Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15222 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-04-26
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Dubbed, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, English, French, Hindi, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

DVD Description
Laurel Canyon, a street that runs through the heart of the Hollywood Hills, has for decades been a sort of Greenwich Village of the West, home to many musicians, actors, artists and other bohemian types. Among its current residents is Jane (Frances McDormand), a veteran record producer, trying to come up with a hit single for a British band whose lead singer Ian (Alessandro Nivola) is her much younger lover. Jane's son Sam (Christian Bale) and his fiancé Alex (Kate Beckinsale) are both recent graduates of Harvard medical school. Conservative and serious, the couple move to Los Angeles to complete their studies, planning to stay in Jane's home, which she had promised would be vacant. But when they arrive, Sam is distressed to discover Jane and the band still working in Jane's home recording studio. Jane's carefree lifestyle is anathema to Sam, who has devoted his life to being anyone but his mother's son. Sam and Alex begrudgingly agree to stay at Jane's house until they can find an alternative place to live. Once in the house, however, Sam and Alex's tight control over their lives begins to unravel. Increasingly, Alex finds herself seduced by Jane and Ian, leaving Sam adrift, vulnerable to the approach of fellow medical resident Sara (Natascha McElhone). The Brit-pop sounds of Ian's band and the sun bleached southern California landscape set the tone for this rigorously honest exploration of relationships between people with wildly divergent worldviews.

Special Features

• Director's commentary
  
• Featurette
  
• Director and cast filmographies
  
• TV Spots
  
• Theatrical Trailer
  
• Weblink

DVD Technical Information:

• Running Time: 99 minutes
  
• Soundtrack Languages: English, French (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround)/Spanish (Dolby Surround)
  
• Subtitles: English, French, Hindi, Spanish
  
• Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic - 1.85:1
  
• Disc Type: DVD9

Synopsis
Just out of Harvard medical school, Sam (Christian Bale) and his fiancee Alex (Kate Beckinsale) seem destined for a life of privilege. Intending to find an apartment of their own in Los Angeles--where Sam will do his residency and Alex will complete her dissertation--they decide to stay temporarily with Jane (Francis McDormand), Sam's free-spirited, record producer mother who never provided straight-arrow Sam with the stability he so obviously craves. Jane has just left her longtime lover for Ian (Alessandro Nivolo), the young British musician whose band she is producing. At the expense of her studies, Alex gradually becomes entranced by Jane's carefree, pot-smoking ways--as well as by Ian--at the same time that Sam encounters temptation at the hospital in the form of Sara (Natasha McElhone), a beautiful young resident.
Lisa Cholodenko's (HIGH ART) film uses an unconventional mother-son relationship to examine how parents' decisions affect our lifestyle choices as adults. Playing the flipside of her role in ALMOST FAMOUS, McDormand imbues Jane with the appropriate libertine's spirit, an attitude that she finally turns her back on when it finally gets in the way of her son's future. An effective score by Craig Wedren and memorable songs by Sparklehorse lend authenticity to the film's music business backdrop.

Customer Reviews

Not was i've thought...
I think this movies directer try to say so much about this movie, but I think the result only turns out to be long, boring and a very, very cliche lovestory. The only reason why this film gets 3 stars instead of 2, is that Christian Bales performens again is so brilliant in this movie.

The siren song of the Low Road
LAUREL CANYON, a drama, is more than just a little reminiscent of 1994's SIRENS, a comedy. In the latter, Hugh Grant plays a newly-minted Anglican cleric of the Victorain era posted to Australia, where his bishop assigns him the task of prevailing upon a celebrated local artist (Sam Neill) to elevate his canvasses out of the gutter by leaving out the bare-naked ladies. Arriving at the artist's tropical residence, the minister finds the sultry lushness of the surroundings exceeded only by that of several nude models, one of whom is Elle Macpherson. While the cleric valiantly keeps a stiff upper lip in the face of so much nubile flesh, his sexually repressed wife (Tara Fitzgerald) is soon seduced by the sensual atmosphere that pervades the place and is presided over by the Neill character, a sort of benignly detached Hugh Hefner type.

In this film, Dr. Sam, M.D. (Christian Bale) and his fiancee, Dr. Alex, M.D. (Kate Beckinsale), both graduates of Harvard Med, travel to Los Angeles to temporarily take up abode in the vacant residence of the former's mother, Jane (Frances McDormand), while Alex does a First Year Resident gig in the psychiatric unit of a local hospital and Alex finishes up her Ph.D. dissertation on the genomics of fruit flies. However, upon arriving at the home in LAUREL CANYON, the two find the place still occupied. Jane, a record producer and aging Flower Child, is using the location to put together a new disc with a British rock band. Uptight Sam, who describes his Mom as dysfunctional, is not overly surprised to find her presiding over an environment of marijuana, casual sex, and rock 'n' roll - the traditional California dangers (according to traditional mothers everywhere) to virtue and clean living. But there's nothing Sam can do on a daily basis but go off to do his shrink stuff, during which he becomes attracted to Second Year Resident Dr. Sara (Natascha McElhone), while leaving Alex at home to cope with the corrosive hedonism of surroundings so unlike those of her hoity-toity Eastern upbringing.

For me, the only reason to see LAUREL CANYON is the talented Frances McDormand, who proves that she, as an older actress, can be awfully sexy. Of the female roles in the film, world weary and wise Jane is the only one who promises a Good Time not subject to guilty post-coital introspection. Since none of the other characters captured my interest or sympathy, the quality of the acting involved in their portrayal is irrelevant. Ian (Alessandro Nivola), the leader of the rock group, is just obnoxious as Jane's 20-year-younger, Bad Boy lover. Sara is vapid as the seductress of the one she should be professionally mentoring, and who should know better. The admittedly lovely Alex is like a deer caught in the headlights of temptation, and Sam is too neurotic to be an appealing persona. And the very last scene of the film left my wife and I saying "Huh?".

If you have a choice between LAUREL CANYON and SIRENS, choose the latter. As an adult fairy tale and/or morality play, it's much more fun and entertaining.

An Hour and a Half you'll never get back!!
This film is quite simply a bland yawnfest that will have you wishing for your time back!

The acting is good but no story exists. I felt like I was watching a prolonged pilot episode for a new, less interesting version of 'The O.C.' I've only given it 1 star as zero isn't an option. The soundtrack is the only thing worthy of purchase.

One reviewer said this film was good, if only to let you see 'how the other half lived'??? I believe this is a bit of a daft statement as this kind of drug fuelled moral depravity exists on every level in life and doesn't seem at all glamourised.

Do yourself a favour, put on a good CD and watch some paint dry. It's time better spent!