Jared Hess
Comedy
Paramount Pictures
PG
Nacho (Black) is a monastery cook, who spends his day feeding orphans and being overlooked by the monastery. When Sister Encarnación (Reguera) arrive at the monastery, Nacho realises that the only way to win her affection and to save the children, will be by competing as a Luchador wrestler.

Mike Leigh
Drama
Thin Man Films

Johnny flees Manchester for London, to avoid a beating from the family of a girl he has raped. There he finds an old girlfriend, and spends some time homeless, spending much of his time ranting at strangers, and meeting characters in plights very much like his own.

Jules Dassin
Crime
Hellinger Productions

Amid a semi-documentary portrait of New York and its people, Jean Dexter, an attractive blonde model, is murdered in her apartment. Homicide detectives Dan Muldoon and Jimmy Halloran investigate. Suspicion falls on various shifty characters who all prove to have some connection with a string of apartment burglaries. Then a burglar is found dead who once had an elusive partner named Willie. The climax is a very rapid manhunt sequence. Filmed entirely on location in New York City.

David Zucker
Action
Paramount Pictures
PG-13
Lt. Frank Drebbin returns to save the day once again. This time he's out to foil the "big boys" in the energy business. A top scientist (Dr Mainheimer) is about to publish his report on energy supply for the future. Things don't look good for the traditional suppliers; oil, coal and nuclear. To save their industries, the suppliers kidnap Mainheimer and replace him with a decoy with a more favourable report. Jane, the Dr's secretary, is Drebbin's old flame; they're passionate love affair is thus rekindled.

David Zucker
Action
Paramount Pictures
PG-13
A re-run of many of the gags from the original TV series 'Police Squad'. An Airplane type spoof, this time with the an incompetent lieutenant (Drebin) who always 'gets his man'. Visual gags come thick and fast, and it's impossible to catch them all with one viewing. The plot.. Queen Elizabeth II of England is coming to town, and Vincent Ludwig has plans to assassinate her using a brainwashed baseball player.

Daniel Algrant
Comedy
Sony Pictures
R
"Naked in New York" is a likable, intimate look at the young couple Jake and Joanne (Eric Stoltz and Mary-Louise Parker), who meet in college and slowly see their lives pull apart. A romantic comedy with a New York attitude, it's a more realistic version of "Reality Bites". A struggling playwright with a rich imagination, Jake has a laziness factor that's holding him back, and, in part, that's the underlying feeling of the movie: Things just happen. But it's a great showcase for the underappreciated Parker ("Fried Green Tomatoes") and for Tony Curtis as an off-Broadway producer. In addition to the hugely likable cast are many catchy cameo appearances. "--Doug Thomas"

Samuel Fuller
Drama
Leon Fromkess-Sam Firks Productions

Kelly (Constance Towers), a prostitute, finds redemption in the town of Grantville, where she arrives working as a medium-time seller. There, she mets Griff (Anthony Eisley), the police captain of the town, with whom she spends a romantic afternoon. The woman, traumatized by an experience in the past called "The Naked Kiss" by psychiatrists, finally, finds a job as a nurser in a Hospital for handicapped children, experience that allows her to find a sensitive side in caring and patiently love each one of her little patients. Aparently, Kelly will find happiness in Grant (Michael Dante), her fiancé and Griff's partner, but she will be the witness of a shocking event that will threaten this happiness and even her mental health.

David Cronenberg
Crime
Film Trustees Ltd.
R
Not an adaptation of beat writer William S. Burrough's novel but a mix of biography and an interpretation of his drug- induced writing processes combined with elements of his work in this paranoid fantasy about Bill Lee, a writer who accidentally shoots his wife, whose typewriter transforms into a cockroach and who becomes involved in a mysterious plot in an Islamic port called Interzone. Wonderfully bizarre, not unlike Burrough's books.

Cornel Wilde
Adventure
Sven Persson Films

A group of men are on safari. One of the party refuses to give a gift to a tribe they encounter. The tribe is offended, seizes the party, and one-by-one, kills all but one of the safari members in various creative and horrifying ways. The last surviving member is given "The Lion's Chance" by the tribal leader to be hunted down by a party of tribal warriors. Naked and weaponless he is set loose, the hunters hot on his heels, beginning a life-or-death hunt through wild Africa.

Jean-Jacques Annaud
Drama
Neue Constantin Film
R
1327: after a mysterious death in a Benedictine Abbey, the monks are convinced that the apocalypse is coming. With the Abbey to play host to a council on the Franciscan's Order's belief that the Church should rid itself of wealth, William of Baskerville, a respected Franciscan monk, is asked to assist in determining the cause of the untimely death. Alas, more deaths occur as the investigation draws closer to uncovering the secret the Abbey wants hidden, and there is finally no stopping the Holy Inquisition from taking an active hand in the process. William and his young novice must race against time to prove the innocence of the unjustly accused and avoid the wrath of Holy Inquisitor Bernardo Gui.

Mira Nair
Drama
Fox Searchlight Pictures
PG-13
While traveling by train to visit his grandfather in Jamshedpur, Calcutta born, Bengali-speaking Ashoke Ganguli meets with fellow-traveler, Ghosh, who impresses upon him to travel, while Ashoke is deep into a book authored by Nicholai Gogol. The train meets with an accident, and after recuperating, Ashoke re-locates to America, settles down, returns home in 1977 to get married to aspiring singer, Ashima, and returns home to New York. Shortly thereafter they become parents of a boy, who they initially name Gogol, and a few years later both give birth to Sonia. The family then buy their own house in the suburbs and travel to India for the first time after their marriage. The second time they travel to India is when Gogol and Sonia are in their late teens, and after a memorable visit to Kolkata and then to the Taj Mahal, they return home. Gogol falls in love with Maxine Ratliff and moves in with her family, while Ashoke spends time traveling, and Sonia moves to California, leaving Ashima all her by herself. The Ganguli family will be destined to travel to India again soon - this time under very different circumstances - and after all have endured life-changing events.

Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Comedy
Weinstein Company, The
PG-13
After graduating from Montclair State, New Jersey Girl Annie can't make up her mind about what to do with her life. After saving a little boy from being run over in the park, she is quickly employed as a nanny for a rich Upper East Side couple. Mr X is occupied with his business, Mrs X loves shopping and none of them really likes to spend time with their little boy Grayer. Annie quickly learns that she has more than her hands full with taking care of him. Her busy schedule doesn't give her much spare time. Mrs X fired her last nanny because she was dating and that gives Annie problems when Harvard Hottie who lives in the same building asks her out on a date.

Robert J. Flaherty
Documentary
Les Frères Revillon

Documents one year in the life of Nanook, an Eskimo (Inuit) and his family. Describes the trading, hunting, fishing and migrations of a group barely touched by industrial technology. Nanook of the North was widely shown and praised as the first full-length, anthropological documentary in cinematographic history.

Jared Hess
Comedy
Access Films
PG
Preston, Idaho's most curious resident, Napoleon Dynamite, lives with his grandma and his 32-year-old brother (who cruises chat rooms for ladies) and works to help his best friend, Pedro, snatch the Student Body President title from mean teen Summer Wheatley.

Godfrey Reggio
Documentary
Miramax Films
PG
In this cinematic concert, mesmerizing images are plucked from everyday reality, then visually altered with state-of-the-art digital techniques. The result is a chronicle of the shift from a world organized by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic and the virtual. Extremes of intimacy and spectacle, tragedy and hope fuse in a tidal wave of visuals and music, giving rise to a unique, artistic experience that reflects the vision of a brave new globalized world.

Joe Carnahan
Crime
Cruise/Wagner Productions
R
An undercover narc dies, the investigation stalls, so the Detroit P.D. brings back Nick Tellis, fired 18-months ago when a stray bullet hits a pregnant woman. Tellis teams with Henry Oak, a friend of the dead narc and an aggressive cop constantly under the scrutiny of internal affairs. They follow leads, informants turn up dead, Nick's wife is unhappy he's back on the street, Henry's protective of the dead cop's wife. Nick reads and re-reads the case file, broods, watches Oak's heavy-handed style, sometimes joining in. The brass want to close out the case, Nick and Henry stay on it, and bits of evidence point them to an auto body shop. What actually happened; will Nick ever know?

Dwain Esper, Vival Sodar't
Biography


As the opening scroll tells us, Narcotic was "presented in the hope that the public may become aware of the terrific struggle to rid the world of drug addiction." The movie itself is a salacious plunge into a world of sordid pleasures. It tells us the story of Dr. William G. Davies, an infamous snake-oil salesman who started his career as a promising medical student. In the opening sequence he saves an unborn baby by performing a cesarean operation after the mother was killed in an automobile accident. Stock medical footage shows a woman's stomach being sliced open like a ripe watermelon and the baby popping out like a jack-in-a-box. But the allure of opium proves too strong for the doctor to resist. After a single night of relaxation in a Chinatown opium den, Davies becomes a slave to drugs. As his medical practice deteriorates, he shifts his attention to "selling medicine by demonstration." He says to his nurse/fiancee, "I can't see anything wrong if my preparation has merit." However, his "preparation" is one of the great quack cure-alls: "Tiger-Fat." Davies soon becomes one of the leading sideshow attractions for a carnival. His success as a carnival huckster initially allows him to run with a fast crowd. In the movie's most shocking episode, Davies and his ritzy friends retire to a hotel room together for a drug party. "We're gonna get lit," says a woman. A buffet of drugs is spread out on a table and each guest takes their drug of choice. "It takes a needle for me to get a bang," says a woman. As each participant indulges, the party quickly turns into an orgy of excesses, one woman hikes up her skirts, another laughs hysterically, a man pontificates, another man becomes paranoid. The movie provides a litany of different reactions to drugs. Ultimately, Davies' drug addiction leaves him gaunt and stooped, living in a hovel with no hope of returning to his previous life.

Richard Fleischer
Crime
RKO Radio Pictures

When a mobsters wife decides to testify against his evil deeds she goes undercover to avoid being killed. Now that he's coming to trial she has to be escourted across country via train in order to testify. Cop Walter Brown and his partner are assigned the task, but the mob are on their trail.

Robert Altman
Drama
American Broadcasting Company (ABC)
R
This movie tells the intersecting stories of various people connected to the music business in Nashville. Barbara Jean is the reigning queen of Nashville but is near collapse. Linnea and Delbert Reese have a shaky marriage and 2 deaf children. Opal is a British journalist touring the area. These and other stories come together in a dramatic climax.

Documentary
Towers Productions

John Landis
Comedy
Universal Pictures
R
Faber College has one frat house so disreputable it will take anyone. It has a second one full of white, anglo-saxon, rich young men who are so sanctimonious no one can stand them except Dean Wormer. The dean enlists the help of the second frat to get the boys of Delta House off campus. This film gives high-jinks and fooling around a bad name. P The dean's plan comes into play just before the homecoming parade to end all parades for all time.

Jeremiah S. Chechik
Comedy
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG-13
It's Christmas time and the Griswolds are preparing for a family seasonal celebration, but things never run smoothly for Clark, his wife Ellen and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious family guests, but he manages to keep going knowing that his Christmas bonus is due soon.

Amy Heckerling
Comedy
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG-13
The Griswalds win a vacation to Europe on a game show, and thus pack their bags for the continent. They do their best to catch the flavor of Europe, but they just don't know how to be be good tourists. Besides, they have trouble taking holidays in countries where they CAN speak the language...

Harold Ramis
Adventure
Warner Bros. Pictures
R
The Griswold family are on a quest. A quest to a Walley World theme park for a family vacation, but things aren't going to go exactly as planned, especially when Clark Griswold is losing all thought towards a mysterious blonde in a red Ferrari.

Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand
Drama
Frontier Films

Paul Robeson narrates a mix of dramatizations and archival footage about the bill of rights being under attack during the 1930s by union busting corporations, their spies and contractors. In dramatizations, we see a farmer beaten for speaking up at a meeting, a union man murdered in a boarding house, two sharecroppers near Fort Smith Arkansas shot by men deputized by the local sheriff, a spy stealing the names of union members, and a dead Chicago union man eulogized. In archival footage we witness police and goons beating lawfully assembled union organizers, and we see men at work and union families at play. The narration celebrates patriotism and democracy.

Catherine Hardwicke
Drama
New Line Cinema
PG

Barry Levinson
Drama
SONY PICTURES
PG
From the sun-dappled heartland, a young man (Robert Redford, in soft lighting) emerges as maybe the best baseball player anybody's ever seen. On his way to the majors, he is cut down by an enigmatic black widow (Barbara Hershey) and vanishes for many years. When he reemerges, a silent mystery, he lands a spot with the New York team and begins tearing up the league--he's still the natural. Fans of the Bernard Malamud novel will be dismayed at the pure mythical hokum of this film, but baseball fanatics have been known to watch and rewatch this one; after all, it's constructed as a kind of shrine to the national pastime. Barry Levinson ("Rain Man") directs the movie with an unabashed devotion to the game, although the film could use more of the realities of chewing tobacco and pine tar. Redford is fine, and Kim Basinger and Oscar-nominated Glenn Close are effective as the women in his life. The crowning touch is the soaring, extraordinary music by Randy Newman, the singer-songwriter turned orchestral composer. "--Robert Horton"

Oliver Stone
Action
Warner Bros. Pictures
R
The misadventures of Mickey and Mallory: outcasts, lovers, and serial killers. They travel across Route 666 conducting psychadelic mass-slaughters not for money, not for revenge, just for kicks. Glorified by the media, the pair become legendary folk heroes; their story told by the single person they leave alive at the scene of each of their slaughters.

Jean Yarbrough
Comedy
Universal Pictures

In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.

Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton
Comedy
Buster Keaton Productions

Rollo decides to marry his sweetheart Betsy and sail to Honolulu. When she rejects him he decides to go alone but boards the wrong ship, the "Navigator" owned by Betsy's father. Unaware of this, Betsy boards the ship to look for her father. whom spies capture before cutting the ship loose. It drifts out to sea with the two socialites each unaware of there being anyone else on board.

Unknown
Documentary
Genius Entertainment

Harry L. Fraser
Western
Lone Star Productions (I)

Chris Morrell, the guardian of half-Indian girl Nina, is helping her find her missing white father. so she can cash in on her late mother's oil lease. Outlaw Sam Black is after the girl and her father as well. Besides dealing with the Black gang, Morrell has to find another robber, Jim Moore, who switches clothes with him after he finds Chris unconscious from a fight with Sam Black. Along the way, he meets a lady who's the sister of Jim Moore, another bad hombre who's in cahoots with Jim Moore, and an old friend who takes in Nina and helps Chris locate Nina's father and fight off the various desperadoes.

F. Gary Gray
Action
Mandeville Films
R
In the midst of an elaborate conspiracy, an expert negotiator is driven to the edge when he's framed for the murder of his partner, as well as embezzling money from his department's pension fund. His only chance to prove his innocence is to take hostages himself, acquire the services of another expert negotiator, and find out who's running the conspiracy before it's too late.

John G. Avildsen
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation

One man's quiet suburban life takes a sickening lurch for the worse when a young couple move into the deserted house next door. From the word go it is obvious these are not the quiet professional types who *should* be living in such a nice street. As more and more unbelievable events unfold, our hero starts to question his own sanity... and those of his family.

Jay Sandrich
Comedy
Robert Halmi

On one day at an English Hotel, four different stories are shown. Diana is in London to promote her Television Series and her ex-husband Sidney shows up to ask her for money for his gay lover. Mark and Annie come to London for the Wimbledon Tennis matches, but they lose their tickets and Mark's back goes out. Debra is on her honeymoon with Paul, but Paul is missing and Debra lies to everyone she meets as to where Paul is. Sharon and Lauren are on a shop till you drop trip and Sharon meets Dennis, an older man who seems to be interested in her.

Sidney Lumet
Drama
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
R
In 1975 terrorist violence is the stuff of network nightly news programming and the corporate structure of the UBS television network is changing. Meanwhile, Howard Beale, the aging UBS news anchor, has lost his once strong ratings share and so the network fires him. Beale reacts in an unexpected way. We then see how this affects the fortunes of Beale, his coworkers (Max Schumacher and Diana Christensen), and the network.

Edward F. Cline
Comedy
Universal Pictures

Fields wants to sell a film story to Esoteric Studios. On the way he gets insulted by little boys, beat up for ogling a woman, and abused by a waitress. He becomes his niece's guardian when her mother is killed in a trapeze fall during the making of a circus movie. He and his niece, who he finds at a shooting gallery, fly to Mexico to sell wooden nutmegs in a Russian colony. Trying to catch his bottle as it falls from the plane, he lands on a mountain peak where lives the man- eating Mrs. Hemogloben. When he gets to the Russian colony he finds Leon Errol (father of the insulting boys and owner of the shooting gallery) already selling wooden nutmegs. He decides to woo the wealthy Mrs. Hemogloben but when he gets there Errol has preceded him. The Mexican adventure is the story that Esoteric Studios would not buy.

John Sturges
Drama
Canterbury Productions

Captain Tom Reynolds and his band of skilled O.S.S. operatives are in WWII Burma to train the Kachin natives in modern warfare. But jungle combat, particularly against a Japanese army as familiar with the terrain as the Kachin, is more grueling than Reynolds had reckoned. Some respite is found in the arms of beautiful Carla, but after Chinese rebels cross the border to loot and murder American soldiers, Reynolds abandons all notions of "military protocol" and seeks requital.

Zoe Clarke-Williams
Drama
FGM Entertainment
R
At fancy, private Colby University, in the North Carolina hills, a drug overdose puts a senior near death. The school administration calls in the acting sheriff to conduct "a delicate and discrete investigation" - a whitewash. The more he digs, the more evidence he finds that the overdose may have been attempted murder. In flashbacks that parallel his investigation, we see Alicia, a scholarship girl worried about her grades, gradually pulled into the social life of three rich and amoral young women, led by the blond Hadley, a femme fatale. Before the investigation ends, we've met boyfriends, a drug dealer, Alicia's mom, Hadley's dad, nurses, doctors, and an orderly.

Mario Van Peebles
Crime
Jacmac Films
R
The gangster Nino has a gang who call themselves Cash Money Brothers. They get into the crack business and not before long they make a million every week. A cop, Scotty, is after them. He tries to get into the gang by letting an ex-drug addict infiltrate them, but the trial fails miserably. The only thing that remains is that Scotty himself becomes a drug pusher.

Terrence Malick
Adventure
New Line Cinema
PG-13
When 17th century explorer John Smith and a few men go up the river to trade with the Indians, he befriends the princess Pocahontas and they fall in love. While in love, Smith must obtain his duties as president of Jamestown fort and challenges to himself what is the better path for himself to take: stay with the fallen apart colony or go up the river and love Pocahontas in the wild. The Indians realize that the English do not mean to leave, so they attack. A few men at the fort decide to capture Pocahontas as a hostage so the Indians will not attack them. Smith is ordered to leave Jamestown by the King, and John Rolfe, a wealthy tobacco planter arrives at the fort. Pocahontas, now living there adapts to the English cultures and falls in love with Rolfe. She falls apart deciding who she is dedicated to, Smith or Rolfe.

Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola
Comedy
Touchstone Pictures

Three stories happening in New York. The first, by Scorsese, is about a painter who creates his works helped by high volume music and an attractive assistant; second, by Coppola, is about a rich and bold 12 years old who helps her separated parents to reconciliate; third, by Allen, is a witty piece of comedy about the impossibility of getting rid of the son's role.

Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal
Drama, Romance
Ever So Close
R
In the city that never sleeps, love is always on the mind. Those passions come to life in NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU - a collaboration of storytelling from some of today's most imaginative filmmakers and featuring an all-star cast. Together they create a kaleidoscope of the spontaneous, surprising, electrifying human connections that pump the city's heartbeat. Sexy, funny, haunting and revealing encounters unfold beneath the Manhattan skyline. From Tribeca to Central Park to Brooklyn, the story weaves a tale of love as diverse as the very fabric of New York itself.

Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal
Drama
Palm Pictures
R
"New York, I Love You" feels as patchy as its experimental premise. Riffing on "Paris, je t'aime", this film comprises several segments seeking to reflect the Big Apple's diversity and unlikely relationships forged through it. Ten directors had two days to shoot and one week to edit individual segments that are linked by transitions. As a result, the film has a haphazard visual aesthetic, which works to various degrees. The best segments are those that show odd characters navigating the city in unique ways. The first sequence, shot by Mira Nair, features Rifka (Natalie Portman), a Hassid buying her wedding jewels from Jain gem dealer Mansuhkhbai (Irrfan Khan). While these two at first antagonize one another, the common ground they discover is a source of great comedy. Joshua Marston's segment featuring Mitzie (Cloris Leachman) and Abe (Eli Wallach), an elderly Jewish couple squabbling their way down the street, is both endearing and a tribute to a familiar scenario. Another segment that successfully depicts New York life is director Brett Ratner's, in which a nosy pharmacist, played by James Caan, recruits a trustworthy high school student (Anton Yelchin) to take his wheelchair-bound daughter (Olivia Thirlby) to the prom. Other segments feel completely random. Shekhar Kapur's mysterious piece about a concert pianist, Isabelle (Julie Christie), and her rendezvous with waiter Jacob (Shia LaBeouf), is melodramatic and doesn't channel New York enough to be apparent. Overall, "New York, I Love You" feels like a washed-out Woody Allen attempt in terms of clever dialogue, though each viewer may find favorite sequences in those few humorous or touching moments when the film does succeed. --"Trinie Dalton"

Martin Scorsese
Drama
Chartoff-Winkler Productions
PG
The day WWII ends, Jimmy, a selfish and smooth-talking musician, meets Francine, a lounge singer. From that moment on, their relationship grows into love as they struggle with their careers and aim for the top.

Dave Foley, Alan Myerson, Drake Sather, Gregg Heschong, James Burrows
Comedy
Sony Pictures
NR
Tune in for many a sidesplitting look behind the scenes at radio station WNYX. On the air and off the wall, radio's zaniest news team hits you in the funny bone with all the hilarity you've come to expect. Includes every episode from all five seasons!

Steve Carr
Comedy
Cube Vision
R
Debo has escaped from prison and is looking to get revenge on Craig. So Craig's dad takes him to Rancho Cucamonga to hide out with his Uncle Elroy and cousin Day-Day, who moved to the suburbs after winning the lottery. But once he gets there, Craig and Day-Day have a set of suburban misadventures that make his South Central experiences look tame.

Brad Anderson
Comedy
Robbins Entertainment
R
Erin is a nurse and her longtime boyfriend has dumped her. Her mother Piper places a personal ad for her. Meanwhile the film follows the life of Alan, a volunteer at a local aquarium who dreams of becoming a marine biologist. Will their paths cross?

Peter Sollett
Comedy, Drama, Music, Romance
Depth of Field
PG-13
It's been three weeks, two days, and 23 hours since Tris broke up with Nick. And now here she is at his gig, with a new guy. How could she have moved on so fast? This begins the night of Nick, Norah and Manhattan. The night of stripping nuns, hotel ice rooms, Russian food, psychotic ex-boyfriends and lovingly trashy ex-girlfriends. It's the night of Julio and Salvatore. The night of holding hands and writing songs and singing in the rain. It's a night they'll never forget.

Peter Bogdanovich
Comedy
British Lion Film Corporation

This homage to the childhood days of the motion pictures starts in 1910, when the young attorney Leo Harrigan by chance meets a motion picture producer. Immediately he's invited to become a writer for him - the start of a sensational career. Soon he's promoted to a director and shoots one silent movie after the other in the tiny desert village Cacamonga with a small crew of actors. But the competition is hard: the patent agency sends out Buck Greenway to sabotage them. When they visit L.A., his crew is surprised by a new species: fans!

Archie Mayo
Drama
Paramount Pictures

Alain Resnais
Documentary
Argos Films
G
One of the most vivid depictions of the horrors of Nazi Concentration Camps. Filmed in 1955 at several concentration camps in Poland, the film combines new color and black and white footage with black and white newsreels, footage shot by the victorious allies, and stills, to tell the story not only of the camps, but to portray the horror of man's brutal inhumanity.

Jules Dassin
Crime
Twentieth Century-Fox Productions

Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) is a London hustler with ambitious plans that never work out. One day, when he encounters the most famous Greco-Roman wrestler in the world, Gregorius, at a London wrestling arena run by his son Kristo, he dreams up a scheme that he thinks will finally be his ticket to financial independence. As Fabian attempts to con everyone around him to get his scheme to work, he of course only ends up conning himself. This is an interesting tale of blind ambition, self-deception, broken dreams, and how a man who always thinks he's ahead of the game ends up tripping himself very badly.

Irwin Winkler
Crime
Penta Films
R
Robert DeNiro and Jessica Lange are the most impossible couple. He's a failed lawyer. She's a common waitress. Together they get in a downward spiral, as they can't seem to deal with there problems. The lawyer just failed winning a case in court against a famous boxing organiser and he wants revenge by catching the organizer on his own territory: boxing. Although he knows nothing about boxing, with his fine talk he finds the help of a couple of people like the brother of his new enemy. But the relationship with his waitress doesn't make things double as hard.

Sam Wood
Comedy
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

The Marx Brothers take on high society. Two lovers who are both in opera are prevented from being together by the man's lack of acceptance as an operatic tenor. Pulling several typical Marx Brothers' stunts, they arrange for the normal tenor to be absent so that the young lover can get his chance.

Sidney Lumet
Crime
Paramount Pictures
R
Sean Casey is the newest member of the district attorneys office and he is close to uncovering a police scandal that might involve his father Liam, who works for the NYPD. Then his father is critically wounded in a stake-out, Sean is chosen to prosecute the case.

Andrew L. Stone
Crime
Columbia Pictures Corporation

A group of escaped convicts take over a suburban home to evade the ongoing police manhunt, making the lives of the family living there a nightmare. The longer the men stay there, the more the tensions build and the more likely it becomes a tragedy will occur. Based on a real-life hostage-taking.

Archie Mayo
Comedy
Loma Vista Productions

In post-war Casablanca, Ronald Kornblow is hired to run a hotel whose previous managers have all wound up being murdered. French soldier Pierre suspects the involvement of ex-Nazis, specifically Count Pfefferman, in reality the notorious Heinrich Stubel. But Pierre himself is accused of collaborating with the enemy, and attempts to clear his name with the help of his girlfriend Annette and cagey buddy Corbaccio. They enlist the aid of Pfefferman's beleaguered mute valet, Rusty, and discover a hoard of war booty the Nazis have cached in the hotel.

Patrick Stettner
Drama
Hart-Sharp Entertainment
R
Gabriel Noone is a late night radio-host in a big city, specializing in spooky tales culled from his active imagination. When Gabriel's lover decides he needs some "space" and moves out, Gabriel descends into a funk until a publisher friend brings him a manuscript written by 14 year-old Pete Logand, a troubled young fan. Pete's story touches the vulnerable Gabriel deeply. Pete was severely abused by his parents and is now under the care of his former social worker, Donna Logand, who has adopted him. Pete is very ill and he and Donna are keeping a low profile in a small town in Wisconsin to avoid discovery by Pete's mother. Gabriel develops an unsettling long-distance telephone relationship with the boy and his guardian. Nothing is as it seems and the skepticism of friends causes Gabriel to become suspicious of Donna and her motives, so he tries to resolve the loose ends by traveling to Wisconsin to confront Donna and Pete. But this effort is largely unsuccessful and we are left wondering if Pete is real, if Donna is really blind or if Gabriel is the deranged soul of the story.

Arthur Penn
Crime, Thriller
Warner Bros. Pictures
R
Former footballer and present private detective Harry Moseby gets hired on to what seems a standard missing person case, as an aging Hollywood actress whose only major roles came thanks to being married to a studio mogul wants Moseby to find and return her stepdaughter. Harry travels to Florida to find her, but he begins to see a connection with the runaway girl, the world of Hollywood stuntmen, and a suspicious mechanic when an unsolved murder comes to light.

William A. Wellman
Crime
Warner Bros. Pictures

Lora Hart manages to land a job in a hospital as a trainee nurse. Upon completion of her training she goes to work as a night nurse for two small children who seem to be very sick, but something much more sinister is going on.

Hubert Cornfield
Crime
Gina Production

Things start to go wrong for a group of criminals after they kidnap a young heiress and hold her for ransom at a beach house in France. Fighting among the co-conspirators boils over shortly after the ransom is picked up, leading to a violent end for most.

Edward D. Wood Jr.
Horror
Image Entertainment

Follow-up to Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space" about the walking dead, It opens in a cemetery. Criswell, the "real" medium, rises from his coffin to tell us of "monsters to be despised." Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan) is a phony medium aided by Valda Hansen, a bogus ghost, and big Tor Johnson, wearing rags and horrible scar makeup as Lobo. The doctor swindles people by pretending to contact dead relatives, but then accidentally succeeds in reviving a bunch of corpses that bury him alive! Sat unreleased for 23 years because Wood couldn't pay the lab bill! Followed by "Sinister Urge" in 1961 (Wood's last film).

Charles Laughton
Drama
Paul Gregory Productions
G
Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) marries and murders widows for their money, believing he is helping God do away with women who arouse men's carnal instincts. Arrested for auto theft, he shares a cell with condemned killer Ben Harper (Peter Graves) and tries to get him to reveal the whereabouts of the $10,000 he stole. Only Ben's nine-year-old son, John and four-year-old daughter, Pearl know the money is in Pearl's doll and they have sworn to their father to keep this secret. After Ben is executed, Preacher goes to Cresap's Landing to court Ben's widow, Willa (Shelley Winters). He overwhelms her with his Scripture quoting, sermons and hymns, and she agrees to marry him. On their wedding night he tells her they will never have sex because it is sinful. When the depressed, confused, guilty woman catches him trying to force Pearl to reveal the whereabouts of the money, she is resigned to her fate but the children manage to escape downriver, with Preacher following close behind.

George A. Romero
Horror
Image Ten

The radiation from a fallen satellite might have caused the recently deceased to rise from the grave and seek the living to use as food. This is the situation that a group of people penned up in an old farmhouse must deal with.

Jim Jarmusch
Comedy
Victor Company of Japan (JVC)

A collection of five stories involving cab drivers in five different cities. Los Angeles - A talent agent for the movies discovers her cab driver would be perfect to cast, but the cabbie is reluctant to give up her solid cab driver's career. New York - An immigrant cab driver is continually lost in a city and culture he doesn't understand. Paris - A blind girl takes a ride with a cab driver from the Ivory Coast and they talk about life and blindness. Rome - A gregarious cabbie picks up an ailing man and virtually talks him to death. Helsinki - an industrial worker gets laid off and he and his compatriots discuss the bleakness and unfairness of love and life and death.

Liliana Cavani
Crime
Italonegglio Cinematografico
R
Thirteen years after WWII a concentration camp survivor (Rampling) and her tormentor, currently the night porter at a Vienna hotel, meet again and fall back into their sado-masochistic relationship.

Ron Howard
Comedy
Ladd Company, The
R
A nebbish of a morgue attendant gets shunted back to the night shift where he is shackled with an obnoxious neophyte partner who dreams of the "one great idea" for success. His life takes a bizarre turn when a prostitute neighbour complains about the loss of her pimp. His partner, upon hearing the situation, suggests that they fill that opening themselves using the morgue at night as their brothel. Against his better judgement, he gets talked into the idea, only to find that it's more than his boss that has objections to this bit of entrepreneurship.

Curtis Harrington
Drama
Phoenix Films

On leave in a shore side town, Johnny becomes interested in a young dark haired woman. They meet and he learns that she plays a mermaid in the local carnival. After strange occurrences, Johnny begins to believe that she may actually be a real mermaid that habitually kills during the cycle of the full moon.

Roy Ward Baker
Action
Rank Organisation, The
PG
A successful attempt at an even-handed portrayal of the White Star Line's (later part of Cunard) luxury liner R.M.S. Titanic's sinking from the standpoint of 2nd Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller, himself the most senior of the ill-fated ship's Deck Officers to survive the disaster. (Lightoller later went on to distinguish himself as a line British Naval Officer during the First World War and served as a Senior Naval Staff Officer (convoys) during WWII. Between wars he owned and operated a successful family business producing pleasure craft.) His own survival of the sinking, along with several others, is shown atop one of the liner's two "collapsible" lifeboats which was capsized in floating off the liner as it sank. The picture depicts then known facts (c1958) as reported after the sinking; such as the woeful lack of adequate lifeboats, the ship's band playing true to the very end, White Star's co-owner Bruce Ismay's somewhat less than chivalrous departure from the sinking vessel -and- the Titanic's designer (Andrews, on-board) revelation that due to the severity of below-the-water-line damage and that the vaunted watertight compartments were not designed to nor sealed up to the weather deck, would only delay the inevitable as sea water spilled over the top of one to the next from the bows to the stern. It also addresses the mysterious ship seen from the Titanic's bridge stopped some 12-19 miles off and depicts it as being the S.S. Californian, whom - if that steamship had responded, the loss of life could have been far, far less. The Californian is seen stopped due to the ice warnings, the same alerts whose import were undervalued by the Titanic's Captain Smith. She herself had shut-down wireless operations, nominally at 11:00pm as her sole operator retired for the evening, this before the iceberg was struck and the 1st distress calls were made by Titanic. It also addresses somewhat the coal fire in one of Titanic's bunkers - apparently not uncommon back in those days, before her departure into the Atlantic and potential for damage to steel plates below the water line. (This picture predates the calling-into-question of the quality of rivets (metalurgy) which has since come to the fore.) The film also shows the class distinction and its impact as to whom - of the "women and children first," got a seat in a boat; the fact that the first/earliest lifeboats launched were not at full capacity; and that the boats launched from the port and starboard side held to different criteria as to loading. The latter allows the viewer an inference as to the importance for crew and passenger alike as to lifeboat drills which were then (1912) neither required nor ever held aboard Titanic. One of several movies on the subject, it stands well the test-of-time for its "just the facts" approach in the telling and avoidance of conjecture or added melodrama.

Edmund Goulding
Drama
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Stanton Carlisle is an ambitious carnie who plays scams alongside phony mentalist Zeena and her alcoholic husband Pete, working the crowd as Zeena pretends to read their minds. But Stan has no intention of staying with the carnival; he has his heart set on an upscale night club act.

Mario Caiano
Horror
Cinematografica Emmeci

A sadistic count tortures and murders his unfaithful wife and her lover, then removes their hearts from their bodies. Years later, the count remarries and the new wife experiences nightmares and hauntings. The ghosts of the slain return to exact their bloody revenge, until their hearts are destroyed.

Wes Craven
Fantasy
New Line Cinema

On Elm Street, Nancy Thompson and a group of her friends including Tina Gray, Rod Lane and Glen Lantz are being tormented by a clawed killer in their dreams named Freddy Krueger. Nancy must think quickly, as Freddy tries to pick off his victims one by one. When he has you in your sleep, who is there to save you?

Federico Fellini
Drama
Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica

Cabiria is a wide-eyed waif, a streetwalker living in a poor section of Rome where she owns her little house, has a bank account, and dreams of a miracle. We follow her nights (and days): a boyfriend steals 40,000 lire from her and nearly drowns her, a movie star on the Via Veneto takes her home with him, at a local shrine she seeks the Madonna's intercession, then she meets an accountant who's seen her, hypnotized on a vaudeville stage, acting out her heart's longings. He courts her. Is it fate that led to their meeting? Is this finally a man who appreciates her for who she is?

Ben McPherson
Documentary

Andrew Green
Thriller
A&A Films Ltd.

Tim plans to spend his 21st birthday at his Scottish estate with eight of his closest friends. Amongst the excitement of rediscovering old friendships, no one minds that a snowstorm has cut them off from the rest of the outside world. Everything is set for the perfect weekend, until one of the guests stumbles across an old history of the house with the power to unleash the horrors of Scotland's past. The book tells of Murray, the old Scot patriot, who has had his eyes torn out and his house taken away during the English invasion. Intent on exacting bloody revenge on the reunited English friends Murray possesses the body of a guest and turns him into a murderer. He seems impossible to stop as when the possessed guest is killed, Murray passes into the killer to continue his mission of murdering all nine of them. It is survival of the fittest as the friendships are pushed to the limit. No one can guess who the next killer will be or how to break the chain. Only one will survive.

Rodrigo García
Drama
Mockingbird Pictures
R

Chris Columbus
Comedy
1492 Pictures
PG-13
Samuels life is perfect. That is, until he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. Now he must face the issues that come with being an expecting father, in a most entertaining way.

Fabián Bielinsky
Crime
FX Sound
R
Early one morning, Marcos observes Juan successfully pulling off a bill-changing scam on a cashier, and then getting caught as he attempts to pull the same trick on the next shift. Marcos steps in, claiming to be a policeman, and drags Juan out of the store. Once they are back on the street, Marcos reveals himself to be a fellow swindler with a game of much higher stakes in mind, and he invites Juan to be his partner in crime. A once-in-a-lifetime scheme seemingly falls into their laps - an old-time con man enlists them to sell a forged set of extremely valuable rare stamps, The Nine Queens. The tricky negotiations that ensue bring into the picture a cast of suspicious characters, including Marcos' sister Valeria, their younger brother Federico and a slew of thieves, conmen and pickpockets. As the deceptions mount, it becomes more and more difficult to figure out who is conning whom.

John August
Drama
Destination Films
R
Gary, an actor who plays a cop on television, uses too much lighter fluid when he burns his ex-girlfriend's things, then he drinks and drives, uses crack, and crashes his car. He sobers up in jail and is placed under house arrest and the watchful eye of a publicist, the cheery and tough-minded Margaret. She moves him into the empty house of a writer who's away in Canada on a shoot. Gary meets Sarah, an attractive and seemingly-willing neighbor. His friendship with Margaret blooms and strange things happen: he finds notes he doesn't remember writing, he hears noises, and he seems to bump into himself in the kitchen. Two remaining chapters reveal what's going on.

Ernst Lubitsch
Comedy
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Only the royal suite at the grandest hotel in Paris has a safe large enough for the jewels of the Grand Duchess Swana. So the three Russians who have come to sell the jewels settle into the suite until a higher ranking official is dispatched to find out what is delaying the sale. She is Ninotchka, a no nonsense woman who fascinates Count Leon who had been the faithful retainer of the Grand Duchess. The Grand Duchess will give up all claim to the jewels if Ninotchka will fly away from the count. But can one count on a count?

Roman Polanski
Fantasy
Araba Films
R
The sleazy book dealer Corso (Depp) is hired by the obscure obsessive Balkan to find the only other two copies of his rare book in existence. The book is called 'The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows', and Balkan wants to authenticate his copy of this 17th century occult work, said to have been written by the devil. And thus begins an almost 'Angel heart'ish (remember that one with Rourke and De Niro) escapade, filled with physical and supernatural catalysts and obstacles

Lance Bangs
Music
Geffen Records

Oliver Stone
Biography
Cinergi Pictures Entertainment
R
The story of Richard M. Nixon, former president of the United States whose presidency ended in disgrace. The only US president ever to resign his office to avoid being impeached. The film begins with the Watergate burglary which began his downfall and jumps around in time a great deal.

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Crime
Paramount Vantage
R
In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart.

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Crime
Paramount Vantage
R
In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart.

Martin Scorsese
Documentary
Box TV

Portrait of an artist as a young man. Roughly chronological, using archival footage intercut with recent interviews, a story takes shape of Bob Dylan's (b. 1941) coming of age from 1961 to 1966 as a singer, songwriter, performer, and star. He takes from others: singing styles, chord changes, and rare records. He keeps moving: on stage, around New York City and on tour, from Suze Rotolo to Joan Baez and on, from songs of topical witness to songs of raucous independence, from folk to rock. He drops the past. He refuses, usually with humor and charm, to be simplified, classified, categorized, or finalized: always becoming, we see a shapeshifter on a journey with no direction home.

Charles Ferguson
Documentary
Red Envelope Entertainment

Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 - and the backgrounds of those making decisions - immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over: no provisional Iraqi government, de-Ba'athification, and disbanding the Iraqi armed services. The film has chapters (from History to Consequences), and the talking heads are reporters, academics, soldiers, military brass, and former Bush-administration officials, including several who were in Baghdad in 2003.

Bob Rafelson
Crime
ApolloMedia
R
About a police detective, Jack, who, while doing a friend a favor and searching for a runaway teenager on Turk Street, stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery. Jack finds himself being held hostage while the criminals decide what to do with him, and the leader's beautiful girlfriend, Erin, is left alone to watch Jack. Erin, who we discover is a master manipulator of the men in the gang, reveals another side to Jack - a melancholy romantic who could have been a classical cellist. She finds Jack's captivity an irresistible turn-on and he can't figure out if she's for real, or manipulating him, too. Before the gang returns, Jack and Erin's connection intensifies and who ends up with the money is anyone's guess.

Laura Gabbert, Justin Schein
Documentary
Eden Wurmfeld Films
NR
Studio: Oscilloscope Pictures Release Date: 01/19/2010 Run time: 93 minutes Rating: Nr

Edward Burns
Comedy
Good Machine
R
Claudia has lived all her life in a small, seaside, blue-collar town, hanging out with the same group of friends since grade school. Now she's waiting tables in a greasy spoon to help support her mother. After three years together, her live-in boyfriend, Michael, is eager to tie the knot. Their life together is comfortable and Michael loves her. But Claudia has dreams of life beyond her home town and is afraid that if she marries now, she'll never realize them. Claudia's sister Kelly lives with her mother and struggles with good humor to care for her fatherless baby. Their mother hasn't left the house since Claudia's dad walked out on the family six months ago. No one understands why Claudia sympathizes with her renegade father, like him, she has a wild, restless streak and longs for more. But she can't quite put her finger on what it is she wants. So when her old flame, Charlie, returns from out west, she begins to wonder... maybe he's the answer.

Hal Hartley
Horror
American Zoetrope
R
Disgusted with human evolution and a society driven by instant gratification and voyeuristic sensationalism, a foul-mouthed Monster kills anyone who crosses his path. When a news crew sent to investigate the Monster disappears, their ratings-obsessed boss sends a guileless young woman to follow up on the story. This young journalist forges an unlikely friendship with the Monster.

Marius Balchunas
Comedy
Lions Gate
R
Lillian (Christina Ricci) is a 21-year-old drifter engaged to a philandering loser and locked in her room with a strange man. She lives next to a failed violinist who won't stop playing his instrument. He lives next to a New Age fanatic who's into colonic treatments; she lives next to two drug addicts who mess with the wrong prostitutes and end up answering to a pimp played by Robert Wagner. In a barrage of head-spinning vignettes, we are sucked into a surreal motel fantasy-land where society's riff raff dwell in that awkward place between freedom and desperation.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Drama
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

The Biddle brothers, shot while robbing a gas station, are taken to the prison ward of the County Hospital; Ray Biddle, a rabid racist, wants no treatment from black resident Dr. Luther Brooks. When brother John dies while Luther tries to save him, Ray is certain it's murder and becomes obsessed with vengeance. But there are black racists around too, and the situation slides rapidly toward violence.

Roger Donaldson
Drama
Orion Pictures Corporation
R
Tom Farrell is a navy officer who gets posted at the Pentagon and is to report to the secretary of defence David Brice. He starts an affair with Susan Atwell not knowing that she is Brice's mistress. When Susan is found dead, Tom is assigned to the case of finding the killer who is believed to be a KGB mole! Tom could soon become a suspect when a polaroid negative of him was found at Susan's place. He now has only a few hours to find the killer before the computer regenerates the photo.

John Junkerman
Documentary
Plug Music

Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick
Documentary
Humanist Broadcasting Foundation

This film showcases Noam Chomsky, one of America's leading linguists and political dissidents. It also illustrates his message of how government and big media businesses cooperate to produce an effective propaganda machine in order to manipulate the opinions of the United States populous. The key example for this analysis is the simultaneous events of the massive coverage of the communist atrocities of Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia and the suppression of news of the US supported Indonesian invasion and subjugation of East Timor.

Robert Benton
Drama
Capella International
R
Sully is a rascally ne'er-do-well approaching retirement age. While he is pressing a worker's compensation suit for a bad knee, he secretly works for his nemesis, Carl, and flirts with Carl's young wife Toby. Sully's long- forgotten son and family have moved back to town, so Sully faces unfamiliar family responsibilities. Meanwhile, Sully's landlady's banker son plots to push through a new development and evict Sully from his mother's life.

Hamish Hamilton
Music
Blue Note Records
NR
Norah Jones's growth as a performing artist since she burst on the scene in 2002 is apparent on "Norah Jones and the Handsome Band: Live in 2004", her second concert DVD (following "Live in New Orleans", released in '03). The gifted singer-pianist-songwriter is still something of a reluctant headliner; personable if not exactly effusive (and seemingly bemused by the adulation), she's self-effacing and winningly unpretentious onstage. That goes for the music as well, as Jones and her empathetic band (now including guitarist Robbie McIntosh, formerly of the Pretenders and Paul McCartney's band) put on a tasteful, understated show at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. Songs from her second CD, "Feels Like Home", are favored, along with a version of the Grammy-winning "Don't Know Why" that's received with near-reverence by the audience. Jones's choice of cover material, including tunes by John Prine ("That's the Way the World Goes 'Round"), Tom Waits ("The Long Way Home"), and Gram Parsons ("She," which is among the several bonus tracks; other extras include two videos and three "mini-documentaries"), is also admirable, but it's when her various guests show up that the show approaches genuine transcendence. Among them are Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who harmonize beautifully with Jones on Townes Van Zandt's "Loretta," and the indefatigable Dolly Parton, whose duet with Jones on bassist Lee Alexander's bluegrass-flavored "Creepin' In" is the undisputed highlight of the show. Radiant, ebullient, and in great voice, Parton is a "star", and Norah defers to her accordingly. The only problem comes when Jones and company have to pick up where Parton left off, and in truth, it takes them a while to recover. "--Sam Graham"

Jim Gabour, James Frost
Music

G

Tim Fywell
Biography
Home Box Office (HBO)
R

John McNaughton
Crime
Fine Line Features
R
Chris is young idealistic cop who falls in love and gets married to Pam, a beautiful but emotionally unstable woman who suffers from alcoholism and drug addiction. While Chris is trying hard to have a normal life and some money, Pam is big spender and their marriage is constantly troublesome with the financial situation getting worse and worse. The biggest blow comes after Chris loses his job. In the desperate situation Chris decides to use his police skills to rob banks.

Alfred Hitchcock
Action & Adventure
Warner Home Video
NR
A strong candidate for the most sheerly entertaining and enjoyable movie ever made by a Hollywood studio (with "Citizen Kane", "Only Angels Have Wings" and "Trouble in Paradise" running neck and neck). Positioned between the much heavier and more profoundly disturbing "Vertigo" (1958) and the stark horror of "Psycho" (1960), "North by Northwest" (1959) is Alfred Hitchcock at his most effervescent in a romantic comedy-thriller that also features one of the definitive Cary Grant performances. Which is not to say that this is just "Hitchcock Lite"; seminal Hitchcock critic Robin Wood (in his book Hitchcock's Films Revisited) makes an airtight case for this glossy MGM production as one of The Master's "unbroken series of masterpieces from Vertigo to Marnie." It's a classic Hitchcock Wrong Man scenario: Grant is Roger O. Thornhill (initials ROT), an advertising executive who is mistaken by enemy spies for a U.S. undercover agent named George Kaplan. Convinced these sinister fellows (James Mason as the boss, and Martin Landau as his henchman) are trying to kill him, Roger flees and meets a sexy Stranger on a Train (Eva Marie Saint), with whom he engages in one of the longest, most convolutedly choreographed kisses in screen history. And, of course, there are the famous set pieces: the stabbing at the United Nations, the crop-duster plane attack in the cornfield (where a pedestrian has no place to hide), and the cliffhanger finale atop the stone faces of Mount Rushmore. Plus a sparkling Ernest Lehman script and that pulse-quickening Bernard Herrmann score. What more could a moviegoer possibly desire?"--Jim Emerson"
Also on the Blu-ray disc
"North by Northwest" is a great-looking Blu-ray disc, with a sharpness and colors that seem like you're watching the film for the first time. New on the 50th anniversary edition are a one-hour documentary on Hitchcock's work "The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style," and a shorter one (25 min.) specifically about the film, ""North by Northwest": One for the Ages." It's packaged in one of Warner's Blu-ray books, with trivia, character profiles, and stills and vintage art. Older extras include screenwriter Ernest Lehman's commentary track, a 90-minute profile of star Cary Grant, the documentary from 2000 "Destination Hitchcock: The Making of "North by Northwest"" hosted by Eva Marie-Saint, a music-only audio track, and theatrical trailers. "--David Horiuchi"
Stills from North by Northwest (Click for larger image; not Blu-ray screen-captures)

Niki Caro
Drama
Warner Bros. Pictures
R
A semi-fictionalized account of a long legal battle of group of women miners who endured a hostile work environment and numerous and continuous insults and unwanted touching when they became the first women to go work at the Eveleth Mines in Minnesota.

Ted Kotcheff
Comedy
Frank Yablans Presentations
R
A semi-fictional account of life as a professional Football (American-style) player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970s.

Michael Polish
Drama
Paramount Classics
PG-13
In a near-empty Northfork orphanage, Father Harlan gently tends to Irwin, an eight-year-old who lies between a dream state and death. As orphanage caretaker Harlan reads aloud about Northfork's years-ago forced evacuation to make way for a hydro-electric dam, Irwin's imagination takes flight. While a team of six men evacuate the last remaining citizens of the town, Irwin, too, invents a cast of characters to prepare himself for his own evacuation. (the above states the caretaker - who is actually the priest - is reading about a years-ago evacuation. In the movie, the evacuation is taking place as the boy lays dying!)

F.W. Murnau
Fantasy
Jofa-Atelier Berlin-Johannisthal

An unauthorized production of Bram Stoker's work (The legal heirs didn't give their permission), so the names had to be changed. But this wasn't enough: The widow of Bram Stoker won two lawsuits (1924 and 1929) in which she demanded the destruction of all copies of the movie, however happily copies of it were already too widespread to destroy them all. Later, the Universal studios could break her resistance against this movie. Count Orlok's move to Wisburg (Obviously the real "Wismar") brings the plague traceable to his dealings with the Realtor Thomas Hutter, and the Count's obsession with Hutter's wife, Ellen the only one with the power to end the evil.

Joel Gallen
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation
R
At John Hughes High School, the students are the same as just about every other teenager in a teen movie. The popular jock, Jake (Chris Evans), takes a bet from Austin, the cocky blonde guy (Eric Christian Olsen), that he can transform Janey, the pretty ugly girl (Chyler Leigh), into the prom queen before the prom. But two people are trying to stop Jake from succeeding: his evil sister, Catherine, the cruelest girl in school (Mia Kirshner), and Priscilla, the bitchy cheerleader (Jaime Pressly). And all of their friends are the same as any other teen movie: Areola, the naked foreign exchange student (Cerina Vincent), Les, the beautiful weirdo (Riley Smith), Malik, the token black guy (Deon Richmond), the desperate virgins (Cody McMains, Samm Levine, and Sam Huntington), Amanda Becker, the perfect girl (Lacey Chabert), Ricky, Janey's obsessed best friend (Eric Jungmann), and Sadie, the VERY old undercover reporter (Beverly Polcyn).

Todd Holland, John Riggi
Comedy
Sony Pictures
NR
Garry Shandling wraps up the run of his groundbreaking HBO comedy series in definitive yet nostalgic fashion in this boxed set, wryly titled "Not Just the Best of The Larry Sanders Show". Now there's truth in advertising. Along with 23 of what Shandling felt were the best episodes of the show's run (89 episodes from 1992-98) comes eight hours of newly produced material, including a feature-length "making of" documentary, cast and star interviews, deleted scenes, commentaries, and footage of Shandling on personal visits with stars like Alec Baldwin, Jon Stewart, and Jerry Seinfeld. The personal visits are some of the most interesting moments (a breakfast with Sharon Stone is so strained and forced it's hard not to laugh) and the new features bring so much of Garry's personal thoughts and feelings into play that maybe this set would have been better named "Being Garry Shandling". But it seems only fair to get such a subjective and in-depth personal view on the series from the man who made awkward self-consciousness a comedic art form.
"The Larry Sanders Show" was at the forefront of changing the genre of TV comedy, and influenced the development of many shows to follow, like "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Arrested Development", and both versions of "The Office". The source of that inspiration is on full display here, as talk-show host Larry Sanders (Shandling) along with his producer Artie (Rip Torn) and his "poor deluded bastard" sidekick Hank (Jeffrey Tambor), struggles to keep his late-night talk show on the air despite dropping ratings, absurd notes from the network, and a hilarious tendency to self-sabotage his personal life. His guest stars, including some of the biggest names in show business, seem to enjoy lampooning their images and provide some of the sharpest comic moments. It's great stuff, and it's too bad all six seasons are not scheduled to be released on DVD. Shandling reportedly went this route with the release, rather than continuing with complete seasons, because of a desire to wrap it all up at once after a long legal battle with producer Brad Grey. While many fans might bemoan the fact that there will be no complete-season sets of "The Larry Sanders Show" released after this, there are episodes from all six seasons here to enjoy, including the first and the double-part finale. With a gem like this, it's better to savor what's available than to lament what might have been. "--Daniel Vancini"

Mark Hartley
Documentary
City Films Worldwide
R
The story of "Ozploitation" movies - a time when Australian cinema showed an explosion of sex, violence, horror and action. Includes anecdotes, lessons in maverick filmmaking and a genuine love of Australian movies. It moves through Aussie genre cinema of the 70s and early 80s - claiming it's an unjustly forgotten cinematic era of boobs, pubes, tubes... and even a little kung fu.

Richard Eyre
Drama
BBC Films
R
The bitter, cynical and lonely Barbara Covett is a tough and conservative teacher near to retirement that is loathed by her colleagues and students. In the loneliness of her apartment, she spends her spare time writing her journal, taking care of her old cat Portia and missing her special friend Jennifer Dodd. When Sheba Hart joins the high-school as the new art teacher, Barbara dedicates her attention to the newcomer, writing sharp and unpleasant comments about her behavior and clothes. When Barbara helps Sheba in a difficult situation with two students, the grateful Sheba invites her to have lunch with her family. Sheba introduces her husband and former professor Richard Hart, who is about twenty years older than she; her rebellious teenager daughter Polly; and her son Ben that has Dawn Syndrome. Barbara becomes close to Sheba, but when she accidentally discovers that Sheba is having an affair with the fifteen year-old student Steven Connolly, Barbara sees the chance to manipulate and get closer to Sheba, hiding the secret from the school headmaster. When Portia dies and Sheba does not stay with Barbara in the veterinary office to see Ben in a theater play, Barbara plots a Machiavellian revenge against Sheba, creating a scandal and consequent turmoil in their lives.

Michael Roemer
Drama
DuArt

The tale is a familiar one for American moviegoers; a devil-may-care young man is drawn to a grounded young woman, they part, he realizes he prefers stability to freedom, they reconcile. The interest for viewers today as well as 40 years ago lies in the protagonists' skin color: they are black, as is most everyone else on screen. And they live in the Deep South of the early 1960s, where the still-operative system of peonage conspired to keep African-Americans enslaved economically and beaten down emotionally.

Rod Lurie
Drama, Thriller
Battleplan Productions
R
Thinking Pulitzer Prize and hoping to bring down a President, D.C. political columnist Rachel Armstrong writes that the President ignored the findings of a covert CIA operative when ordering air strikes against Venezuela. Rachel names the agent, Erica Van Doren, a woman whose young daughter is in Rachel's son's class at school. The government moves quickly to force Rachel to name her source. She's jailed for contempt when she refuses. She won't change her mind, and the days add up. Chaos descends on Van Doren's life as well. First Amendment versus national security, marriage and motherhood versus separation. What's the value of a principle?

Sam Taylor
Comedy
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Working as chef and butler, the boys wreck a fancy dinner party and, in the process, accidently foil a plot, by enemy agents, to poison a young exiled king.

Garry Marshall
Comedy
Delphi Films
PG
David Basner is a successful advertising executive who has it all: Money, happiness, and women who want him. Then one day his world falls apart when his mother leaves his father. Now, he must balance his life between his mother, who is happy with her newfound independence, and his father, a recently laid off salesman who is hard-headed, stubborn, and hides a lot from David. Now David must cope with the downfall of his family and his life.

William A. Wellman
Comedy
Selznick International Pictures

To redeem himself after a hoax, reporter Wallace Cook proposes a series of stories on doomed Hazel Flagg. Hazel discovers she really doesn't have radium poisoning, but still accepts the big fling in New York that Cook offers her. At first, she has a great time, but complications arise when she and Wally fall in love, and an Austrian specialist discovers that Hazel is faking.

Alfred Hitchcock
Drama
Vanguard Films

Following the conviction of her German father for treason against the U.S., Alicia Huberman takes to drink and men. She is approached by a government agent (T.R. Devlin) who asks her to spy on a group of her father's Nazi friends operating out of Rio de Janeiro. A romance develops between Alicia and Devlin, but she starts to get too involved in her work.

George Tillman Jr.
Biography, Drama, Music
Fox Searchlight Pictures
R
NOTORIOUS is the story of Christopher Wallace. Through raw talent and sheer determination, Wallace transforms himself from Brooklyn street hustler (once selling crack to pregnant women) to one of the greatest rappers of all time; THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. Follow his meteoric rise to fame and his refusal to succumb to expectations - redefining our notion of "The American Dream."

Mary Harron
Biography
HBO Films
R
Portrait of an American innocent. In 1955, Bettie Page (1923 - ) waits to testify before a Senate subcommittee investigating the effects of pornographic material on American adolescents and juveniles. In flashbacks, we see her childhood in Tennessee, a brief marriage, a gang rape, and her going to New York City in 1949. There she takes acting lessons, models for photos, and acts in short films for adults, earning the nickname, "The Pin-Up Queen of the Universe." We see her relationship with merchants Irving and Paula Klaw, photographers John Willie and Bunny Yeager, boyfriends, and the public. Through it all, she is wholesome, sporting, and forthright - Eve before the fall.

Roger Michell
Comedy
Polygram Filmed Entertainment
PG-13
Every man's dream comes true for William Thacker, a successless Notting Hill bookstore owner, when Anna Scott, the world's most beautiful woman and best-liked actress, enters his shop. A little later, he still can't believe it himself, William runs into her again - this time spilling orange juice over her. Anna accepts his offer to change in his nearby apartment, and thanks him with a kiss, which seems to surprise her even more than him. Eventually, Anna and William get to know each other better over the months, but being together with the world's most wanted woman is not easy - neither around your closest friends, nor in front of the all-devouring press.

David Atkins
Comedy
Artisan Entertainment
R
Dr. Frank Sangster is a straight-laced dentist who because of one innocent lie, finds his tidy, prosperous life transformed into a comic quagmire of illicit sex, illegal drugs and inexplicable murder in this brilliantly offbeat, bitingly comedic film!

Greg Harrison
Drama
IFC Productions
R
When her boyfriend is shot to death in a robbery, LA photographer Sopie Jacobs tries her hardest to put the event behind her. But as she struggles to get over the murder, Sophie's life begins to change, leaving her clueless as to what's coming. But worst of all, the line between reality and fantasy is beginning to shatter.

Strath Hamilton
Documentary
First Look Pictures
Unrated
This DVD is way more than just Tom Green ( who is great on the DVD). It features a whole lot of commedians like Carrot Top, Rich Little, Paul Rodriguez, Andy Dick, The Smothers Brothers, The Amazing Jonathan, Mac King, and Jason Stuart giving you the inside info on how to make people laugh. You see stand up routines analysed by the stand ups, jokes from folks on the street, comedy in Concert. All different kinds of comedy - from Charlie Chaplin's physical comedy to stand ups in New York Comedy clubs, to Vegas lounge acts and ventriloquists like Ronn Lucas. For anyone who likes comedy THIS DVD IS A MUST BUY. For $10 bucks it's a steal.

Unknown
News
Jumpstart Productions

Jeff Anderson
Comedy
Aldana Properties
R

Alfred Hitchcock
Crime
British International Pictures (BIP)

Detective Gilbert is searching for a necklace robbed by a gang of thieves. In the beginning, the gang is in a house in London, then they are running away from police. It will not be easy for the detective to recover the jewel.

Neil LaBute
Comedy
Gramercy Pictures
R
A Kansas City waitress (Renee Zellweger) with dreams of becoming a nurse becomes delusional after seeing her no-good car salesman husband (Aaron Eckhart) murdered. Becoming delusional from shock, she becomes convinced that she is the former fiancee of her soap opera idol (Greg Kinnear). What she also believes is that the soap opera is real and goes to LA to find the hospital where he works as a cardiologist. Meanwhile, her husband's murderers (Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock) are searching for the drugs stolen by her husband and, as luck would have it, they are stored in the trunk of the car she drove off in. Freeman, an aging hitman planning his retirement after this job, also becomes delusional about the woman he is tracking.

Jerry Lewis
Comedy
Jerry Lewis Enterprises

Professor Julius Kelp is a nerd who's been picked on by everyone. After the football coach humiliates him in front of his class and his beautiful student, Stella, Julius decides he will create a potion. After drinking the potion, he turns into, Buddy Love a wild and a popular party animal, plus, he isn't afraid to talk to Stella anymore. There's one problem-the potion wears off quickly.

Tom Shadyac
Comedy
Imagine Entertainment
PG-13
Sherman Klump is an incredibly fat and good-hearted man. He is a college professor on the verge of a breakthrough in DNA restructuring when he meets an admirer of his, named Carla, who is a teacher new to Klump's college. He is enamored of her, but is frustrated by his tremendous bulk. He then decides to test a formula on which he's been working on himself. He is then transformed into the lecherous swinger, Buddy Love, and romantic complications ensue.

Peter Segal
Comedy
Imagine Entertainment
PG-13
Professor Sherman Klump is getting married. And the Klump family could not be more delighted for him. But Buddy Love, his Mr. Hyde alter-ego from the first film, is back and trying to make it on his own. Buddy keeps resurfacing in untimely outbursts, and threatening the portly professor's marriage plans to colleague Denise Gaines. Utilizing Denise's cutting-edge DNA research, Sherman decides to rid himself of his monstrous nemesis -and his disruptive outbursts-once and for all by extracting Buddy's DNA from his system. But Buddy bursts full-bodied into Sherman's world and lays claim to the professor's astounding invention - a revolutionary youth serum. Desperate to keep it from Buddy, Sherman hides the serum in the Klump family home, thinking it will be safe. Buddy correctly divines where Sherman has placed the serum, but to get it, he has to deal with the entire Klump family first.