Archives:  A - E      F - N      O - Z       Posters       Message Boards     
Who We Are and Why We Do What We Do

Your Donations support the Site

Buy Cranky stuff

Buy Movie Posters

   BLU-RAY DVDs:
Batman Begins
Black Hawk Down
Blade Runner
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
District Nine
Defiance
Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious movies set
Fifth Element
The Hangover
Incredible HULK
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man
Kill Bill 1 & 2
James Bond Ultimate ed v1James Bond Ultimate ed v2James Bond Ultimate ed v3
Julie & Julia 
Moon
Public Enemies
Rambo box set
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
This is Spinal Tap
Terminator
Terminator Salvation
Terminator 2
Top Gun
Total Recall
300
Transformers: Revenge of Fallen
Ultimate Matrix coll
Twilight
Underworld
Watchmen (dir cut)
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Wolverine

BLU-Ray for family DVDs
Bolt
A Bug's Life
Cars
Chronicles of Narnia set
Coraline
Ghostbusters
Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Order of Phoenix
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
Ice Age/Alvin + Chipmunks set
The Incredibles
Jungle Book
Juno
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters Inc
Nightmare Before Xmas
101 Dalmatians
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Pixar short films
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Sleeping Beauty
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White & 7 Dwarfs
Star Trek motion pictures set
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Transformers SE
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE

Search engine by FreeFind

click to search site

        Now in Release:
    2012
A Perfect Getaway
The Blind Side
A Christmas Carol
An Education
Fifty Dead Men Walking
Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Invictus
Is Anybody There?
It's Complicated
Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
The Lovely Bones
My Sister's Keeper
New in Town
Nine
Pirate Radio
Precious
The Proposal
Red Cliff
The Road
Shrink
St. Trinian's
The Strip
Surrogates
Taken
The Uninvited
Up in the Air
Young Victoria

    DVDs on Sale:
Aliens Quadrilogy (set)
An American in Paris
Batman Begins
Blade Runner
Coraline
The Dark Knight
Day the Earth Stood Still
Defiance
Die Hard collection 1-4
District Nine
Last Days of Fillmore West
Fast & Furious movies set
Forrest Gump
Gone With the Wind
The Hangover
Alfred Hitchcock set
Indiana Jones trilogy
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man SE
Lord of Rings 12 discs
Marx Bros set
Ultimate Matrix set
Milk
Monty Python - Holy Grail
Moon
Public Enemies
Sin City
South Park Movie
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Terminator Salvation
Up
Wall-E
Watchmen - Ultimate cut
Woodstock
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Origins Wolverine

DisneyPixar & family DVDs
Alice in Wonderland
Bambi
Beauty and the Beast
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bolt
Cinderella
Coraline
E.T.
Harry Potter yrs 1-4 set
Harry Potter
 & Chamber of Secrets
 & Goblet of Fire
 & Prisoner of Azkaban
 & Sorcerers Stone
 & Order of Phoenix
Kung Fu Panda
The Lion King
Mary Poppins 45th LE
Pinocchio
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Shrek Trilogy
Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Star Trek movies set
Star Trek TOS (TV)
ST:TNG complete tv set
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE

Looney Toons
Golden Age DVD
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Popeye the Sailor DVD
v.1  1933 - 1938
v.2  1938 - 1940
v.3 1941 - 1943
75th anniversary coll.ed.

Privacy Policy

	Practical Magic Starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman Written by Robin Swicord and Akiva Goldsman and Adam Brooks Based on the novel by Alice Hoffman Directed by Griffin Dunne Website: www.practicalmagic.com

IN SHORT: Star Power stuff and nonsense of Date Flick heaven.

In trying so hard to convince us that "witches are people too" Practical Magic, starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, flings out too many stories on too many emotional levels that Cranky couldn't focus on any given one as the point of the flick. A story of sisters protecting each other; A story of a family curse; A story of a murderous lover and the police investigator tracking him and the ancient love spell that's really the impetus behind everything. This must have been a gripping novel, 'cuz the adaptation reeks of "a pinch of this ... a pinch of that".

Only the star power of its principals keeps it interesting. Then again, I'd rather watch Sandra Bullock juggle too many stories, than shift in my seat bored out of my skull at a traditional chick flick, which PM is not. What it is is a feather light and, for the most part, tremendously amusing and gentle tale of two sisters and the curse that binds them.

Practical Magic begins in flashback, with the history of the Owens family and its Curse. Simply put, any man that an Owens woman falls for, body and soul, will die prematurely. When the curse strikes a modern day Owens momma, she leaves her daughters Gillian and Sally in the care of a pair of old maid aunts, Frances (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest) and promptly vanishes from the story. The kidlets learn to exercise their powers and grow closer as they are tormented by the children of the town.

Sally (Sandra Bullock) doesn't believe in curses and falls head over heels, marries and moves across town to raise her two daughters. When the Curse strikes, Sally turns her back on her powers and decides that her children will never be taught The Way. But she moves back in with her witch aunts, anyways.

Gillian (Nicole Kidman) prefers to take the free and easy route, traveling through the country picking up men left and right, until she lands with the wrong one, an abuser and (we shall learn) serial killer named Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), who brands his victims before he kills them.

A desperate call for help brings Sally and Gillian back together. The sisters "take care" of the problem all by themselves, but they find the spirits of the dead are hard to keep down. When police investigator Gary Hallett (Aidan Quinn), bearing all the marks of the love spell Sally cast 20 years earlier, shows up and starts asking questions you could just roll over and die from the overload of story input.

Cranky guesses that the book was packed with story, all of which the screenwriters have tried to stuff onto the screen. Director Griffin Dunne tries to link stories and character development by dropping at least 4 substantial music video type bits into the film, and it's all very pleasant but not that fulfilling.

The personal stories of the sisters will appeal to the ladies. The knockout visages of Bullock and Kidman will appeal to the gents. There is nothing scary about witchcraft in this flick and you'll probably walk out of the theater holding hands and commenting about the Wizard of Oz tribute that flashes by quickly.

On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to Practical Magic, he would have paid . . .

$5.00

Practical Magic is a pleasant Date flick.