Search - Pieces of April on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG-13 Content Advisory: Brief Nudity, Adult Language, Sexual Situations, Drug Content Movie Release: 2003 DVD Release: 02/24/2004 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV,Pan and Scan - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 20 mins Studio: MGM Total Copies: 61 Genres: Comedy Drama, Urban Comedy, Domestic Comedy, Holiday Film

Novelist and screenwriter Peter Hedges makes his directorial debut with the comedy drama Pieces of April. Family outcast April Burns (Katie Holmes) lives in a beat-up apartment in New York's Lower East Side with her boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke). In order to spend some time with her dying mother, Joy (Patricia Clarkson), April invites her conservative suburban family to her place for a Thanksgiving feast. She discovers that her oven is broken the morning of the big day, so she goes around her tenement building trying to find a sympathetic neighbor with a working oven. Though she doesn't know them, neighbors Eugene (Isiah Whitlock) and Evette (Lillias White) offer the use of their oven, but only for an hour. While she frantically tries to complete the meal, the family drives in from Pennsylvania sharing less-than-pleasant opinions about April's lifestyle. Dad Jim (Oliver Platt) tries to think positively, while daughter Beth (Alison Pill) flaunts her good-girl status and son Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.) captures it all on film. Shot with digital video, Pieces of April is a project of the Independent Film Channel's InDigEnt production company. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Katie Holmes - April Burns
Patricia Clarkson - Joy Burns
Oliver Platt - Jim Burns
Derek Luke - Bobby
Alison Pill - Beth Burns

Peter Hedges' Thanksgiving comedy-drama Pieces of April comes to DVD with a pair of transfers. The widescreen transfer preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is preferable to the standard full-frame image. The transfer itself is well done, but the film was shot on digital video and the transfer makes that quite plain. English and French soundtracks are rendered in Dolby Digital 5.1. English, French, and Spanish subtitles are accessible. Supplemental materials include a commentary track recorded by Hedges. He discusses many aspects of his personal life that went into the creation of the screenplay, and he discusses how difficult it was shooting the film on such a miniscule budget. He is full of praise for his actors, especially Katie Holmes, Oliver Platt, and Patricia Clarkson (who picked up an Oscar nomination for her work in the film). A making-of featurette and the original theatrical trailer round out this fine release from MGM. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide