Random DVD Round-Up 2 - NO RESERVATIONS - formulaic rom-com bilge

NO RESERVATIONS is a deeply unexciting romantic comedy based on the much more nuanced German film MOSTLY MARTHA. Catherine Zeta Jones plays the highly-strung ambitious chef landed with her niece (the ubiquitous Abigail Breslin) after a family tragedy. Calculating boss Patricia Clarkson decides that CZJ can't cope with work and family and brings in boho chef Aaron Eckhart to take over. CZJ hates him. Then she loves him. And it all end schmaltzily ever after. A thousand feminists die. Philip Glass composes a typically over-bearing score.

NO RESERVATIONS squelched into theatres in summer 2007 and is available on DVD.

NIM'S ISLAND - heart-warming kids adventure

I didn't expect to have such a good time watching NIM'S ISLAND. I couldn't imagine Jodie Foster playing comedy - nor romantic comedy opposite Gerard "This is Sparta!" Butler. And the thought of Abigail Breslin as an abandoned child on a tropical island, doing a HOME ALONE against "invading" litter-bug tourists made me break out in hives. But what can I say? NIM'S ISLAND is a well-made, nicely acted, warm-hearted....just fun. Somehow it's plot contrivances didn't bother me. Maybe because the film-makers (the guys behind LITTLE MANHATTAN) took such pains with making the CGI blend seamlessly with the live action.

The plot is simple. Nim is a small girl living with her father - a marine biologist - on a tropical island. When her father is lost at sea, Nim asks her favourite adventure writer to come and rescue her. Unfortunately she discovers that Alex Rover is in fact a frightened, house-bound middle-aged woman. Still, Alexandra conquers her fears, forms a bond with Nim, and all ends happily. Awwww. Just go watch it. It's better than it sounds!

NIM'S ISLAND is on release in Australia, Romania, the US, France, the Philippines, Switzerland, Italy, Taiwan, Turkey, Thailand, Belgium, Russia, Singapore and the UK. It opens later in Iceland on May 16th; in Germany on June 19th; in Hungary on June 26th; in Argentina on July 17th; in Brazil and Mexico on July 18th; in Spain on July 25th; in the Netherlands on August 7th; and in Finland and Norway on September 26th.