's drug mule mother, Helene (Amy Ryan, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead). She and Patrick grew up in Dorchester, but he took a different path, setting up an agency wit! h his girlfriend, Angie (Michelle Monaghan). Helene's aunt, Be! a (Amy M adigan), hires the duo to augment the investigation, and they team up with Captain Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Bressant (Madigan's husband, Ed Harris). The authorities don't appreciate the interference, but Patrick knows how to get the local populace talking, and he soon finds there's more to the story than anyone could possibly imagine. Hard-hitting, but never soft-headed, the evocative end result proves Affleck has a flair for this directing thing and that his little brother can carry a major motion picture with aplomb. Gone Baby Gone belongs on the list of great Boston crime dramas, along with The Departed and Mystic River, Clint Eastwood’s take on Lehane. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

The tough neighborhood of Dorchester is no place for the innocent or the weak. Its territory is defined by hard heads and even harder luck; its streets are littered with the detritus of broken families, hearts, dreams. Now, one of its youngest is missing. ! Private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro don’t want the case. But after pleas from the child’s aunt, they open an investigation that will ultimately risk everythingâ€"their relationship, their sanity, and even their livesâ€"to find a little girl lost.

Cheese Olamon, "a six-foot-two, four-hundred-and-thirty-pound yellow-haired Scandinavian who'd somehow arrived at the misconception he was black," is telling his old grammar school friends Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro why they have to convince another mutual chum, the gun dealer Bubba Rugowski, that Cheese didn't try to have him killed. "You let Bubba know I'm clean when it comes to what happened to him. You want me alive. Okay? Without me, that girl will be gone. Gone-gone. You understand? Gone, baby, gone." Of all the chilling, completely credible scenes of sadness, destruction, and betrayal in Dennis Lehane's fourth and very possibly best book about Kenzie and Gennaro, this moment stand! s out because it captures in a few pages the essence of Lehan! e's succ ess.

Private detectives Kenzie and Gennaro, who live in the same working-class Dorchester neighborhood of Boston where they grew up, have gone to visit drug dealer Cheese in prison because they think he's involved in the kidnapping of 4-year-old Amanda McCready. Without sentimentalizing the grotesque figure of Cheese, Lehane tells us enough about his past to make us understand why he and the two detectives might share enough trust to possibly save a child's life when all the best efforts of traditional law enforcement have failed. By putting Kenzie and Gennaro just to one side of the law (but not totally outside; they have several cop friends, a very important part of the story), Lehane adds depth and edge to traditional genre relationships. The lifelong love affair between Kenzie and Gennaro--interrupted by her marriage to his best friend--is another perfectly controlled element that grows and changes as we watch. Surrounded by dead, abused, and missing ! children, Kenzie mourns and rages while Gennaro longs for one of her own. So the choices made by both of them in the final pages of this absolutely gripping story have the inevitability of life and the dazzling beauty of art.

Other Kenzie/Gennaro books available in paperback: Darkness, Take My Hand, A Drink Before the War, Sacred. --Dick Adler

After Midnight

  • Fiction
  • Thriller
Sanna and her ravishing friend Gerti would rather speak of love than politics, but in 1930s Frankfurt, politics cannot be escaped--even in the lady's bathroom. Crossing town one evening to meet up with Gerti's Jewish lover, a blockade cuts off the girls' path--it is the Fürher in a motorcade procession, and the crowd goes mad striving to catch a glimpse of Hitler's raised "empty hand." Then the parade is over, and in the long hours after midnight Sanna and Gerti will face betrayal, death, and the heartbreaking reality of being young in an era devoid of innocence or romance.

In 1937, German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel. Yet even as it exposes huma! n folly, the book exudes a hopeful humanism. It is full of humor and light, even as it describes the first moments of a nightmare. After Midnight is a masterpiece that deserves to be read and remembered anew.

"Our sister is marrying a vampire."

When the ever practical Caroline Cabot first hears those words from the lips of her fanciful youngest sister, she accuses Portia of having a wild imagination.

But when she discovers their sister Vivienne is actually being courted by Adrian Kane, the mysterious viscount rumored to be a vampire, she decides to accept his invitation to a midnight supper and do some sleuthing of her own. To both her delight and her dismay, she soon finds herself falling under Kane's bewitching spell.

After all, what's a proper young lady to do when her sister's suitor arouses more than just her suspicions?

Bedtime Stories

  • Funnyman Adam Sandler stars in Walt Disney Pictures' BEDTIME STORIES, the magical family comedy that's packed with adventure and lots of heart. When Skeeter Bronson (Sandler) babysits his sister's (Courteney Cox) children, his imagination runs wild as he dreams up elaborate bedtime stories -- always casting himself as the hero. Entranced, the children add their own ideas to these once-
Funnyman Adam Sandler stars in Walt Disney Pictures' Bedtime Stories, the magical family comedy that's packed with adventure and lots of heart. When Skeeter Bronson (Sandler) babysits his sister's (Courteney Cox) children, his imagination runs wild as he dreams up elaborate bedtime stories always casting himself as the hero. Entranced, the children add their own ideas to these once-upon-a-time tales of heroics and chivalry. Then magic happens. These nighttime fantasies become Skeeter's daytime realities, leadin! g him on a real-life adventure in search of his own happy ending. Filled with colorful characters, humor and whimsy, this heartwarming comedy will enchant your entire family again and again.A fantastical tale about a man who makes up bedtime stories for his niece and nephew only to find that they magically come true the next day, Bedtime Stories is a funny and enjoyable film about finding happiness in unexpected places. Skeeter (Adam Sandler) grew up with his sister Wendy (Courteney Cox) in a small hotel run by his father Marty (Jonathan Pryce) which was eventually sold to Barry Nottingham (Richard Griffiths) with the caveat that Skeeter would someday assume a leadership role in the business. Expansion transformed the small hotel into the luxury Nottingham Hotel, but Skeeter is just a handyman with little hope of advancement. When his sister needs to leave the state for a job interview, Skeeter ends up sharing the responsibility of watching her two elementary-age c! hildren Bobbi (Laura Ann Kessling) and Patrick (Jonathan Morga! n Heit), whom he hasn't seen for years, with Wendy's friend Jill (Keri Russell). Initially an awkward situation, Skeeter and the kids bond over bedtime stories which Skeeter and the children make up. When events in the story start coming true, Skeeter tries to spin the stories to benefit his life, but events take some unexpected turns thanks to the kids' wild imaginations and some strange translations between fiction and reality. New relationships flourish and in the end, Skeeter, Wendy, Mr. Nottingham, Bobbi, Patrick, and Jill each find happiness in a most unexpected place and discover what's really important in their own life. Also worth mentioning is the character Bugsy, a guinea pig with enormous eyes that's sure to have every child begging for their own pet guinea pig. Rated PG for mild rude humor and mild language, but appropriate for most ages 6 and older. --Tami Horiuchi

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

The Chorus (Les Choristes)

  • An inspirational story in the rich tradition of MUSIC OF THE HEART and MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, THE CHORUS has moved critics everywhere to declare it one of the year's very best films! When he takes a job teaching music at a school for troubled boys, Cl ment Mathieu is unprepared for its harsh discipline and depressing atmosphere. But with passion and unconventional teaching methods, he's a
An inspirational story in the rich tradition of MUSIC OF THE HEART and MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, THE CHORUS has moved critics everywhere to declare it one of the year's very best films! When he takes a job teaching music at a school for troubled boys, Clément Mathieu is unprepared for its harsh discipline and depressing atmosphere. But with passion and unconventional teaching methods, he's able to spark his students' interest in music and bring them a newfound joy! It also puts him at odds with the school's overbear! ing headmaster, however, locking Mathieu in a battle between politics and the determination to change his pupils' lives!By getting nominated for Academy Awards in both the Foreign Language Film and Best Song categories, Les Choristes (The Chorus) made a rare (for a European film) double impression at the 2004 Oscars. This sentimental tale follows the arrival of a new teacher at a remote boys school in 1949 France (the war is a largely unspoken but ghostly presence). With disciplinary problems rampant, and the policies of the old-fashioned headmaster not helping, Monsieur Mathieu decides to introduce choral singing as a way to bridge the gap with his students. You don't need a crystal ball to figure out where this will go, although the movie uses its atmospheric location and lush vocal arrangements well. Bald, dumpy Gerard Jugnot provides a refreshingly offbeat hero (though securely in the traditions of the My Most Memorable Teacher movie); he's sort of a younger Phil! ippe Noiret. Director Christophe Barratier works in the winsom! e-cute m ode that makes a certain kind of French movie into an overly sweet bon bon, although at least this bon bon sings. --Robert Horton