Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels
Documentary
Public Interest Pictures

Preston Sturges
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) delays the return to his hometown, feeling that he is a failure. While in a moment of melancholy, he meets up with a group of Marines who befriend him and encourage him to return home to his mother by fabricating a story that he was wounded in battle with honorable discharge. They make him wear a uniform complete with medals and is pushed by his new friends into accepting a Hero's welcome when he gets home where he is to be immortalized by a statue that he doesn't want, has songs written about his heroic battle stories, and ends up unwillingly running for mayor. Despite his best efforts to explain the truth, no one will listen.

Adam Shankman
Comedy
Gabriel Simon Production Services
PG
Tracy Turnblad, an overweight teenager with all the right moves, is obsessed with the Corny Collins Show. Every day after school, she and her best friend Penny run home to watch the show and drool over the hot Link Larkin, much to Tracy's mother Edna's dismay. After one of the stars of the show leaves, Corny Collins holds auditions to see who will be the next person on the Corny Collins show. With all of the help of her friend Seaweed, Tracy makes it on the show, angering the evil dance queen Amber Von Tussle and her mother Velma. Tracy then decides that it's not fair that the black kids can only dance on the Corny Collins Show once a month, and with the help of Seaweed, Link, Penny, Motormouth Maybelle, her father and Edna, she's going to integrate the show.....without denting her 'do!

Ryan Fleck
Drama
Hunting Lane Films
R
Dan Dunne is an eighth-grade history teacher in an inner-city school deep in the heart of Brooklyn. He eschews the provided curriculum in favor of off-the-cuff, but deeply heartfelt lectures about the importance of understanding history, rather than just memorizing it. He speaks primarily of dialectics, the tensions between two opposing forces. He is torn between his desire to change the world and his increasingly desperate realization that he can't, at least not in the grand, awe-inspiring ways that he envisioned as an eager, idealistic college student. He started using drugs as a way to escape the pain of life, and it has turned into a crutch that bears increasingly heavy loads of psychological weight. In his classroom, which is populated almost entirely by black and Hispanic students, Dan lectures about how the world is structured into opposing forces, illustrating it at one point by arm-wrestling one of his students. His unorthodox approach inspires them during class, but interestingly enough we don't see its effects outside the classroom. The film focuses on Dan and his relationship with Drey, a 13-year-old student of his who catches him in the bathroom smoking crack after school one day. Drey understands Dan's frustrations with life; she is the child of an overworked single mother whom she barely sees, and spending so much time on her own has made her self-reliant, but also hard on the edges.

Paul Sloane
Comedy, Musical
RKO Radio Pictures

John Carpenter
Crime
Compass International Pictures
R
The year is 1963, the night; Halloween. Police are called to 43 Lampkin Ln. only to discover that a 17 year Judith Myers had been stabbed to death, by her 6 year-old brother... After being institutionalized for 15 years, Myers breaks out just days before Halloween. No one knows nor would wish to find out what would happen on October 31st 1978, besides Myer's physciatrist Dr. Loomis. He knows Michael is coming back to Haddonfield, but by the time the town realizes it, it'll be to late for many people...

Rob Zombie
Horror
Dimension Films
R
The residents of Haddonfield don't know it yet... but death is coming to their small sleepy town. Sixteen years ago, a ten year old boy called Michael Myers brutally kills his step father, his elder sister and her boyfriend. Sixteen years later, he escapes from the mental institution and makes his way back to his hometown intent on a murderous rampage pursued by Dr Sam Loomis who is Michael's doctor and the only one who knows Michael's true evil. Elsewhere a shy teenager by the name of Laurie Strode is babysitting on the night Michael comes home... is it pure coincidence that she and her friends are being stalked by him?

Dwight H. Little
Horror
Trancas International Films
R
John Carpenter's malevolent monster Michael Myers escapes from years of comatose incarceration while being transported from a maximum security institution. He goes back to the original setting of Halloween to find his sisters daughter, Jamie. The only man who can stop him is Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance). The question is can he get there in time to save Haddonfield from Michael? You will have to see in this fantastic 4th film of the series

Dominique Othenin-Girard, Arthur Speer
Horror
Magnum Pictures Inc.
R
It's one year later after the events of Halloween 4. Michael survives the shootings and on October 31st he returns with a vengeance. Lurking and stalking, Jamie, Rachel, and Rachel's friends, Michael forms a plan to lure Jamie out of the children's hospital where events lead up to the confrontation at the Myers house. Halloween 5 is a dark, thrill ride that will scare the heck out of you!

Rick Rosenthal
Horror
De Laurentiis

It's the same night as the original Halloween. Michael Myers is around the neighborhood, after being gunned by Dr.Loomis six times. Now, he's in a hospital where the girl Laurie Strode was taken. And there's a reason why Michael is after her...

Rick Rosenthal
Horror
De Laurentiis

It's the same night as the original Halloween. Michael Myers is around the neighborhood, after being gunned by Dr.Loomis six times. Now, he's in a hospital where the girl Laurie Strode was taken. And there's a reason why Michael is after her...

Steve Miner
Horror
Dimension Films
R
On Halloween in 1963, Michael Myers murdered his sister, Judith. In 1978, he broke out to kill his other sister, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). He killed all of her friends, but she escaped. A few years later, she faked her death so he couldn't find her. But now, in 1998, Michael has returned and found all the papers he needs to find her. He tracks her down to a private school where she has gone under a new name with her son, John (Josh Hartnett). And now, Laurie must do what she should have done a long time ago and finally decided to hunt down the evil one last time.

Laurence Olivier
Drama
Two Cities Films

William Shakespeare's tale of tragedy of murder and revenge in the royal halls of medieval Denmark. Claudius, brother to the King, conniving with the Queen, poisons the monarch and seizes the throne, taking the widowed Gertrude for his bride. Hamlet, son of the murdered King, mournful of his father's death and mother's hasty marriage, is confronted by the ghost of the late King who reveals the manner of his murder. Seeking revenge, Hamlet recreates the monstrous deed in a play with the help of some traveling actors to torment the conscience of the evil Claudius. In a visit with his mother, Hamlet expresses his anger and disappointment concerning her swiftly untimed marriage. Thinking a concealed spy in his mother's chamber to be the lurking Claudius, he mistakenly kills the meddling counselor, Polonius, father of Ophelia and Laertes. Claudius, on the pretext that Hamlet will be endangered by his subjects for the murder of Polonius, sends the prince to England.

Franco Zeffirelli
Drama
Canal+
PG
Zefferelli does yet another Shakespeare, with less success than he had with Taming of the Shrew or Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet returns to Denmark when his father, the King, dies. His mother Gertrude has already married Hamlet's uncle Claudius, the new King. They urge Hamlet to marry his beloved Ophelia. But soon the ghost of Hamlet's father appears and tells Hamlet that he was murdered by Claudius and Gertrude. Hamlet must choose between passive acquiescence and the need for a vengeance which might lead to tragedy.

Kenneth Branagh
Drama
Castle Rock Entertainment

Hamlet, son of the king of Denmark, is summoned home for his father's funeral and his mother's wedding to his uncle. In a supernatural episode, he discovers that his uncle, whom he hates anyway, murdered his father. In an incredibly convoluted plot--the most complicated and most interesting in all literature--he manages to (impossible to put this in exact order) feign (or perhaps not to feign) madness, murder the "prime minister," love and then unlove an innocent whom he drives to madness, plot and then unplot against the uncle, direct a play within a play, successfully conspire against the lives of two well-meaning friends, and finally take his revenge on the uncle, but only at the cost of almost every life on stage, including his own and his mother's.

Michael Almereyda
Drama
double A Films
R
New York, 2000. A specter in the guise of the newly-dead CEO of Denmark Corporation appears to Hamlet, tells of murder most foul, demands revenge, and identifies the killer as Claudius, the new head of Denmark, Hamlet's uncle and now step-father. Hamlet must determine if the ghost is truly his father, and if Claudius did the deed. To buy time, Hamlet feigns madness; to catch his uncle's conscience, he invites him to watch a film he's made that shows a tale of murder. Finally convinced of Claudius's guilt, Hamlet must avenge his father. Claudius now knows Hamlet is a threat and even uses Ophelia, Hamlet's love, in his own plots against the young man. Murder will out?

Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
Comedy
Bentley Filmgroup
R
Jerry Ferro's 40th birthday has brought his life into sharp relief and it's not a pretty picture. A once-promising amateur boxer -- who quit so he wouldn't risk his perfect record of underachievement -- Jerry has been knocking around from one construction job to another and spinning his wheels in an unsatisfying relationship, all the while with an eye toward eventually getting his act together. His last connection to the fight game is the evening boxing class he teaches to middle-aged, middle class, middle management types at a gym in Pasadena, where he also works as a handyman. When venerable boxing coach Eddie Bell asks Jerry if he'd like to spar a couple of rounds with Malice Blake, an up-and-coming pro, Jerry reluctantly steps into the ring. Despite the ass-kicking Jerry otherwise receives, a one-punch knockdown of Blake convinces Jerry that it's time to make his return to competitive boxing. Thus ends a 20-year layoff and begins a hilarious fish-out-water quest for Olympic gold.

Peter Berg
Action & Adventure
Sony Pictures
Unrated
"Hancock" turns the standard superhero movie inside-out: The title character (Will Smith) can fly, has superstrength, and is invulnerable, but he's also a sloppy, alcoholic jerk who causes millions of dollars in property damage whenever he bothers to fight crime. When he saves the life of a public-relations agent named Ray (Jason Bateman, "Arrested Development"), Ray decides to improve Hancock's image--starting by having Hancock surrender himself to the authorities and go to prison for his lawless behavior. The idea is that once he's in prison, the crime rate will go up, and people will start to realize Hancock might be of value after all. This is only the first act of "Hancock"--from there, the movie takes several clever turns that shouldn't be revealed. "Hancock" isn't a great movie (among other things, director Peter Berg overuses close-ups with a hand-held camera to a degree that may cause motion sickness), but it is an extremely entertaining one. The script, which holds together far better than most superhero movies, has a propulsive plot, good dialogue, some compassion for its characters, and even an actual idea or two. The spectacular action at least gestures towards obeying the laws of physics, which actually makes the special effects more vivid. The three leads (Smith, Bateman, and Charlize Theron as Ray's wife, Mary) deftly balance the movie's mixture of comedy, action, and drama. All in all, a smart subversive twist on a genre that all too often takes itself all too seriously. --"Bret Fetzer"

Stills from "Hancock" (click for larger image)

Oliver Stone
Drama
Orion Pictures Corporation

Jon Lansdale is a comic book artist who loses his right hand in a car accident. The hand was not found at the scene of the accident, but it soon returns by itself to follow Jon around, and murder those who anger him.

John Woo
Action
Golden Harvest Company
R
Superkicker Dorian Tan Tao-liang plays a Shaolin student who must find a Manchu traitor responsible for the murder of the abbot. Jackie Chan is a spear fighting expert who decides to help Tan because the traitor killed his brother. Part of their mission is to help a scholar make it safely across the river without getting killed from the Manchus.

Mitchell Leisen
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

Hotel manicurist Regi Allen is a cynical golddigger who meets her match in Theodore 'Ted' Drew III. After a date with Ted, she lets him sleep on her couch when he's too drunk to go further; but what is she to think when he wants to extend the arrangement?

Francesco Rosi
Drama
Galatea Film

Woody Allen
Comedy
Orion Pictures Corporation
PG-13
During a Thanksgiving Day party we make aquaintance with a numerous and problematic family. The leading characters are three sisters: Lee, the woman of Frederick, an old misanthrope painter; Holly, who dreams of becoming a writer, or an actress, or who knows who...; Hannah, famous actress, beautiful, intelligent, good mother, good wife, good sister, in short perfect, the pivot of the family. The balance begins to break up when Hannah's husband, Elliot, falls in love with Lee, who leaves Frederick. Holly goes through a deep crisis and meets Mickey, the former husband of Hannah, a hipocondriac TV producer. The affairs evolve and at the last Thanksgiving ...

Ridley Scott
Crime
Dino De Laurentiis Company
R
Part four in the Hannibal Lecter Quadrilogy. Having escaped the asylum in "Silence of the Lambs," Dr Lecter goes into hiding in Florence, Italy. Back in America, Mason Verger, an old victim of the doctor's, seeks revenge. Disfigured and confined to a life-support system, he plans to draw Lecter out of his hiding place, using the one thing he truly cares for: Clarice Starling.

Todd Solondz
Drama
Good Machine
NC-17
When a young woman rejects her current overweight suitor in a restaurant, he unexpectedly places a curse on her. The film then moves on to her sisters. One is a happily married woman with a psychiatrist husband and three kids. Unfortunately the husband develops an unnatural fascination for his 11 year old son's male classmates, fantasizes about mass killing in a park, and masturbates to teen magazines. One of his patients has an unrequited fascination for the third sister. Meanwhile the apparently stable 40 year marriage of the sister's parents suddenly unravels when he decides he has had enough and wants to live a hermit's life in Florida. Obviously, the whole movie is slightly warped in its viewpoint and certainly presents abnormal relationships among all of its parties.

Brad Anderson
Comedy
Independent Film Channel (IFC)
R
Ruby Weaver has man trouble: she tries to fix them, so she's stuck herself with a string of losers. Her current lover, Sam Deed, seems different: he's sweet, tender, just in from Dubuque. But, as Ruby tells her therapist about Sam, in flashbacks we see someone not quite of this world. In fact, Sam informs Ruby that he's from the future, 2470 to be exact, traveling back in time to avoid prosecution for his sister's death, and to find Ruby, whose photo he saw back home. Ruby's sure he's delusional, but most of the time she wants to keep him - and maybe fix him. Although he seems sane, maybe Sam hasn't told her the real story: what's he up to, and who is Chrystie Delancey?

Mark Robson
Comedy
Red Lion

Joel Zwick, George Tyne, James Tayne
Comedy
Paramount
Unrated
"Happy Days: The Complete Second Season" finds Garry Marshall’s immortal, 1970s sitcom hitting its stride with 23 episodes that continue to be built around Milwaukee native Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) and his family and friends. But there’s also a clear strengthening of one of the show’s eventual, major elements: the close, if unlikely, friendship between Richie and Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler). As always, Richie is angling for a way to grow up faster, often getting in over his head. In "Richie Moves Out," the red-haired teen tires of trying to kiss his girlfriend in the goldfish bowl of his house, so he agrees to live with his older brother while finishing high school and holding down a job. The result: there’s no time for making out when one is that busy. A similar scheme backfires in "Richie’s Car," when the Fonz converts a racing vehicle into a family-friendly, second car for the Cunninghams, only to find after the fact that it’s probably stolen. "Fonzie Joins the Band" sees Richie having to stand up to, and disappoint, his greaser pal when non-musical Fonzie presumes to join Richie’s band in exchange for outfitting them in slick tuxedoes. Fonzie looks surprisingly downhearted, too, in "Richie’s Flip Side," in which straight-arrow, young Cunningham gets a job as a disc jockey and develops an unbearable ego. In "Goin’ to Chicago," Richie, Potsie (Anson Williams) and Ralph (Don Most) go on an overnight field trip to the Windy City and discover that stepping into the adult world (they visit a nightclub and end up with a whoppping check they can’t pay) takes some preparation and experience they don’t yet have. Tom Bosley and Marion Ross still look, in retrospect, as wonderful in the roles of Richie’s parents as they did in the early ‘70s. "--Tom Keogh"

Various
Comedy
Paramount
NR
The 1975-76 season of the highly successful "Happy Days" is largely defined by the placement of the Fonz (Henry Winkler) in even closer proximity to the Cunningham family--making him, tacitly and literally, a member of best friend Richie’s household. When Fonzie's grandmother moves into the ultra-cool, womanizing biker’s apartment, he takes a room over the Cunningham’s garage, making Richie (Ron Howard), his mom Marion (Marion Ross), and sister Joanie (Erin Moran) happy, but leaving cantankerous-but-lovable dad Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley) something more than ambivalent. While several episodes deal with one or another conflict between strong-willed Fonzie and stubborn Howard--at one point, the two sue each other over a roof that collapses from the weight of Fonzie's pigeon coop--life otherwise lurches along for Richie and his gang. In "The Other Richie Cunningham," Richie tries an end run around his dad's expectation that he take a business associate's daughter out for a date. Enlisting pal Potsie (Anson Williams) to pretend to be Richie, the Howdy Doody-faced teen finds the plan backfiring when Potsie proves to be less than a gentleman to the unfortunate girl. "Jailhouse Rock" finds Richie and Howard sharing a jail cell after protesting an arbitrary curfew by police on teens, while "Tell It to the Marines" concerns a desperate attempt by Ralph (Donny Most) to earn respect by threatening to join military service. Not surprisingly, however, most of "Happy Days: The Third Season" follows the exploits of Fonzie as he constantly lives up to the reputation that inevitably precedes him. The two-part "Fearless Fonzarelli" begins with the Fonz so worried he's losing his cool that he agrees to jump 14 garbage cans on his motorcycle for a television show--and ends up with a serious leg injury. "Fonzie the Superstar" is a popular episode in which the Fonz agrees to substitute for Potsie as vocalist in Richie's band, then freezes up with stage fright on the night of a show at Arnold's. (Winkler's performance on "Heartbreak Hotel," while not exactly singing, is so charged with energy one can tell the actor was probably breaking through his own inhibitions during the scene.) "Bringing Up Spike" focuses on Fonzie's first encounter with child-rearing when his visiting, little delinquent cousin gets into a jam with the law.
"Happy Days: The Third Season" is definitely a peak in the show's lengthy history, just before the series took a turn for the silly (or sillier). This was the year Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams) were introduced to the world on "Happy Days" (before landing their own spin-off series). And armchair TV historians will take note how sexist the show could be while it simultaneously takes a minor stab at American racism in "Fonzie's New Friend" (in which the Fonz shows up with an African-American pal to play drums in Richie's band, and gets a hostile reaction from whites in the community). "--Tom Keogh"

Don Roos
Comedy
Lions Gate Films
R
An ensemble cast telling 10 stories with intertwining characters. One story is about a father and son who are dating the same woman . Another features a woman who long ago gave her baby up for adoption but is now being blackmailed by a documentary filmmaker who claims to know the now-grown child's whereabouts.

Mike Leigh
Comedy, Drama
Film4
R

Mark Illsley
Comedy
Marked Entertainment
PG-13
Evasi 'per caso', Wayne Wayne Wayne junior e Harry Sawyer, rubano una roulotte ad una coppia di gay coreografi, preparatori di bambini ai concorsi di danza, ed arrivano, sempre per caso, ad Happy, ridente e noiosa cittadina del Texas, dove sono attesi i due per preparare le bambine alla gara annuale per il titolo di "Miss Spremuta d'arancia". Queste le premesse di una serie di esilaranti situazioni in cui si trovano i due maldestri imbroglioni. L'arrivo di Wayne ed Harry sconvolge la vita del paese, in particolare quella della proprietaria della banca Josephine McClintock, detta Joe, dello sceriffo Chappy Dent, detto Choppy (realmente omosessuale, che si innamora di Harry) e dell'insegnante della scuola locale Miss Schaefer, sfortunata preparatrice dei concorsi precedenti. Wayne diventa abile istruttore di musica e danza, quasi un mito per le bambine, ed Harry deve dividersi fra Joe (di cui si innamora) e le advances di Choppy. Passata in secondo piano l'idea di svaligiare la banca di Joe, i due devono anche affrontare il violento detenuto che era evaso con loro e che vuole davvero effettuare la rapina, anche a costo di prendere in ostaggio la stessa ragazza. Alla fine i due sventano la rapina e.......

Masaki Kobayashi
Drama
Shochiku Kinema Kenkyû-jo

Peace in 17th-century Japan causes the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans, throwing thousands of samurai out of work and into poverty. An honorable end to such fate under the samurai code is ritual suicide, or hara-kiri (self-inflicted disembowelment). An elder warrior, Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai) seeks admittance to the house of a feudal lord to commit the act. There, he learns of the fate of his son-in-law, a young samurai who sought work at the house but was instead barbarically forced to commit traditional hara-kiri in an excruciating manner with a dull bamboo blade. In flashbacks the samurai tells the tragic story of his son-in-law, and how he was forced to sell his real sword to support his sick wife and child. Tsugumo thus sets in motion a tense showdown of revenge against the house.

John Woo
Action
Golden Princess Film Production Limited
R
Mobsters are smuggling guns into Hong Kong. The police orchestrate a raid at a teahouse where an ace detective loses his partner. Meanwhile, the two main gun smugglers are having a war over territory, and a young new gun is enlisted to wipe out informants and overcome barriers to growth. The detective, acting from inside sources, gets closer to the ring leaders and eventually must work with the inside man directly.

John Woo
Action
Golden Princess Film Production Limited
R
Mobsters are smuggling guns into Hong Kong. The police orchestrate a raid at a teahouse where an ace detective loses his partner. Meanwhile, the two main gun smugglers are having a war over territory, and a young new gun is enlisted to wipe out informants and overcome barriers to growth. The detective, acting from inside sources, gets closer to the ring leaders and eventually must work with the inside man directly.

Richard Lester
Comedy
Proscenium Films
G
"A Hard Day's Night" captured Beatlemania as it was happening, and more than four decades later, it remains a peerlessly zesty rock 'n' roll fable. Director Richard Lester's jump cuts now seem exhilarating as Jean-Luc Godard's, John Lennon's wisecracks as well timed as Groucho Marx's. Yet this original Fab Four movie is innocent in a way no other later rock 'n' roll film could be, and much of the credit must go to the thousands of screaming teenage girls in the audience--the ones who's lips form such magical words as "John!" and "Paul!" and "George!" and "Ringo!" while tears stream down their cheeks. When

Paul Thomas Anderson
Crime
Green Parrot
R
John has lost all his money. He sits outside a diner in the desert when Sydney happens along, buys him coffee, then takes him to Reno and shows him how to get a free room without losing much money. Under Sydney's fatherly tutelage, John becomes a successful small-time professional gambler, and all is well, until he falls for Clementine, a cocktail waitress and sometimes hooker.

Scott Roberts
Crime
Alibi Films
R
Three fraternal bank robbers languishing in jail, discover a profitable (if not dodgy) way to spend their time. Crime can most certainly pay, if you "know wot I mean?" However when sex and greed rear-up between the good crims and the bad cops, the consequences are both bizarre and fatal.

Paul Schrader
Drama
A-Team
R
Jake Van Dorn is businessman from American heartland who shares strong Calvinist convictions with most of his countrymen. His teenage daughter is missing from the trip in L.A. and Van Dorn hires private investigator. Result of the investigation is his daughter being spotted in cheap X-rated movie. Van Dorn decides to bring her back personally and during the quest he becomes familiar with the pornographic underworld.

Perry Henzell
Action
International Films Inc.

Ivanhoe Martin comes to the city to make it big singing Reggae. However, he finds life in the city to be harder than he though, and is taken advantage of by both the record producer and the marijuana boss he later starts dealing for. When he kills a police officer, events start escalating that make him the Jamaica's most wanted man, and a momentary hero to all the oppressed Jamaicans. This is based on a true story.

Barbara Kopple
Documentary
Cabin Creek
PG
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.

Eddie Murphy
Comedy
Eddie Murphy Productions
R
"Sugar" Ray is the owner of an illegal casino, who contend with the pressures of vicious gangster and corrupt policemen who want to see him go out of business. In the world of organized crime and police corruption in the 1920s, any dastardly trick is fair!

Danny Leiner
Adventure
Endgame Entertainment
R
Harold Lee and Kumar Patel are two stoners who end up getting the munchies. What they crave the most after seeing a TV advertisement, is a trip to White Castle. So from here, follows a journey for the burgers they require. On their way they will encounter many obstacles including a raccoon, a racist officer, and a horny Neil Patrick Harris.

Hal Ashby
Comedy
Paramount Pictures
PG
The self-destructive and needy wealthy teenager Harold is obsessed by death and spends his leisure time attending funerals, watching demolishing of buildings, visiting junkyards, simulating suicides trying to get attention of his indifferent, snobbish and egocentric mother and having sessions with his psychologist. When Harold meets the anarchist seventy nine year-old Maude at a funeral, they become friends and the old lady discloses others perspectives of the cycle of life for him. Meanwhile his mother enlists him in a dating service and tries to force Harold to join the army. On the day of the eightieth anniversary of Maude, Harold proposes her but he finds the truth about the end of the cycle of life.

Classics
Kino Video
NR
This collection of vintage Harold Lloyd comedies is worth the price just for "Grandma's Boy", a splendid hourlong feature from 1922. Lloyd plays a small-town fellow who lives with his frisky grandmother; convinced of his own cowardice, he yearns to compete for the hand of a pretty girl. His courtly call to the girl's home is the occasion for battle with a ridiculous "formal" suit, mothballs, and a litter of kittens attracted by the goose grease on his shoes. There's also a long (and quite funny) flashback to Lloyd's ancestor, tangled in a Civil War fracas. Lloyd, whose aquiline features were rounded off by horn-rimmed glasses, was more handsome and less clownish than many of his slapstick brethren, which made his acrobatic outbursts all the more surprising. That talent is well-displayed in the seven short (mostly between 20-25 minutes) films on this DVD, including "Number, Please", which climaxes with a brilliant sequence involving a stolen purse, and "His Royal Slyness", which also offers a look at Lloyd's brother Gaylord. "--Robert Horton"

Hal Roach, Alfred J. Goulding
Classics
Kino Video
NR
Of the ten shorts in this 2-disc release:



1. Two Gun Gussie

2. The City Slicker

3. The Non-Stop Kid

4. Ring Up the Curtain

5. Captain Kidd's Kids

6. From Hand to Mouth (1919)

7. High and Dizzy (1920)

8. Never Weaken (1921)

9. Among Those Present (1921)

10. Now or Never (1921)



The first five are not among those included in the forthcoming New Line set. Given Kino's good track record with rare silent material, this set is recommendable sight unseen, though the 7-disc New Line set is certainly a far more comprehensive view of Lloyd's career.



---------



On November 15th New Line will release three two-disc collections with a MSRP of $29.95 each. All three collections will also be available in a boxed set, The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection, which will include a bonus disc that will not be available seperately. The boxed set will retail for $89.85. The discs will include the following films:





Volume 1

=======

Disc 1:

Girl Shy (1924)

Safety Last! (1923) w/ commentary by Leonard Maltin and director Richard Correll

An Eastern Westerner (1920)

Ask Father (1919)

From Hand to Mouth (1919)



Disc 2:

The Milky Way (1936)

The Cat's Paw (1934)

Why Worry? (1923)

Featurette "Harold's Hollywood: Then and Now"



Volume 2

=======

Disc 1:

The Kid Brother (1927) w/ commentary by Harold Lloyd's granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd, author Annette D'Agostino Lloyd, and Rich Correll

The Freshman (1925) w /commentary by Leonard Maltin, Richard Correll and author/film historian Richard W. Bann

Bumping Into Broadway (1919)

Billy Blazes, Esq. (1919)



Disc 2:

Feet First (1930)

Grandma's Boy (1922)

Dr. Jack (1922)

Now or Never (1921)

High and Dizzy (1920)

"Scoring for Comedy" featurette



Volume 3

=======

Disc 1:

Speedy (1928) w/ commentary by Suzanne Lloyd, Annette D'Agostino Lloyd and Richard Correll

Hot Water (1924)

Never Weaken (1921)

Haunted Spooks (1920) w/ commentary by Suzanne Lloyd, Annette D'Agostino Lloyd and Richard Correll



Disc 2:

Movie Crazy (1932)

For Heaven's Sake (1926)

I Do (1921)

Among Those Present (1921)

A Sailor-Made Man (1921)

Get Out and Get Under (1920)

Number Please? (1920)

"Greenacres" featurette





Bonus Disc

=========

Rare, vintage interviews and home movies

Tributes and interviews with family, friends and legendary celebrities including Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, Tab Hunter and director John Landis

Narrative chronology detailing the life and times of Harold Lloyd, hosted by Leonard Maltin

Video bios of many of Harold Lloyd's collaborators and stars of the golden age of cinema

Harold Lloyd Academy Award speech

USC's Delta Kappa Alpha tribute to Harold Lloyd hosted by Jack Lemmon and Steve Allen

3-D photos shot by Harold Lloyd himself (3-D glasses included)

Photo and publicity galleries

Radio shows

And more!

Kevin Brownlow, David Gill
Television & Documentary
Academy Video
Exempt
This is a must for any Harold Lloyd fan, it's packed full with information on the silent cinema genius, very interesting and a great insight into his life as he was beginning to be a star of the big screen as well as offscreen! I really do recommend this video to any fan of the silent cinema and of Harold Lloyd himself!!

Paul Mazursky
Adventure
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
R
Harry is a retired teacher in his seventies living in an area of New York City where he & his deceased wife raised his children - where he's lived all his life. When the building he lives in is torn down to make way for a parking garage, Harry and his cat Tonto begin a journey across America, visiting his children, seeing a world he never seemed to have the time to see before, making new friends and saying goodbye to old ones.

Chris Columbus
Adventure
1492 Pictures
PG
Forced to spend his summer holidays with his muggle relations, Harry Potter gets a real shock when he gets a surprise visitor: Dobby the house-elf, who warns Harry Potter against returning to Hogwarts, for terrible things are going to happen. Harry decides to ignore Dobby's warning and continues with his pre-arranged schedule. But at Hogwarts, strange and terrible things are indeed happening: Harry is suddenly hearing mysterious voices from inside the walls, muggle-born students are being attacked, and a message scrawled on the wall in blood puts everyone on his/her guard - "The Chamber Of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies Of The Heir, Beware" .

Mike Newell
Adventure
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG-13
Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts is about to start and he is enjoying the summer vacation with his friends. They get the tickets to The Quidditch World Cup Final but after the match is over, people dressed like Lord Voldemort's 'Death Eaters' set a fire to all the visitors' tents, coupled with the appearance of Voldemort's symbol, the 'Dark Mark' in the sky, which causes a frenzy across the magical community. That same year, Hogwarts is hosting 'The Triwizard Tournament', a magical tournament between three well-known schools of magic : Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The contestants have to be above the age of 17, and are chosen by a magical object called Goblet of Fire. On the night of selection, however, the Goblet spews out four names instead of the usual three, with Harry unwittingly being selected as the Fourth Champion. Since the magic cannot be reversed, Harry is forced to go with it and brave three exceedingly difficult tasks.

David Yates
Adventure
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG-13
After a lonely summer on Privet Drive, Harry returns to a Hogwarts full of ill-fortune. Few of students and parents believe him or Dumbledore that Voldemort is really back. The ministry had decided to step in by appointing a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher that proves to be the nastiest person Harry has ever encountered. Harry also can't help stealing glances with the beautiful Cho Chang. To top it off are dreams that Harry can't explain, and a mystery behind something Voldemort is searching for. With these many things Harry begins one of his toughest years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Alfonso Cuarón
Adventure
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG
Harry Potter is having a tough time with his relatives (yet again). He runs away after using magic to blow Uncle Vernon's sister Marge who was being offensive towards Harry's parents. Initially scared for using magic outside the school, he is pleasantly surprised that he won't be penalized after all. However, he soon learns that a dangerous criminal and Voldemort's trusted aide Sirius Black has escaped from the Azkaban prison and wants to kill Harry to avenge the Dark Lord. To worsen the conditions for Harry, vile shape-shifters called Dementors are appointed to guard the school gates and inexplicably happen to have the most horrible effect on him. Little does Harry know that by the end of this year, many holes in his past (whatever he knows of it) will be filled up and he will have a clearer vision of what the future has in store...

Chris Columbus
Adventure
1492 Pictures
PG
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is the first film in the Harry Potter series based off the novels by J.K. Rowling. It is the tale of Harry Potter, an ordinary 11-year-old boy serving as a sort of slave for his aunt and uncle who learns that he is actually a wizard and has been invited to attend the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is snatched away from his mundane existence by Hagrid, the grounds keeper for Hogwarts, and quickly thrown into a world completely foreign to both him and the viewer. Famous for an incident that happened at his birth, Harry makes friends easily at his new school. He soon finds, however, that the wizarding world is far more dangerous for him than he would have imagined, and he quickly learns that not all wizards are ones to be trusted.

David Ayer
Crime
Andrea Sperling Productions
R
In South Central Los Angeles, the unbalanced, deranged and neurotic ex-Ranger Jim Luther Davis meets his best friend Miguel 'Mike' Alonzo to drink beers and smoke joint. Jim is expecting to join the LAPD to marry his Mexican girlfriend Marta while Mike is being pressured by his mate Sylvia to find a job. When Jim is refused by the police department, he becomes furious and begins a series of violent actions until he is called by the Federal agency and assigned to work in Colombia. Meanwhile, Mike gets a dream job, making Sylvia happy. Jim invites the weak Mike and their friend Toussant to spend the weekend in Mexico. After some incidents, Jim returns bringing 20 kg of marijuana to Los Angeles, leading to a tragic end.

Gregory Hoblit
Drama
Cheyenne Enterprises
R
Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwafe vetran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.

James Toback
Comedy
Bigel / Mailer Films
R
College has always been a time for experimentation, sexual, cultural and otherwise. "Harvard Man" plays out against a background of love, sex, basketball, crime and experimentation. Action and philosophy in young people's quest to discover their true identity.

Howard Hawks
Action
Malabar

John Wayne and his ensemble cast cavort over the African landscape filling orders from zoos for wild animals. Bruce Cabot plays "the Indian", a womanizing sharpshooter who is gored by a rhino in the opening scenes of the film. This becomes a running theme through the movie; their bad luck in catching rhinos, and provides the climactic ending chase. While Bruce is in the hospital, Elsa Martinelli shows up as a woman photographer from a Swiss zoo, and John wants to send her packing. She strongarms the Duke into letting her stay by promising that her zoo will buy most of their animals this season if she's allowed to go along on the hunts and take photos. Hardy Kruger, Gerard Blain, Michelle Girardon and Valentin de Vargas round out the group. They traipse over the African landscape capturing animals; Elsa also has a running gag where she collects baby elephants as the movie goes along. In the end she's acquired three of them.

Robert Day
Crime
Amalgamated Productions

A writer investigating the execution of a serial killer known as "The Haymarket Strangler" 20 years previously begins to suspect that the wrong man might have been hanged. However, when he picks up a scalpel used by the murderer, he finds himself possessed by the killer's spirit and begins committing similar murders.

Brett Thompson
Documentary
Wood-Thomas Pictures

Barbara Kopple
Crime
Media 8 Entertainment
R
In Los Angeles, Allison Lang is a bored girl from an upper class dysfunctional family that acts and dresses like a slut. Her wealthy boyfriend and friends are totally influenced by the hip-hop culture, behaving like rappers, dressing and imitating their lifestyle. When they decide to drive to East L.A. for fun, they meet a Latin gang of drug-dealers and Allison and her best friend Emily become fascinated with their "gangsta" lifestyle. Later they return to the ghetto to visit and excite Hector and his friends, expecting to join their 16th Street gang. When the guys propose them to have sex as a form of initiation, they change their mind, leading to a tragic consequence.

Benjamin Christensen
Horror
Aljosha Production Company

A documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshow to dramatised events of alleged real-life events, right up to the early twentieth century (when the film was made). Depending on which version you're watching, the commentary is either in the form of intertitles or narration by William S.Burroughs, recorded in the mid-1960s.

Spike Lee
Drama
40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks
R
Tells the story of Jesus Shuttlesworth, the most sought after high school basketball prospect in the nation. Jesus and his dream to make it to the big ranks in professional basketball are overshadowed by his father, Jake, who is spending his life in prison for killing Jesus' mother.

Alfred L. Werker
Crime
Bryan Foy Productions

In the Post-World War II, in Los Angeles, a criminal shots and kills a police officer in the middle of the night. Without any lead, the chief of the LAPD assigns Sgt. Chuck Jones and Sgt. Marty Brennan to investigate the murder and find the murderer. When the dealer of electronics devices Paul Reeves is caught selling a stolen projector, the police finds the identity of the criminal, Roy Martin, and connects him to other unsolved robberies. Using the witnesses of his heists, they draw their face, but the true identity of the smart and intelligent criminal is not disclosed. The perseverance of Sgt. Marty Brennan in his investigation gives a clue where he might live.

Bob Rafelson
Comedy
Raybert Productions
G
A plot-less collection of various musical encounters and adventures by the famous rock band "The Monkees" which follows Davy, Peter, Mike and Mickey as they travel through an assortment of places in search of meaning.

John Duigan
Drama
Remstar Productions
R
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS is a sweeping romantic drama set in 1930's England, Paris, and Spain. Gilda Bessé shares her Paris apartment with an Irish schoolteacher, Guy Malyon, and Mia, a refugee from Spain. As the world drifts toward war, Gilda defiantly pursues her hedonistic lifestyle and her burgeoning career as a photographer. But Guy and Mia feel impelled to join the fight against fascism, and the three friends are separated - seemingly forever.

Chris Rock
Comedy
DreamWorks SKG
PG-13
Mays Gilliam, a Washington D.C. neighborhood Alderman, is about to be red-lined out of his job. But after the untimely death of the party frontrunner, Gilliam is plucked from obscurity, and thrust into the limelight as his party's nominee--for President of the United States. The players in Gilliam's life include: Mitch Gilliam, his unsophisticated older brother who becomes his running mate; Kim, his ex-girlfriend who had once dumped him, but who now has a sudden change of heart as she sees a chance at becoming First Lady; Martin Geller, his campaign manager; Lisa Clark, the woman who truly believes in Gilliam; and Debra Lassiter, the woman who doesn't have faith in his candidacy, and is serving as his reluctant advisor.

Edward D. Venturini
Comedy
Sleepy Hollow Corporation

The village of Sleepy Hollow is getting ready to greet the new schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane, who is coming from New York. Crane has already heard of the village's legendary ghost, a headless horseman who is said to be searching for the head that he lost in battle. The schoolteacher has barely arrived when he begins to pursue the beautiful young heiress Katrina Van Tassel, angering Abraham Van Brunt, who is courting her. Crane's harsh, small-minded approach to teaching also turns some of the villagers against him. Soon there many who would like to see him leave the village altogether.

Robert Altman
Comedy
Lions Gate Films

George Bowers
Horror
Marimark Productions

Jane Hardy decides to stay the summer in the house her aunt left her when she died, to try and recoup from a bad divorce. Little does she know, her aunt practiced witchcraft and is still thought of very badly by the town's citizens. As soon as she moves in, she is haunted by a old black hearse and it's creepy driver. Is she going insane or is she truly being menaced? She meets a friendly young man and becomes involved with him, but is he and the creepy driver one and the same?

James D. Parriott
Action
New Line Cinema

Jack Moony, a white cop, has it in for a black lawyer to the drug crowd, Napoleon Stone. That Stone is now dating his ex-girlfriend doesn't help matters at all. Stone is shot after Moony suffers a heart attack and wakes to find that he not only has a new heart, but that it is Stone's and that Stone's ghost is now his constant companion. Stone is insistent that Moony not only take care of his heart now but that Moony solve his murder.

Asia Argento
Drama
Above All Things Inc.
R
The dysfunctional twenty-three years old Sarah takes her six years old natural son Jeremiah from the home of his beloved foster parents with the support of the social service to live with her. Along the years, the boy shares her insane and lowlife style and is introduced to booze and drugs and mentally, physically and sexually abused by Sarah, her lovers and her religiously fanatic family.

Elaine May
Comedy
Palomar Pictures

Three days into his Miami honeymoon, New York Jewish Lenny meets tall, blonde Kelly. This confirms him in his opinion that he has made a serious mistake and he decides he wants Kelly instead. Her rich father is less than keen and lets everyone - including Lenny - know that he hates everything about him and the way he is going on.

Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Comedy
DreamWorks Pictures
R
Eddie is forty, owns a sporting-goods store, and is still single. After watching his ex-fiancée walk down the aisle, he meets Lila, an environmental researcher, who seems too good to be true. Pressured by his father and best friend, Eddie pops the question and marries Lila after only 6 weeks. However, as he almost instantly discovers, his new bride is a nightmare with more baggage than he can handle. She's immature, foolish, a monster in bed, owes a tremendous amount of money to various sources, and as it turns out, is only a volunteer and doesn't actually have a job. While on their honeymoon in Cabo, Eddie meets Miranda, a down-to-earth lacrosse coach who is visiting with her family. Sparks fly, and Eddie falls for her. Now comes the tricky part of breaking off his marriage to crazy Lila, all while keeping the truth from Miranda about why he's in Cabo in the first place...

David Mirkin
Comedy
Davis Entertainment
PG-13
Max and Page are a mother and daughter con team. Max seduces wealthy men into marrying her, then Page seduces them into infidelity so Max can rake them over the divorce court coals. And then it's on to the next victim.

Peter Davis
Documentary
BBS Productions

This film recounts the history and attitudes of the opposing sides of the Vietnam War using archival news footage as well as their own film and interviews. A key theme is how attitudes of American racism and self-righteousness militarism helped create and prolong this bloody conflict. The film also endeaveors to give voice to the Vietnamese people themselves as to how the war has affected them and their reasons why they fight the United States and other western powers while showing the basic humanity of the people that US propaganda tried to dismiss.

Scott Hicks
Drama
Castle Rock Entertainment
PG-13
This is a gentle, innocent film about the reflections of an aging man (David Morse), who returns to his home town after the death of his best friend. Memories of life at age 11 floods back as it was a magical time that changed his life. Three 11 year old children (Anton Yelchin as Bobby, Mika Boorem as Carol, and Will Rothaar as Sully) share their lives. Carol & Bobby have a special affection for one another including sharing a kiss "by which all others will be measured". Bobby lives with his mother (Hope Davis), a bitter, vain woman who looks for pleasures for herself without sharing much with her son. Into their lives comes a mysterious new boarder (Anthony Hopkins), who befriends the boy but generates distrust from the mother. As time passes, the man and boy share confidences and special powers are revealed. The man warns the boy to be on the lookout for the "lowmen", who were seeking him. The two share a summer's adventures and come to love one another before the inevitable happens. A confrontation with a school bully (Timothy Reifsnyder) also changes everyone.

Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper
Documentary
American Zoetrope
R
Documents the sensational events surrounding the making of 'Apocalypse Now' and

Michael Mann
Action
Warner Bros. Pictures
R
Hunters and their prey--Neil and his professional criminal crew hunt to score big money targets (banks, vaults, armored cars) and are, in turn, hunted by Lt. Vincent Hanna and his team of cops in the Robbery/Homicide police division. A botched job puts Hanna onto their trail while they regroup and try to put together one last big 'retirement' score. Neil and Vincent are similar in many ways, including their troubled personal lives. At a crucial moment in his life, Neil disobeys the dictum taught to him long ago by his criminal mentor--'Never have anything in your life that you can't walk out on in thirty seconds flat, if you spot the heat coming around the corner'--as he falls in love. Thus the stage is set for the suspenseful ending....

Michael Lehmann
Comedy
Cinemarque

Veronica mingles with Heather I, II and III to be as popular as them, even though she hates them. She hates them enough to wish they were dead, but she would never want to be their cause of death though. When she starts dating Jason Dean, however, she finds herself involved in the murdering of most of her enemies, covered up as suicides.

Tom Tykwer
Drama
Miramax Films
R
NO SPOILERS. This is a wonderful, complex movie, very much Kieslowski's. This was intended to be the first part of a trilogy, working title, Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, as in Trois couleurs. Obviously, after Kieslowski's passing, this will not happen. The movie opens with us following an English teacher, Philippa (Cate Blanchett) working in Italy, who assembles a home-made bomb which she places in some serious guy's office. The law of unintended consequences applies, and she confesses to the murder of 4 innocent people. The key moment in the long (and thrilling) opening sequence is when the accidental translator Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi) holds Philippa's hand after she passes out briefly during interview. Beautiful, unspoken, declaration of love. By quite complicated (and subtle) means, which will wrong-foot you at every turn, Philippa and Filippo go on the run. The love affair is, for most of the movie, platonic, but searingly serious. All the cops in Italy are chasing down this 'terrorist' and her partner, and their chances of survival are poor, to say the least. They find out who their friends are. This is that strange thing, an art-house movie which works as a cops & robbers thriller. See this movie. It will grip you and break your heart.

Oliver Stone
Action
Alcor Films

The final movie in Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy follows the true story of a Vietnamese village girl who survives a life of suffering and hardship during and after the Vietnam war. As a freedom fighter, a hustler, young mother, a sometime prostitute, and the wife of a US. marine, the girl's relationships with men suggests an analogy of Vietnam as Woman and the U.S. as Man.

Ernst Lubitsch
Comedy
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Henry Van Cleve presents himself at the gates of Hell only to find he is closely vetted on his qualifications for entry. Surprised there is any question on his suitability, he recounts his lively life and the women he has known from his mother onwards, but mainly concentrating on his happy but sometimes difficult twenty-five years of marriage to Martha.

Phil Joanou
Mystery
New Line Cinema
R
Ex-detective Dave Robicheaux has made a new life for himself and his wife Annie running a bait shop in the outskirts of New Orleans. When they save a little girl, the sole survivor of a plane crash, their lives become forever changed. They take the orphan child into their home and prepare to raise her. However, a visit from DEA agent Dautrieve brings out the detective instincts in Robicheaux and he begins to ask about the rest of the passengers. This brings trouble to Robicheaux and he turns to drug lord Bubba Rocque, a childhood friend. But the friendship becomes estranged when an assault on the Robicheaux home leaves one victim...Annie.

John Heyn, Jeff Krulik
Documentary
Film Baby

Obie Benz, Joshua Waletzky
Documentary
Americas in Transition

HEAVY PETTING is a hilarious and salacious exploration of the sexual mores of the 50's as seen through the eyes of a generation that lived through the Sexual Revolution. Creative baby boomers-- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- candidly recall their sexual coming-f-age tales in intimate interviews. Joyously campy and refreshingly carefree, HEAVY PETTING blends humorous, unbelievable footage of unhelpful sex-ed films with classic snippets of THE WILD ONE and Elvis' hip gyrations, not to mention Bernhard talking about playing "doctor", always observant Ginsberg on a disastrous encounter with a girl, and Byrne on the childhood myths of masturbation. Eternal mysteries such as the female orgasm, the universal appeal of Marilyn Monroe, and the rituals of high school are laid bare by this lovable group of characters.

John Cameron Mitchell
Comedy
Killer Films
R
Hedwig, born a boy named Hansel in East Berlin, fell in love with an American G.I. and underwent a sex-change operation in order to marry him and flee to the West. Unfortunately, nothing worked out quite as it was supposed to - years later, Hedwig is leading her rock band on a tour of the U.S., telling her life story through a series of concerts at Bilgewater Inn seafood restaurants. Her tour dates coincide with those of arena-rock star Tommy Gnosis, a wide-eyed boy who once loved Hedwig... but then left with all her songs.

Nick Broomfield
Documentary
InPictures

A documentary crew from the BBC arrives in L.A. intent on interviewing Heidi Fleiss, a year after her arrest for running a brothel but before her trial. Several months elapse before the interview, so the crew searches for anyone who'll talk about the young woman. Two people have a lot to say to the camera: a retired madam named Alex for whom Fleiss once worked and Fleiss's one-time boyfriend, Ivan Nagy, who introduced her to Alex. Alex and Nagy don't like each other, so the crew shuttles between them with "she said" and "he said." When they finally interview Fleiss, they spend their time reciting what Alex and Nagy have had to say and asking her reaction.

Chris Terrio
Drama
Merchant Ivory Productions
R
'Heights' follows five characters over 24 hours on a fall day in New York City. Isabel, a photographer, is having second thoughts about her upcoming marriage to Jonathan, a lawyer. On the same day, Isabel's mother Diana learns that her husband has a new lover and begins to re-think her life choices and her open marriage. Diana and Isabel's paths cross with Alec, a young actor, and with Peter, a journalist. As the interrelated stories proceed, the connections between the lives of the five characters begin to reveal themselves and their stories unravel. Isabel, Jonathan, Diana, Alec, and Peter must choose what kind of lives they will lead before the sun comes up on the next day.

David Mamet
Action
Morgan Creek Productions
R
David Mamet takes this story of thieves along many twists and turns, some of which work and some of which don't. Gene Hackman plays the brilliant leader of a gang (Delroy Lindo, Ricky Jay & Rebecca Pigeon as Hackman's youngish wife), which pulls off complex heists for a despicable fence (Danny DeVito). After stiffing the gang on a jewelry robbery, DeVito forces the gang to go after a Swiss gold shipment and to use his nephew (Sam Rockwell) in the crime. No one trusts anyone and every step is shaded with the unexpected.

Larry Cohen
Crime
American International Pictures (AIP)
R
Tommy comes from a forced rest period due to injuries suffered in Harlem's gang warfare. With the help of his girl, he will reorganize his gang, and overcome his rival gang leaders, through extreme acts of violence and death.

Bret Wood
Documentary
Livin' Man Productions

This film covers the early history of post World War II educational films, especially those involving traffic safety by the Highway Safety Foundation under direction of Richard Wayman. In the name of promoting safe driving in teenagers, these films became notorious for their gory depiction of accidents to shock their audiences to make their point. The film also covers the role of safety films of this era, their effect on North American teenage culture, the struggle between idealism and lurid exploitation and how they reflected the larger society concerns of the time that adults projected onto their youth.

Mary Cybulski, John Tintori
Comedy
Child's Will Productions
R
There is more to this story than this review lets on. It reflects all different facets of society over one drivers shift. He starts out it seems as a cold, ignorant man. But his character develops as the different people of Chicago come & go. His character shows through when he tells a woman the truth about one of the huys he has in his cab. One highlight of this is the amount of cameos by well known faces who seem to be doing this film for the craic. The cab driver reacts well to the madness surrounding him & you can almost share his tiredness at the end of the shift. Crackheads, stoners, posh randy lawyers, irate Pakistanis and the high & lows of the working day are dealt with in this low budget film.

Robert F. Slatzer
Crime
Crown International Pictures

A cop goes undercover to avenge the death of his undercover cop brother in a drug-dealing gang, who evidently use more than they sell, and yet is still trusted by the mob to deal. The fiance of the dead cop is kidnapped, and the cop's brother has to try and rescue her.

Charles Barton
Romance
Paramount Pictures

Dare Rudd takes a shine to his cattleman cousin Tom's girlfriend who asks Tom to hire Dare to head the big cattle drive. Dare loses the money for the drive to cardsharps, but Tom wins it back, but Dare must save Tom's life.

Richard Lester
Comedy
Subafilms

The Fab Four spoof James Bond and are chased in exotic locales around the world. The cause of their troubles is an item of jewelry in Ringo's possession.

Tom Gries
Drama
Lorimar Productions

Chilling story of the investigation and trial of Charles Manson, leader of a strange cult which under his direction and 'control' committed numerous murders.

John Gray
Action
Lakeside Productions

Gary Hustwit
Documentary
Veer

Philip Kaufman
Biography
Walrus & Associates

In 1931 Paris, Anais Nin meets Henry Miller (

Mark Pellington
Comedy
Camelot Pictures
PG
In a working class neighborhood in Los Angeles, a world weary Henry Poole buys a house, caring little about its lack of amenities. He drinks and eats pizza. Recent stucco work has left a brown stain in a patio wall, and, to Henry's irritation, Esperanza, a neighbor, is certain she can see the face of Jesus in the stain. She brings her priest, then others. Meanwhile, Henry hears his conversations replayed over the fence in another neighbor's yard: it's Millie, about 7, mute, clutching a tape recorder. He tells Millie's mom why he's sad and angry. The face on the wall seems to shed a tear of blood. Is Henry beyond feeling any emotion?

Laurence Olivier
Drama
Two Cities Films

In the inspired Olivier concept, Shakespeare's play begins as a performance in the Globe Theatre, shifting in broad cinematic terms to an epic narrative of Henry V, who had developed from a dissolute youth to a purposeful monarch. Proving his ability as a soldier and skillful leader, he unites the dissident factions in the English army and goes on to crush the French, against enormous odds, at Agincourt. Arranging a treaty with the French court, he woos Princess Katharine to whom he is formally betrothed as part of the peace agreement.

John McNaughton
Crime
Maljack Productions

Henry likes to kill people, in different ways each time. Henry shares an apartment with Otis. When Otis' sister comes to stay, we see both sides of Henry; the "guy-next-door" and the serial killer. Low budget movie, with some graphic murder scenes.

Lindsay Shonteff
Action
Lindsay Shonteff Film Productions Limited

No. 1 is fearless, irrestible, and licensed to kill. No. 1 is assigned to capture a madman killing international financiers. Before getting the bad guy, No. 1 encounters mercenaries from the evil organization K.R.A.S.H. (Killing, Rape, Arson, Slaughter, and Hit).

Jean Yarbrough
Comedy
Universal Pictures

Norman Z. McLeod
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

Millionaire Harrison Allen is concerned that his daughter Phyllis is dating a gold-digger, so, to test the man's loyalty, he signs away his entire fortune to his other daughter Gracie. Under the impression that her father wants the family to be as poor as possible, Gracie turns the family's mansion into a home for unemployed actors where she provides them room and board at no charge. Unfortunately, Mr. Allen was correct in his assumptions about Phyllis's boyfriend Ramon, and once the fellow learns that Gracie is the one with all the cash, he sets about trying to woo her into marriage.

Stephen Frears
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation
PG-13
Bernie Laplante is having a rough time. He's divorced, his ex-wife hates him and has custody of their son, the cops are setting a trap for him, then to top it all, he loses a shoe whilst rescuing passengers of a crashed jet. Being a thief who is down on his luck, Bernie takes advantage of the crash, but then someone else claims credit for the rescue.

Yimou Zhang
Action
Beijing New Picture Film Co.
PG-13
In ancient China, before the reign of the first emperor, warring factions throughout the Six Kingdoms plot to assassinate the most powerful ruler, Qin. When a minor official defeats Qin's three principal enemies, he is summoned to the palace to tell Qin the story of his surprising victory.

Lauren Lexton
Documentary
Arnold Shapiro Productions

John Woo
Action
Paragon Films Ltd.

Thai government hires group of Chinese mercenaries to capture powerful druglord from Golden Triangle. The mercenaries manage to capture the druglord, but his men are trying to set him free.

Various
Television
Universal
PG-13
Arguably the most talked-about television show of the 2006-2007 season, the Emmy-nominated fantasy "Heroes" gives viewers blends comic book-style adventure with plotting and characters as rich and layered as any graphic novel or drama series. Creator Tim Kring's premise is deceptively simple – ordinary individuals in locations around the globe discover that they have, for lack of a better term, super powers, and wrestle with this reality while facing challenges both global (the destruction of New York City, for one) and personal (indestructible cheerleader Hayden Panetierre has family issues – serious ones, as the true identity of her adoptive father reveals; Milo Ventimiglia's Peter Petrelli, who absorbs other powers, must overcome his own insecurities). Add to this mix a terrific villain – Zachary Quinto's Sylar, who hunts and kills people with extraordinary powers like our heroes – and viewers have a riveting series that exhibits an almost-perfect balance of cliffhanger thrills (the action and special effects are truly impressive for a network program) and genuine drama that sets the show apart from most speculative fiction (save, perhaps, the revived "Battlestar Galactica", which it compares too favorably). The seven-disc set of "Heroes: Season One" offers a wealth of extras for fans, who may be familiar with some of them through the NBC.com website, especially the cast commentaries, which are featured on half of the episodes. Kring is featured on the 73-minute uncut pilot episode, which for some viewers, may be even better than the network version; the main difference is the degree of character development, including an entire storyline for D.L. Hawkins that isn't featured in the broadcast version. Also on deck are some 50 deleted scenes from the episodes, several by-the-books making-of featurettes, including coverage of the special effects and stunt work, and a profile of artist Tim Sale, whose illustrations are used for Isaac Mendez's prophetic artwork. Prospective buyers should note that while all of these supplemental features are included on the HD-DVD version of this set, the special Web-connectivity elements are not available here. " -- Paul Gaita"

Brian De Palma
Comedy
West End Productions

Vietnam vet John Rubin returns to New York and rents a rundown flat in Greenwhich Village. It is in this flat that he begins to film, 'Peeping Tom' style, the people in the apartment across the street. His obsession with making films leads him to fall in with a radical 'Black Power' group, which in turn leads him to carry out a bizarre act of urban terrorism!

Robert Culp
Crime
Film Guarantors

Akira Kurosawa
Action
Toho Company

The story follows two greedy peasants in feudal Japan, Tahei and Matashichi, who are returning home from a failed attempt to profit from a war between neighboring clans. En Route they encounter the remnants of the defeated tribe that consists, most notably, of a famous General and a Princess who are hiding out in a fortress in the mountains. General Rokurota Makabe and Princess Yuki need to escape into allied territory with their large supply of gold so that they can rebuild their shattered clan. To do this the Peasants are tricked into helping them, with the promise that they will receive a large share of the gold when the destination is reached. Along the way, the General's prowess is put to the test as he must guide the 4, and later 5 with the inclusion of a freed slave, through close encounters with the pursuing enemy, and out of difficult situations the bumbling peasants manage to get them into.

Kevin Burns
Documentary
Foxstar Productions

John Polson
Horror
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
R
This is the story of a young girl named Emily Callaway, which her games of Hide and Seek with an imaginary friend by the name of "Charlie" have become anything but simple and innocent. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a series of increasingly nightmarish acts that even her father David cannot stop. Who--or what--is Charlie?! David wonders. How can an...â¿¿imaginaryâ¿¿ entity have this kind of hold on her? Maybe Charlie is not imaginary at all, but instead a flesh-and-blood, malevolent presence?

Bob Giraldi
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Thriller
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG)

A very succesful stock broker is called to court to testify against a mob boss who was into some inside trading. They hide him because of death threats. He gets caught in a gun battle and has to flee. He ends up hiding out as a student in a high school. He has to adjust to how things have changed as a teenager. The bad guys find him and he has fight it out in the high school gym.

Akira Kurosawa
Thriller
Kurosawa Production Co.

An executive mortgages all he owns to stage a coup and gain control of the National Shoe Company, with the intent of keeping the company out of the hands of incompetent and greedy executives. He needs the same money, though, to pay the ransom that will possibly save a child's life. His resolution of that dilemma -- the certain loss of the company vs. the probable loss of the child -- makes for one distinct drama, and an ensuing elaborate police procedure makes for a second.

William A. Wellman
Action
Wayne-Fellows Productions

When a commercial airliner develops engine problems on a trans-Pacific flight and the pilot loses his nerve, it is up to the washed-up co-pilot Dan Roman to bring the plane in safely.

Mel Brooks
Comedy
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Dr. Richard Thorndyke arrives as new administrator of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, VERY Nervous to discover some suspicious goings-on. When he's framed for murder, Dr. Thorndyke must confront his own psychiatric condition, "high anxiety," in order to clear his name. An homage to the films of Alfred Hitchcock; contains many parodies of famous Hitchcock scenes from THE BIRDS, PSYCHO, and VERTIGO.

Lisa Cholodenko
Drama
391 Productions
R
Syd, who lives with her boyfriend James, goes to complain to her neighbor about the leak in the ceiling. Her neigbor is photographer Lucy Berliner and Syd starts to fall in love with her.

Carl Franklin
Crime
Regency Enterprises
PG-13
High powered lawyer Claire Kubik finds her world turned upside down when her husband, who she thought was Tom Kubik, is arrested and is revealed to be Ron Chapman. Chapman is on trial for a murder of Latin American villagers while he was in the Marines. Claire soon learns that to navigate the military justice system, she'll need help from the somewhat unconventional Charlie Grimes; meanwhile, Claire's sister, Jackie, is falling in love with wet-behind-the-ears Lieutenant Embry assigned as the official defense lawyer. And most of the eyewitnesses have rather too conveniently died.

Stephen Frears
Comedy
Dogstar Films
R
High Fidelity follows the 'mid-life' crisis of Rob, a thirty-something record-store owner who must face the undeniable facts - he's growing up. In a hilarious homage to the music scene, Rob and the wacky, offbeat clerks that inhabit his store expound on the intricacies of life and song all the while trying to succeed in their adult relationships. Are they listening to pop music because they are miserable? Or are they miserable because they listen to pop music? This romantic comedy provides a whimsical glimpse into the male view of the affairs of the heart.

Ruta K. Aras
Action

Fred Zinnemann
Drama
Stanley Kramer Productions

On the day he gets married and hangs up his badge, lawman Will Kane is told that a man he sent to prison years before, Frank Miller, is returning on the noon train to exact his revenge. Having initially decided to leave with his new spouse, Will decides he must go back and face Miller. However, when he seeks the help of the townspeople he has protected for so long, they turn their backs on him. It seems Kane may have to face Miller alone, as well as the rest of Miller's gang, who are waiting for him at the station...

Clint Eastwood
Thriller, Western
Malpaso Company, The
R
A stranger rides out of the hot desert into a small town in the wild west. The towns people are scared of him, and 3 gunmen try, unsuccessfully, to kill him. He takes a room and decides to stay. Meanwhile, a group of outlaws are about to return to the town and take their revenge - will the towns leaders convince the mysterious man to help ?

Jack Arnold
Drama
Albert Zugsmith Productions

A tough kid comes to a new high school and begins muscling his way into the drug scene. As he moves his way up the ladder, a schoolteacher tries to reform him, his aunt tries to seduce him, and the "weedheads" are eager to use his newly found enterprise, but he has his own agenda. After an altercation involving fast cars, hidden drugs, and police, he's accepted by the drug kingpin and is off into the big leagues. A typical morality play of the era, filled with a naive view of drugs, nihilistic beat poetry, and some incredible '50s slang.

Jean Rollin
Adult

Noah Baumbach
Drama
Lions Gate

John Singleton
Drama
Columbia Pictures Corporation

Youngsters from different countries, races, and social background are forced to integrate when they all enroll in Columbus University. They all have their own problems, such as finance, harrassment, personal safety, and self doubt. Additionally, campus life seems to be causing a problem for everyone: racism. Students, already under pressure to perform in the classroom, on the track, or in front of their friends, are strained to the breaking point by prejudice, inexperience, and misunderstanding.

Stelvio Massi
Action
Cleminternazionale Cinematografica

Sidney Lumet
Drama
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

WWII, in a British disciplinary camp located in the Libyan desert. Prisoners are persecuted by Staff Sergeant Williams, who made them climb again and again, under the heavy sun, an artificial hill built right in the middle of the camp. Harris is a more human and compassionate guard, but the chief, S.M. Wilson, refuses to disown his subordinate Williams. One day, five new prisoners arrive. Each of them will deal in a different way with the authority and Williams' ferocity.

Anand Tucker
Biography
Arts Council of England
R
This movie tells the true story of the tragic life of the brilliant international concert cellist Jacqueline Du Pré and her sister, Hilary. Despite starting out in music together, Hilary chooses a more normal life in having a husband and children. Jacqueline gets married too but can never seem to quite achieve the happiness of the mundane life Hilary has and Hilary's devotion to her sister causes them to take some rather drastic measures in their lives. The irony of having a great musical ability fades away as Jacqueline transcends into a slow decline when struck with a deadly illness.

Alexandre Aja
Horror
Craven-Maddalena Films
R
While traveling in a trailer to California through the New Mexico Desert, a family is misled to a shortcut going to nowhere by the owner of an isolated gas station and wrecks the car in a rock. Along the night and on the next day, they are attacked by a group of deformed cannibals, fruit of the atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by USA from 1945 to 1962 in that spot. Absolutely trapped by the psychotics, they have to fight to survive.

Alain Resnais
Drama
Argos Films

1959. A French young woman has spent the night with a japanese man, at Hiroshima where she went for the shooting of a film about peace. He reminds her of the first man she loved. It was during World War II, and he was a German soldier. The main themes of this film are memory and oblivion.

Howard Hawks
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation

Hildy Johnson has divorced Walter Burns and visits his office to tell him that she is engaged to another man and that they are going to get married the day after. Walter Burns can't let that happen and frames the other man, Bruce Baldwin, for a lot of stuff getting him into trouble all the time, while he tries to steer Hildy back into her old job as his employee (editor of his newspaper).

John Farrow
Crime
RKO Radio Pictures

Nick Ferraro, deported crime boss, needs to re-enter the USA. His plan involves "honest" gambler Dan Milner, who's subjected to a series of "misfortunes," then bribed to take a trip to Mexico. En route, Dan meets chanteuse Lenore Brent, truly his kind of woman. But on arrival at posh Morros Lodge in Baja California, Dan finds the ostensibly rich, carefree guests all playing roles...except, possibly, ham actor Mark Cardigan. What does Ferraro want with him? Can he trust anyone?

Phil Whitman
Comedy
Colam Pictures Co.

Dick Wallace wants to marry a minister's grand-daughter but his father, who wants him to get work on his company's business, is opposed. She takes a job with the company to prove she's okay.

Andrew Solt
Documentary
Time-Life Video
NR
Serving as an introduction for neophytes and a refresher course for experts, "The History of Rock and Roll" is a mammoth and, when considered on its own terms, frequently successful undertaking. The series, which was first presented in 1995, consumes some 578 minutes, with 10 episodes (there are no bonus features) spread out over five discs. Its pedigree (executive producers include Quincy Jones, while respected writers Peter Guralnick and Greil Marcus are listed as consultants) is impressive, as is its scope, beginning in the pre-rock days of bluesman Muddy Waters and boogie woogie master Louis Jordan and continuing through the death of Kurt Cobain and the birth of the Lollapalooza festival in the mid-1990s. Along the way, dozens of big-name performers (with the notable exception of the Beatles) are on hand to lead us through the story.
On the minus side, the format--clips of musical performances cut short by a parade of talking heads--while typical of the genre, will frustrate those who come for the music alone. Nor is it likely that anyone who studies such things will find much here that hasn't already been seen. To be sure, there are some terrific moments, like the profile of Bob Dylan (in part 5, "Plugging In"), some cool clips of relatively obscure legends like James Burton and T-Bone Walker (in part 7, "Guitar Heroes"), and rarely seen live bits with Jimi Hendrix, Steely Dan, Iggy Pop (goofing on the "Dinah Shore Show" in '77), and many others scattered throughout the set. Part 8, which chronicles the '70s, is surprisingly compelling (one forgets how many major artists--Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder--came into their own in a decade remembered largely for disco and faceless arena rock), while part 9, "Punk," is arguably the most entertaining of the lot.
In the end, it's the lack of complete musical performances that is the set's Achilles' heel. Then again, with their appetites whetted here, perhaps viewers will move on to other, more detailed looks at their heroes--beginning with, say, "The Beatles Anthology". "--Sam Graham"

Mel Brooks
Comedy
Brooksfilms

From the dawn of man to the distant future, mankind's evolution (or lack thereof) is traced. Often ridiculous but never serious, we learn the truth behind the Roman Emperor, we learn what REALLY happened at the Last Supper, the circumstances that surrounded the French Revolution, how to test eunuchs, and what kind of shoes the Spanish Inquisitor wore.

David Cronenberg
Action
New Line Productions
R
This is the story of a mild-mannered man, named Tom Stall, who becomes a local hero through an act of violence, he lives a happy and quiet life with his lawyer wife and their two children in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana. But one night their idyllic existence is shattered when Tom foils a vicious attempted robbery in his diner. Sensing danger, he takes action and saves his customers and friends in the self-defense killings of two-sought-after criminals. Heralded as a hero, Tom's life is changed overnight, attracting a national media circus, which forces him into the spotlight. Uncomfortable with his newfound celebrity, Tom tries to return to the normalcy of his ordinary life only to be confronted by a mysterious and threatening man who arrives in town believing Tom is the man who wronged him in the past. As Tom and his family fight back against this case of mistaken identity and struggle to cope with their changed reality, they are forced to confront their relationships and the divisive issues which surface as a result.

Various
Documentary
A&E (INGR)
NR
Was the 1960s the most astounding decade in American history, as many believe? You decide, as you relive the epic events of the times in this sweeping collection from HISTORY.

From the glamorous years of the Kennedy administration at the beginning of the decade to the triumph of the first moonwalk at the end, this comprehensive collection escorts you through the period's world-changing events, including the Cuban missile crisis; the civil rights movement; the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.; urban riots; the Vietnam War; and the peace movement it fostered. No less dramatic were the decade's cultural touch points: the Beatles and Bob Dylan, birth control pills and the sexual revolution, miniskirts, hippies, communes, the ''Summer of Love,'' LSD, and Woodstock.

Whether you lived through those heady, tumultuous years or want to see for yourself what went down, this riveting 14-DVD set will bring it all home.

Interviews with Tom Brokaw, Commentary with NASA Mission Control Flight Director Gene Kranz, Writer/Producer/Co-Director Rushmore DeNooyer, and Editor/Co-Producer Tony Bacon on ''Failure is Not an Option''; Two Episodes of A&E's Award-Winning Series BIOGRAPHY JFK: A Personal Story and Joseph Kennedy, Sr.: Father of an American Dynasty

Programs per disc:
Disc 1: King
Disc 2: 1968 with Tom Brokaw
Disc 3: The Vietnam War, Vol 1: Vietnam: On The Frontlines 1-4
Disc 4: The Vietnam War, Vol 2: LBJ And Vietnam: In The Eye Of The Storm / Command Decisions: Tet Offensive / Unsung Heroes: The Battle of Khe Sanh
Disc 5: Race to the Moon, Vol 1: Failure Is Not An Option
Disc 6: Race to the Moon, Vol 2: Code Name: Project Orion / Modern Marvels: Apollo 13 / Modern Marvels: The Space Shuttle
Disc 7: Voices of Civil Rights Vol 1: Voices of Civil Rights / Mississippi State Secrets / Crossing The Bridge
Disc 8: Voices of Civil Rights Vol 2: Biography: Martin Luther King Jr. / Biography: Thurgood Marshall
Disc 9: JFK: A Presidency Revealed, Vol 1: Feature
Disc 10: JFK: A Presidency Revealed, Volume 2: Bonus programs Bio John F. Kennedy / Bio: Joseph Kennedy Sr.
Disc 11: The 60's: The JFK Assassination / Modern Marvels: Apollo 11 / Bay of Pigs Declassified
Disc 12: The 60's: Peyote to LSD
Disc 13: Days of Rage and Wonder: Hippies
Disc 14: Days of Rage and Wonder: Riot: The Chicago Conspiracy Trial / Sex and the Vietnam War

Stephen Frears
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Central

Ex-gangster Willie Parker has betrayed his former "colleagues" and now lives in Spain where he thinks he can hide from their vengeance. But one day, ten years later, two hitmen (Braddock and Myron) show up and kidnap Willie. They are ordered to escort him back to Paris where he should stand trial. But it is a long way to Paris...

Charles Lamont
Comedy
Universal Pictures

Flash Fulton (Bud Abbott) and Weejie McCoy (Lou Costello) take pictures of a bank robbery. Lured to the mountain resort hideout of the robbers and accompanied by Dr. Bill Elliott (Patric Knowles) and Peggy Osborn (Elyse Knox), they also meet old friend Johnny Long (Himself) and his band and singer Marcia Manning (Ginny Simms). Dr. Elliott and Peggy are being held in a remote cabin by the robbers, but Weejie rescues them by turning himself into a human snowball that becomes an avalanche that engulfs the crooks.

Sidney J. Furie
Action
Paramount Pictures

A federal agent whose daughter dies of a heroin overdose is determined to destroy the drug ring that supplied her. He recruits various people whose lives have been torn apart by the drug trade and trains them. Then they all leave for France to track down and destroy the ring.

Ida Lupino
Drama
Filmakers, The

Two carefree young travellers make the mistake of their lives when they pick up a mysterious, and slightly psychotic, hitch-hiker who never closes his right eye -- even when he sleeps!

Various
Documentary

Garth Jennings
Adventure
Touchstone Pictures
PG
Everyone has bad mornings. You wake up late, you stub your toe, you burn the toast...but for a man named Arthur Dent, this goes far beyond a bad day. When he learns that a friend of his is actually an alien with advanced knowledge of Earth's impending destruction, he is transported off the Earth seconds before it is exploded to make way for a new hyperspace motorway. And as if that's not enough, throw in being wanted by the police, Earth II, an insane electronic encyclopedia, no tea whatsoever, a chronically depressed robot and the search for the meaning of life, and you've got the greatest adventure off Earth.

Xavier Gens
Action
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
R
A gun-for-hire "Hitman" is a genetically-engineered, elite assassin known only as Agent 47 hired by a group known only as 'The Organization' is ensnared in a political conspiracy, which finds him pursued by both Interpol and the Russian military as he treks across Eastern Europe. But even 47 couldn't anticipate a "random equation" in his life exactitude: the unexpected stirrings of his conscience and the unfamiliar emotions aroused in him by a mysterious Russian woman.

Lasse Hallström
Comedy
Miramax Films
R
Early in 1971, McGraw-Hill passes on Clifford Irving's new novel. He's desperate for money, so, against the backdrop of Nixon's reelection calculations, Irving claims he has Howard Hughes's cooperation to write Hughes's autobiography. With the help of friend Dick Suskind, Irving does research, lucks into a manuscript written by a long-time Hughes associate, and plays on corporate greed. He's quick-thinking and outrageously bold. Plus, he banks on Hughes's reluctance to enter the public eye. At the same time, he's trying to rebuild his marriage and deflect the allure of his one-time mistress, Nina Van Pallandt. Can he write a good book, take the money, and pull off the hoax?

David Lean
Comedy, Drama, Romance
London Film Productions

Henry Hobson runs a successful bootmaker's shop in nineteenth-century Salford. A widower with a weakness for the pub opposite, he tries forcefully to rule the lives of his three unruly daughters. When he decrees 'no marriages' to avoid the expensive matter of settlements, eldest daughter Maggie rebels and sets her sights on Will Mossop, Hobson's star bootmaker. Maggie and Will leave to start up in competition, and she then turns her mind to helping her sisters marry their chosen partners.

Danny DeVito
Biography
Canal+
R
Jack Nicholson's portrait of Union leader James R. Hoffa, as seen through the eyes of his friend, Bobby Ciaro (Danny DeVito). The film follows Hoffa through his countless battles with the RTA and President Roosevelt all the way to a conclusion that negates the theory that he disappeared in 1975.

Arthur Lubin
Comedy
Universal Pictures

Two bumbling service station attendants are left as the sole beneficiaries in a gangster's will. Their trip to claim their fortune is sidetracked when they are stranded in a haunted house along with several other strangers.

Nick Hamm
Crime
Canal+
R
One misty morning, Liz Dunn stumbles down the road to her school and screams for help. A police psychologist gets her to reveal her story: A month earlier: three rebellious teenagers - Mike, Frankie and Geoff are trying to ditch the school field trip to Wales. The school nerd Martin helps them out by allowing them to stay in an old war bunker for the three days on the condition that his friend Liz joins them. The teens go down, party and have great fun but Martin doesn't return to let them out and they hope and pray that someone will find them...

Kevin Brownlow, David Gill
Documentary
Thames Television

Distilled (un-credited) from

Van Guylder
Drama
Institute for Adult Education

Allan Arkush, Joe Dante
Thriller
New World Entertainment Films
R
Joe Dante directs this story of the glamour, the glitter, the magical allure of Hollywood... and not a speck of it rubs off on Miracle Pictures, where "If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle." This is a hilarious tribute to the unsung heroes who grind out the B movies massacred by critics, but nursed fondly in the hearts of film fans everywhere.

Wombat Productions
Documentary
Janson Media
NR
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III, was born on February 8, 1925. An only child, he was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and was that rarity among Hollywood stars, a man with affectionate memories of his parents. Graduating from Harvard, Jack headed for New York City to become a professional actor. A job playing piano to silent movies gave him the chance to study comics like Keaton and Chaplin up close. His first acting was on soap opera and live TV drama. But it was his appearance in a Broadway revival of "Room Service" that led to a co-starring role with Judy Holliday in his first movie, "It Should Happen To You" (1954). However, Jack had no intention of "going Hollywood" and he adamantly refused to change his name. His unmistakable intellect and his boyish but average looks played against him becoming a romantic leading man.
But his live TV and comedy training gave him the perfect timing, the precise emotional balance and the total believability that showed in films as diverse as "Mister Roberts "(1955), "Some Like It Hot" (1959), "The Apartment" (1960), "Days of Wine" and "Roses" (1962), and "The Odd Couple" (1968). In his later films, "Save the Tiger" (1973), "The China Syndrome "(1979), and "Glengarry Glenn Ross" (1992), Jack exposed some of the darker side of the American Way of Life. Jack Lemmon made over sixty films and received numerous awards, including eight Academy Award Nominations and two Oscars.
Later in life, his achievement was enriched by new challenges in which he exposed the vulnerability and emotion of the later years as few had dared. He reveled in his ongoing screen partnerships with directors like Billy Wilder and stars like Walter Matthau. Narrated on-camera by Jack Lemmon, this profile includes interviews with Lemmon's son, the actor Chris Lemmon. Also appearing are such legends as Jack's life-long friend, the writer and director Billy Wilder, writer-director Garson Kanin, drama teacher Uta Hagen, and actor Gregory Peck. Actors Charles Durning, Maureen Stapleton, Betty Garrett, and Kevin Spacey, writer Neil Simon, director Delbert Mann, and other Hollywood luminaries help complete the profile. Clips from some of Lemmon's major films as well as archival footage add to this portrait of one of our most illustrious and productive stars.

Woody Allen
Comedy
DreamWorks SKG
PG-13
Val Waxman is a film director who was once big in the 1970's and 1980's, but has now has been reduced to directing TV commercials. Finally, he gets an offer to make a big film. But, disaster strikes, when Val goes temporarily blind, due to paranoia. So, he and a few friends, try to cover up his disability, without the studio executives or the producers knowing that he is directing the film blind.

Floyd Mutrux
Comedy
Casablanca Filmworks
R
Led by their comedic and pranking leader, Newbomb Turk, the Hollywood Knights car gang raise hell throughout Beverly Hills on Halloween Night, 1965. Everything from drag racing to Vietnam to high school love.

Frank Tashlin
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

The last movie with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin together, is a satire of the life in Hollywood. Steve Wiley is a deceiver who cheats Malcolm Smith when he wins a car, claiming that he won it too. Trying to steal the car, Steve tells Malcolm that he lives in Hollywood, next to Anita Ekberg's. When Malcom hears that, they both set out for Hollywood and the adventure begins...

Charles Reisner
Musical
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

James Forsher
Documentary
Caidin Film Co.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Peter Fonda host an examination of the history of decency standards for movies, starting in 1922 with the hiring of Will Hays. When studios ignored the code early in the Depression, Catholics established the Legion of Decency, Hays hired Joseph Breen, and the code got muscle, with an impact on films as diverse as "King Kong" and "The Little Princess." Jane Russell and others discuss the code, cleavage, and the bullet bra in the 1950s. Baker and Wallach comment on the "Baby Doll" controversy. In the late 1960s comes a new classification system. Scorsese discusses it's application to "Taxi Driver." A look at "Carnal Knowledge" follows.

Various
Comedy
Passport
NR
If it's true that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, then you're in for a whole lotta fun! Here's a 5-DVD set showcasing the greatest comedy teams of Hollywood's Golden Era - from the cinema's first comic duo - John Bunny & Flora Finch way back in 1912 - thru Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis in 1950, with such certifiable legends as Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, and The Three Stooges, as well as lesser-known (but no less worthy) teams such as Wheeler & Woolsey, Olsen & Johnson, Clark & McCullough and The Ritz Brothers. A comic cornucopia for fans of classic comedy teams!
DISC ONE (142 mins.)
John Bunny & Flora Finch
A Cure For Pokeritis (1912) - Mr. Brown loves to play poker - but he always loses! So his wife plots to cure him of his gambling addiction once and for all! (14:00)
Fatty Arbuckle & Mabel Normand
Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916) - Arbuckle was a triple threat, writing, directing, and co-starring in this classic three-reel comedy masterpiece in which a couple of newlyweds awaken to find that the bad guys have separated their beachfront house from its very foundation and they are now floating out to sea! (34:00)
Laurel & Hardy
The Lucky Dog (1921) - This silent short marks the very first onscreen appearance of Laurel & Hardy. Stan is an impoverished dog owner and Ollie is the thug who tries to rob him! Produced by Western star, Broncho Billy Anderson. (17:00)
March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) - Stan and Ollie's take on Babes in Toyland, the classic Victor Herbert operetta. Laurel and Hardy are Stannie-Dum and Ollie-Dee, who try to save Toyland from the evil clutches of Barnaby (a frightening - and 22-year-old - Henry Brandon). The film's director, Charles Rogers, appears as Simple Simon! (77:00)
DISC TWO (155 mins.)
Amos & Andy
Check and Double Check (1930) - Although politically incorrect by today's standards, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll - two white actors - were enormously popular as radio's Amos 'n' Andy. This comedy feature has them reprising their radio roles - in blackface - as two enterprising pals who try to make a success of their fledgling taxi company. Duke Ellington's brief appearance marks his feature debut. (77:00)
Wheeler & Woolsey
Half Shot at Sunrise (1930) - Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were huge Broadway stars when they made this feature-length comedy about two hapless doughboys who go AWOL in Paris during World War I and don various disguises in order to avoid capture. (78:00)
DISC THREE (150 mins.)
The Marx Brothers
House That Shadows Built (1931) - This sequence from a special film marking Paramount's 20th anniversary stars Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo Marx as persistent (and peculiar) performers who try to impress a talent agent with their various "skills." This routine is actually a recreation of the first scene from their 1923 Broadway hit, I'll Say She Is. (5:00)
Inside the Marx Brothers - A funny and fascinating look at the lives of Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo, and Gummo Marx, featuring classic clips from Marx Brothers films, plus newsreels, TV clips, home movies, and interviews with Groucho, Chico, Groucho's son, Arthur, and Room Service co-star, Ann Miller. Rarer still are scenes from Harpo's 1925 silent film, Too Many Kisses and, at long last, an actual sound clip of Harpo's voice! (55:00)
Olsen & Johnson
All Over Town (1937) - Chic Olsen and Ollie Johnson started in vaudeville and made their mark on Broadway with the wild and wacky Hellzapoppin. The plot (such as it is) concerns two nutty vaudevillians who want to put on a show in a theatre that's supposed to be cursed and wind up involved in a backstage murder. Directed by Laurel & Hardy veteran James Horne. (90:00)
DISC FOUR (168 mins.)
The Ritz Brothers
The Gorilla (1939) - Goofier than The Marx Brothers but not quite as slapsticky as The Three Stooges, Harry, Al and Jimmy Ritz blended crazy comedy, silly songs, and daffy dancing in comedies of the '30s and '40s. Here they are paired with horrormeister Bela Lugosi and another horror great, Lionel Atwill, as they try and catch a killer! (66:00)
Clark & McCullough
Odor in the Court (1934) - In the same zany spirit as Wheeler & Woolsey, Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough were an extremely popular duo who survived the transition from stage to screen. This short, considered by many to be their best, has Clark & McCullough playing lawyers who make a mockery of the California court system (life imitates art?). (22:00)
The Three Stooges
Disorder in the Court (1936) - Classic Curly, Moe and Larry! The Stooges wreak havoc at the murder trial of an exotic dancer. (20:00)
Brideless Groom (1947) - Moe and Larry try to help Shemp get married before 6:00 so he can inherit a fortune. Hold hands you lovebirds! (20:00)
Sing a Song of Six Pants (1947) - Larry, Moe and Shemp are tailors who try to take a bank robber to the cleaners. (20:00)
Malice in the Palace (1949) - Shemp, Larry and Moe are cooks at a restaurant in the Middle East, where they try to track down the stolen Rootin Tootin Diamond. (20:00)
DISC FIVE (169 mins.)
Abbott & Costello
Africa Screams (1949) - Bud Abbott and Lou Costello set out to find diamonds in Africa, but run into lions, gorillas, cannibals - and two Stooges (Joe Besser and Shemp Howard) - instead. This was Hillary Brooke's first experience working with Abbott & Costello, several years before she became a regular on their TV show. (79:00)
Martin & Lewis
At War With the Army (1950) - This was the first film designed specifically as a Martin & Lewis starring vehicle, with Dean and Jerry as a couple of song-and-dance men who join the army and cause all sorts of mayhem along the way. Polly Bergen has her first solid role, as Dino's girlfriend. (90:00)
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 783 mins. (13.0 hours)

Allen Coulter
Biography
Back Lot Pictures
R
An exploration of fame and identity, inspired by one of Hollywood's most infamous real-life mysteries. June 16, 1959. The glamour of Tinseltown permanently fades for actor George Reeves, the heroic Man of Steel on TV's Adventures of Superman, as the actor dies in his Hollywood Hills home. Felled by a single gunshot wound, Reeves leaves behind a fiancée - aspiring starlet Leonore Lemmon - and millions of fans who are shocked by his death. But it is his grieving mother, Helen Bessolo, who will not let the questionable circumstances surrounding his demise go unaddressed. Helen seeks justice, or at least answers. The Los Angeles Police Department closes the case, but Helen hires - for $50 a day - private detective Louis Simo. Simo soon ascertains that the torrid affair Reeves had with Toni Mannix, the wife of MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix, might hold the key to the truth. But truth and justice are not so easily found in Hollywood. Simo pursues dangerous and elusive leads in both high and low places and, in trying to turn up the heat, risks getting burned. The detective also uncovers unexpected connections to his own life as the case turns more personal and he learns more about Reeves himself. Behind the icon was a complex man who gave his life to Hollywood in more ways than one.

Michael Mayer
Drama
Hart-Sharp Entertainment
R
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Hours" comes a story that chronicles a dozen years in the lives of two best friends who couldn't be more different. From suburban Cleveland in the 60s, to New York City in the 80s, where they meet an older woman, the film charts a journey of trials, triumphs, loves and losses. Now the question is: can they navigate the unusual triangle they've created and hold their friendship together?

Jodie Foster
Comedy
Egg Pictures
PG-13
After losing her job, making out with her soon to be ex-boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson has to face spending the holiday with her family. She wonders if she can survive their crazy antics.

Chris Smith
Documentary
Bluemark Productions

Director Smith visits five unusual homes and talks to the people who built or adapted them. His subjects include an alligator wrangler who lives on a houseboat in a Louisiana bayou; an American actress who made her fortune on Japanese TV and then built a treehouse getaway in Hawaii; an inventor who automated his entire home; a family who converted an abandoned missile silo into an underground abode; and a pair of cat-lovers who renovated their house with dozens of feline-friendly features.

Brian De Palma
Comedy
SLC

Keith Gordon is a creative young man who films the oddball doings of his family and peers. "The Maestro" appears frequently to give him pointers on his techniques. It's almost a film about a young man making the film.

Brendon Small
Television
Shout Factory
PG
Home Movies is one of the first [adult swim] animated cult classics. With an alcoholic soccer coach for a father-figure and a woman who swears during parent/teacher conferences for an actual mother, eight-year-old Brendon Small (voiced and created by Brendon Small, now of "Metalocalypse" fame) chronicles his life as a jaded third-grader who happens to have the brain of a twenty-something-and who uses his video camera to cope with the trials of his oddly precocious life.
The Home Movies Limited Edition Megaset includes 12 DVDs containing every single episode, commentary track and other bonus features found in the four original DVD box sets, as well as the 52-song CD included in the Season Four set. This deluxe box also includes two Home Movies items available nowhere else:
Exclusive Home Movies Canvas Book Bag
Exclusive Home Movies Director's Clapboard

Irwin Winkler
Action
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
R
The day after they get the word they'll go home in two weeks, a group of soldiers from Spokane are ambushed in an Iraqi city. Back stateside we follow four of them - a surgeon who saw too much, a teacher who's a single mom and who lost a hand in the ambush, an infantry man whose best friend died that day, and a soldier who keeps reliving the moment he killed a civilian woman. Each of the four has come home changed, each feels dislocation. Group therapy, V.A. services, halting gestures from family and colleagues, and regular flashbacks keep the war front and center in their minds. They're angry, touchy, and explosive: can a warrior find peace back home?

Will Finn, John Sanford
Animation
Walt Disney Pictures
PG
Alameda Slim, a wanted cattle rustler, uses an alias to buy up properties all over western Nebraska, and his next target is the Patch of Heaven dairy farm, where the widow owner cares more for her 'family' of yard animals's welfare then for profit, so she just hasn't got the cash to keep in business. The other animals, mainly carefree youngsters, being unable, three cows of very different temperament and manners rise to the desperate occasion and set out to do battle for their dream home, teaming up unnaturally with each-other, the sheriff's megalomaniac horse and any other animal who can possibly help, even a crazy lucky rabbit and an invincible buffalo, hoping to beat the crook to the Patch's auction, or anything it takes...

Stephen Gyllenhaal
Comedy
Lakeshore International
R
Life is good for Jack, Carter and Harlan, three inept ne'r-do-wells who help run master dope-grower Malcoms flourishing marijuana plantation somewhere in northern California. But then Malcom is suddenly bumped off by a mysterious assailant, after a moment of panic, the naive trio decide to take over the business themselves. However, their lazy days on the dope farm have ill prepared them for the high-stakes game of finding buyers for millions of dollars of contraband. As they plunge into a shadowy new world of duplicity, double-dealing and danger, they soon find that they have gotten in way, way over their heads. But driven on by increasing greed and paranoia, it's too late to back out.

David Mamet
Crime
Bison Films

Policeman Bob Gold has to capture a murder that not even the FBI has been able to find. But before he can even start he is re-assigned to the murder of an old lady in a black area. The evidence points at a Jewish group and he discovers connections between them and his previous case.

Various
Television
A&E Home Video

I cant wait for this to come out on region 2 disc. Homicide is the best police program there is out there, exploring the effect of this type of work on the police who carry it out. I didnt like homicide when i first saw it, but give it a couple of episodes and you will be hooked, its gritty, realistic approach is not for everyone. and right up to the final series it does not fail to deliver. the strange thing is when you watch the early episodes after you have seen the very last one, you can see where it was heading all the time....well worth getting into!!!!

Various
Drama
A&E Home Video
NR
If the first two seasons introduced one of the great television crime dramas, "Homicide" really came into its own during the third. Instead of the mere 13 episodes scattered between 1993 and 1994, NBC ordered up a full 20 for the 1994-1995 season. The entire terrific cast is back, with the exception of Jon Polito, whose absence is explained in the fourth episode ("Crosetti"). There are other changes, like the addition of Megan Russert (Isabella Hofmann) as shift commander. Aside from the fact that the mostly male staff now has a woman to report to (alongside Yaphet Kotto's Lt. Giardello), it turns out that Russert has a "history" with one of the detectives. "Homicide" always excelled in its exploration of racial and office politics; now sexual politics would become a bigger issue. Religion also comes to the fore as Pembleton (Andre Braugher) is finally forced to confront the loss of his faith while working on a case ("The White Glove Murders") involving several aid workers (episodes 1-3). Meanwhile, his partner, Bayliss (Kyle Secor), is coming to resemble the naive young rookie of the first two seasons less and less by the second... while getting to enjoy a little more romance than the rest of the squad--especially the hapless Meldrick (Clark Johnson). But all is not sturm and drang. Humor still finds a place in each episode and Munch (Richard Belzer) still gets many of the best lines. In the season premiere ("Nearer My God to Thee"), for instance, he tells Bolander (Ned Beatty), "There is no such thing as gratuitous sex. Gratuitous violence, yes... Sex cannot and will not ever be gratuitous." He could be describing "Homicide" itself, in which nothing is ever gratuitous, especially the sudden loss of human life, which is never--and should never be--treated lightly. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Various
Drama
A&E Home Video
NR
Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) was the rookie during "Homicide"’s first season. By the fourth, he's an experienced vet with a bad back (a degenerative disc, to be precise). Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty) and Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) are gone, leaving Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) without partners. Someone needs to come along to shake things up. Enter brash detective Mike Kellerman (Reed Diamond) from the arson unit. After impressing Lieutenant Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) with his sly interrogation of a shifty arson suspect in "Fire (Part One)," he’s invited to join Maryland's finest. The loquacious Lewis, on his own since the third-season departure of Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito), has finally found the perfect sparring partner, while Kellerman would add some redheaded sex appeal to the acclaimed drama (hey, it worked for "NYPD Blue").
Another new character, naive crime-scene videographer James Brodie (Max Perlich), makes his (somewhat shambolic) entrance in "Autofocus." All the other old favorites are back: Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and wife Mary (Braugher’s real-life spouse Ami Brabson), for instance, are expecting a baby, and the much-married John Munch (Richard Beltzer) is dating the new medical examiner. Interesting developments are in store for the rest of the unit, as well, including a change in location (due to a gas leak) and command (Howard is promoted, but Isabella Hofman's Captain Russert is demoted).
Notable episodes include "A Doll's Eyes," a look at a murder case from the perspective of the victim's family (with Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden); "Heartbeat," inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart"; and "Thrill of the Kill," an eerie tale about a spree killer with a split personality. And keep an eye out for those always-surprising cameos, like Jay Leno in "Sniper (Part One)" and Reverend Horton Heat in "Full Moon." "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Various
Drama
A&E Home Video
NR
Big changes were afoot for Baltimore's finest during the fifth season of "Homicide". The fourth season ended with a shocker--Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) suffering a stroke while interrogating a suspect. In season premiere "Hostage," directed by the late Ted Demme, Pembleton is back on the job, but he's a changed man. His reflexes aren't what they used to be and his pride has taken a beating. Meanwhile, Megan Russert, who had been demoted the previous year, has moved abroad. Never fear, two strong women will join the squad in the form of detective Teri Stivers (Toni Lewis), on loan from narcotics, and medical examiner Julianna Cox (Michelle Forbes, just as formidable as she was on "Star Trek: The Next Generation"). This is especially good news for Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Kellerman (Reed Diamond). Alas, Lewis is married and Kellerman has just been accused of police corruption.
Standout episodes include "Documentary", directed by Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple, and "Prison Riot," with Charles S. Dutton and Dean Winters, a precursor to Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana's "Oz". (Scott Winters, who appears in the last two episodes, would join brother Dean on that show.) But "Bad Medicine," in which drug kingpin Luther Mahoney (Erik Todd Dellums) makes his first appearance, is the most significant. With the introduction of Mahoney, "Homicide" would begin to deal with the drug war in earnest. Author David Simon would continue to explore the issue in his HBO series "The Wire".
Aside from the brilliant acting, writing, and directing, "Homicide" was known for its savvy song selections, such as Tom Waits's "Cold, Cold Ground" and "Till the Money Runs Out" in "Bad Medicine." In addition, the episode "The Heart of a Saturday Night", directed by Whit Stillman, was titled after--and inspired by--Waits's composition of the same name. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Various
Drama
A&E Home Video
NR
"Homicide"'s sixth season begins with a bang. Three-part premiere "Blood Ties" represents the Peabody Award-winning drama at its best. The ambitious story arc introduces a case that will pit the detectives against a prominent Maryland family--and each other. The Wilson family includes Lt. Giardello's friend, Felix (James Earl Jones), his loyal wife (Lynne Thigpen), and his wayward son (Jeffrey Wright). By the time the case is put to rest, everyone involved will have lost more than they've gained. On the plus side, Pembleton (Andre Braugher) has another baby on the way and Bayliss (Kyle Secor) is about to embark on a relationship--with Dr. Cox (Michelle Forbes).
More changes are on the way. Characters introduced in season 5 will become regulars in season 6: Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne), Stuart Gharty (Peter Gerety), and Paul Falsone (Jon Seda). Culture clashes will commence the moment they step into the squad room. But some things never change and "Homicide" will continue to boast some of the best acting, writing, and directing on network television. Another standout episode, "The Subway," featuring Vincent D'Onofrio, would even become the focus of a PBS special, "Anatomy of a Homicide", which is included with this collection.
The biggest story arc will last the entire season. The squad may have thought that the shooting of Luther Mahoney marked the end of his reign, but they were wrong. Luther had followers, like his steely sister, Georgia Rae (Hazelle Goodman), and her loose-cannon son, Junior (Mekhi Phifer). Kellerman (Reed Diamond) will continue to be dogged by rumors that the shoot wasn't "clean," and the other detectives will start to abandon him, even former flame Cox and ex-partner Lewis (Clark Johnson). The sixth season of "Homicide" would turn out to be the last for Forbes, Diamond, and Emmy Award-winner Braugher. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"""

Various
Drama
A&E Home Video
NR
"Homicide"'s seventh season was surely its riskiest. Could they go on without Andre Braugher--should they even try? Fortunately, the answer is yes. As good as Braugher was, "Homicide" wasn't a star vehicle and the ensemble remained strong. Of course, there were a few cast changes, but that was nothing unusual. In season premiere "Famiglia," two new characters are introduced: Det. Renée Sheppard (Michael Michele, "Ali") and Sgt. Giardello's FBI agent son, Mike (Giancarlo Esposito, "Do the Right Thing"), visiting from Arizona. In the follow-up "Brotherly Love," Mike decides to stay and becomes special liaison to the Baltimore PD. In addition, Austin Pendleton ("Oz") would appear frequently as Chief ME George Griscom.

As ever, a variety of charismatic performers dropped by during 1998-1999. They include Aerosmith's Joe Perry, Christopher Meloni ("Law & Order: SVU"), Jena Malone ("Donnie Darko"), Wallace Shawn ("My Dinner With André"), and Reed Diamond ("Judging Amy"), reprising his role as Mike Kellerman. In addition, a crossover with "Law & Order" ("Sideshow") brought Benjamin Bratt, Jerry Orbach, and Sam Waterston into the fold. Notable seventh season directors include Lisa Cholodenko ("High Art"), Miguel Arteta ("Chuck and Buck"), Joe Berlinger ("Paradise Lost"), and Kathryn Bigelow ("Near Dark").

The general consensus is that "Homicide"'s seventh season was its weakest. Even at its worst, however, it was still the smartest crime drama on network television. Although year seven would turn out to be the last, the show didn't really end until broadcast of "Homicide: The Movie" the following year. In it, the surviving cast members reunite to solve the attempted assassination of mayoral candidate Giardello. The TV movie also ties up loose ends from series finale "Forgive Us Our Trespasses" (like whether Kyle Secor’s Tim Bayliss killed a murder suspect). Unfortunately, it isn't included with this 22-episode set. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Jenni Olson
Comedy


How did Hollywood pitch movies about gays and lesbians between 1956 and 1977? Here are theatrical trailers for 27 mainstream and art-house films, presented chronologically from "Tea and Sympathy" to "Outrageous!" More than half are films released between 1968 and 1972. Half are dramas and half are comedies, with farce dominating the films released after 1971. At least three advertise X-rated films: "The Killing of Sister George," "Midnight Cowboy," and Visconti's "The Damned." There's no voice-over commentary for this compilation, but it does include advertisements for snacks and one warning against public displays of affection aimed at "her" to control "him."

Bille Woodruff
Drama
Universal Pictures
PG-13
Honey Danels (Jessica Alba) is a 22-year-old, sexy, tough-minded, part-black, part-Latina hip-hop dancer in New York's East Harlem who dreams of making it big as a music video choreographer. She teaches hip-hop dancing at a local youth center and encourages the local kids to attend to keep them off the streets and out of trouble. When luck shines on Honey in the form of a famous music video director, named Michael, who casts her in one music video, she's encouraged to make the transition from dancer to choreographer. But Honey's sudden success comes with a price when Michael refuses to take "no" for an answer to his sexual advances and then tries to sabotage her career by blackballing her out of the business.

John Sayles
Drama
Anarchist's Convention Films
PG-13
1950. Rural Alabama. Cotton harvest. It's a make-or-break weekend for the Honeydripper Lounge and its owner, piano player Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis. Deep in debt to the liquor man, the chicken man, and the landlord, Tyrone is desperate to lure the young cotton pickers and local Army base recruits into his juke joint, away from Touissant's, the rival joint across the way. After laying off his regular talent, blues singer Bertha Mae, Tyrone announces to his sidekick Maceo that he has hired the famous electric guitar player, Guitar Sam, for a special one night only gig: pack em in and save the club. On the day of the show, the train arrives and Guitar Sam is no where to be found. Tyrone is forced to take drastic action. He makes a deal with Sheriff Pugh to release Sonny, the kid who hopped off a freight car here in Harmony, and turned up in the club claiming he could play the guitar as well as any Guitar Sam. Tyrone cleans Sonny up and launches a last ditch scheme to pass off the young guitar picker as Guitar Sam just long enough to cut the lights and run off with cash box. When Sonny takes the stage and launches into his first scalding electric licks, Tyrone will learn if it's lights out for the Honeydripper or if his luck has changed: he might just be another man saved by rock n' roll.

Leonard Kastle
Crime
Roxanne
R
Based on the true story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, who met through a lonely-hearts correspondence club, Ray is weedy, feral, and untrustworthy; Martha is enormous, compulsive, and needy. Together, they play out a horrifying scheme in which he lures lonely women out on dates and proposes marriage to them, with she pretending to be his sister. They take the women's savings and then murder them remorselessly. Dank, claustrophobic, and weirdly engrossing, this movie never quite gives in to the comforts of conventional narrative. Francois Truffaut named it as his favorite American film.

Various
Comedy
Paramount

What a treat to find comedy like this and what great value. This show is up there with Bilko for the wit and good natured humour. In the UK we very rarely get to see this 1950's comedy but you will recognise it's influence on a lot of UK and USA comedy (forget Friends this is better and the gag about Polo Ponies was lifted 15 years later by Steptoe and Son). If you want a real flavour of Brooklyn humour in the 1950's you won't find better. Make sure you have a Multi-Region DVD player.

Bill Duke
Crime
United Artists Pictures
R
The film focuses on the war of two gangs in 1930s Harlem for the control of illegal gaming - one headed by black strategic godfather Bumpy Johnson and another by white ruthless hothead Dutch Schultz. Negotiations proposed by white syndicate boss Lucky Luciano never get under way, blood flows and Johnson gets jailed. When Johnson is paroled, he gets the work of enforcer for mighty Stephanie "The Queen" St. Clair. She is also jailed for racketeering and when she leaves she makes him promise "no violence".

Steven Spielberg
Adventure
Amblin Entertainment
PG
Peter Pan (Williams) has grown up to be a cut-throat merger and acquisitions lawyer, and is married to Wendy's granddaughter. Captain Hook (Hoffman) kidnaps his children, and Peter returns to Never Land with Tinkerbell (Roberts). With the help of her and the Lost Boys, he must remember how to be Peter Pan again in order to save his children by battling with Captain Hook once again.

Steve James
Documentary
KTCA Minneapolis

This documentary follows two inner-city Chicago residents, Arthur Agee and William Gates, as they follow their dreams of becoming basketball superstars. Beginning at the start of their high school years, and ending almost 5 years later, as they start college, we watch the boys mature into men, still retaining their "Hoop Dreams". Both are recruited into the same elite high school as their idol, former Detroit Piston superstar Isaiah Thomas. Only one survives the first year; the other must return to a high school closer to his home. Along the way, there is much tragedy, some joy, a great wealth of information about inner city life, and the suspense of not knowing what will occur next. This is not a "by-the-numbers" film.

David Anspaugh
Drama
De Haven Productions
PG
Based on the true story of a small-town Indiana team that made the state finals in 1954, this movie chronicles the attempts of a coach with a spotty past, and the town's basketball-loving drunk to lead their high school team to victory.

David Anspaugh
Drama, Sport
De Haven Productions
PG
Based on the true story of a small-town Indiana team that made the state finals in 1954, this movie chronicles the attempts of a coach with a spotty past, and the town's basketball-loving drunk to lead their high school team to victory.

John Boorman
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation
PG-13
A semiautobiographical project by John Boorman about a nine year old boy called Bill as he grows up in London during the blitz of World War 2. For a young boy, this time in history was more of an adventure, a total upheaval of order, restrictions and discipline. The liberating effect of the war on the women left behind. And the joy when Hitler blows up your school.

Ronald Neame
Comedy
AVCO Embassy Pictures
PG
CIA agent Miles Kendig decides to get out of 'the game' and to ensure he's left alone he threatens to send his memoirs to the world's intelligence agencies. When the CIA doesn't believe him, he calls their bluff and starts writing and sending out chapters one by one. Realizing that their operations would be compromised, the CIA (led by Myerson and Cutter) set out to put an end to Kendig's plan by whatever means necessary. The heart of the movie follows a game of cat and mouse between a fumbling CIA and an artful Kendig.

Raoul Walsh
Fantasy
Warner Bros. Pictures

Falling asleep during the Paradise Coffee ("The Coffee that Makes You Sleep") Program, the band's third trumpeter dreams he's Athanael, an angel deputized to blow the Last Trumpet at exactly midnight on Earth. But Osidro and Doremus, two fallen angels enjoying the physical pleasures of an earthly existence, try to steal Athanael's trumpet, enlisting the aid of suave jewel thief Archie Dexter. Athanael fumbles his first try when he saves Archie's accomplice, Fran, from suicide. His second chance seems doomed when he's forced to leave his trumpet as security for a meal he can't pay for. But he gets it back just in time for a final confrontation with his desperate adversaries, dangling with them from the roof, only seconds from Midnight.

Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley
Documentary
184 Productions

Norman Z. McLeod
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff has just been installed as the new president of Huxley College. His cavalier attitude toward education is not reserved for his son Frank, who is seeing the college widow, Connie Bailey. Frank influences Wagstaff to recruit two football players who hang out in a speakeasy, in order to beat rival school Darwin. Unfortunately, Wagstaff mistakenly hires the misfits Baravelli and Pinky. Finding out that Darwin has beaten him to the "real" players, Wagstaff enlists Baravelli and Pinky to kidnap them, which leads to an anarchic football finale.

Ronald Neame
Comedy
Knightsbridge Films

Gulley Jimson is broke, difficult, conniving, uncouth, and a welcher - but an artist. The visions in his head may not really satisfy him when realized, but the quest continues, for the perfect wall. The Beeders leave for six weeks of vacation and return to find a 7000 pound committment and the wall of their living room a national treasure, even though living with a wall mural of feet is not their cup of tea. Then - in a bombed out church scheduled for demolition - THE wall that can become his vision.

Jimmy Hayward, Steve Martino
Animation
Blue Sky Studios

One day, Horton the elephant hears a cry from help coming from a speck of dust. Even though he can't see anyone on the speck, he decides to help it. As it turns out, the speck of dust is home to the Whos, who live in their city of Whoville. Horton agrees to help protect the Whos and their home, but this gives him nothing but torment from his neighbors, who refuse to believe that anything could survive on the speck. Still, Horton stands by the motto that, "After all, a person is a person, no matter how small."

Florent Emilio Siri
Action
Miramax Films
R
Jeff Talley, a former LAPD hostage negotiator, has moved himself away from his failed career outside of Los Angeles, and away from his wife and daughter. When a convenience store robbery goes wrong in his turf, the three perpetrators move in on an unsuspecting family. But the family's father has a secret which might compromise his kin, and one of the criminals is about to jump over the edge. Jeff Talley has to get everybody to survive the night......if he can.

Edgar Wright
Action
Big Talk Productions
R
Top London cop, PC Nicholas Angel is good. Too good. And to stop the rest of his team looking bad, he is reassigned to the quiet town of Sandford. He is paired with Danny Butterman, who countlessly questions him on the action lifestyle. Everything seems quiet for Angel, until two actors are found decapitated. It is address to as an accident, but Angel isn't going to accept that, especially when more and more people turn up dead. Angel and Danny clash with everyone, whilst trying to uncover the truth behind the mystery of the apparent "acidents".

Peter Yates
Action
Landers-Roberts Productions
PG
Dr. Amusa approaches Dortmunder about a valuable gem in a museum that is of great signifigance to his people in Africa, stolen during colonial times. Dortmunder assembles a crack team of cat burglars and hatches an elaborate plan for stealing the gem. Despite their care and experience, circumstances and plain bad luck keep the gem just out of their reach.

Akiva Schaffer
Comedy
Paramount Pictures
PG-13
Rod Kimble is a naïf, a slacker living in a small US town with his mom, his younger brother, and his stepfather whose respect he craves. He also misses his dead dad, whom he thinks was Evel Knievel's back-up. Rod, a man-child, believes that he is a stunt man. When his stepfather needs an operation, with help from his brother and his slacker pals, Rod hatches a plan to set a school-bus-jumping record on his moped. First, his crew and he have to raise money to rent the buses and build the ramp. Trouble is, Rod's inept at his chosen career. Looming failure is complicated by the return of Denise, Rod's next-door neighbor and secret heartthrob, who is home from college. Is public humiliation at hand?

Jim Abrahams
Action
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
PG-13
Topper Harley, a top gun fighter pilot, is recalled to serve on the SS Essess. Topper's mission is to destroy Saddam Hussein's nuclear plants. Unfortunately, Topper is psychologically imbalanced and is sure to crack under pressure.

Jim Abrahams
Action
Sidley Wright & Associates

Topper Harley is found to be working as an odd-job-man in a monastery. The CIA want him to lead a rescue mission into Iraq, to rescue the last rescue team, who went in to rescue the last rescue team who... who went in to rescue hostages left behind after Desert Storm. The president is Tug Benson, who also likes to be in on the action. Basically, it's a send-up of all the big shoot-em-up Rambo/Robocop/T2/ Commando type movies.

Dennis Hopper
Crime
Orion Pictures Corporation
R
A loner (Johnson) drives into a small Texas town and gets himself a job at a used car dealership. He gets an idea for robbing a small local bank after he tries to open a new bank account at the same time a fire occurs nearby. The bank was left open while all of the employees went to fight the fire. The manipulative boss' wife (Madsen) wishes to use him for her own purposes - "I always get what I want, Harry". He resists, however, as he finds himself falling in love with the accountant (Connelly) at work, who has her own problem to work out.

Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
Comedy
The Harold Lloyd Corporation

Episodic look at married life and in-law problems. Adventures include a ride on a crowded trolley with a live turkey; a wild spin in a new auto with the in-laws in tow; and a sequence in which Hubby accidently chloroforms his mother-in-law and is convinced that he has killed her. When she begins sleep-walking, he thinks that she has returned to haunt him.

Mike Figgis
Comedy
Moonstone Entertainment
R
While a British film crew are shooting a version of The Duchess Of Malfi in Venice, they in turn are being filmed by a sleasy documentary primadonna while the strange staff share meals which consist of human meat. Then there is the hit man, the call girl and the Hollywood producer all managing to become part of the madness...

Terry George
Drama
United Artists
PG-13
Ten years ago some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda--and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees, by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages.

Ethan Hawke
Drama
Barracuda Films
R

Fred Wolf
Comedy
Columbia Pictures
PG-13
Finding family. Shelley Darlingson was raised in an orphanage, finally happy when she blossoms into a fox and moves into the Playboy Mansion. Unfortunately, she's summarily expelled on her 27th birthday(she's now too old). In desperation she takes a job as house mother for a sorority of misfits losing their house for lack of members. They have but a few months to find 30 pledges, or a sorority of mean girls will take over their place. Shelley figures that girls will pledge a house that boys find interesting, so she sets out to make the Zetas alluring, not act too smart, and host great parties. Can she succeed, and what about her own makeover? Sabotage is everywhere, plus it's hard to be one's self.

Samuel Fuller
Drama
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

In Tokyo, a ruthless gang starts holding up U.S. ammunition trains, prepared to kill any of their own members wounded during a robbery. Down-at-heal ex-serviceman Eddie Spannier arrives from the States, apparently at the invitation of one such unfortunate. But Eddie isn't quite what he seems as he manages to make contact with Sandy Dawson, who is obviously running some sort of big operation, and his plan is helped by acquaintance with Mariko, the secret Japanese wife of the dead American.

David Duchovny
Comedy
Bob Yari Productions
PG-13

Erle C. Kenton
Fantasy
Universal Pictures

Dracula arrives at Dr. Edelman's office asking for a cure to his vampirism. However, this is a ruse by Dracula to get near Dr. Edelman's beautiful female assistant and turn her into a vampire. Meanwhile, a sincere Lawrence Talbot, AKA the Wolfman, arrives seeking a cure for his lycanthropy. When Dr. Edelman's first attempt fails, Talbot tries to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, but instead finds a network of underground caves where Frankensteins Monster is in stasis. Chaos ensues as the three monsters fight for dominance of each other.

Yimou Zhang
Action
Beijing New Picture Film Co.
PG-13
During the reign of the Tang dynasty in China, a secret organization called "The House of the Flying Daggers" rises and opposes the government. A police officer called Leo sends officer Jin to investigate a young dancer named Mei, claiming that she has ties to the "Flying Daggers". Leo arrests Mei, only to have Jin breaking her free in a plot to gain her trust and lead the police to the new leader of the secret organization. But things are far more complicated than they seem...

Erle C. Kenton
Fantasy
Universal Pictures

After escaping from an asylum the mad Dr. Niemann and his hunch back assistant revive Count Dracula, the Wolf Man and the Frankenstein monster in order to extract revenge upon their many enemies.

David Mamet
Crime
Filmhaus
R
A famous psychologist, Margaret Ford, decides to try to help one of her patients get out of a gambling debt. She visits the bar where Mike, to whom the debt is owed, runs poker games. He convinces her to help him in a game: her assignment is to look for "tells", or give-away body language. What seems easy to her becomes much more complex.

Jim O'Hanlon
Drama
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
NR
In this gripping four-hour docudrama, any resemblance between Saddam Hussein and a certain New Jersey mob boss may not be a coincidence. Co-produced by the BBC and broadcast on HBO, "House of Saddam" portrays Saddam (Igal Naor) as part Tony Soprano, part Michael Corleone, and part Keyzer Soze. Early on, he ruthlessly kills his closest friend to intimidate his enemies ("The man who can sacrifice even his best friend is a man without weakness," he rationalizes to his wife). Framed by America's invasion of Iraq, and concluding with Saddam's capture in that now-infamous hole, "House of Saddam" chronicles the rise and fall of a tyrant, whose decades of deceit and cruelty devastated a nation and threw the volatile and unstable region into further turmoil. In some scenes, "House of Saddam" takes its cue from Saddam's reported admiration of the "Godfather" films. In the first hour, a coup against Iraq's sitting president is carried out during Saddam's daughter's birthday party. Soon after, Saddam puts a wicked twist on the Corleone maxim about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. In Saddam's version, it's keep your friends close and your enemies close enough for your friends to shoot point blank. Beyond inferences of an unhappy childhood and a mother who makes Livia on "The Sopranos" look like June Cleaver, there is scant attempt to psychoanalyze Saddam or explore what makes him tick. It is more a portrait etched in blood of power corrupting absolutely. There are no heroes and few sympathetic characters in this "House". Saddam's wife (Oscar-nominee Shoreh Aghdashloo) is an increasingly pitiable object as she falls from her husband's favor and he takes a married schoolteacher as his mistress (an aide warns her husband not to object, promising "compensation"). Philip Arditti is chilling as Saddam's eldest son, Uday, a psychopathic rapist and murderer, who gives even his father pause. By the third hour, when Saddam is making a copy of the "Quran" written in his own blood, the writing is on the wall for this megalomaniac. In the final hour, as we watch George Bush on TV assuring the Iraqi people that "the day of your liberation is near," we can't help cheering, "What are you waiting for?" "--Donald Liebenson"

Jaume Collet-Serra
Horror
Warner Bros. Pictures
R
Six friends are on their way to a football game. They decide to camp out for the night and continue driving the next day. The next day the friends find that their having car troubles, so two of the friends accept a strangers ride into a small town named Ambrose. The main attraction in Ambrose is the House of Wax. Except something is not right in this town the wax figures are so realistic and the whole town is deserted- except for two murderous twin brothers. The six friends must fight to survive and escape from being the next exhibits in the House of Wax. Starring Chad Michael Murray, Jared Padalecki, Elisha Cuthbert, Paris Hilton, Jon Abrahams and Robert Ri'chard.

Mark Waters
Comedy
Bandeira Entertainment
R
Jackie-O is anxiously awaiting the visit of her brother home for Thanksgiving, but isn't expecting him to bring a friend. She's even more shocked to learn that this friend is his fiance. It soon becomes clear that Jackie Kennedy's obsession is nothing compared to her obsession with her brother, as it also becomes clear she isn't the only member of the family with problems...

Henry Hathaway
Film-Noir
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Preface: a stentorian narrator tells us that the USA was flooded with Nazi spies in 1939-41. One such tries to recruit college grad Bill Dietrich, who becomes a double agent for the FBI. While Bill trains in Hamburg, a street-accident victim proves to have been spying on atom-bomb secrets; conveniently, Dietrich is assigned to the New York spy ring stealing these secrets. Can he track down the mysterious "Christopher" before his ruthless associates unmask and kill him?

William Castle
Drama
William Castle Productions

Frederick Loren has invited five strangers to a party of a lifetime. He is offering each of them $10,000 if they can stay the night in a house. But the house is no ordinary house. This house has reputation for murder. Frederick offers them each a gun for protection. They will all arrived in a hearse and will either leave in it $10,000 richer or leave in it dead!

Robert Wise
Film-Noir
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Victoria has survived Nazi concentration by assuming the identity of one who died there. She arrives in San Francisco to see her "son" just as the boy's great-aunt dies leaving a lot of money to be inherited. Victoria falls in love with the boy's trustee Alan Spender, and they move into the mansion on Telegraph Hill. She then learns that Alan and his lover, the boy's governess Margaret, murdered an aunt and are planning the same for her.

Reginald Hudlin
Comedy
New Line Cinema
R
Young Kid has been invited to a party at his friend Play's house. But after a fight at school, Kid's father grounds him. None the less, Kid sneaks out when his father falls asleep. But Kid doesn't know that three of the thugs at school has decided to give him a lesson in behaviour...

Curtis Harrington
Horror
Aaron Spelling Productions
PG
After a fire which killed his father and scarred his sister, a guilt-ridden victim of psychosomatic blindness is released from a mental hospital and goes back home to stay with his estranged sister. However, it appears that someone is out for revenge and wants to drive him crazy.

Various
Comedy
20th Century Fox
NR
If the end of "Friends" left a hole in your life, take a look at "How I Met Your Mother". Quirky young urban folk grappling with life and love--check. Charming, good-looking actors who aren't afraid of looking like idiots for the sake of a good joke--check. Crisp, solid writing that sticks comfortably within the sitcom format, but is fresh enough to nudge the show into surprising and inventive moments--check. In fact, the creators of "How I Met Your Mother" should be embarrassed by how close they hew to the "Friends" formula--except that they do it so well. Let's face it, "Friends" didn't invent this territory (tales of twentysomething life), they just refined it. "How I Met Your Mother" quickly cultivates its own flavor: A little more openly romantic than most sitcoms, willing to let a scene take a quiet or off-kilter turn, trusting that not every viewer has to get every joke.
The hub of the likable cast is Josh Radnor, who keeps Ted (a single guy ready to settle down) from being annoying, despite his neuroses and perfectionism. Cobie Smulders gives Robin (the girl Ted thinks might be the one, but who doesn't want to settle down) enough goofy, tomboyish charm that she feels like a person and not an idealized love interest. Jason Segel ("Freaks and Geeks") and Alyson Hannigan ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "American Pie"), plays Ted's soon-to-be-married best friends Marshall and Lily with enough lingering doubt in their engaged happiness to keep them from becoming too comfortable. And rounding out the cast is Neil Patrick Harris ("Doogie Howser, M.D."), shedding his good-guy image as Barney, a crass, lecherous cad who, nonetheless, comes through for his friends. Episode plots are pretty straightforward (Ted signs up with matchmaking agency; Marshall takes a well-paying job he doesn't like; when Ted gets a girlfriend, Robin realizes she has feelings for him after all; and Lily has second thoughts about getting married), but the show maintains a nice balance of single-episodes stories and a season-long arc--and as you grown attached to the characters, even fairly routine stories are made to feel fresh. This is good comfort television: Smart but not snotty, earnest but not cloying, oddball without being forced or wacky. Check it out. "--Bret Fetzer"

Various
Comedy
20th Century Fox

Pamela Fryman
Comedy
20th Century Fox
NR
No other sitcom is as gleefully inventive as How I Met Your Mother. The basic setup is familiar stuff: Five charming, good-looking twentysomethings pal around New York City seeking love and happiness. But many episodes have a narrative trick. For example, when his friends try to persuade Ted (Josh Radnor) from going on a date with the doctor removing the butterfly tattoo he got while drunk, their justifications send the show careening back and forth among three interconnected flashbacks. Other episodes repeat scenes from different perspectives, or leap forward, or interrupt scenes to provide necessary exposition. None of this is groundbreaking, but it is consistently smart and clever--and when combined with crisp comic dialogue and zippy performances, it's pure sitcom delight. This is a show that manages to make a gang's in-jokes actually funny. Season Three is absolutely essential for any fan of the show, because this is the season we actually meet the title character; after two years of preamble, the mother to Ted's unnamed kids finally appears! But there are abundant other reasons to get this season, including Marshall (Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) buying a crooked apartment, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) getting the yips and getting slapped, and the return of Robin Sparkles, Canadian teenybopper alter-ego of Robin (Cobie Smulders). There's a wee bit of unfortunate stuntcasting (though she doesn't embarrass herself, Britney Spears still sticks out by dint of sheer inescapable celebrity), but it's a minor flaw in an all-around superb season. Add in an abundance of commentaries, featurettes, music videos, additional scenes, and How I Met Your Mother: Season Three is clearly a must-have for fans and a great introduction for newcomers. --Bret Fetzer



Beyond How I Met Your Mother: Season Three on DVD
Arrested Development – Season Three on DVD
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Season Three on DVD
Family Guy, Vol. 6 on DVD


Stills from How I Met Your Mother: Season Three (Click for larger image)

Various
Comedy
Twentieth Century Fox
NR
Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 09/29/2009 Run time: 678 minutes Rating: Nr

Richard Lester
Comedy
Petersham Pictures

This film features former Beatle John Lennon and Roy Kinnear as ill-fated enlisted men in under the inept command of Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody. The story unwinds mostly in flashbacks of Lieutenant Goodbody who has lower-class beginnings and education which make him a poor officer who commands one of the worst units of the army.

Unknown
Documentary
Creative Differences

Robert M. Wise
Documentary
Creative Differences

Unknown
Documentary
Creative Differences

John Ford, Henry Hathaway
Adventure
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Sprawling epic which follows the Prescotts, an emigrant family through four generations, from the Erie Canal in the 1830's to their settled home in the West a half a century later. On the way they encounter river pirates, and escape with the help of fur trapper Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who subsequently marries one of their daughters, Eve (Carroll Baker). The parents are drowned on a foundering raft, and the other daughter Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) becomes a riverboat singer and catches the eye of a genteel adventurer Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck). They cross the plains together in a wagon train and make and lose a fortune in California; meanwhile Linus has turned farmer and, comes the Civil War, joins the Union Army and is killed at the Battle of Shiloh. One of his sons Zeb (George Peppard) also joins the army and stays after the war as a cavalry officer and is sent to Colorado to help guard the pioneering railroad against the Indians, whose land they are crossing. By this time Lilith is the elderly lady of the family, having survived long enough to see the dream of settlement realized, but not, mercifully, the aerial shots of the Los Angeles freeway traffic with which the film ends.

Norman Panama
Comedy
Naho Productions

Bruce Robinson
Comedy
HandMade Films
R
Dennis Dimbleby Bagley is a brilliant young advertising executive who can't come up with a slogan to sell a revolutionary new pimple cream. His obsessive worrying affects not only his relationship with his wife, his friends and his boss, but also his own body - graphically demonstrated when he grows a large stress-related boil on his shoulder. But when the boil grows eyes and a mouth and starts talking, Bagley really begins to think he's lost his mind. But has he?

Michael Kalesniko
Comedy
Cinerenta Medienbeteiligungs KG
R
Shy, chain-smoking, insomniac Peter McGowan is an L.A. playwright with a string of hits that preceded his current ten years of failed productions. His mother-in-law is sinking into senility, a stranger is meandering the neighborhood claiming to be him, neighbors have a new dog that barks all night; his wife wants to have a child, and he does not: he's become impotent. He's working on a new play when a single mom moves in next door with her 8-year-old daughter. His wife immediately invites the girl into the McGowan household. Will this child stir Peter's paternal feelings? Will she also help him get his dialogue right? And what of his doppelganger and the neighbor's dog?

Donald Petrie
Comedy
Lynda Obst Productions
PG-13
Benjamin Barry is an advertising executive competing with two female co-workers for a major campaign for a diamond merchant. He cuts a deal with his competitors that the account is his if he can make a woman of their choice fall in love with him in 10 days. In comes Andie Anderson who, in turn, is writing a story on how to lose a guy in 10 days as a bet with her boss to be allowed to write more substantial stories. With a hidden agenda in each camp, will either party be able to complete their mission?

Kevin Macdonald
Documentary
BFI

Martin Ritt
Drama
Paramount Pictures

Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."

Michael Lehmann
Action
Ace Bone
R
Eddie Hawkins, called Hudson Hawk has just been released from ten years of prison and is planning to spend the rest of his life honestly. But then the crazy Mayflower couple blackmail him to steal some of the works of Leonardo da Vinci. If he refuses, they threaten to kill his friend Tommy.

Joel Coen
Comedy
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
PG
When Waring Hudsucker, head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Mussberger, comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of money: appoint a moron to run the company. When the stock falls low enough, Sidney and friends can buy it up for pennies on the dollar, take over the company, and restore its fortunes. They choose idealistic Norville Barnes, who just started in the mail room. Norville is whacky enough to drive any company to ruin, but soon, tough reporter Amy Archer smells a rat and begins an undercover investigation of Hudsucker Industries.

Bigas Luna
Comedy
Antena 3 Televisión

Benito González works construction in Melilla and dreams big - of building the tallest building in Benidorm, a great phallic symbol of power, González Towers. Over several years, we see Benito's rise and fall, much like the construction of his tower. Through force of personality, he puts the financing together, taking advantage of women who love him - Claudia, a model who wants to be a star, and Marta, the US educated daughter of a banker whose loan Benito needs. Can his force of personality - his huevos de oro - compensate for shoddy building materials, no permits, and undercapitalization? Nature may have her own power and surprises in store for Benito.

Spike Lee
Documentary
40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks

Ellen S. Pressman, Martha Coolidge, Paris Barclay, Tucker Gates
Comedy
Sony Pictures
Unrated
Dr. Craig Huffstodt (Hank Azaria, "Shattered Glass") has it all--beautiful wife Beth (Paget Brewster, "Andy Richter Controls the Universe"), cute son Byrd (Anton Yelchin), sleek golden retriever, silver BMW, and tastefully-appointed model home. In the pilot, an inconsolable teenager pulls a gun out of his bag and shoots himself--right in the middle of a therapy session. Suddenly, Huff starts to question everything: the job, the marriage, "life". Created by Bob Lowry ("Any Day Now") and produced by Scott Winant ("thirtysomething") for Showtime, "Huff" combines drama, comedy, flashbacks, and dream sequences to examine one "rich, guilt-ridden white man's" struggle with the Abyss. Sometimes it's "Frasier", sometimes "The Sopranos"--sometimes "American Beauty".
Appearances to the contrary, Huff's well-constructed façade is not without its fissures, and as Byrd ominously quotes in episode eight ("Cold Day in Shanghai"), "If you gaze for long into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you--Nietzsche." Live-in mother Izzy (Emmy winner Blythe Danner) is a judgmental busybody, younger brother Teddy (Andy Comeau, "Providence") is a sympathetic schizophrenic, and best buddy Russell (Oliver Platt having the time of his life) is a pill-popping, cocaine-snorting, booze-guzzling lawyer whose moral compass has been missing "ever since my daddy's sperm hit the egg." Then there's psychotic patient Melody (Lara Flynn Boyle, "The Practice"), smart-talking office manager Paula (Kimberly Russell), and homeless Hungarian musician István (Jack Laufer) who keeps crossing his path. (Does he really even exist?) Other recurring characters include Huff's estranged father, Ben (Robert Forster), and Beth's terminally ill mother, Madeline (Swoosie Kurtz). In its first year, "Huff" garnered seven Emmy nominations and was renewed for a second season. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Ang Lee
Action
Universal Pictures
PG-13
After a terrible accident of Bruce banner in the lab his extraordinary mind is now making him angry.He then figures out that David banner is his real father.Bruce has now turned into hulk and nothing can stop him for when he is angry.Betty is the only person that can stop him from being angry.Betty has now gone to the father to ask for help how to help him,but the father has now sent his super villian dogs like hulk to kill her,hulk is now the only person to stop the mutant dogs.David banner has now transformed himself into anything he touches and with evil power,hulk must now save the world and save the people.

Michel Gondry
Comedy
Fine Line Features
R
A philosophical burlesque, Human Nature follows the ups and downs of an obsessive scientist, a female naturalist, and the man they discover, born and raised in the wild. As scientist Nathan (Robbins) trains the wild man, Puff (Ifans) in the ways of the world - starting with table manners - Nathan's lover Lila (Arquette) fights to preserve the man's simian past, which represents a freedom enviable to most. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges exposing the perversities of the human heart and the idiosyncrasies of the civilized mind. Human Nature is a comical examination of the trappings of desire in a world where both nature and culture are idealized.

Robert Benton
Drama
Miramax Films
R
The Human Stain is the story of Coleman Silk (Hopkins), a classics professor with a terrible secret that is about to shatter his life in a small New England town. When his affair with a young troubled janitor (Kidman) is uncovered, the secret Silk had harbored for over fifty years from his wife, his children and colleague, writer Nathan Zuckerman, fast explodes in a conflagration of devastating consequences. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled.

Cliff Roquemore
Action
Comedian International
R
One of several Rudy Ray Moore films, THE HUMAN TORNADO is part of the on-going adventures of Dolemite: a signifying' super-hero. Dolemite comes to the rescue of Queen Bee, whose primarily black Nightclub is threatened by White Mafia types.

Justin Kerrigan
Comedy
Irish Screen
R
The Cardiff club scene in the 90's: five best friends deal with their relationships and their personal demons during a weekend. Jip calls himself a sexual paranoid, afraid he's impotent. Lulu, Jip's mate, doesn't find much to fancy in men. Nina hates her job at a fast food joint, and her man, Koop, who dreams of being a great hip-hop d.j., is prone to fits of un-provoked jealousy. The fifth is Moff, whose family is down on his behavior. Starting Friday afternoon, with preparations for clubbing, we follow the five from Ecstacy-induced fun through a booze-laden come-down early Saturday morning followed by the weekend's aftermath. It's breakthrough time for at least three of them.

Darren Grodsky, Danny Jacobs
Comedy
Embark Productions
R

Tony Scott
Drama
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
R
The Egyptian vampire lady Miriam subsists upon the blood of her lovers. In return the guys or girls don't age... until Miriam has enough of them. Unfortunately that's currently the case with John, so his life expectancy is below 24 hours. Desperately he seeks help from the famous Dr. Sarah Roberts. She doesn't really belive his story, but becomes curious and contacts Miriam ... and gets caught in her ban, too.

Echelon Entertainment 2
Unrated
The story of San Francisco's most famous nightclub of the 50's and 60's told through the 1980 reunion of the internationally famous who got their start there.

Stephen T. Kay
Biography
Diana Kerew Productions

For 31 years, the serial killer known as BTK raised terror in the small town of Wichita, Kansas. Starting in 1974 and ending in 1991, BTK killed 10 people and resurfaced in 2005, in which the BTK killer was captured. This is the story of how police found, captured, and convicted the vicious killer named Dennis Rader.

William Friedkin
Action
Lakeshore Entertainment
R
In the green woods of Silver Falls, Oregon, Aaron Hallam, a trained assassin AWOL from the Special Forces, keeps his own brand of wildlife vigil. After Hallam brutally slew four deer hunters in the area, FBI Special Agent Abby Durrell turns to L.T. Bonham-- the one man who may be able to stop him. At first L.T. resists the mission. Snug in retirement, he's closed off to his past, the years he spent in the Special Forces training soldiers to become skilled murderers. But when he realizes that these recent slaying is the work of a man he trained, he feels obligated to stop him. Accepting the assignment under the condition that he works alone, L.T. enters the woods, unarmed--plagued by memories of his best student and riddled with guilt for not responding to Aaron's tortured letters to him as he began to slip over the edge of sanity. Furious as he is with his former mentor for ignoring his pleas for help, Aaron knows that he and L.T. share a tragic bond that is unbreakable. And, even as they go into their final combat against each other, neither can say with certainty who is the hunted and who is the hunter.

Nickolas Perry, Harry Thomason
Documentary
Diceburg LLC

Richard Shepard
Adventure
Intermedia
R
A young journalist, a seasoned cameraman and a discredited war correspondent embark on an unauthorized mission to find the no. 1 war criminal in Bosnia; they find themselves in serious jeopardy when they are mistaken as a CIA hit squad and their target decides to come after them.

Anthony Drazan
Drama
Storm Entertainment
R
Hurly-burly is an adaptation of David Rabe's well known play about the intersecting lives of several Hollywood players and wannabes who's personal lives threaten to veer into a catastrophe more interesting than anything they're peddling to the studios.

Norman Jewison
Biography
Azoff Entertainment
R
This film tells the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, an African-American man who rose above his troubled youth to become a top contender for the middle-weight boxing title. However, his dreams are shattered when he is accused of a triple murder, and is convicted to three natural-life terms. Despite becoming a cause celebre and his dogged efforts to prove his innocence through his autobiography, the years of fruitless efforts have left him discouraged. This changes when an African-American boy and his Canadian mentors read his book and are convinced of his innocence enough to work for his exoneration. However, what Hurricane and his friends learn is that this fight puts them against a racist establishment that profited from this travesty and have no intention of seeing it reversed.

J.P. McGowan, Armand Schaefer
Adventure
Mascot Pictures

The Wrecker wrecks trains on the L & R Railroad. One of his victims is Larry Baker's father. Baker wants to find the evildoer, among a host of suspects, but it will be difficult since the Wrecker can disguise himself to look like almost anyone.

John Cassavetes
Drama
Faces Music
PG-13
A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.

Woody Allen
Drama
TriStar Pictures
R
When Jack and Sally announce that they're splitting up, this comes as a shock to their best friends Gabe and Judy. Maybe mostly because they also are drifting apart and are now being made aware of it. So while Jack and Sally try to go on and meet new people, the marriage of Gabe and Judy gets more and more strained, and they begin to find themselves being attracted to other people.

Craig Brewer
Crime
Crunk Pictures
R
Aspiring emcee DJay works the angles to get his first record made with help from assorted people in his Memphis 'hood. And when he hears that hip-hop superstar Skinny Black is heading to his area, he throws together a supreme hustle to grab Skinny's attention.

Robert Rossen
Drama
Rossen Films

"Fast" Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary "Minnesota Fats" to a high-stakes match, but he loses in a heartbreaking marathon. Now broke and without his long-time manager, Felson faces an uphill battle to regain his confidence and his game. It isn't until he hits rock bottom that he agrees to join up with ruthless and cutthroat manager Bert Gordon. Gordon agrees to take him on the road to learn the ropes. But Felson soon realizes that making it to the top could cost him his soul, and perhaps his girlfriend. Will he decide that this is too steep a price to pay in time to save himself?

Cesar Gallardo
Action

Paul Ferrara
Drama

Doug Pray
Documentary
Helvey-Pray Productions

The world of grunge. This documentary examines the Seattle scene as it became the focus of a merging of punk rock, heavy metal, and innovation. Building from the grass roots, self-promoted and self-recorded until break-out success of bands like Nirvana brought the record industry to the Pacific Northwest, a phenomenon was born. More than just an examination of the music, this is a look at how this artistic movement became a societal and fashion trend with a major effect on American culture.

Mira Nair
Drama
Blum Israel Productions

In this bittersweet slice of working class single New Jersey life, best friends Debby and Beth (both pushing thirty) go looking for love in the wrong place - namely their favorite bar, Oliver's. Rugged contractor Rick eyes Beth but ends up going home with the more assertive Debby. Beth's style is further cramped by the responsibilities of single motherhood. As Debby tries to parlay what was essentially a casual fling into possible marriage with an indifferent Rick, her mother Virginia wonders if her affair with widower Nick is the real thing. Rounding out the romantic possibilities is Bobby, the bartender who flirts with Beth. The women clash as plans go awry, tragedy strikes, and hearts get broken. In the end, Debby, Beth, and Virginia find, if not the relationships of their dreams, peace with each other and within themselves.