Touch the Sound - A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie

• In RIVERS AND TIDES, German documentarian Thomas Riedelsheimer explored the enchanting and hypnotic "nature" art-installations of Andy Goldsworthy. Now, with TOUCH THE SOUND, he turns his camera on nearly deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who experiences sound as a kind of touching or vibration. Using Glennie's unique musical sensibilities as a jumping-off point, Riedelsheimer introduces the

From the director of Driving Miss Daisy comes this compelling, heartwarming and inspiring true story of a father (Pierce Brosnan) who faces impossible odds to keep his family together. Times are tough in Dublin, Ireland. But no one has it tougher than Desmond Doyle when his wife runs off and his beloved daughter Evelyn and two young sons are sent to an orphanage by the government.Enlisting the help of loyal friends (Julianna Margulies, Stephen Rea) and a feisty American lawyer (Aidan Quinn), he takes his! case to Ireland's Supreme Court in a history-making quest to topple an ironclad law and win back the custody of his children!With a gentle tug at the heartstrings, Evelyn tells the true story of an imperfect father whose devotion brought much-needed change to rigid Irish law. It's a labor of love for star and coproducer Pierce Brosnan, who brings just the right touch of Everyman charm to his role as Desmond Doyle, a struggling Dublin tradesman, father of three, and chronic pub-crawler whose wife abandons their family the day after Christmas, 1953. Desmond's a loving father who's boyishly irresponsible; Irish law dictates the removal of his children to stern Catholic orphanages, and his battle for custody is aided by two lawyers (Stephen Rea, Aidan Quinn) who seize this opportunity to revolutionize the courts. With straightforward, unobtrusive style, director Bruce Beresford draws fine performances from Brosnan, Julianna Margulies (as a barmaid who inspires Desmond's! sobriety), and especially young Sophie Vavasseur in the title! role as Desmond's bright, determined daughter. Sentimental without being saccharine, Evelyn is simple, well made, and bursting with genuine Irish spirit. --Jeff ShannonIncludes an afterword by award-winning author Neil Gaiman! Enthusiasts of genuine tragedy and celebrity intrique, gird your mental loins for an authentic tale of unbelievable hardship and epic catastrophe! This wholly true and accurate account details the extraordinary lives of Evelyn and Evelyn, a darling but unfortunate pair of conjoined twins who brave extreme circumstances of calamity and adversity, such as the bizarre and bloody night of their birth and subsequent orphaning; their early years on a chicken farm; shocking encounters with depraved gentlemen; life in the circus; the terrible fates of their dearest friends; and concluding with the sisters'' rise to international fame via the internet!TOUCH THE SOUND - DVD MovieSubtitled "A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie," German director Thomas Rie! delsheimer's exquisite Touch the Sound is nominally a portrait of the Scottish musician known as "the first full-time solo percussionist." Glennie is certainly a fascinating subject. Profoundly deaf since childhood, she disdains the use of hearing aids and sign language, relying instead on lip reading and, more crucially, on the use of all of her senses, especially touch, to "hear" with her entire body. The film reveals Glennie's extraordinary skills in a variety of settings: playing a snare drum for bemused New Yorkers in cavernous Grand Central Station; improvising with guitarist Fred Frith in an empty warehouse in Cologne, Germany (their final vibes-guitar duet is one of the film's musical highlights); working with hearing-impaired students in her native Aberdeenshire; jamming with taiko drummers in Japan, and later delighting customers in a Tokyo bar with a spontaneous workout involving chopsticks, dishes, cans, and glassware (the woman can make music with virtua! lly anything). But Riedelsheimer, who was also the film's edit! or and c inematographer, has a broader agenda here--namely, to intensify our awareness of the sounds that surround us everywhere, in every moment. From the streets of New York to the beaches of Santa Cruz, from the rocky Scottish coastline to a tranquil Japanese rock garden, he links heightened audio, as clear and natural as the best ECM recordings, to a succession of gorgeous visual images to create a balance of complex detail and overall sparseness, resulting in a kind of Zen feast. Even more of the same is found in a "making of" featurette that's the highlight of the bonus material, making Touch the Sound easily one of the most rewarding documentaries in recent years. --Sam Graham