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Matt Damon gets adjusted and Louie CK gets lucky (again)

This week's best new releases on DVD are filed under " Action/Thriller ". I loved loved loved 'The Adjustment Bureau' . It was marketed as an action movie, and there is some running around, but it's really a great romantic drama with some scifi-y bits thrown in to advance the narrative. Matt Damon (the 'Bourne' movies et al) plays a young Congressman from Brooklyn running for Senate. He's idealistic and charismatic with a passionate ambition driven by family tragedy. Somehow though, he keeps managing to make critical judgment errors at crucial moments. Then one night he meets a gorgeous dancer, played by British actress Emily Blunt ('Devil Wears Prada'), who inspires him to give the most important and authentic speech of his career. She just as quickly disappears without giving her name or number and if it weren't for a chance encounter on a bus, they may never have met again. That's when things get crazy.

Damon sees things he shouldn't see and suddenly he's introduced to The Adjustment Bureau - a mysterious group of men in hats who make sure that "the plan" stays on course. Damon is supposed to become President, but his chance second encounter with Blunt is just enough of the butterfly in the jungle to mess things up. Damon is informed that he must never see Blunt again, but he refuses to give in and devotes his time and energy to finding her. Here's what I loved about this movie. Damon and Blunt are outrageously likable. You want to hang out with them. You want to hang out with them hanging out with each other. The Bureau is the device that's keeping them apart and it represents an anti-love, anti-free will, calculating machine that determines everyone's fate. But the thing is, you want Damon to be with Blunt, but you also want him to be President. In a way, you understand The Bureau's motivation.

The first-time director, George Nulfi, has made his living as a screenwriter ('Bourne Ultimatum', 'Ocean's Twelve') and what a refreshing change it makes to have story be the most important part of a genre film. He does a great job taking the Philip K. Dick short story and adapting it to give us just enough background on The Bureau to "get it" but not too much to slow down the narrative flow or take the focus away from the central characters. A great cast, a great love story and a really great film. Here's the date night movie to please both gender stereotypes. Dig it!

Al Fayed burns the Queen's coat of arms from Harrods for ...

Http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2008272/Fayed-burns-Queens-coat-arms-cynical-documentary.html

Mohammed Al Fayed has burnt the royal crests that used to adorn the wall of Harrods as part of a TV documentary on the death of Princess Diana.

Al Fayed also brands the Duke of Edinburgh a ‘Nazi’ in the film, which will not be shown in Britain because it is far too libellous,

In the controversial scene Al Fayed is pictured standing in the grounds of his country estate near Oxted in Surrey.

‘There was a clear verdict of unlawful killing, so why has nobody been arrested? What is at the core of all this is racism.

‘Powerful people in this country — my country — don’t want to hear me talking about Prince Philip’s Nazi background, but I have to, because it is 100 per cent true.

‘They wouldn’t accept me or my son, and when he fell in love with Diana, they murdered him.’

Entitiled Unlawful killing, it was directed by actor Keith Allen, father of the pop singer Lily Allen.

It has already provoked outrage for showing a sickening close-up photograph of Princess Diana just moments after the crash in Paris in 1997.

It was shown at a private viewing at the Cannes Film Festival last month where it was roundly panned and described as ‘ludicrous’, ‘cynical’ and ‘cruel.’

In one scene the Queen is labelled a ‘gangster in a tiara’ while Prince Philip is described as a ‘Fred West-style psychopath’.

In 2000 Al Fayed removed the four royal coats of arms that had adorned the exterior of Harrods; those of the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and the Queen Mother.

Hugo Vickers, the royal historian and author, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘It does seem vindictive and in very bad taste to burn the warrants but I suppose it’s up to him. He was the shopkeeper.’

Al Fayed funded the €2.4m production himself. It reportedly would have required 87 cuts before it could comply with British libel laws.

It is due to be screened in public for the first time at the Galway Film Fleadh in Ireland on July 6.

Distribution deals have also been secured in Russia, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland, and there is also interest in the US.

An inquest in 2008 ruled that Diana and Dodi Fayed were unlawfully killed, but blamed their deaths on their driver, Henri Paul, and the paparazzi.

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