Hearts in Atlantis

• Based on a Stephen King novella, the film is set in the small-town Connecticut of 1960 and centers around an 11-year-old fatherless boy, whose life is changed when an eccentric man with a psychic gift boards at his home. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG-13 Age: 085392208128 UPC: 085392208128 Manufacturer No: 22081

Although it is difficult to believe, the Sixties are not fictional:

THEY ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

No matter the format, Stephen King's work is spellbinding because the author himself is spellbound. The first hugely popular writer of the TV generation, King published his first novel, Carrie, in 1974, the year before the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam. Images from that war -- and protests against it -- had flooded America's living rooms for nearly ten years. In Hearts in Altantis, King mesmerizes readers with fiction deeply rooted in the Sixties! , and explores -- through four defining decades -- the haunting legacy of the Vietmnam War.

As the characters in Hearts in Atlantis are tested in every way, King probes and unlocks the secrets of his generation for us all. Full of danger, full of suspense, and most of all full of heart, Stephen King's new book will take some readers to a place they have never been able to leave completely.With his idiosyncratic blend of patrician airs and boyish charm, narrator William Hurt provides a wonderful complement to this wildly imaginative collection of short stories by author Stephen King. Hurt carefully weaves the disparate elements into a cohesive whole, embracing the subtle complexities of each character; one moment a wizened sadness leaks into his voice as a haunted old man, pursued by demons, asks his 11-year-old lookout, "You know everyone on this street, on this block of this street anyway? And you'd know strangers? Sojourners? Faces of those unkno! wn?" Then, in a profound yet almost imperceptible switch, he ! exposes the boy's naive enthusiasm, "I think so." Right about here your neck hairs will stand at attention. Hurt's peculiar vocal style is in perfect pitch to King's dark, surreal vision of growing up amid the monsters of post-Vietnam America. (Running time: 21 hours, 20 CDs) --George Laney An extraordinary journey of the heat. An 11-year-old boy discovers a courage and self-reliance he didn't know he had when he tries to help a friendly boarder with unique powers elude equally mysterious agents pursuing him. Special features: subtitles in English and French, and much more.Fans of The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption will feel a similar affection for Hearts in Atlantis, a Stephen King adaptation that again finds the horror writer in more mainstream waters, with a bit of dabbling in the supernatural. When mysterious out-of-towner Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins) moves into the boarding house that 11-year-old Bobby Garfield (Anton Yelchin) shares! with his self-involved mother (Hope Davis), Bobby jumps at the chance to befriend an adult who talks to him straightforwardly. Ted enlists Bobby to read him the newspaper daily--and to keep an eye out for the "low men" bent on capturing Ted, who possesses a strange mind-reading power. Hopkins is in fine form, ably matched by the phenomenal young Yelchin, but director Scott Hicks (Shine) more often than not flattens out the dramatic arcs of the story, despite all the intriguing turns the film takes. Thankfully, though, the schmaltz factor is kept to a minimum, making Hearts in Atlantis a heartfelt coming-of-age drama. --Mark Englehart