Orson Welles
Documentary
Janus Film

Orson Welles' free-form documentary about fakery focusses on the notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and Elmyr's biographer, Clifford Irving, who also wrote the celebrated fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography, then touches on the reclusive Hughes and Welles' own career (which started with a faked resume and a phony Martian invasion). On the way, Welles plays a few tricks of his own on the audience.

Jed Weintrob
Drama
DitlevFilms

Francine Parker
Documentary
Duque Films

A documentary about a political troupe headed by actors Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland which traveled to towns near military bases in the US in the early 1970s. The group put on shows called "F.T.A.", which stood for "F**k the Army", and was aimed at convincing soldiers to voice their opposition to the Vietnam War, which was raging at the time. Various singers, actors and other entertainers performed antiwar songs and skits during the show.

Steve Kloves
Drama
Gladden Entertainment
R
Frank and Jack Baker are professional musicians who play small clubs. They play smaltzy music and have never needed a day job. Times are changing and dates are becoming more difficult to get so they interview female singers. They finally decide on Susie Diamond, a former 'escort' who needs some refinement, but the act begins to take off again. While the act is now successful, both Frank and Jack have problems with their life on the road. Susie becomes the agent that makes them re-evaluate where they are going, and how honest they have been with each other.

Lisa Ades, Lesli Klainberg
Documentary
Orchard Films

A chronological look at films by, for, or about (or "by, for, and about") gays and lesbians in the United States, from 1947 to 2005, Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" to "Brokeback Mountain." Talking heads, anchored by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich, are interspersed with an advancing timeline and with clips from two dozen films. The narrative groups the pictures around various firsts, movements, and triumphs: experimental films, indie films, sex on screen, outlaw culture and bad guys, lesbian lovers, films about AIDS and dying, emergence of romantic comedy, transgender films, films about diversity and various cultures, and then mainstream Hollywood drama. What might come next?

Hiroshi Teshigahara
Drama
Teshigahara Productions

A businessman facially scarred in a laboratory fire receives psychotherapy from a psychiatrist, and obtains an amazingly lifelike mask from the doctor. Soon after being fitted for the mask, he seduces his wife and succeeds. But his wife claims she was aware all along who he was and believed that both were just masquerading together as most couples usually do in different ways. Strangely enough, his personality seemingly begins to change after he puts on the mask as if the mask has influenced his personality. His new identity does not enable him to reintegrate into society after all. A subplot is inserted in fragments. A good-natured young woman, the right side of whose face is disfigured, has been hurt by others' inquisitive eyes and insults, and has been shunned by men. She asks her older brother, the only man who understands her pain and solitude, to make love to her, hiding from him the intent of killing herself after then.

John Woo
Action
Touchstone Pictures
R
Sean Archer, a very tough, rugged FBI Agent. Who is still grieving for the dead son Michael. Archer believes that his son's killer is his sworn enemy, a very powerful criminal, Castor Troy. One day, Archer has finally cornered Castor, however, their fight has knocked out Troy cold. As Archer finally breathes easy over the capture of his enemy, he finds out that Troy has planted a bomb that will destroy the entire city of Los Angeles and all of its inhabitants. Unfortunately the only other person who knows its location is Castor's brother Pollux, and he refuses to talk. The solution, a special operation doctor that can cut off people's faces, and can place a person's face onto another person. Archer undergoes one of those surgeries to talk to Pollux. However, Castor Troy somehow regains consciousness and now wants revenge on Archer for taking his face. Not only is Troy ruining Archer's mission, but his personal life as well. Archer must stop Troy again. This time, it's personal.

John Cassavetes
Drama
Criterion

Richard Forst has grown old. One night, he leaves his wife for Jeannie Rapp, a young woman who does not like friendship. Meanwhile, Richard's wife, Maria, is seduced by Chet, a kind young man from Detroit... A film about the meaningless of life for a certain kind of wealthy middle-aged people.

Pete McCormack
TV & Miniseries
Lions Gate
R
He rocked the sport, shook the world, and changed their lives. Now, several decades after they met in the ring, ten of the sport's finest fighters tell what it was like to battle Muhammad Ali, the man many consider the best boxer ever. This brutally honest documentary recounts Ali's incomparable journey as seen through the eyes of those who stepped through the ropes and into history. Join these respected fighters as they weigh in on "The Greatest" and pay tribute to a living legend in this powerful and unforgettable film.

George Hickenlooper
Biography
Weinstein Company, The
R
A beautiful, wealthy young party girl drops out of Radcliffe in 1965 and heads to New York to become Holly Golightly. When she meets a hungry young artist named Andy Warhol, he promises to make her the star she always wanted to be. And like a super nova she explodes on the New York scene only to find herself slowly lose grip on reality...

Bent Hamer
Comedy
Arte
R

Melvin Frank
Drama
HLP

Two romantic couples are each married to different people! They really DO love each other. At the beginning Kitty thinks Larry is un-funny, unendurable, and unrelenting. Larry thinks Kitty is just plain dull. Then three couples cancel their trip. Kitty and Larry are ALONE! At the hotel they go under the silly names of Mr.George Washington and Mrs Martha Washington. Then they fall in love while going fishing. When Kitty caught her first fish she kissed Larry. Kitty and Larry started to spend a lot of time together. Then Kitty writes her husband a letter telling him that she wants Larry, not him. Then Kitty and Larry get into a big fight. They both see that they are making a big mistake. They thought it wasn't right to have an affair at their age (they were middle aged).

Robert Rodriguez
Horror
Dimension Films
R
A horror tale set in a High School where the students suspect the teaching staff of being aliens, who are intent on making the students their victims.

Various
Action & Adventure
E1 Entertainment
NR
Includes Four Magical Episodes from "Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre" Digitally Restored and Re-mastered!
Talking bears, sleeping giants, handsome princes, evil fairies and more fill this 4-episode collection from the award-winning series. Some of the most treasured bedtime stories are brought to life with glorious productions and magnificent costumes that will leave you dreaming… happily ever after.
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK
When Jack (Dennis Christopher) trades his cow for magic beans, he gets more than he bargained for, especially when a beanstalk leading to a Giant’s (Elliott Gould) castle grows out of the ground.
SLEEPING BEAUTY
After a wicked fairy, Henbane (Beverly D’Angelo), casts a spell on the Princess (Bernadette Peters), it’s up to a brave Prince (Christopher Reeve) to save her.
RIP VAN WINKLE
Rip van Winkle (Harry Dean Stanton) was a kind, gentle dreamer whose life changes forever when he travels into the mountains and encounters the ghosts of Commander Hendrik Hudson (John P. Ryan) and his crew.
GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS
While strolling in the woods, Goldilocks (Tatum O’Neal) stumbles upon an empty house belonging to a family of Bears (Alex Karras, Brandis Kemp and Donovan Scott). After she eats their porridge, she falls asleep in one of their beds…

Various
Action & Adventure
E1 Entertainment
NR
Includes Four Magical Episodes from "Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre" Digitally Restored and Re-mastered!
Evil magicians, cursed princes, fierce ogres, wicked queens and more fill this 4-episode collection from the award-winning series. Some of the most treasured tales of magic and enchantment are brought to life with glorious productions and magnificent costumes that will leave you spellbound… happily ever after.
ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP
Aladdin (Robert Carradine) discovers a magic lamp which houses a Genie (James Earl Jones) who can grant his every wish. Unfortunately, the Evil Magician (Leonard Nimoy) sets his sights on Aladdin’s newest treasure.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
In order to save her father’s life, Beauty (Susan Sarandon) travels to Beast’s (Klaus Kinski) palace, a magnificent castle in the woods. The two quickly become friends and learn the true nature of beauty.
PUSS IN BOOTS
The resourceful cat Puss (Ben Vereen) must use both skill and trickery to defeat a fierce Ogre (Brock Peters) and bring wealth and success to his best friend Edgar (Gregory Hines).
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
After a jealous Queen (Vanessa Redgrave) poisons Snow White (Elizabeth McGovern), it’s up to seven brave dwarfs and a handsome prince (Rex Smith) to break her spell.

Sidney Lumet
Drama
Columbia Pictures Corporation

A technical malfunction in the Pentagon's strategic control system causes an erroneous order to be sent to a B-58 squadron on a routine training mission instructing the bombers to fly beyond their fail safe distance. At this point the flight crew are trained to cease communications and prepare to fulfill their objective by bombing Moscow. As the planes near their target, the crisis deepens and together the Americans and Soviets decide on a final, desperate solution.

Stephen Frears
Drama
Maysville Pictures
G

Tom Dey
Comedy
Paramount Pictures
PG-13
At 35, Tripp has an interesting job, a hip car, a passion for sailing, and a great house - trouble is, he lives with his parents. They want him out, so they hire Paula, an "interventionist," who has a formula in these cases: chance encounter, get him to ask her out, involve him in a trauma, meet his friends and get their nod, delay sex, have him teach her something, then launch him. It's worked up to now, but this gets complicated when Tripp thinks she's getting too serious and one of his pals is attracted to Paula's deadpan, semi-alcoholic roommate, who's plagued by a mockingbird. Too many secrets may scrub the launch, and what if Paula really likes him? Who can intervene then?

James A. Sullivan
Western

Tarsem Singh
Adventure
Sony Pictures
R
Roger Ebert proclaimed it "one of the most extraordinary films I've ever seen," and there's no denying the avalanche of wild images in "The Fall": grand castles, desert vistas, elephants swimming in the open ocean. Commercial and music-video director Tarsem has piled these visions into an elaborate remake of an obscure Bulgarian film, Yo Ho Ho, which is anchored in (but by no means limited to) a quiet hospital during the silent-movie era. A stunt man (Lee Pace) is laid up with leg injuries, and an eye-popping black-and-white prologue (utterly mystifying while we're watching it) tells us how he got here. Depressed over his disability and a recent lost love, he plans suicide, but is temporarily derailed by the inquisitive friendship of a little girl (Catinca Untaru), to whom he tells wild stories of adventurers and princesses. We see these stories, which is where the dizzying visuals come in. This movie probably won't inspire many lukewarm responses: either you'll fall madly for this paean to storytelling magic, or you'll be suspicious about the parade of pretty pictures, which tend to have a magazine-layout sheen. The movie certainly has more soul than Tarsem's yucky previous feature, "The Cell", and the scenes between Pace and Untaru (who scores an 11 on the cuteness scale) are genuinely charming. The director actually put a considerable amount of his own money into the production (which shot in over 20 countries), and whether you buy his vision or not, he put his money on the screen. --"Robert Horton"

K. Ryan Jones
Documentary
Duopoly

The first feature-length documentary to explore the hate-filled world of Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS. Since the mid-90s, this group has participated in nearly 25,000 anti-homosexual demonstrations around the world. With signs that say things like "God hates fags," "You're going to Hell," "Thank God for 9/11," "God hates your tears," "Thank God for dead soldiers," the small congregation of 75 members has garnered international attention, especially now that they have targeted military funerals as a venue for their picketing. 'Fall From Grace' features interviews with Rev. Phelps, other members of the church, many of its dissenters, and two members that left the church and their family behind.

Gregory Dark
Documentary
Fox Lorber

Steven Soderbergh
Drama
Mirage Enterprises

Kar Wai Wong
Drama
Chan Ye-Cheng

A disillusioned killer embarks on his last hit but first he has to overcome his affections for his cool, detached partner. Thinking it's dangerous and improper to become involved with a colleague he sets out to find a surrogate for his affections. Against the sordid and surreal urban nightscape (set in contemporary Hong Kong), he crosses path with a strange drifter looking for her mysterious ex-boyfriend and an amusing mute trying to get the world's attention in his own unconventional ways.

Carol Reed
Drama
London Film Productions

Philippe, a diplomat's son and good friend of Baines the butler, is confused by the complexities and evasions of adult life. He tries to keep secrets but ends up telling them. He lies to protect his friends, even though he knows he should tell the truth. He resolves not to listen to adults' stories any more when Baines is suspected of murdering his wife and no-one will listen to Philippe's vital information.

Joel Schumacher
Drama
Alcor Films
R
William (D-FENS) just wants to get home to see his daughter on her birthday. Unfortunately, nothing seems to be going right for him. First there's the traffic jam, then the unhelpful Korean shopkeeper who "doesn't give change". D-FENS begins to crack and starts to fight back against the every day "injustices" he encounters on his journey home. The film has a story running in parallel about a desk-bound cop who is about to retire. He's retiring for his wife's sake, and obviously isn't happy about it. The cop tracks down D-FENS and in the final scene.....

Sidney Lumet
Crime
TriStar Pictures

Jessie is an ageing career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else. His son Vito, while currently on the straight and narrow, has had a fairly shady past and is indeed no stranger to illegal activity. They both have great hope for Adam, Vito's son and Jessie's grandson, who is bright, good-looking, and without a criminal past. So when Adam approaches Jessie with a scheme for a burglary he's shocked, but not necessarily disinterested....

Jerry Lewis
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

Nine-year-old Donna Peyton is orphaned when her father dies and leaves her with a $30 million fortune. Her late father's attorney, John Wyman, explains that she must visit each of her six uncles (all played by Jerry Lewis) and decide which of them will become her new "father."

Brett Ratner
Comedy
Beacon Communications
PG-13
A modern-day Frank Capra story. Jack Campbell, a successful and talented businessman, is happily living his single life. He has everything, or so he thinks. One day he wakes up in a new life where he didn't leave his college girlfriend for a London trip. He's married to Kate, lives in Jersey and has two kids. He, of course, desperately wants his life back for which he has worked 13 years for. He's president of P. K. Lassiter Investment House and not a tire salesman at Big Ed's. He drives a Ferrari and not a mini-van that never starts. And most importantly he doesn't wake up in the morning with kids jumping on the bed. After a bad start, day by day he's more confident in his new life and starts to see what he's been missing. Turns out money's good to have but that's not everything.

Alfred Hitchcock
Comedy
Universal Pictures

Fake medium Madam Blanche (Barbara Harris) and her taxi driver boyfriend George (Bruce Dern) make a living by scaming people with her phoney powers. They are hired by an aging widow, Julia Rainbird, to find her nephew who was given away for adoption many years earlier following a family scandal. Meanwhile, an extremely clever couple, diamond merchant Arthur Adamson (William Devine) and his attractive girlfriend Fran (Karen Black), are behind a series of kidnappings of various VIPs in the San Francisco area. The two couples paths soon cross and chaos results in Hitchcock's last film.

Thomas Bezucha
Comedy
The Family Stone
PG-13
The Stone family unites in common cause when their favorite son brings his uptight girlfriend home for the Christmas holiday, with plans of proposing. Overwhelmed by the hostile reception, she begs her sister to join her for emotional support, triggering further complications.

Richard Pearce
Drama
Butcher's Run Films
PG-13
Earl Pilcher Jr., runs an equipment rental outfit in Arkansas, lives with his wife and kids and parents, and rarely takes off his gimme cap. His mother dies, leaving a letter explaining he's not her natural son, but the son of a Black woman who died in childbirth; plus, he has a half brother Ray, in Chicago, she wants him to visit. Earl makes the trip, initially receiving a cold welcome from Ray and Ray's son, Virgil. His birth mother's sister, Aunt T., an aged and blind matriarch, takes Earl in tow and insists that the family open up to him.

Tony Scott
Drama
Mandalay Entertainment
R
Three-times MVP baseball player Bobby Rayburn joins San Fransisco Giants, and obsessive fan, whose profession is selling hunting knives, Gil Renard is excited over that. But Rayburn plays the worst season of his career and Renard tries to do everything to help him, but goes too far.

Kyle Newman
Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama
Trigger Street Productions
PG-13

Christian-Jaque
Adventure, Comedy, Romance, War
Amato Produzione

Fanfan is a young handsome peasant. He joins the army to escape marriage and because a gipsy girl predicted he will get glory and the king's daughter as a wife. But the gipsy girl was in fact Adeline, the daughter of the recruiting officer. Once he has discovered the stratagem, Fanfan refuses to forget this dream and decides to fulfill the destiny of the fake prediction. Fantastic swashbuckling adventures in a 18th century setting, with a light criticism of the war and the mighty.

Ingmar Bergman
Drama
Cinematograph AB

The title characters are children in the exuberant and colorful Ekdahl household in a Swedish town early in the twentieth century. Their parents, Oscar and Emilie, are the director and the leading lady of the local theatre company. Oscar's mother and brother are its chief patrons. After Oscar's early death, his widow marries the bishop and moves with her children to his austere and forbidding chancery. The children are immediately miserable. The film dramatizes and resolves those conflicts. A sub-plot features Isak, a local Jewish merchant who is the grandmother's lover and whose odd household becomes the children's refuge.

Tim Story
Action
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
PG-13
Reed Richards, a brilliant but timid and bankrupt scientist, is convinced that evolution can be triggered by clouds of cosmic energy, and has calculated that Earth is going to pass one of these clouds soon. Together with his friend and partner, the gruff yet gentle astronaut muscle-man Ben Grimm, Reed convinces his conceited MIT classmate Dr. Victor Von Doom, now CEO of his own enterprise, to allow him access to his privately-owned space station. Von Doom agrees in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. He thus brings aboard Susan Storm, his shy, though assertive chief genetics researcher and a former lover of Reed's with whom she had an acrimonious break-up, and her diametrically opposed brother Johnny, the maverick and hot-headed playboy pilot. The astronauts make it home intact; however, before long they begin to mutate, developing strange and amazing powers as a result of their exposure to the cloud! Reed is able to stretch like rubber; Sue can turn invisible and create force fields, especially when angered; Johnny can produce fire at supernova temperatures, and is able to fly; and Ben is transformed into "The Thing", a large, rock-like creature with super strength. After Ben, brooding about his situation on the Brooklyn Bridge, inadvertently causes a major traffic pile-up whilst attempting to stop a man about to commit suicide, the four manage to use their powers to prevent any loss of life and to rescue a fire truck and its crew from falling off the bridge in a resulting explosion. The media dubs the team the 'Fantastic Four', and whilst Johnny eagerly embraces his powers and new life, Ben - the most heavily disfigured - particularly suffers from his transformation; his disfigurement has caused his fiancée to abandon him and has seen him shunned and feared by much of New York. Blaming himself, Reed vows to return Ben to his human form, and he, Sue and Ben work on a cure, constructing a healing chamber in Reed's high tech Baxter Building loft-turned-laboratory. During this time, Reed and Susan begin to grow close once again, and Susan admits that she is not interested in Victor, but ended their relationship because Reed feared to commit, thinking only in terms of variables. Unknown to the others, however, Victor's body is also mutating; he is turning into organic metal capable of absorbing and manipulating electrical energy known as Doctor Doom. As a result of the disastrous expedition, his company is going bankrupt and he is losing public stature; blaming Reed for his misfortunes, Victor swears revenge. And Reed, Ben, Susan, and Johnny must defeat Victor Von Doom and foil his evil plans once and for all.

Todd Haynes
Drama
Clear Blue Sky Productions
PG-13
Cathy (Julianne Moore) is the perfect 50s housewife, living the perfect 50s life: healthy kids, successful husband, social prominence. Then one night she surprises her husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) kissing another man, and her tidy world starts spinning out of control. In her confusion and grief, she finds consolation in the friendship of their African-American gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) - a socially taboo relationship that leads to the further disintegration of life as she knew it. Despite Cathy and Frank's struggle to keep their marriage afloat, the reality of his homosexuality and her feelings for Raymond open a painful, if more honest, chapter in their lives.

Wim Wenders
Fantasy
Bioskop Film
PG-13
A sequel to Wender's Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of desire), it again follows a group of angels in the German capital who look longingly upon the life of humans.

Michael Moore
Documentary
Lions Gate Films
R
In this film, muckraker Michael Moore turns his eye on George W. Bush and his War on Terrorism agenda. He illustrates his argument about how this failed businessman with deep connections to the royal house of Saud of Saudia Arabia and the Bin Ladins got elected on fraudulent circumstances and proceeded to blunder through his duties while ignoring warnings of the looming betrayal by his foreign partners. When that treachery hits with the 9/11 attacks, Moore explains how Bush failed to take immediate action to defend his nation, only to later cynically manipulate it to serve his wealthy backers' corrupt ambitions. Through facts, footage and interviews, Moore illustrates his contention of how Bush and his cronies have gotten America into worse trouble than ever before and why Americans should not stand for it.

François Truffaut
Sci-Fi
Anglo Enterprises

Based on the 1951 Ray Bradbury novel of the same name. Guy Montag is a firefighter who lives in a lonely, isolated society where books have been outlawed by a government fearing an independent-thinking public. It is the duty of firefighters to burn any books on sight or said collections that have been reported by informants. People in this society including Montag's wife are drugged into compliancy and get their information from wall-length television screens. After Montag falls in love with book-hoarding Clarisse, he begins to read confiscated books. It is through this relationship that he begins to question the government's motives behind book-burning. Montag is soon found out, and he must decide whether to return to his job or run away knowing full well the consequences that he could face if captured.

Alan Peterson
Documentary
Savage Pictures

America is asking if Fahrenheit 9/11 is a healthy dose of dissent, or shameful cowardice. If Moore really believes what he says, or if it's all about the money. Fahrenhype 9/11 plunges a big needle deep into Moore's methods and answers these questions, drawing both blood and bile. See how America has been lied to about the cause of 9/11. Lied to about the truth of Islamic fascism. Lied to about how best to make America safe.

Joel Coen
Crime
Gramercy Pictures
R
Fargo is based on true events that occurred in Minnesota in 1987 with the names changed to protect the victims. Jerry works in his father-in-law's car dealership and has gotten himself in financial problems. He tries various schemes to come up with money needed for a reason that is never really explained. It has to be assumed that his huge embezzlement of money from the dealership is about to be discovered by father-in-law. When all else falls through, plans he set in motion earlier for two men to kidnap his wife for ransom to be paid by her wealthy father (who doesn't seem to have the time of day for son-in-law). From the moment of the kidnapping, things go wrong and what was supposed to be a non-violent affair turns bloody with more blood added by the minute. Jerry is upset at the blood shed, which turns loose a pregnant sheriff from MN who is tenacious in attempting to solve the three murders in her jurisdiction.

Alfred Hitchcock
Comedy
British International Pictures (BIP)

Farmer Sweetland is a lonely old widower. He is determined to marry again and he enlists the help of his housekeeper Minta to pick a wife from the local single women.

Carlos Sandoval, Catherine Tambini
Documentary
Camino Bluff Productions Inc.

The hate-based attempted murder of two Mexican day laborers catapults the Long Island town of Farmingville into national headlines, unmasking a new frontline of the border wars -- suburbia. Blending the stories of town residents and day laborers, Farmingville reveals the human impact of mismanaged national policies that lead to fear, racism and violence.

n/a
Documentary
Foglight Entertainment
NR
From the catwalks of Paris to the red carpets and silver screens of Hollywood, fashion and film have always co-starred in their very own rags-to-riches story of style. In this Starz Inside documentary, discover the history of the costumes, couture and glamor icons that have transformed the look of movies forever.

Richard Linklater
Drama
BBC Films
R
Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear) is the Mickey's food restaurant chain's Marketing Director. He is the inventor of the "Big One" the hamburger best seller of Mickey's. An independent research reports the presence of cow's feces in the Big One. So Don is sent to Cody, Colorado, to verify if the slaughterhouse, main supplier of Mickey's, is efficient as it appears and the production process is regular. During his investigations he discovers the horrible truth behind a simple hamburger; the reality is not like we think it is. Don discovers that the mass production system involves from the temp workers like Amber (Ashley Jonhson), to the exploitation of Mexican irregular immigrants. It is not only the meat that is crush in the mincing machine, but all our society.

Amy Heckerling
Comedy
Refugee Films
R
Follows a group of high school students growing up in southern California, based on the real-life adventures chronicled by Cameron Crowe. Stacy Hamilton and Mark Ratner are looking for a love interest, and are helped along by their older classmates, Linda Barrett and Mike Damone, respectively. The center of the film is held by Jeff Spicoli, a perpetually stoned surfer dude who faces off with the resolute Mr. Hand, who is convinced that everyone is on dope.

Errol Morris
Documentary
American Playhouse
PG
What do an elderly topiary gardener, a retired lion tamer, a man fascinated by mole rats, and a cutting-edge robotics designer have in common? Both nothing and everything in this unconventional documentary directed by Erroll Morris. Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (Referring to the robot specialist's strange philosophy of robot design structure, not Erroll Morris's documentary techniques!) interplays, overlaps, and interrelates these four separate and highly specialized documentary subjects in order to in truth study all of humanity, raising questions about the future of mankind.

Russ Meyer
Comedy
Eve Productions

Three strippers seeking thrills encounter a young couple in the desert. After dispatching the boyfriend, they take the girl hostage and begin scheming on a crippled old man living with his two sons in the desert, reputedly hiding a tidy sum of cash. They become houseguests of the old man and try and seduce the sons in an attempt to locate the money, not realizing that the old man has a few sinister intentions of his own.

Joel Zwick
Comedy
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
PG
An obese boy named Fat Albert and his friends Rudy, Mushmouth, Bill, Dumb Donald, Russell, and Weird Harold, pulls into trouble when they "fall" out of their TV world into the real world, where Fat Albert tries to help a young girl, Doris, make friends. However, the simple life of the group is interrupted when Fat Albert falls for Doris' older sister, Lauri, sparking his friends to worry that their leader may never want to return to his cartoon world again.

Fat Albert
Kids & Family
Urban Works
NR
Fat Albert and the Cosby kids aired from 1972 to 1984 and enjoyed one of the longest and most successful runs in Saturday morning cartoon history. Live action bumpers featuring Bill Cosby were set around animated episodes of Fat Albert and the Cosby kids, a series about a group of urban adolescents growing up in a Philadelphia neighborhood. The show was based on Cosby's 60's stand up comedy monologues about his childhood. The episodes revolved around the daily life lessons learned by Fat Albert and his friends. Topics ranged from social issues to personal introspection and were blended with humor and music. Among the many great characters that inhabited Fat Albert's world were Rudy, Mushmouth, Donald, Bill, Weird Harold and Russell. A special collection of these historic episodes were compiled into one box set...The Ultimate Fat Albert 4 Disc Set. This unique piece of memorabilia is a collector's item in which many generations will enjoy.

Catherine Breillat
Drama
CB (Catherine Breillat) Films

A Ma Soeur! is a provocative and shocking drama about sibling rivalry, family discord and relationships. Elena is 15, beautiful and flirtatious. Her less confident sister, Anais, is 12, and constantly eats. On holiday, Elena meets a young Italian student who is determined to seduce her. Anais is forced to watch in silence, conspiring with the lovers, but harbouring jealousy and similar desires. Their actions, however, have unforeseen tragic consequences for the whole family.

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
Comedy
Comique Film Company

In an attempt at greater efficiency, the chef of a fancy oceanside restaurant and his assistant wreak havoc in the establishment. Adding to the complications is the arrival of a robber.

Various
Art House & International
BBC Warner
NR
Basil Fawlty, as created and performed by John Cleese, is the rudest, most boorish, most hilariously obnoxious man on the face of the planet. What a natural for a TV sitcom! His screen wife, Sybil (Prunella Scales), put it best in the episode "The Psychiatrist": "You're either crawling all over them, licking their boots, or spitting poison at them like some Benzedrine puff adder." He mockingly replies, "Just trying to enjoy myself, dear." With his gangly frame and contortionist abilities, Cleese brilliantly punctuates Basil's outrageous faux pas with absurd gymnastics and turns Three Stooges-style pokes and kicks into a slapstick ballet. Scales's Sybil is the genial but obliviously chatty voice of reason and Andrew Sachs mangles the English language as the Spanish bellhop Manuel, whose struggles with simple directions results in comic lunacy reminiscent of Robert Benigni. After a six-episode run in 1975, Cleese and cowriter and costar Connie Booth (who plays Polly, the maid all too often pulled into Basil's ridiculous plans) reunited the cast in 1979 for another six episodes without missing a punch line. The four-volume collection contains all 12 shows, interspersed with interview segments featuring Cleese discussing the genesis of the series and anecdotes about the individual episodes. Remember to watch the opening credits of each show to spot the creative misspellings on the hotel sign (my favorite: "Fatty Owls"). "--Sean Axmaker"

Hal Hartley
Action
HDNet Films
R

Stanley Kubrick
War
Kubrick

A ficticious war in an unidentified country provides the setting for this drama. Four soldiers survive the crash-landing of their plane to find themselves in a forest six miles behind enemy lines. The group, led by Lt. Corby, has a plan: They'll make their way to a nearby river, build a raft, and then, under cover of night, float back to friendly territory. Their plans for getting back safely are sidetracked by a young woman who stumbles across them as they hide in the woods, and by the nearby presence of an enemy general who one member of the group is determined to kill.

Terry Gilliam
Biography
Fear and Loathing LLC
R
The big-screen version of Hunter S. Thompson's seminal psychedelic classic about his road trip across Western America as he and his large Samoan lawyer searched desperately for the "American dream"... they were helped in large part by the huge amount of drugs and alcohol kept in their convertible, The Red Shark.

Peter Weir
Drama
Spring Creek Productions
R
After a terrible air disaster, survivor Max Klein emerges a changed person. Unable to connect to his former life or to wife Laura, he feels godlike and invulnerable. When psychologist Bill Perlman is unable to help Max, he has Max meet another survivor, Carla Rodrigo, who is racked with grief and guilt since her baby died in the crash which she and Max survived.

Roman Polanski
Comedy
Cadre Films

The old bat researcher, professor Abronsius and his assistant, Alfred, go to a remote Transylvanian village looking for vampires. Alfred falls in love with the inn-keeper's young daughter Sarah. However, she has been spotted by the mysterious count Krolock who lives in a dark and creepy castle outside the village...

Clyde Bruckman
Comedy
The Harold Lloyd Corporation

Ambitious shoe salesman, Harold, unknowingly meets the boss' daughter and tells her he is a leather tycoon. The rest of the film he spends hiding his true circumstances, in the store and later on a ship. Trying to deliver a letter, he later finds himself dangling high above the street on a building's scaffolding.

Atom Egoyan
Drama
Alliance Atlantis Communications
PG-13
A lonely middle-aged catering manager (Bob Hoskins) spends all of his time studying tapes of an eccentric TV chef (Arsinee Khanjian). Meanwhile, a young woman (Elaine Cassidy) is making her way from Ireland to find her boy friend (Peter McDonald), who moved to England to get a job in a lawn-mower factory. On arrival, she makes an early contact with the caterer, who recommends a boarding room to her. Slowly, it is revealed that the caterer has in fact befriended and subsequently abused more than a dozen young women. He, of course, now sets his site on this woman. Much of the story is told in flashbacks, revealing how each of the characters grew to the point where they now find themselves. However, the drama of the character interaction is more important to director, Atom Egoyan, than the potential horror of the situation.

Danny Leiner, Ken Olin, Joanna Kerns, Michael Schultz, Joan Tewkesbury
Drama
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
NR
"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever," states Felicity in the pilot episode of this fervently loved series. Not that impulsively defying your parents, ditching plans to go to Stanford Medical School, and moving 3,000 miles to New York to follow an unrequited high school crush who doesn't even remember your name is a small decision. But it does indeed change our winsome heroine's life forever. Golden Globe winner Keri Russell lights up the screen in her star-is-born role as the luxuriantly maned Felicity. For its audience demographic, the "previously on "Felicity"" soap opera elements make this series' freshman year as compellingly watchable as the early years of "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Dawson's Creek".
Propelling the first season is the triangle of Felicity, the charismatic Ben (Scott Speedman), and charming doofus Noel (Scott Foley). But at the heart of the series is its real-world portrayal of college life, and Felicity's struggle to forge a life independent of her disapproving but ultimately supportive parents. Her sardonic, spell-casting now-you-see-her-now-you-don't roommate Meaghan doesn't think Felicity will last the year. "This might all be a colossal mistake," Felicity admits early on. (No, that would be your ill-advised haircut in Season 2.) "Felicity"'s ensemble also includes former pink Power Ranger Amy Jo Johnson as Julie, Felicity's best friend and later rival for Ben's affections, whose own personal travails include searching for her birth mother ("Malcolm in the Middle"'s Jane Kaczmarek). Look for a pre-"Alias" Jennifer Garner as Noel's old girlfriend Hannah in the episode "Thanksgiving," and listen for Janeane Garofalo as the voice of the unseen Sally, with whom Felicity shares audiocassettes relating her coming-of-age experiences and hard-earned life lessons. "--Donald Liebenson"

Danny Leiner, Ken Olin, Joanna Kerns, Michael Schultz, Joan Tewkesbury
Drama
Miramax Home Entertainment
NR
Season 2 of "Felicity" not only sees the massacre of star Keri Russell's golden locks (at one point, a minor character refers to the new, short-cropped Felicity as "Chia-Head") but endless turmoil--most of it quite addictive to watch--in perhaps seven or eight overlapping romances.
First there's the issue of season 1's cliffhanger. Did Felicity spend her summer with former high-school crush Ben (Scott Speedman) or her dormitory's resident advisor, Noel (Scott Foley), who harbors strong feelings for her? Episode 1 teases us with the answer while laying the bumpy groundwork for our heroine's sophomore year: Felicity has come back to college in New York City as an R.A. in her old dorm, once again sharing a room--much to her discontent--with acerbic Wiccan-punk Meghan (Amanda Foreman). Ben has a part-time job working in a coffee shop owned by Felicity's confidante Javier (Ian Gomez). Noel is sharing an apartment with another Felicity ally, Elena (Tangi Miller), as well as filmmaker Sean (Greg Grunberg), who previously made a documentary focusing on Ben and Felicity's relationship.
Tangled connections and shifting loyalties make for a long, involving second year in this drama-comedy from Disney and Imagine Entertainment. Characters fall in and out of love, earn and betray trust, leap before they look, and redeem themselves with powerful acts of forgiveness or faith. "Felicity" creators J.J. Abrams (writer, "Forever Young") and Matt Reeves (director, "Relativity") set out to capture the unique contradictions of young adulthood in this show--in particular, clinging to a precise college track while trying to make sense of post-adolescent love and responsibility--and for the most part succeed very well. Sometimes too well: The storylines may become a little redundant, the drama a tad flat with such singular interest in the muddled passions of 19-year-olds. But each episode is sharply written, comically incisive, and never less than watchable.
Great special features: Keri Russell's audition, audio commentaries, a never-before-seen pilot, and the "Felicity" Emmy Parody, i.e., a spoof of the TV show produced for an Emmy Award telecast. "--Tom Keogh"

Danny Leiner, Ken Olin, Joanna Kerns, Michael Schultz, Joan Tewkesbury
Drama
Walt Disney Video
NR
"Felicity: Junior Year Collection" is an improvement over year 2--perhaps inevitably, as the characters are lurching toward adulthood more rapidly and definitively. For the most part, Felicity (Keri Russell) and the gang still face the same challenges--commitment, academic momentum, conflicts over values, pressure from parents--but the stakes are higher because everyone has outgrown adolescent defenses and revealed more of themselves to lovers and friends. The third season begins with lots of smiles and hopes as Felicity, boyfriend Ben (Scott Speedman), would-be filmmaker Sean (Greg Grunberg), kinky Wiccan Meghan (Amanda Foreman), and the rest return from a summer break to get reacquainted. Felicity, expected to move in with pals Julie (Amy Jo Johnson) and Elena (Tangi Miller), impulsively decides to move into an apartment with Ben instead--without telling Ben. The funky hovel becomes a source of conflict (even more after Ben lets a beautiful neighbor take a bath in his and Felicity's living-room tub) that exacerbates the couple's ambivalence about one another.
But a lot of things do that, including a visit from Felicity's mom (Eve Gordon) that finds the latter lobbying against Ben (who hasn't chosen a career and gets into a couple of fights this season) and for Noel (Scott Foley, whose character seems destined for success and who remains, secretly, in love with Felicity). Meanwhile, Sean and Meghan deal with the former's possible testicular cancer, Elena grapples with her virgin boyfriend's insistence on no pre-marital sex, Julie disappears while depressed over her relationship with her father, and newcomer Molly (Sarah-Jane Potts) tries to break off a relationship with a gun-toting drug addict (Robert Patrick Benedict). Typically, season 3 has frequent, jaw-dropping dramatic highlights, including a shooting that results in a profound experience for nearly everyone, an episode in which Felicity wakes up naked in a fraternity house, and another in which she is the recipient of an awkward pass by Ben's alcoholic father (John Ritter). Life is never dull in this series executive-produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, and the subject of growing up, when treated with as much insight as "Felicity" offers, is always interesting. Among the special features is a great parody of the series from "Mad TV". "--Tom Keogh"

Danny Leiner, Ken Olin, Joanna Kerns, Michael Schultz, Joan Tewkesbury
Television
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
NR
If "Felicity" was always a collective portrait of young adults perpetually at a crossroads, then "Felicity: Senior Year Collection (The Complete Fourth Season)" concerns that moment when one realizes the long-deferred future of grown-up responsibilities has finally arrived. In other words, "Senior Year" is about decisiveness and commitment shaking things up among "Felicity"'s tight-knit group of soon-to-graduate college friends and significant others, all of whom recognize now the urgency to make clearheaded choices that will permanently affect careers, family ties, love lives, and self-respect.
Not that any of "Felicity"'s familiar characters are prepared for that kind of "Hamlet"-like pressure. Bad judgment, impulsiveness, the flotsam of unresolved relationships, envy, and selfishness are still driving forces behind the mercurial actions of art major Felicity Porter (Keri Russell) and her off-and-on boyfriend Ben Covington (Scott Speedman), former beau Noel Crane (Scott Foley), cynical pal Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman), the latter's well-meaning hustler of a partner, Sean Blumberg (Greg Grunberg), and assorted students and confidantes who comprise Felicity's inner circle. But the stakes are much higher this time. Ben's alcoholic father (John Ritter in a sympathetic, touching performance), in true medical trouble, can no longer be angrily dismissed by the younger man as in previous seasons. A careless fling between Felicity and Noel is no mere bump in the road anymore for the former and her true love, Ben. Nor is Ben's imminent fatherhood (he and the young addict his father is sponsoring become pregnant) the kind of inconvenient wrinkle Felicity invariably forgave in the past. Everyone is playing for keeps now, and the absorbing dramas and tensions in each well-written, constantly surprising episode have an air of finality about them. Things get particularly interesting--arguably controversial--in the last two or three scripts, in which an anomalous time-travel gimmick (of all things) gives viewers an opportunity to see alternative finales for the four-year-old series. It's a go-for-broke idea that asks "Felicity"'s loyal audience to take a leap of faith just to see what happens, and the results are indeed unexpected and rewarding. Special features include a particularly good, behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the last episode. "--Tom Keogh"

Federico Fellini
Comedy
Francese
R
A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens. blending autobiography (a reconstruction of Fellini's own arrival in Rome during the Mussolini years; a trip to a brothel and a music-hall) with scenes from present-day Roman life (a massive traffic jam on the autostrada; a raucous journey through Rome after dark; following an archaeological team through the site of the Rome subways; an unforgettable ecclesiastical fashion show)

Federico Fellini
Adventure
Les Productions Artistes Associés
R
In first century Rome, two student friends, Encolpio and Ascilto, argue about ownership of the boy Gitone, divide their belongings and split up. The boy, allowed to choose who he goes with, chooses Ascilto. Only a sudden earthquake saves Encolpio from suicide. We follow Encolpio through a series of adventures, where he is eventually reunited with Ascilto, and which culminates in them helping a man kidnap a hermaphrodite demi-god from a temple. The god dies, and as punishment Encolpio becomes impotent. We then follow them in search of a cure. The film is loosely based on the book Satyricon by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, the "Arbiter of Elegance" in the court of Nero. The book has only survived in fragments, and the film reflects this by being very fragmentary itself, even stopping in mid-sentence.

Michael Curtiz
Comedy
Warner Bros. Pictures

Alison is owner and successful manager of an automobile factory. She also has a good relation to her employees - especially the male ones, which she is known to invite to her bed for some time and then dump quickly. Only the inventor Jim Thorne refuses her offers - will she fire or marry him?

Brian De Palma
Thriller
Epsilon Motion Pictures
R
International con artist/thief Laure Ash helps pull off a diamond robbery in Cannes during the annual film festival. She double-crosses her partners-in-crime and makes off with the diamonds to Paris where she accidentally assumes the identity of a distraught woman who commits suicide and then leaves the country. Seven years later, Laure (now called Lily Watts) re-surfaces as the wife of the new American ambassador to France where a certain Nicolas Barto, a Spanish photographer, takes her picture thereby setting the stage for a motion of events as the evil Laure resorts to low, underhanded means to protect her former identity.

John Hughes
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

Ferris is a street-wise kid who knows all the tricks. Today he decides to take the day off school. When Ferris takes the day off, so must his best friends, Cameron and Sloane. Cameron is reluctantly persuaded to borrow his father's Ferrari, and together they hatch a plan to get Sloane out of class. Suspicious dean of students Ed Rooney knows all about Ferris, but can never catch him. Ferris' sister Jeanie is also frustrated that Ferris always gets away with his tricks and she doesn't. Furthermore, Ferris is an 'angel' in his parents eyes. It's Ferris' day off, he's out to enjoy himself, and he does!.

Murray Lerner
Documentary
Patchke Productions

Black and white footage of performances, interviews, and conversations at the Newport Folk Festival, from 1963 to 1966. The headliners are Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan, who's acoustic and electric. Son House and Mike Bloomfield talk about the blues; John Hurt, Howlin' Wolf, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee show its range. The Osborne Brothers perform bluegrass. Donovan, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Mimi and Dick Farina, and others less well known also perform. Several talk musical philosophy, and there's a running commentary about the nature and appeal of folk music. The crowd looks clean cut.

Bob Smeaton, Frank Cvitanovich
Documentary
Apollo Films Ltd.
R
In the summer of 1970, a chartered train crossed Canada carrying some of the world's greatest rock bands. The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy, and others lived (and partied) together for five days, stopping in major cities along the way to play live concerts. Their journey was filmed.

Nick Broomfield
Documentary
Lafayette Films

For two weeks, Nick Broomfield and a documentary crew visit Pandora's Box, an up-scale house of bondage on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, where clients pay $175 an hour to be subservient to mistresses. Mistresses talk about their craft; a few clients, usually masked, are interviewed as well. Then, the camera watches sessions organized around fetishes: rubber, wrestling, corporal punishment, masochism, and infantilism. Mistress Raven, the owner of Pandora's Box, explains that pain need not be part of the subservient experience: it is, at its root, a transfer of power. After their session has ended, clients talk about how drained, relaxed, relieved, and at peace they are.

David Evans
Comedy
Channel Four Films
R
A romantic comedy about a man, a woman and a football team. Based on Nick Hornby's best selling autobiographical novel, Fever Pitch. English teacher Paul Ashworth (Colin Firth) believes his long standing obsession with Arsenal serves him well. But then he meets Sarah. Their relationship develops in tandem with Arsenal's roller coaster fortunes in the football league, both leading to a nail biting climax.

Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Comedy
ELC Productions Ltd.
PG-13
When relaxed and charming Ben Wrightman (Jimmy Fallon) meets workaholic Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore) she finds him sweet and charming, they hit it off and when it is winter Ben can spend every waking hour with Lindsey, but when summer comes around the corner Lindsey discovers Ben's obsession with the Boston Red Sox. She thinks it is perfect until everything goes downhill for them, based on Nick Hornby's novel "Fever Pitch"

Rob Reiner
Crime
Castle Rock Entertainment
R
In this dramatic courtroom thriller, Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a Navy lawyer who has never seen the inside of the courtroom, defends two stubborn Marines who have been accused of murdering a colleague. Kaffee is known as being lazy and had arranged for a plea bargain. Downey's Aunt Ginny appoints Cmdr. Galloway to represent him. Also on the legal staff is Lt. Sam Weinberg. The team rounds up many facts and Kaffee is discovering that he is really cut out for trial work. The defense is originally based upon the fact that PFC Santiago, the victim, was given a "CODE RED". Santiago was basically a screw-up. At Gitmo, screw-ups aren't tolerated. Especially by Col. Nathan Jessup. In Cuba, Jessup and two senior officers try to give all the help they can, but Kaffee knows something's fishy. In the conclusion of the film, the fireworks are set off by a confrontation between Jessup and Kaffee.

Phil Alden Robinson
Drama
Gordon Company
PG
Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella hears a voice in his corn field tell him, "If you build it, he will come." He interprets this message as an instruction to build a baseball field on his farm, upon which appear the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other seven Chicago White Sox players banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series. When the voices continue, Ray seeks out a reclusive author to help him understand the meaning of the messages and the purpose for his field.

Arthur Crabtree
Horror
Amalgamated Productions

A Scientist, experimenting with telekinetic powers enhanced by a nearby nuclear power plant succeeds in creating a new form of life. This new creature grows in intelligence until it finally escapes his laboratory. Once outside the lab, and closer to its nuclear power source it multiplies. The creature is also invisible, so no one knows what it looks like...

Fred Schepisi, Robert Young
Comedy
Fish Productions
PG-13
A massive corporate conglomerate, Octopus Inc., run by a shrewd and cruel tycoon named Rod McCain, purchases a UK-based leisure company, and also the failing London Marwood Zoo. To bring more business to the zoo, Octopus hires a new manager, Rollo Lee, who promptly comes up with a way to increase profits-do away with all the animals except for the ferocious ones. This new Fierce Creatures Policy shocks the Marwood zookeepers, led by the unendingly talkative Adrian "Bugsy" Malone. Eventually, Rod McCain's son Vince, along with the up-and-coming business executive Willa Weston, take control of the zoo and revoke the Fierce Creatures Policy. Vince instead comes up with many under-handed and vicious schemes to attract customers-unauthorized celebrity endorsements, shoddy, overpriced zoo merchandise, and using robotic animals instead of real ones. However, Vince is also stealing from the zoo's funds, and when his father finds out, he rears to turn the zoo into a Japanese-owned golf course. Meanwhile, Willa has grown to love the zoo and its animals, and, along with her newly-reformed love interest Rollo, plot with the zookeepers to save the zoo from the McCains.

Luc Besson
Action
Gaumont
PG-13
Two hundred and fifty years in the future, life as we know it is threatened by the arrival of Evil. Only the fifth element can stop the Evil from extinguishing life, as it tries to do every five thousand years. She is helped by ex-soldier, current-cab-driver, Korben Dallas, who is, in turn, helped by Prince/Arsenio clone, Ruby Rhod. Unfortunately, Evil is being assisted by Mr. Zorg, who seeks to profit from the chaos that Evil will bring, and his alien mercenaries.

Luc Besson
Action
Gaumont
PG-13
Two hundred and fifty years in the future, life as we know it is threatened by the arrival of Evil. Only the fifth element can stop the Evil from extinguishing life, as it tries to do every five thousand years. She is helped by ex-soldier, current-cab-driver, Korben Dallas, who is, in turn, helped by Prince/Arsenio clone, Ruby Rhod. Unfortunately, Evil is being assisted by Mr. Zorg, who seeks to profit from the chaos that Evil will bring, and his alien mercenaries.

David Fincher
Action
Art Linson Productions
R
The narrator suffers from a lack of sleep. He tries different ways to cure this, but he does not succeed. He does get some sleep, but his conditions rebounds back into it's original state when he meets a lovely young woman, whose name is Marla. He finds out that she and he both have a lot in common and they spend a lot of time together. While touring, he meets an enigmatic young man named Tyler and after a short conversation both become fast friends. Both like to relieve their inner tensions by hitting each other. Soon word gets around about their fights, and lots of young people also get interested. Then a club is formed, which the narrator and Tyler call 'Fight Club'. Both start spending a lot of time and both also make lots of money. Then one day the narrator finds out that Tyler has been using him.

Robert A. Endelson
Crime
Blue Underground

This video is mostly taken up by talking about vengeance rather than getting on with the job. A mean trashy exploitation picture about three convicts who escape from jail and hole up at the house of a black minister. There's a few nasty scene's where the ministers family are being repeatedly terrorised by the thugs. In the end the minister turns the tables on the 3 convicts and gives them their just desserts.

Dito Montiel
Action, Drama
Misher Films
PG-13

Seijun Suzuki
Action
Nikkatsu

In Okayama in the mid-1930s, Kiroku attends high school and boards with a Catholic family whose daughter, Michiko, captures his heart. He must, however, hide his ardor and other aspects of his emerging sexuality, focusing his energy on a gang he joins, breaking school rules, and getting into scuffles (he tells her, "Oh, Michiko, I don't masturbate, I fight"). He comes under the influence of a young tough nicknamed Terrapin, and together they lead fights against rival gangs. Gradually, Kiroku and Terrapin align themselves with the right-wing Kita Ikki, and Kiroku becomes a stand-in for the attitudes of Japanese youth who embraced the imperialism leading to World War II.

George Waggner
Western, Action, Romance
Republic Pictures

Following Napoleon's Waterloo defeat and the exile of his officers and their families from France, the U.S.Congress, in 1817, granted four townships in the Alabama territory to the exiles. Led by Colonel Georges Geraud and General Paul DeMarchand, the struggling settlers have made a thriving community, called Demoplis, by the summer of 1819. On a shopping trip to Mobile, Fleurette DeMarchand, the General's daughter, meets John Breen, a Kentucky rifleman, who detours his regiment through Demopolis to court her. But Fleurette, despite her wish to marry for love, must bow to the needs of her fellow exiles, who are at the mercy of the rich and wealthy Blake Randolph, and who wants her as his bride. But John Breen has no intention of allowing that to happen, resigns from his regiment, and takes up the fight against Randolph and his hirelings.

Alan Schneider
Short
Evergreen
G
A twenty-minute, almost totally silent film (no dialogue or music one 'shhh!') in which Buster Keaton attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye. But, as the film is based around Bishop Berkeley's principle 'esse est percipi' (to be is to be perceived), Keaton's very existence conspires against his efforts

Michael J. Nelson
Comedy
Vivendi

Bob Honcho gives the Film Crew the lowly task of providing a commentary track for

Michael J. Nelson
Comedy
Universal Music Group

Michael J. Nelson
Comedy


"Sweaty men!" enthuses Bob Honcho. The

Michael J. Nelson
Comedy
Shout! Factory

James Westby
Comedy
Parkwood East Productions

Gary Leva
Documentary
Leva FilmWorks

Omar Naim
Sci-Fi
Lions Gate Entertainment
PG-13
The story is set in a world where implanted microchips can record all moments of an individual's life. The chips are removed upon death so the images can be edited into something of a highlight reel for loved ones who want to remember the deceased. Caviezel portrays the leader of the organization that opposes this technology's development.

Sidney Lumet
Comedy
Crossroads Entertainment
R
The mobster Jackie DiNorscio is shot by his own cousin at home while in probation but survives. Later he is arrested dealing drugs and sentenced to thirty years in prison. The prosecutor Sean Kierney proposes a deal to Jackie, immediately releasing him if he testifies against the Lucchese family and other mafia families but Jackie does not accept to rat his friends that he loves. When the trial begins, he asks the judge Finestein to defend himself without the assistance of a lawyer.

Gus Van Sant
Drama
Columbia Pictures Corporation
PG-13
Because of scoring exceptionaly high on a state wide standardized exam and being an exceptionally good basketball player Jamal Wallace is sent to a prestigious prep school in Manhattan. He soon befriends the reclusive writer, William Forrester. The friendship leads to William to overcome his reclusivness and for Jamal to overcome the racial prejudices and pursue his true dream - writing.

Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
Animation
Walt Disney Pictures
G
Life along the Great Barrier Reef is full of dangers when you are a tiny clown fish. And for Marlin, a single parent determined to protect his only son Nemo, there are constant fears and anxieties. When, on his first day of school, Nemo defies his father and swims off alone to investigate a boat, he is suddenly scooped up by a diver as Marlin helplessly watches. Marlin turns desperate as he frantically swims off in search for his son. As he passes a school of fish he bumps into Dory, an agreeable blue tang with severe short-term memory loss, who offers to help. Together this aquatic odd couple set out on an impossible mission, finding themselves in troubled waters and contending with such hazards as sharks, deadly angler fishes and a forest of jellyfish. Meanwhile, in a dentist's office overlooking Sydney Harbor, Nemo has landed in a fish tank that is home to a colorful group of characters who want to initiate him into their gang. When word of Marlin and Dory's ocean adventures gets back to Nemo, he is so thrilled to learn of his father's search for him that he becomes motivated to move forward with a daring escape plan of his own.

Marc Forster
Biography
Miramax Films
PG
The movie details the experiences of "Peter Pan" author

Blake Edwards
Action, Comedy, Romance
Blake Edwards

Two friends an actor and a chef discover a plot to fix a horse race and try to capitalize on it. But also have to deal with the two men who fixed it who are trying to silence them. And there's also the mob boss whom the two guys work for who planned the fixing thing whose wife is having an affair with the actor.

Francis Ford Coppola
Family
Warner Brothers/Seven Arts

A mysterious Irishman, Finian, and his beautiful daughter Sharon, arrive one day in Rainbow Valley, a small Southern town of tobacco sharecroppers in the mythical state of Missitucky. The town has its own resident dreamer, Woody Mahoney, who thinks that he might be able to put the town on the map by crossing mint with tobacco so that it'll grow already mentholated. Finian's come to the town because he's stolen a leprechaun's crock of gold and plans to plant it in the ground so it'll grow faster (or else why would the Americans have rushed to dig the gold out of California only to plant it back in the ground at Fort Knox?). But trouble arrives in the form of Og the leprechaun, who has followed Finian to America and is bent on retrieving his gold. Meanwhile, the bigoted Senator Billboard Rawkins, in an effort to stop progress in his state in the form of a new dam and hydroelectric system, plans to take the remaining parcel of land needed to stop the project - Woody's, which Finian has purchased to save from the auctioneer's gavel. But then the government's geologists reveal to the Senator that gold has been detected on the property! Rawkins and his men confront the sharecroppers to seize their land using as an excuse an obscure law making it a felony for blacks and whites to live together, but when Sharon, outraged at this bigotry, cries out while standing right over the pot of gold, "I wish to God you were black ..." all hell breaks loose as wishes come true.

Justin Lin
Comedy
Barnstorm Pictures

Louis Malle
Drama
Criterion Collection
Unrated
After rising to international stardom with such seminal crowd-pleasers as The Lovers and Zazie dans le metro Louis Malle gave his fans a shock with The Fire Within (Le feu follet) a penetrating study of individual and social inertia. Maurice Ronet (Elevator to the Gallows) in an implosive haunted performance plays Alain Leroy a self-destructive writer who resolves to kill himself and spends the next twenty-four hours trying to reconnect with a host of wayward friends. Unsparing in its portrait of Alain's inner turmoil and shot with remarkable clarity The Fire Within is one of Malle's darkest and most personal films.SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:New restored high-definition digital transferArchival interviews with director Louis Malle and actor Maurice RonetMalle's Fire Within a new video program featuring interviews with actor Alexandra Stewart and filmmakers Philippe Collin and Volker SchlondorffJusqu'au 23 Juillet a 2005 documentary short about Pierre Drieu la Rochelle's novel Le feu follet and dadaist writer Jacques Rigaut (the inspiration for the main character) featuring actor Mathieu Amalric writer Didier Daeninckx and Cannes festival curator Pierre-Henri DeleauNew and improved English subtitle translationPLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by critic Michel Ciment and historian Peter CowieSystem Requirements:Running Time: 108 minutes Language: French Subtitles: EnglishFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/LOVE & ROMANCE Rating: NR UPC: 715515029520 Manufacturer No: CC1750DDVD

Chris Bradley, Kyle LaBrache
Documentary
Shout! Factory

When actress Annabelle Gurwitch was fired from a play by Woody Allen, she wondered how she would cope with being downsized by a cultural icon. Turning to friends in show business, she was assured she was not alone. Everyone she knew, from her rabbi to her gynecologist, had their own account of getting the boot. Featuring interviews with comedians, economists and regular working folks, and drawing on her hugely popular book, Fired! is a humorous look at downsizing in America.

Various
Television
Fox Home Entertainment

Milos Forman
Comedy
Carlo Ponti Cinematografica

The fire department in a small town is having a big party when the ex-boss of the department celebrates his 86th birthday. The whole town is invited but things don't go as planned. Someone is stealing the prizes to the lottery and the candidates for the Miss Fire-Department beauty contest are neither willing or particularly beautiful.

Kon Ichikawa
Drama
Daiei Studios

It is the Philipines, 1945. The Japanese Imperial Army has been reduced to a ragtag mob hiding in the jungles. Among them is Pvt. Tamura. The situation goes from bad to worse and in the face of the brutal conditions facing the men, some go insane and resort to murder and cannibalism. In the midst of this, Pvt. Tamura tries to survive without giving up his principles.

Mark L. Lester
Horror
Dino De Laurentiis Company
R
Andrew and Vicky McGee met while earning money as guinea pigs for an experiment at college. The experiment was shrouded in suspicion and mystery, and seemed to be related to psychic abilities. The two were married and had a daughter Charile, who has the ability to start fires by merely thinking about it. Naturally, the government takes a great interest in Charlie, and operatives from the secret department known as "The Shop" want to quarrantine and study her.

Robert Iscove
Sci-Fi
USA Films

Charlie McGee is a young woman with the unwanted and often uncontrollable gift of pyrokinesis, lighting fires by mere thought. Charlie has been in hiding for nearly all her life from a top-secret government fringe group headed by the maniacal John Rainbird, who wants to find and use Charlie as the ultimate weapon of war. Vincent is a young private investigator unwittingly sent to look for Charlie, and evenutally tries to help her escape from Rainbird, who has formed a group of young boys from other research projects -- each with different special abilities -- in a plot to take over the world.

Richard Loncraine
Crime
Village Roadshow Pictures
PG-13
With his family held for ransom, the head security executive for a global bank is commanded to loot his own business for millions in order to ensure his wife and children's safety. He then faces the demanding task of thwarting the kidnapper's grand scheme, which makes him look guilty of embezzlement.

Sydney Pollack
Thriller
Paramount Pictures
R
Mitch McDeere is a young man with a promising future in Law. About to sit his Bar exam, he is approached by 'The Firm' and made an offer he doesn't refuse. Seduced by the money and gifts showered on him, he is totally oblivious to the more sinister side of his company. Then, two Associates are murdered. The FBI contact him, asking him for information and suddenly his life is ruined. He has a choice - work with the FBI, or stay with the Firm. Either way he will lose his life as he knows it. Mitch figures the only way out is to follow his own plan...

Chuck Workman
Documentary
American Film Institute (AFI)

Ted Kotcheff
Action & Adventure
Lions Gate
R
It's easy to forget that this Spartan, violent film, which begat the "Rambo" series, was such a big hit in 1982 because it was a good movie. Green Beret vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) wanders into the wrong small town to find a fellow 'Nam buddy and gets the living heck kicked out of him by the local law enforcement (led by Brian Dennehy). The vet strikes back the only way he knows how, leading to a visceral, if unrealistic, flight and fight through the local mountains. Based on the 1972 novel by David Morrell, this film saved Stallone's then-foundering career and the Rambo character became the inspiration for countless political cartoons. But this film is "Deliverance" without the moral ambiguity. "--Keith Simanton"

Forest Whitaker
Comedy
Regency Enterprises
PG
The daughter of the President of the United States goes off to college after insisting that she be able to enjoy her school years without the omnipresence of the Secret Service. The government agrees to her demands but assigns a young agent to go undercover as a student in order to keep an eye on her. The first daughter and the agent fall in love, until she learns his true identity.

Robert Day
Drama
Amalgamated Productions

Navy test pilot Lieut. Dan Prescott, in experimental rocket plane Y-13, disobeys orders and becomes the first man to fly outside the ionosphere. Unable to turn, he ejects...and is plastered with metallic meteor dust. The pilot compartment lands with no trace of the pilot... but first cattle, then people, are found with their throats cut as if with an axe, by something that seems to have a craving for blood...

Errol Morris
Drama
MGM (Video & DVD)
NR
Hailed by Roger Ebert as "one of America's strangest and most brilliant documentary filmmakers" (Chicago Sun-Times) Errol Morris (The Fog of War) brings his unrivalled talents to the small screen for a stylized series of intimate interviews with a unique and fascinating array of people. With the aid of his "Interrotron" an innovative camera device Morris invented to maintain merciless eye contact with his subjects the Oscar®-winning* director puts his odd assortment of eclectic characters and atypical topics under the microscope to produce "revelatory whip-smart television" (Baltimore City Paper).System Requirements: Running Time 491 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 027616919083 Manufacturer No: 1007848

Various
Documentary

Charles Crichton
Comedy
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
R
Sexy American diamonds lover Wanda and her boyfriend Otto are in England to plot alongside George and Ken the robbery of a diamond collection. Wanda and Otto want the stolen diamonds for themselves, and inform the police about George not knowing that he has already moved the diamonds to another secret place. Wanda thinks the best way to find out is by getting close to George's lawyer - Archie Leach.

Terry Gilliam
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation

A madman carries out a massacre in a club, after hearing the popular DJ Jack Lucas. Dejected by remorse, the DJ strikes up a friendship with Perry, ex-professor who became a tramp because of his wife's violent death (she was killed by the madman). Jack decides to help him both searching a nonexistent Holy Grail and conquering Lidia, the girl he felt in love with.

John Lurie
Documentary
Criterion

Sergio Leone
Action
Constantin Film Produktion

An anonymous, but deadly man rides into a town torn by war between two factions, the Baxters and the Rojo's. Instead of fleeing or dying, as most other would do, the man schemes to play the two sides off each other, getting rich in the bargain.

Marco Bellocchio
Drama
Doria

Alessandro, a young epileptic with paranoid inclinations, decides to relieve Augusto, the only sound brother, from the burden of a numerous family plagued with hereditary diseases. After a first aborted attempt, the dreadful series of accidents/murders is started by pushing the blind mother into a ravine. Then comes the turn of Leone, the idiotic brother. Will Alessandro be able to bring to completion his obsessive project ?

Wei Lo
Action
Golden Harvest Company
R
Chein is a city boy who moves with his cousins to work at a ice factory. He does this with a family promise never to get involved in any fight. However, when members of his family begin disappearing after meeting the management of the factor, the resulting mystery and pressures forces him to break that vow and take on the villainy of the Big Boss.

Bob Rafelson
Drama
BBS Productions
R
Robert Dupea has given up his promising career as a concert pianist and is now working in oil fields. He lives together with Rayette, who's a waitress in a diner. When Robert hears from his sister that his father isn't well, he drives up to Washington to see him, taking Rayette with him. There he gets confronted with his rich, cultured family that he had left behind.

Robert Townsend
Drama
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

In the early 1960's, a quintet of hopeful young African American men form an amateur vocal group called The Five Heartbeats. After an initially rocky start, the group improve, turn pro, and rise to become a top flight music sensation. Along the way however, the guys learn many hard lessons about the reality of the music industry with it's casual racism and greed while the personal weaknesses of the members threaten to destroy the integrity of the band.

Bill Karn
Crime
Umbrella Entertainment

Originally released in 1961 as Five Minutes to Live, this low-budget crime drama was later re-released as Door-to-Door Maniac. Fred narrates the film in flashback, detailing a suburban bank robbery that goes awry. In his simple plan, he hires a hard-up hood, Johnny Cabot to take the wife of the bank's vice president hostage. Cabot will hold her until he gets a call alerting him that Fred has been successful in getting ransom money. Cabot waits, and watches the Wilson house as the husband leaves for the bank and their young son heads off to school. Posing as a door-to-door guitar instructor, he forces his way into the house and takes Nancy Wilson hostage. At the bank, Fred talks his way into Ken Wilson's office, and presents his personal check for $70,000, intending that Wilson will withdraw the funds to cover the check as a ransom for his wife. He has Wilson call home to prove that Nancy is being held by the unstable Cabot, and gives Wilson 5 minutes to make his decision. If Fred fails to call the house back, Cabot is to kill Nancy. Wilson confesses to Fred that he has been planning to run off to Las Vegas with Ellen, the woman he has been having an affair with, and Fred will be doing him a favor by getting rid of Nancy. But as the minutes tick by, Wilson cracks and agrees to give him the money. Fred make the first call to save Nancy. The clock starts ticking again, another 5 minutes, for Fred to collect the money and get out of the bank safely. While Fred is working on Wilson, Nancy is terrorized by Cabot-- manhandled and shot at, invited to slip into something more comfortable (which she does in a futile attempt to distract him) and finally forced to listen to him serenade her with "Five Minutes to Live" and "I've Come to Kill" while he waits for the second call. The call hasn't come as Fred has been overpowered by the police, who were alerted by the bank's silent alarm. Cabot is getting more and more stressed. While worrying about Fred not calling, he is completely thrown by Little Bobby arriving home for lunch just as the police arrive at the Wilson house. Cabot panics, grabs Bobby and runs into the yard under police fire. Bobby fakes his death to save himself, and Cabot is shot by a cop in the yard. Nancy is reunited with her now-contrite husband, who decides he will still go to Las Vegas, but with Nancy.

Jørgen Leth
Documentary
Almaz Film Productions S.A.

"The Five Obstructions", a 100 min. theatre documentary directed by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth. An investigative journey into the phenomenon of "documentary", based on manifestos written by each director. About a filmmaker not only revisiting, but also recreating (not in a conventional sense) one of his first films, The Perfect Human / Det perfekte menneske (1967), a document on life in Denmark, containing the familiar Leth idiosyncrasies

Oscar Williams
Comedy
Five Hand Company
PG

Clint Eastwood
Action
DreamWorks SKG
R
In 1945, the Marines attack twelve thousand Japaneses protecting the twenty square kilometers of the sacred Iwo Jima island in a very violent battle. When they reach the Mount Suribachi and six soldiers raise their flag on the top, the picture become a symbol in a post Great Depression America. The government brings the three survivors to America to raise funds of war, bringing hope to desolated people, and making the three men heroes of war. However, the traumatized trio has difficulties to deal with the image build by their superiors, sharing the heroism with their mates.

René Clair
Adventure
Universal Pictures

French farce comes to the New World in 1840 as Claire Ledoux convinces the middle-aged banker who is her fiance that she is two different women -- a deception made necessary by the arrival of a man acquainted with the swath she cut across Europe. Giraud has been about to foreclose on a $150 loan made to a sea captain who needed the funds to court Claire. Get Claire's "cousin" out of New Orleans before the wedding, Giraud tells the sea captain and the debt will be paid.

Jeff Lipsky
Romance
Gigantic Pictures
R
A study of a relationship that starts quickly, burns bright, and then gets rocky, not from any one thing, but from an accumulation of civilization and its discontents. Stuart is glib and generous, Nicole is shy and forthright. He doesn't like her best friend; she tires of his brother's antics. She wants children sooner. He's a poor listener, she broods. Both have divorced parents, and their families complicate their lives. Is love enough to see them through?

Marc Abraham
Drama
Universal Studios
PG-13
In the early-1990s, Greg Kinnear was just another amiable talk show host. After As Good As It Gets, however, Kinnear confirmed he could act. If Flash of Genius isn't as harrowing as the Bob Crane biopic Auto-Focus, Kinnear digs just as deep to play a man possessed, in this case taking on Bob Kearns, a Detroit physics professor who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. Supported by his wife (Lauren Graham) and best friend (Dermot Mulroney, making the most of an underwritten part), Kearns aims to align himself with a Motor City auto maker to manufacture his device. Ford expresses interest, so Kearns secures a warehouse, but it all falls apart when they abruptly pull the plug. Then he finds out that they've added automatic wipers to their latest line. Though he patented his invention, the company denies they're using his blueprint, so Kearns takes them to court, a process that drags on for three decades. Meanwhile, his support system starts to collapse as Kearns loses interest in everything except the credit he feels he deserves. If the film succumbs to some of the pitfalls of the genre, i.e. the win-lose-win structure, producer-turned-director Marc Abraham never paint Kearns as too much of a hero. Through the inventor's brilliance, the world's streets are safer, but his tenacity also drove away some of those he held most dear. Hence, Flash of Genius serves as an inspirational story, a cautionary tale, and the perfect opportunity for Kinnear to make a potentially off-putting character sympathetic. --Kathleen C. Fennessy


Stills from Flash of Genius (Click for larger image)

 

 

Franco Amurri
Action
60/80 Productions
R
In 1989, clean-cut FBI man John Buckner is detailed to escort heavily-bearded Huey Walker back to jail for offences dating back to his days as a celebrated hippy radical. After Walker dupes Buckner on the train and himself falls into the hands of a couple of well-meaning refugees from the 60's, the two men with apparently nothing in common find themselves on the run together. But appearances can be deceptive.

Adrian Lyne
Drama
Paramount
R
That Oscar-winning title song buzzes in your ears long after the movie has stopped. The attraction here is youthful spirit and a pulsating score, because the weak story is merely a conduit for the song-and-dance numbers. The plot is every young woman's daydream come true. Jennifer Beals holds down a macho job as a welder by day, but performs erotic dance numbers in a club at night. It's not a strip club, so her morality remains intact. She dates her wealthy boss (Michael Nouri) and practices hard for the day she can audition for the upscale, local dance school, even though she has no formal training. It is malarkey, of course, unless you view this as total romantic fantasy. It works because you are carried along by the sheer force of the energetic, boisterous, MTV-style imagery by director Adrian Lyne. Beals is a plus as the stubborn, pouty, somewhat eccentric young woman made all the more interesting for her driving ambition. In the end, she is aided by her Prince Charming, who arrives bearing favors. Mind you, this is not the same as a rescue, as Beals is one rather tough damsel who does just fine on her own. "--Rochelle O'Gorman"

Joel Schumacher
Horror
Columbia Pictures Corporation
R
Medical students begin to explore the realm of near death experiences, hoping for insights. Each has their heart stopped and is revived. They begin having flashes of walking nightmares from their childhood, reflecting sins they committed or had committed against them. The experiences continue to intensify, and they begin to be physically beaten by their visions as they try and go deeper into the death experience to find a cure.

n/a
Music Video & Concerts
Zeit Media Limited
NR
To this present day Public Enemy have maintained their status as musical icons and have even achieved a cross over audience and have headlined festivals. They are still releasing material nearly twenty five years after their debut which shows longevity in any genre of music. Flav's voice is one of the most recognizable in Hip-Hop and coupled with his style and persona, you cannot fail to notice him. This DVD contains rare footage of Flav performing PE hits and solo material which will entertain both the old and new school fans of Hip-Hop.

Clarence Brown
Drama
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Leo and Ulrich are life long friends. Home, on leave from their military training, Leo sees the beautiful Felicitas at the railroad station. Awed by her beauty, they meet again at the ball and quietly leave together. In her room, her husband, about whom she has neglected to inform Leo, comes in and challenges Leo to a duel. The duel is done, the Count is killed, and Felicitas is a widow. Leo, however, is 'requested' to serve 5 years in Africa and he tells Ulrich to watch over Felicitas while he is gone. After 3 years, Ulrich is able to get a pardon for Leo, and all that Leo thinks about on the way home is Felicitas. When he arrives, he learns that Felicitas has married Ulrich. Felicitas likes that Ulrich is rich and she never told Ulrich the truth about Leo and her. Leo is crushed and does not visit them which saddens Ulrich as he does not know the reason why. Leo tries to stay away from her, but Felicitas uses every opportunity to tempt him to return to her as her lover. She creating a deadly triangle with the two life long friends.

Paul Morrissey, Antonio Margheriti
Drama
Compagnia Cinematografica Champion

In Serbia, Baron Frankenstein lives with the Baroness and their two children. He dreams of a super-race, returning Serbia to its grand connections to ancient Greece. In his laboratory, assisted by Otto, he builds a desirable female body, but needs a male who will be superbody and superlover. He thinks he has found just the right brain to go with a body he's built, but he's made an error, taking the head of a gay aesthete. Meanwhile, the Baroness has her lusts, and she fastens on Nicholas, a friend of the dead lad. Can the Baron pull off his grand plan? He brings the two zombies together to mate. Meanwhile, Nicholas tries to free his dead friend. What about the Baron's children?

Michael Benveniste, Howard Ziehm
Comedy
Graffiti Productions

Emperor Wang (the Perverted) is leader of the planet Porno and sends his mighty "Sex Ray" towards Earth, turning everyone into sex-mad fiends. Only one man can save the Earth, football player Flesh Gordon. Along with his girlfriend Dale Ardent and Professor Flexi-Jerkoff, they set off towards the source of the Sex Ray, unaware of the perils that face them!

Michael Ritchie
Comedy
Universal Pictures
PG
Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher, Los Angeles journalist, really lives for his profession. As Jane Doe, he publishes articles that have caused several heads to roll in the past. Now, Fletch is at it again: In disguise as a bum, he lives at the beach, researching drugs and their dealing. One day, Fletch is addressed by Alan Stanwyk, a rich man, who asks him, the bum, a favour. For the sum of $50,000, Fletch should kill poor cancer-ridden Mr. Stanwyk with a gun, so that his wife will get the insurance money. What the guy didn't think of was Fletch's real profession. Returning into normal life, Fletch instantly takes up research not only to find out that Mr. Stanwyk is healthy as life itself but he also runs into certain connections between drug dealing at the beach, Alan Stanwyk, his private jet, the police and a very expensive piece of Land in Utah.

Michael Ritchie
Comedy
Universal Pictures
PG
Fletch is a reporter for a Los Angeles newspaper, but he acts more like a detective. When an obscure relative leaves him a Louisiana mansion in his will, Fletch is naturally curious. Arriving in Louisiana, events occur that make him suspect that all is not well, and there is more to the property than he has been led to believe.

Michael Ritchie
Comedy
Universal Pictures
PG
Gregory McDonald's lightweight mystery novel about an undercover newspaper reporter cracking a police drug ring is transformed by screenwriter Andrew Bergman ("Blazing Saddles", and writer/director of "The Freshman" and "Honeymoon in Vegas") into a fairly sarcastic and occasionally very funny Chevy Chase vehicle. Enjoyment of the film pivots on whether you find Chase's flippant, smart-ass brand of verbal humor funny, or merely egocentric. If you don't like Chase, there's really no one else worth watching (Geena Davis is sadly underused). Chase seems born to play I.M. "Fletch" Fletcher, a disillusioned investigative reporter whose cynicism and detached view on life mirrors the actor's understated approach to comedy. Fletcher offers Chase the opportunity to adopt numerous personas, as his job requires numerous (bad) physical disguises, and much of film's humor centers on the ridiculous idea that any of these phony accents or bad hairpieces could fool anyone. These not-so-clever disguises are put to use when Fletch becomes involved in the film's smart but continually self-mocking two-part mystery. As well as trying to gather drug-smuggling evidence against the LAPD for a long-overdue newspaper story, a rich and apparently terminally ill stranger also offers Fletch a large payoff to kill him. While the film does a fairly good job juggling both of these plots, not to mention tossing in a love interest as well, it's subservient, for better or worse, to Chase's memorable one-liners and disguises. Followed by two forgettable sequels that lack both the original's wit and Chase's attention span. --"Dave McCoy"

Various
Comedy
HBO Home Video
NR
Unlike most HBO series, "Flight of the Conchords" does not want to set the world on fire. It is droll and deadpan to beat the band. If you like Tenacious D, They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Richman, "Leningrad Cowboys Go America", and silly Pythonian wordplay, then its off-center charms will definitely strike a resonant chord. The Conchords are comprised of funky, funny folk duo Bret McKenzie and mutton-chopped Jemaine Clement, transplanted New Zealanders trying to make it in New York. Brett, their incompetent manager, Murray (Rhys Darby) notes, has "the right attitude," while Jemaine has "what I like to call, 'the wrong attitude.'" (Murray, who works out of the New Zealand consulate, makes the clueless agent in "Extras" look like Ari Gold.) Stardom eludes the band. They have one fan, Mel (Kristin Schaal), whose seething husband chaperones her while she stalks them (by season's end, even she will desert them). Financially strapped, they live in squalor and are forced to film a music video with a cell-phone camera. The dense Jemaine is a damper on Brett's love life (he derisively calls Coco, Brett's new girlfriend, "Yoko"). But from their mundane lives springs their inspired music, and it is during each episode's musical numbers that "Conchords" really takes flight. Sample lyrics: "You're so beautiful / You could be a hostess in the '60s"; and "I'm not crying / It's just been raining / On my face." Another mad highlight is "Bowie to Bowie" in the episode in which Brett is visited by visions of Bowie in his various career incarnations (portrayed by a dead-on Clement). But the dialogue, too, sings with an inspired, surreal lunacy. One exchange between Brett and Murray degenerates into a chicken-egg discussion over a job vs. a gig. HBO has renewed "Flight of the Conchords" for a second season. Bravo! As a greeting-card executive ("The Daily Show"'s John Hodgman), who wants to license one of their tracks, tells the duo, "I believe in potential. I can see it in you guys." "--Donald Liebenson"

Robert Schwentke
Action
Touchstone Pictures
PG-13
The husband of aviation engineer Kyle Pratt has just died in Berlin. Now she is flying back to New York with his coffin and their six-year-old daughter Julia. Three hours into the flight Kyle awakens to find that Julia is gone! It's a big double-decker plane, so very concerned mother has a lot of territory to cover in order to find her daughter. But as Kyle fights to discern the truth, she takes matters into her own hands.

David O. Russell
Comedy
Miramax Films
R
Mel Coplin departs on a mission of discovery dragging his wife and 4 month old son behind. He and wife, Nancy, won't agree on a name for their son until adopted Mel gets in touch with his roots. He assures her that once he knows who he really is, the right name for their boy will be a snap. Enlisting the aid of student-psychologist and part-time adoption agent, Tina Kalb, they embark on a journey across the United States to find Mel's "birth" mother. "The best part," Mel tells Nancy, "is it's all free." Tina is finishing her dissertation and will film the happy reunion of mother and child as part of her research. For this privilege, she's footing the bill. His adoptive parents are left behind feeling abandoned by an ungrateful son. Clerical errors, mistaken identities, Nancy's misplaced high school friend and his gay lover, and a super-charged libido here and there are thrown into the mix along the way until -- at last -- Mel's real parents, the Schlictings (mispronounced as "Shit-kings" by Mrs. Coplin), are discovered in remote New Mexico. There, Mel begins to wonder if he would have been better off not knowing these people, after all.

Yasujiro Ozu
Drama
Daiei Studios

A troupe of travelling players arrive at a small seaport in the south of Japan. Komajuro Arashi, the aging master of the troupe, goes to visit his old flame Oyoshi and their son Kiyoshi, even though Kiyoshi believes Komajuro is his uncle. The leading actress Sumiko is jealous and so, in order to humiliate the master, persuades the younger actress Kayo to seduce Kiyoshi.

Randy Olson
Documentary
Prairie Starfish Productions
PG
The highly anticipated, comic and controversial feature documentary, "Flock of Dodos: the evolution-intelligent design circus," is the first feature film to take an even-handed look at the intelligent design vs. evolution clash that appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek in 2005. Filmmaker, scientist, surfer and evolutionary biologist Dr. Randy Olson explores the controversy over the teaching of evolution and the recently developed alternative, intelligent design. Olson, a native of Kansas, visits his home state and the community of Dover, Pennsylvania, which attempted to introduce intelligent design in science classes. Olson draws on basic aspects of evolution as metaphors, including the extinct dodo, which he suggests symbolizes what happens to those unable to change with their environment. Featured are seven top advocates for intelligent design, including Dr. Michael Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box," fourteen evolution Ph.D.'s, a poker game among eight evolutionists, a rabbit eating its own poop, and a flock of animated dodos playing poker, dancing, and helping the audience answer the question, "who really is the 'flock of dodos?'"

Nick Stagliano
Comedy
American Zoetrope
R
The bar in an old Pennsylvania steel town, housed with many of life's losers and disillusioned men, is the main setting for this slice-of-life film. Michael Madsen is the bar owner, who is deep in debt to the town's book-maker and loan shark Burt Young. Chris Penn is one of the bar's main inhabitants as he hides from his failing marriage to Mary Stuart Masterson. The bartender's sister (Virginia Madsen) is about to be married, and her former fiance (Tom Sizemore) shows up in town, after leaving her at the alter years before. Con man James Belushi runs a con on Perry to steal the money for the wedding caterer. As every plot in this multi layered story seems to be at it's worst, things look up because of an unlikely hero.

Roberto Rossellini
Drama
Cineriz

The film dramatizes about a dozen vignettes from the life of St. Francis and his early followers - starting with their return in the rain to Rivotorlo from Rome when the Pope blessed their Rule and ending with their dispersal to preach. The unconnected chapters are like parables, some with a moral. The slight and comic Ginepro returns naked to St. Mary's of the Angels, having given away his tunic, but not his ricotta. The aged Giovanni shouts and holds onto his cape; the beatific St. Clair pays a visit. Humble Francis doubts his leadership, hugs a leper, and sends his brothers spinning, dizzy, and smiling into the world. This brotherhood is infused with whimsy as well as belief.

David Bowers, Sam Fell
Animation
DreamWorks Animation
PG
Roddy is a decidedly upper-crust "society mouse" who lives the life of a beloved pet in a posh Kensington flat. When a sewer rat named Sid comes spewing out of the sink and decides he's hit the jackpot, Roddy schemes to rid himself of the pest by luring him into the "whirlpool." Sid may be an ignorant slob, but he's no fool, so it is Roddy who winds up being flushed away into the bustling sewer world of Ratropolis. There Roddy meets Rita, an enterprising scavenger who works the sewers in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger. Roddy immediately wants out, or rather, up; Rita wants to be paid for her trouble; and, speaking of trouble, the villainous Toad--who royally despises all rodents equally, making no distinction between mice and rats--wants them iced ... literally. The Toad dispatches his two hapless hench-rats, Spike and Whitey, to get the job done. When they fail, the Toad has no choice but to send to France for his cousin--that dreaded mercenary, Le Frog.

A. Edward Sutherland
Comedy
Boris Morros Productions

Oliver is heartbroken when he finds that Georgette, the inkeeper's daughter he's fallen in love with, is already married to dashing Foreign Legion officer Francois. To forget her, he joins the Legion, taking Stanley with him. Their bumbling eventually gets them charged with desertion and sentenced to a firing squad. They manage to escape in a stolen airplane, but crash after a wild ride.

David Miller
Action, Drama, War, Romance
Republic Pictures
NR
Jim Gordon commands a unit of the famed Flying Tigers, the American Volunteer Group which fought the Japanese in China before America's entry into World War II. Gordon must send his outnumbered band of fighter pilots out against overwhelming odds while juggling the disparate personalities and problems of his fellow flyers. In particular, he must handle the difficulties created by a reckless hot-shot pilot named Woody Jason, who not only wants to fight a one-man war but to waltz off with Gordon's girlfriend.

Neal Slavin
Drama
Carros Pictures
PG-13
In the waning months of World War II, a man and his wife are mistakenly identified as Jews by their anti-Semitic Brooklyn neighbors. Suddenly the victims of religious and racial persecution, they find themselves aligned with a local Jewish immigrant in a struggle for dignity and survival.

Errol Morris
Documentary
Sony Pictures Classics
PG-13
Documentary about Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, who subsequently became president of the World Bank. The documentary will combine an interview with Mr. McNamara discussing some of the tragedies and glories of the 20th Century, archival footage, documents, and an original score by Philip Glass.

A. Edward Sutherland
Comedy
Universal Pictures

During World War II, all the studios put out "all-star" vehicles which featured virtually every star on the lot--often playing themselves--in musical numbers and comedy skits, and were meant as morale-boosters to both the troops overseas and the civilians at home. This was Universal Pictures' effort. It features everyone from Donald O'Connor to the Andrews Sisters to Orson Welles to W.C. Fields to George Raft to Marlene Dietrich, and dozens of other Universal players.

Christopher Nolan
Crime
Next Wave Films
R
An older man listens to Bill's story about being a callow writer who likes to follow strangers around around London, observing them. One day, a glib and self-confident man whom Bill has been following confronts him. He's Cobb, a burglar who takes Bill under his wing and shows him how to break and enter. They burgle a woman's flat; Bill gets intrigued with her (photographs are everywhere in her flat). He follows her and chats her up at a bar owned by her ex-boyfriend, a nasty piece of work who killed someone in her living room with a hammer. Soon Bill is volunteering to do her a favor, which involves a break-in. What does the older man know that Bill doesn't?

Maurice Linnane
Documentary
BMG

Robert Kenner
Educational
Magnolia Home Entertainment
PG
For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. "Food, Inc." examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact. Director Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles, talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation"), Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma"), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who's been lobbying for more rigorous standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son. The filmmaker takes his camera into slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. If eco-docs tends to preach to the converted, Kenner presents his findings in such an engaging fashion that "Food, Inc." may well reach the very viewers who could benefit from it the most: harried workers who don't have the time or income to read every book and eat non-genetically modified produce every day. Though he covers some of the same ground as "Super-Size Me" and "King Korn", "Food Inc." presents a broader picture of the problem, and if Kenner takes an understandably tough stance on particular politicians and corporations, he's just as quick to praise those who are trying to be responsible--even Wal-Mart, which now carries organic products. That development may have more to do with economics than empathy, but the consumer still benefits, and every little bit counts. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Robert Altman
Drama
Cannon Group

May is waiting for her boyfriend in a run-down American motel, when an old flame turns up and threatens to undermine her efforts and drag her back into the life that she was running away from. The situation soon turns complicated.

Andy Tennant
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation
PG-13
Sparks fly and cultures collide in this romantic comedy about a casual night of passion that turns into the love of a lifetime. Alex Whitman is a New Yorker sent to Las Vegas to oversee a construction project. There he meets Isabel Fuentes, and some serious chemistry brings them together for one night. But Alex doesn't see Isabel again until three months later, when he learns she is pregnant. On a whim and prayer, he proposes. However, there's more to marriage than a Vegas chapel and an Elvis impersonator, as Alex and Isabel soon learn.

Lloyd Bacon
Comedy
Warner Bros. Pictures

Chester Kent produces Musical Comedies on the stage. With the beginning of the talkies aera he changes to producing short musical proluges for movies. But this is stressing him, because he always needs new units and his rival is always stealing his ideas. So he can get an contract with a producer, if he is able to stage in three days three new proluges. In spite of great problems he does it.

Sergio Leone
Action
Arturo González Producciones Cinematográficas S.A.
R
Two bounty hunters are after the same man, Indio. At first, they go their own ways, but eventually get together to try and find him. But are they after him for the same reason ?

Al Reinert
Documentary
Criterion
NR
A Special Message from Jonathon Turell, Criterion CEO

I was nine when the Apollo 11 Eagle landed on the moon. I remember vividly watching it on a small black-and-white TV at sleepaway camp that summer of 1969. I’ve been hooked on the space program ever since. Just about twenty years ago, a friend told me he had seen a rough cut of a new space movie and I should see it. I got a tape and watched For All Mankind for the first time. It was unlike anything I had seen before, and I knew that I wanted to be a part of it. I met Al Reinert and we became friends. Janus Films helped to finish the film, and I became an associate producer as we completed the movie. For All Mankind was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary—losing out to Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. It played festivals around the world. There was a special screening for NASA and the astronauts in Galveston, Texas, and the film showed at the Air and Space Museum at the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the moon landing.

We started working on the laserdisc release of For All Mankind before the film was complete, and I traveled to Houston to meet Al and interview Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean for inclusion on the disc. Bean’s comments were so good that Al recut the film to include a wonderful story about piloting the lunar module in orbit around moon. Meeting one of the astronauts who walked on the moon is still one of the greatest thrills of my life. Last year, when we began working on our Blu-ray release of For All Mankind, we got in touch with Bean again and asked him to participate. He happily agreed to update the feature on his paintings and also to sit down and talk with us about a subject I had become very interested in—science versus art. I wanted to explore the question of whether the astronauts (or the people at NASA) realized they were shooting some of the most artistic images ever recorded (and now some of the most famous) or if it was really all about moon rocks and beating the Russians. This second meeting with Bean didn’t disappoint; he says some wonderful things that are included on the disc. When we finished taping our interview session, he gave me a ride to lunch. The famous Apollo 12 Corvette is gone, replaced by a truck to carry his paintings, but that ten-minute ride will stay with me forever. He talked about walking on the moon; I talked about what movies I like. It didn’t seem quite parallel—for him it was an interesting conversation, for me, it was an audience with a hero.

Over the years, I think I’ve seen every film and TV miniseries about the Apollo program (at least twice), but for me For All Mankind still stands apart. It is unique in its poetic approach and ability to capture the pure emotion of the greatest journey of our time.

Al Reinert
Documentary
Apollo Associates

This movie documents the Apollo missions perhaps the most definitively of any movie under two hours. Al Reinert watched all the footage shot during the missions--over 6,000,000 feet of it, and picked out the best. Instead of being a newsy, fact-filled documentary. Reinart focuses on the human aspects of the space flights. The only voices heard in the film are the voices of the astronauts and mission control. Reinart uses the astronaunts' own words from interviews and from the mission footage. The score by Brian Eno underscores the strangeness, wonder, and and beauty of the astronauts' experiences--experiences which they were privileged to have for a first time "for all mankind."

Sam Taylor
Action
The Harold Lloyd Corporation

The Uptown Boy, J. Harold Manners (Lloyd) is a millionaire playboy who falls for the Downtown Girl, Hope (Ralston) who works in Brother Paul's (Weigel) mission. In order to build up attendance, and win Hope's attention, Harold runs through town causing trouble, and winds up with a crowd chasing him right into the mission. He eventually wins the girl and they marry, but not without some interference from his high-brow friends.

Christopher Guest
Comedy
Shangri-La Entertainment
PG-13
Hollywood send-up. No-name actors are making a low-budget period drama called "Home for Purim," when an anonymous post on the Internet suggests that one performance is Oscar-worthy. Then, two more cast members get Oscar-related press: buzz in "Variety" and appearances on TV prompt the studio executives to insist on changes in the script in anticipation of a blockbuster. Jump ahead a few months to the days before Oscar nominees are announced: just the possibility of a nomination has changed the actors' lives. Agents, publicists, make-up artists, local celebrity reporters, and other bit players round out the backstage ensemble. Hooray for Hollywood!

John Glen
Action & Adventure
Fox/MGM
PG
After a ship sunk off the coast of Albania, the world's superpowers begin a feverish search for its valuable lost cargo: the powerful ATAC system, which will give its bearer unlimited control over Polaris nuclear submarines. As Bond joins the search, he suspects the suave Kristatos (Julian Glover) of seizing the device. The competition between nations grows more deadly by the moment, but Bond finds an ally in the beautiful Melina Havelock (Caroline Bouquet), who blames Kristatos for the death of her parents. The non-stop action includes automobile chases, thrilling underwater battles, and even a breathtaking tour over razor-sharp coral reefs. But all of this is merely a prelude to 007's cliffhanging assault of a magnificent mountaintop fortress. "-- Robert Lynch"

René Clément
Drama
Silver Films

A girl of perhaps five or six is orphaned in an air raid while fleeing a French city with her parents early in World War II. She is befriended by a pre-adolescent peasant boy after she wandered away from the other refugees, and is taken in for a few weeks by his family. The children become fast friends, and the film follows their attempt to assimilate the deaths they both face, and the religious rituals surrounding those deaths, through the construction of a cemetery for all sorts of animals. Child-like and adult activity are frequently at cross-purposes, however.

Rob Minkoff
Action
Casey Silver Productions
PG-13
An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself traveling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

Alfred Hitchcock
Adventure
Walter Wanger Productions

Johnny Jones is an action reporter on a New York newspaper. The editor appoints him European correspondent because he is fed up with the dry, reports he currently gets. Jones' first assignment is to get the inside story on a secret treaty agreed between two European countries by the famous diplomat, Mr. Van Meer. However things don't go to plan and Jones enlists the help of a young woman to help track down a group of spies.

Steve Miner
Adventure
Icon Entertainment International
PG
A 1939 test pilot asks his best friend to use him as a guinea pig for a cryogenics experiment. Daniel McCormick wants to be frozen for a year so that he doesn't have to watch his love lying in a coma. The next thing Daniel knows is that he's been awoken in 1992.

Nicholas Stoller
Comedy
Universal Studios
R
Breaking up is hard to do--but that doesn't mean you can't have some belly laughs about it. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" provides that rare treat: a romantic comedy about breakups, that is both romantic and funny. The laughs, especially from writer-star Jason Segel, are both heartfelt and raunchy, and the film is just unexpected enough that it keeps the viewer's attention till the end. The touches of producer Judd Apatow, who's famously retooled rom-coms to appeal to guys as much as women, are woven throughout the film, but Segel's script, reportedly based on many of his own experiences, is fresh and original. And adult. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall " features male genitalia laffs presented in unexpected and human ways (the nude breakup scene is played for giggles but also deep poignancy), and the language and sex scenes are strictly for grownups--and rightly so. Segel's script, and his performance as Peter, show that he understands the true nature of adult relationships, which provides the refreshing difference between this film and some of Apatow's other crude creations. The cast is sublime; Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars") plays title character Sarah, a self-absorbed actress, and Russell Brand is her new British honey who accompanies her to--what are the chances?--the exact same Hawaiian resort as Peter, who's nursing his broken heart. Mila Kunis plays Rachel, the resort employee who gives Peter a reason to hope, and Paul Rudd is the surfing instructor who gives him his own brand of heartfelt advice ("When life gives you lemons, just say 'F--- the lemons' and bail," he says cheerily). The pacing is screwball, and the absurdities fly (a "Dracula" musical puppet show, and a surprisingly lovely Hawaiian version of "Nothing Compares 2 U"). Nothing the viewer will forget any time soon.--"A.T. Hurley"



Get to Know the Cast From "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"
Kristen Bell (Sarah Marshall)
Jason Segel (Peter Bretter)
Mila Kunis (Rachel Jansen)
Beyond "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" on DVD
More from the Apatow Gang
Get it on Blu-ray
More Romantic Comedies


Stills from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (Click for larger image)

Joseph Ruben
Horror
Revolution Studios
PG-13
A grieving mother, Telly Paretta, is struggling to cope with the loss of her 9-year-old son. She is stunned when her psychiatrist and her husband tell her that she has created eight years of memories of a son she never had. But when she meets the father of one of her son's friend who is having the same experience, Telly embarks on a mission to prove her son's existence and her sanity.

Paul E. Gierucki
Documentary
Laughsmith Entertainment

Popular rival of friend Charlie Chaplin, mentor of sidekick Buster Keaton, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (1887-1933) dominated silent film comedy from the days of Keystone until tragic events in 1921 shattered his career, throwing his film triumphs into obscurity. But this was not the end. Blacklisted by Hollywood, Roscoe Arbuckle continued directing dozens of film comedies under the pseudonym "William Goodrich" for almost another decade. Arbuckle was involved in making some 200 films in all. Sadly, the work of the True Fourth Genius of silent comedy remains neglected. That is, until now...

Ronny Yu
Action
Alliance Atlantis Communications
R
Elmo McElroy (Jackson) is a streetwise American master chemist who heads to England to sell his special new formula - a powerful, blue concoction guaranteed to take you to 'the 51st state.' McElroy's new product delivers a feeling 51 times more powerful than any thrill, any pleasure, any high in history. But his plans for a quick, profitable score go comically awry when he gets stuck in Liverpool with an unlikely escort (Carlyle) and his ex-girlfriend (Mortimer) and becomes entangled in a bizarre web of double-dealing and double-crosses.

Robert Zemeckis
Comedy
Paramount Pictures
PG-13
Forrest, Forrest Gump is a simple man with little brain activity but good intentions. He struggles through childhood with his best and only friend Jenny. His 'mama' teaches him the ways of life and leaves him to choose his destiny. Forrest joins the army for service in Vietnam, finding new friends called Dan and Bubba, he wins medals, starts a table tennis craze, creates a famous shrimp fishing fleet, inspires people to jog, create the smiley, write bumper stickers and songs, donating to people and meeting the president several times. However this is all irrelevant to Forrest who can only think of his childhood sweetheart Jenny. Who has messed up her life. Although in the end all he wants to prove is that anyone can love anyone

John Ford
Western
Argosy Pictures

In John Ford's sombre exploration mythologising of American heroes, he slowly reveals the character of Owen Thursday, who sees his new posting to the desolate Fort Apache as a chance to claim the military honour which he believes is rightfully his. Arrogant, obsessed with military form and ultimately self-destructive, Thursday attempts to destroy the Apache chief Cochise after luring him across the border from Mexico, against the advice of his subordinates.

Daniel Petrie
Crime, Drama
Producers Circle
R
From the sight of a police officer this movie depicts the life in New York's infamous South Bronx. In the center is "Fort Apache", as the officers call their police station, which really seems like an outpost in enemy's country. The story follows officer Murphy, who seems to be a tuff cynic, but in truth he's a moralist with a sense for justice.

Mike Nichols
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation

The early 1900's with its Mann-Act (disallowing women to be transported across State lines for immoral reasons) brings a married man to devise a scheme for taking his upper-class girlfriend away with him... he simply has her marry his unmarried buddy. However, it doesn't take very long before both men start laying claim to her affection... until, that is, she's about to be cut out of her parent's fortune. So, a new scheme is devised, which only adds to their problems, as well as to the sly whimsy of this film.

Samuel Fuller
Drama
Globe Enterprises

An authoritarian rancher, Barbara Stanwyck, who rules an Arizona county with her private posse of hired guns. When a new marshall arrives to set things straight, the cattle queen finds herself falling, brutally for the avowedly non-violent lawman. Both have itchy-fingered brothers, a female gunman enters the picture, and things go desperately wrong.

Colin Higgins
Comedy
Paramount Pictures

When, unbeknownst to Gloria, a microfilm cassette is left with her by a dying agent, she becomes entangled in a complicated series of events. She's pursued by a dwarf and an albino, and becomes convinced that they are out to kill her. Finally, with the help of San Francisco detective Tony Carlson, she begins to turn the tables on her pursuers. It becomes clear that the nerfarious crew after her are plotting a dastardly deed indeed - to assassinate the Pope as he visits the city to see _The Mikado_. Gloria and Tony must race against time to prevent this terrible crime.

Darren Aronofsky
Drama
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG-13
Three stories - one each from the past, present, and future - about men in pursuit of eternity with their love. A conquistador in Mayan country searches for the tree of life to free his captive queen; a medical researcher, working with various trees, looks for a cure that will save his dying wife; a space traveler, traveling with an aged tree encapsulated within a bubble, moves toward a dying star that's wrapped in a nebula; he seeks eternity with his love. The stories intersect and parallel; the quests fail and succeed.

Seth Gordon
Comedy
New Line
PG-13
When your significant other tells you you both need an exit "safe word" before you enter his dad's Christmas gathering, you know you're not in Bedford Falls. But while Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon may not be "It's a Wonderful Life"'s George and Mary Bailey, "Four Christmases" is a modern holiday classic in its own right. For one thing, every family neurosis and dysfunction have taken root in the four families of Vaughn and Witherspoon's characters, Brad and Kate--and the sleek yuppie façade each has built with the other is about to come tumbling down. There are real belly laughs as the couple unexpectedly has to spend holidays with their four extended family groups. "I don't want to speak ill of your mother on Christmas," growls Howard (Robert Duvall) to son Brad, while Brad's bullnecked ultimate-fighter brothers are rassling everything in sight, "but she's nothing but a common street whore." Brad may cringe, but Kate's own family is about to mortify her in abundant ways, from her randy "Gram-Gram" and about-to-pounce cougar mom Mary Steenburgen ("I feel like a Saudi prince in here," marvels Brad as all of Kate's female relatives drape themselves over him), to the revelation to Brad that Kate used to be--how to put this--a bit on the chubby side. If the plot isn't full of surprises, the quips are nonstop and the acting believable and charming. The supporting cast also includes Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau and Dwight Yoakam in a memorable turn as the mega-church pastor Steenburgen's character is involved with. It's a comic Christmas blessing, and there'll be no need to say "mistletoe"--at least not till the viewers are home with their own families. --"A.T. Hurley"

Richard Lester
Action
Este Films
PG
D'Artagnan has become a Musketeer. Protestants hold La Rochelle, and the Queen loves Buckingham, who'll soon send ships to support the rebels. Richelieu enlists Rochefort to kidnap Constance, the Queen's go-between and D'Artagnan's love. The Cardinal uses the wily, amoral Milady de Winter to distract D'Artagnan. But soon, she is D'Artagnan's sworn enemy, and she has an unfortunate history with Athos as well. Milady goes to England to dispatch Buckingham; the Musketeers fight the rebels. Milady, with Rochefort's help, then turns to her personal agenda. Can D'Artagnan save Constance, defeat Rochefort, slip de Winter's ire, and stay free of the Cardinal? All for one, one for all.

Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell
Comedy
Miramax Films
R
This movie features the collaborative directorial efforts of four new filmmakers, each of whom directs a segment of this comedy. It's New Year's Eve at the Mon Signor Hotel, a former grand old Hollywood hotel, now fallen upon hard times. Often using physical comedy and sight gags, this movie chronicles the slapstick misadventures of Ted, the Bellhop. He's on his first night on the job, when he's asked to help out a coven of witches in the Honeymoon Suite. Things only get worse when he delivers ice to the wrong room and ends up in a domestic argument at a really bad time. Next, he foolishly agrees to watch a gangster's kids for him while he's away. Finally, he finishes off the night refereeing a ghastly wager.

Mike Newell
Comedy
Channel Four Films
R
The film follows the fortunes of Charles and his friends as they wonder if they will ever find true love and marry. Charles thinks he's found "Miss Right" in Carrie, an American. This British subtle comedy revolves around Charlie, his friends and the four weddings and one funeral which they attend.

Jack Hill, William Girdler
Action & Adventure
MGM (Video & DVD)
R
"From Blaxploitation to Hip-Hop" Featurette "Pam Grier: Super Foxy" Featurette

Annette Haywood-Carter
Drama
Chestnut Hill Productions
R
The story of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond after beating up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. They build a solid friendship but their wild ways begin to get out of control.

Jack Hill
Action
American International Pictures (AIP)

A sexy black woman, Foxy Brown, seeks revenge when her government agent boyfriend Michael is shot down by gangsters led by the kinky couple of Steve Elias and Miss Katherine.

Gregory Hoblit
Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
New Line Cinema
R
Wealthy, brilliant, and meticulous Ted Crawford, a structural engineer in Los Angeles, shoots his wife and entraps her lover. He signs a confession; at the arraignment, he asserts his rights to represent himself and asks the court to move immediately to trial. The prosecutor is Willy Beachum, a hotshot who's soon to join a fancy civil-law firm, told by everyone it's an open and shut case. Crawford sees Beachum's weakness, the hairline fracture of his character: Willy's a winner. The engineer sets in motion a clockwork crime with all the objects moving in ways he predicts.

Gregory Hoblit
Mystery & Suspense
New Line Home Video
R
Anthony Hopkins plays a brilliant, pathologically serene killer outwitting the good guys at every turn and taking a shine to a twentysomething law enforcer who can’t conceal a rural accent and rugged origins. Could it be...? No, not "The Silence of the Lambs", but an original mystery, "Fracture", which plays a little like "Lambs" as an episode of "Columbo", minus Columbo. Which means the film tells us from the get-go that Hopkins’ character, a wealthy engineer, shoots his philandering wife (Embeth Davidtz) and leaves her in a vegetative state. From there, it should be a simple matter for young, assistant District Attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) to nail Crawford, who provides a full confession and even eschews counsel. That’s good for Beachum, a slick winner with a vague background of deprivation, rapidly on his way out of public service after attracting the attention of a deep-pocket, private firm. What he doesn’t know, however, is that Crawford has masterminded more than vengeance against his wife, and that the state’s case against him is full of pre-arranged holes and a huge time-bomb that will send Beachum scrambling to keep the pieces together.
The story, conceived and co-scripted by Daniel Pyne ("Doc Hollywood"), goes down easily with a minimum of blood and violence, and should easily appeal to mystery buffs as well as old fans of Hopkins and new admirers of Oscar nominee Gosling ("Half Nelson"). The latter holds his own in multiple, two-character scenes with the masterful portrayer of Hannibal Lecter, pacing Beachum’s reactions to Crawford’s polite provocations so everything spills onto his youthful face: torn loyalties, confusion, gullibility. Director Gregory Hoblit ("Hart’s War"), still best-known for decades of distinguished television work ("NYPD Blue"), brings the necessary intimacy to make the stars’ chemistry work effectively. His noirish atmosphere is a little over the top, sometimes pushing the audience to a level of expectation that the film isn’t really ready to deliver, but this, overall, is an enjoyable work. "--Tom Keogh"

Various
Kids & Family
Lyons / Hit Ent.
NR
The world of Jim Henson's "Fraggle Rock" is far from the sunny urban buzz of "Sesame Street", where many of Henson's most beloved Muppet characters dwell, or the frantic, backstage shenanigans of "The Muppet Show", the classic variety program starring Kermit, Miss Piggy, and other icons of children's television. In "Fraggle Rock", humans and Muppets live in different worlds. So different, in fact, that the Fraggles--small but diverse creatures who live in a cavernous land behind a wall in the shop of a tinkerer named Doc (Gerry Parkes)--regard the realm of flesh-and-blood people as "outer space."
Fraggles and people live apart, but the order of things is shaken up when the series' central character, Gobo, can't talk his determined uncle, Traveling Matt, from being the first of his kind to explore the great unknown. Matt leaves Fraggle Rock with a promise to get word to Gobo about how things are going. Thereafter, Gobo has to find a way, from time to time, to fetch postcards from Doc's trash can (Doc can't figure out why missives from someone named Uncle Matt keep turning up in his mailbox) by dashing into the tinkerer's warm workshop, avoiding not only Doc's eyes but the suspicions of his wonderful dog, Sprocket. (Doc mutters occasionally about boarding up a hole in the wall that serves as Gobo's door. When he finally does so, mid-season, it poses a crisis for Gobo, who is caught on the wrong side.) While Traveling Matt sees what people are like, Gobo and his fellow Fraggles--Red, Wembley, Boober, Mokey, and others--have adventures (and some misadventures) of their own, trying to get along, learning to say what they mean and how to avoid making the same mistake twice. Over time, they begin to ponder the big questions of their world and lives, questions that have an ethical subtext that can easily be appreciated by young viewers. Such as: Is it okay to eat elaborate structures built by Doozers, small construction builders whose materials apparently are so tasty? Should one ever trick a friend so seriously the latter actually grieves? Helping the Fraggles with these tough issues is all-knowing Marjory the Trash Heap, guru of garbage and life lessons. Not helpful by any stretch are the problematic Gorgs, giants who want to enslave Fraggles and who consider themselves royalty of the universe (such as it is behind Doc's wall). Each busy episode is designed to impart wisdom to kids, but they are also as funny as one might expect from the wisecracking Muppet Factory. Bonuses include recent interviews with cast and crew of the 1980s show, as well as a documentary about Henson. "--Tom Keogh"

Arthur Lubin
Adventure
Universal Pictures

U.S. Army veteran Peter Stirling and his friend, Francis the talking Mule (who was not a donkey), arrive in New York City, where Peter has ambitions to become a big-time newspaper reporter, but can only get a job as a copy boy. Francis, the talking MULE (and not a donkey), though is boarding at the stables where the horses of the city's mounted police are kept, and mounted-police horses are known for being gossips, so Francis gets lots of inside information regarding local crime activity, passes it on to Peter, and Peter is soon leading the town in big-time scoops. This pleases his city-editor to no end, but the local gangsters are not amused.

Arthur Lubin
Comedy
Universal International Pictures (UI)

Arthur Lubin
Comedy
Universal International Pictures (UI)

Arthur Lubin
Comedy
Universal International Pictures (UI)

The truthful soldier Stirling didn't know how to lie about his source of information, the talking army Mule, Francis, so he was treated as a lunatic and led to one after another hilarious situations, where the mule was the only one that appeared in his right mind. In the process of all this, the mule assisted in uncovering a spy, Mareen, who pretended to be lost among the jungles, but was actually... This is a perfect family film, even amusing to the adults. If people all have enough sense as this talking mule does, the world will be a much better place than its present condition.

Michele Lupo
Comedy
Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica

There's trouble in Frankie Diomede's criminal empire in Genoa. A French gangster has moved into Frankie's territory, so Frankie flies home to take care of business. He promptly has himself arrested so that he'll have the perfect alibi when his top local associate dies, but then Frankie's life gets complicated: his enemies have enough juice to keep him in prison for awhile, his associates and allies are killed one at a time, and attempts on his life start. Help comes from an unlikely source: Tony Breda, a wannabe wiseguy who's a Milanese raised in Hoboken. Tony designs a plan to spring Frankie from jail, and then all roads lead to Marseilles. Is Tony a future Mafia don?

Unknown
Comedy
Comedy Central

Kenneth Bowser
Documentary
Columbia TriStar Television
PG

James Whale
Drama
Universal Pictures

Henry Frankenstein is a doctor who is trying to discover a way to make the dead walk. He suceeds and creates a monster that has to deal with living again.

Roy William Neill
Sci-Fi
Universal Pictures

Larry Talbot finds himself in an asylum, recovering from an operation performed by the kindly Dr. Mannering. Inspector Owen finds him there, too, wanting to question him about a recent spate of murders. Talbot escapes and finds Maleva, the old gypsy woman who knows his secret: when the moon is full, he changes to a werewolf. She travels with him to locate the one man who can help him to die - Dr. Frankenstein. The brilliant doctor proves to be dead himself, but they do find Frankenstein's daughter. Talbot begs her for her father's papers containing the secrets of life and death. She doesn't have them, so he goes to the ruins of the Frankenstein castle to find them himself. There he finds the Monster, whom he chips out of a block of ice. Dr. Mannering catches up with him only to become tempted to monomania while using Frankenstein's old equipment.

Garry Marshall
Drama
Paramount Pictures
R
Johnny has just been released from prison, and gets a job in a cafe beside waitress Frankie. Frankie is a bit of a loner, but Johnny is determined their romance will blossom.

Paul Todisco
Comedy
Centre Street Productions
R

Various
Comedy
Shout Factory
NR
The comedy/drama "Freaks and Geeks" limped through its sole season on NBC in 1999 before being expelled by the network--but not before earning critical acclaim and a devoted fan base that fought valiantly to keep it on the air. Now all 18 episodes have been released in this long-awaited boxed set, which allows longtime fans and first-timers alike to enjoy one of television's most poignant and funny programs about high school.
Created by writer-comedian Paul Feig and executive produced by Judd Apatow ("The Larry Sanders Show"), "Freaks and Geeks" followed the Weir siblings--former math whiz Lindsay (Linda Cardellini of the "Scooby-Doo" feature films and "ER") and her younger brother Sam (John Francis Daley)--as they navigated the perils and pleasures of a Michigan high school circa 1980. What separated "Freaks and Geeks" from most other scholastic series was its brutal honesty--Lindsay and Sam, as well as their friends and parents, were given very human personas that showed failure, malice, indecision, and moments of great clarity. Likewise, the plotlines rarely offered pat solutions to the characters' conflicts--the show unfolded in a naturalistic manner, which was a welcome respite for viewers tired of flashy high school dramas. When combined with its smart dialogue and winning performances (the cast included "SCTV" veteran Joe Flaherty and "Spider-Man" star James Franco, as well as the sublime and criminally underrecognized Martin Starr and Seth Rogen as Sam's pal Bill and dry-witted Ken, respectively), the show became a haven for fans of quality television, if only for a brief period of time.
The six-disc boxed set provides over 40 hours of supplemental material, which should satiate even the most obsessive of fans. Twenty-nine separate commentaries from the show's creators, cast (and as some of their parents!), composer Mike Andrews, and fans are included, as are 60 deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage, and cast auditions. However, the most striking extra is the warmth that radiates from the commentary participants--their pleasure in taking part in such a quality program is palpable, and will undoubtedly be echoed by all who watch these discs. "--Paul Gaita"

David Dobkin
Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG
During childhood, Fred Claus suffered his younger brother Nick's saintliness. Jump ahead: Fred is a fast-talking, genial but self-centered guy in Chicago looking for $50,000 to open an off-track-betting shop. When one scam goes awry, he calls Nick at the North Pole for a loan: Nick will give him the money only if Fred comes up to help a few days with the Christmas rush. After his girlfriend dumps him, Fred heads north. Santa's facing an audit from an efficiency expert, and it's not pleasant. Fred's job is to review charts and determine who's naughty and who's nice. Is there any fraternal feeling left, can either learn from the other, and what about Santa getting fired?

Edward Sedgwick
Comedy
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Gopher City Kansas hosts a beauty contest. The winner, Elvira Plunkett, and her mother go to Hollywood. The Chamber of Commerce also provides Elvira with an agent, Gopher City's own Elmer J. Butz. Elmer likes Elvira and the shy Elvira likes him, but Mrs. Plunkett, a formidable woman, has little use for hapless Elmer. On the train west, they meet movie star Larry Mitchell, who takes a shine to Elvira and helps her meet MGM directors once they get to Tinsel Town. Elmer, meanwhile, wants to help Elvira with her career and he also wants to be her man. Movie stardom does come to the Gopher City entourage, but to whom is a surprise. And who will win the lovely Elvira's hand?

Clarence Brown
Drama
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Stephen Ashe, an upper class alcoholic defense attourney, successfully defends local mobster Ace Wilfong in a murder case. After his daughter Jan Ashe breaks her engagement to polo player Dwight Winthrop and starts an affair with Wilfong, she finds that the liason is not easily severed when she wants out. Winthrop earns Miss Ashe's true affections by killing Wilfong to break his grip on her. Now the question is, can Stephen Ashe save Winthrop with an impassioned defense speech to the jury?

Joe Roth
Crime
Revolution Studios
R
When her son disappears and is believed to be dead, a single mother blames an African-American man from the projects for the kidnapping, creating a racial controversy. An African-American detective (Jackson) and a white missing child researcher team up to investigate the case, which they discover may be more complicated than they expected.

Matthew Bright
Comedy
August Entertainment
R
Little Red Riding Hood for the 1990's: After her mom and step-dad are arrested, 15-year-old Vanessa Lutz decides that instead of once again being put into a foster home, she'd rather go and search for the grandmother she's never met, and live with her. "On the way to grandma's house," (actually a trailer park) Vanessa's car breaks down, and she's picked up from the side of the road by Bob Wolverton, a counselor at a school for troubled boys. Bob slowly earns Vanessa's trust, and eventually convinces her to talk about her sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. When Vanessa realizes that Bob is enjoying what she's saying, she realizes that he's "The I-5 Killer," from the news. She tries to get out of his truck, but the inside door handle has been removed...

Jean Renoir
Comedy
Franco London Films

Henri Danglard, proprietor of the fashionable (but bankrupt) cafe 'Le Paravent Chinois' featuring his mistress, belly dancer Lola, goes slumming in Montmarte (circa 1890) where the then-old-fashioned cancan is still danced. There, he conceives the idea of reviving the cancan as the feature of a new, more popular establishment...and meets Nini, a laundress and natural dancer, whom he hopes to star in his new show. But a tangled maze of jealousies intervenes...

William Friedkin
Action
Schine-Moore Productions
R
William Friedkin's gritty police drama portrays two tough New York City cops trying to intercept a huge heroin shipment coming from France. An interesting contrast is established between 'Popeye' Doyle, a short-tempered alcoholic bigot who is nevertheless a hard-working and dedicated police officer, and his nemesis Alain Charnier, a suave and urbane gentleman who is nevertheless a criminal and one of the largest drug suppliers of pure heroin to North America. During the surveillance and eventual bust, Friedkin provides one of the most gripping and memorable car chase sequences ever filmed.

William Friedkin
Action & Adventure
20th Century Fox
R
William Friedkin's classic "policier" was propelled to box-office glory, and a fistful of Oscars, in 1972 by its pedal-to-the-metal filmmaking and fashionably cynical attitude toward law enforcement. Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle, a brutally pushy New York City narcotics detective, is a dauntless crime fighter and Vietnam-era "pig," a reckless vulgarian whose antics get innocent people killed. Loosely based upon an actual investigation that led to what was then the biggest heroin seizure in U.S. history, the picture traces the efforts of Doyle and his partner (Roy Scheider) to close the pipeline pumping Middle Eastern smack into the States through the French port of Marseilles. (The actual French Connection cops, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, make cameo appearances.) It was widely recognized at the time that Friedkin had lifted a lot of his high-strung technique from the Costa-Gavras thrillers "The Sleeping Car Murders" and "Z"--he even imported one of Costa-Gavras's favorite thugs, Marcel Bozzuffi, to play the Euro-trash hit man plugged by Doyle in an elevated train station. There was an impressive official sequel in 1975, "French Connection II", directed by John Frankenheimer, which took Popeye to the south of France and got him hooked on horse. A couple of semi-official spinoffs followed, "The Seven-Ups", which elevated Scheider to the leading role, and "Badge 373", with Robert Duvall stepping in as the pugnacious flatfoot. "--David Chute"

John Frankenheimer
Action
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

New York narcotics detective Popeye Doyle follows the trail of the French connection smuggling ring to France where he teams up with the gendarmes to hunt down the ringleader.

Lawrence Kasdan
Comedy
Polygram Filmed Entertainment
PG-13
Kate (Meg Ryan) and Charlie (Timothy Hutton) have a perfect life planned out before them: buying a house, marriage, kids, the whole works. Kate's fear of flying keeps her in Canada while Charlie goes to Paris for a medical convention. While there Charlie is smitten by the lovely Juliette (Susan Anbeh). He calls off the wedding with Kate and she nervously boards a plane to get him back. She ends up sitting next to the petty French thief Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline). He hides a stolen necklace and smuggled grape vine in her bag to get it through customs. Her bag is stolen, the necklace apparently lost, and Kate and Luc head to Cannes -- Luc to find the necklace and Kate get Charlie back. Along the way, Kate and Luc begin having feelings for each other -- which change the course of their lives.

Alfred Hitchcock
Crime
Universal Pictures
R
London is terrorised by a vicious sex killer known as the neck tie murderer. Following the brutal slaying of his ex-wife, down-on-his-luck Richard Blaney is suspected by the police of being the killer. He goes on the run, determined to prove his innocence.

Boaz Yakin
Crime
Lumière Pictures
R
Michael (or Fresh as he's well known) is a 12-year-old drug pusher who lives in a crowded house with his cousins and aunt. His father has become a street bum,but still meets with fresh on occasion to play chess. Fresh is rather quiet in a crazy world. Fresh' sister is a junkie who sleeps with the dealers that fresh sells for. As the story progresses Fresh realizes that he doesn't want to sell drugs anymore, he wants revenge

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

Harold Lamb is so excited about going to college that he has been working to earn spending money, practicing college yells, and learning a special way of introducing himself that he saw in a movie. When he arrives at Tate University, he soon becomes the target of practical jokes and ridicule. With the help of his one real friend Peggy, he resolves to make every possible effort to become popular.

Andrew Bergman
Comedy
TriStar Pictures
PG
Clark Kellogg is a young man starting his first year at film school in New York City. After a small time crook steals all his belongings, Clark meets Carmine "Jimmy the Toucan" Sabatini, an "importer" bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather. When Sabatini makes Clark an offer he can't refuse, he finds himself caught up in a caper involving endangered species and fine dining.

Julie Taymor
Biography
Handprint Entertainment
R
"Frida" chronicles the life Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) shared unflinchingly and openly with Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), as the young couple took the art world by storm. From her complex and enduring relationship with her mentor and husband to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Frida Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary.

F. Gary Gray
Comedy
New Line Cinema
R
Craig and Smokey are two guys in Los Angeles hanging out on their porch on a Friday afternoon, smoking and drinking, looking for something to do. Encounters with neighbors and other friends over the course of the day and night, and their ensuing antics, make up the rest of the movie.

Marcus Raboy
Comedy
Avery Pix
R
Craig and Day Day have finally moved out of their parents houses and into their own crib. The cousins work nights at a local mall as security guards. When their house is robbed on Christmas Eve they team up to track him down.

Arthur Marks
Action
American International Pictures (AIP)
R
Friday Foster, an ex-model magazine photographer, goes to Los Angeles International airport to photograph the arrival of Blake Tarr, the richest black man in America. Three men attempt to assassinate Tarr. Foster photographs the melee and is plunged into a web of conspiracy involving the murder of her childhood friend, a US senator, and a shadowy plan called "Black Widow".

Peter Berg, Josh Pate
Action
Friday Night Lights LLC
PG-13
Odessa, Texas, is a small, town in Texas. Racially divided and economically dying, there is one night that gives the town something to live for: Friday Night. The Permian Panthers have a big winning tradition in Texas high school football, led by QB Mike Winchell and superstar tailback Boobie Miles, but all is not well, as Boobie suffers a career-ending injury in the first game of the season. Hope is lost among citizens in Odessa, and for the team, but Coach Gary Gaines, who believes that "Perfection is being able to look your friends in the eye and know you did everything you could not to let them down", is somehow able to help the team rise up from the ashes and make a huge season comeback. Now on their way to state, the Panthers must go out and be perfect, because they may never matter this much for the rest of their lives.

Sean S. Cunningham
Horror
Georgetown Productions Inc.
R
At Camp Crystal Lake, a group of young counselors begin to get ready to lead guests in the summer. Unfortunately for the counselors, someone isn't happy about what's going on in the camp and enjoys playing 'kill the counselor'. As bodies fall to the ground, no one is safe in the camp.

Marcus Nispel
Horror
Crystal Lake Entertainment
R

Steve Miner
Horror
Georgetown Productions Inc.
R
After killing the crazy Mrs. Voorhees, who was avenging her son Jason's death, Alice can finally sigh with relief. But there is just one problem. Jason never drowned in Crystal Lake and lived in the nearby woods as a hermit all this time. The day that ALice beheaded his mother, Jason saw everything and his heart filled with thirst for revenge. Two months later Alice gets stabbed by an ice pick in the temple and dissapears. Is Jason behind this? Five years later a camp next do to Camp Crystal Lake is build and the couselors start snooping around the old, abondoned camp ruins. This makes Jason very upset, since his shack is next to the remains of Camp Crystal Lake and what is inside the shack shall be kept secret forever, even if it means killing nine people!

Steve Miner
Horror
Georgetown Productions Inc.
R
Originally filmed in 3-D, Friday the 13th Part 3 presents another chapter in the life (or should I say after-life) of Jason, a boy who drowned in the waters of Crystal Lake. Camp counselors have proven to be no match for Jason in the earlier films of this series, but this time he encounters more formidable opponents in the form of members of a motorcycle gang. The action takes place on a rustic farm that provides both the serene setting and the privacy Jason desires when stalking his prey.

Tom McLoughlin
Horror
Paramount Pictures
R
Tommy returns to the grave to make sure Jason is dead and accidently brings him back to life. Now it's up to Tommy to stop Jason's mindless killing and put him back where he belongs.

John Carl Buechler
Drama
Friday Four Films Inc.

Lying dormant at the bottom of Crystal Lake, Jason is released from his watery grave by a telekinetic girl. And so the killing begins again. Can she use her powers to stop Jason, or is he back for good?

Rob Hedden
Horror
Horror Films

The graduating class of the local high school is going on a cruise with Jason as a stowaway. The heroine believes she was almost drowned by Jason as a child. Jason eventually sinks the boat and kills many of the students on it, but many of them escape to Manhattan. A long battle with Jason ensues until Jason is washed away in the New York sewers by a midnight flooding of toxic waste.

Danny Steinmann
Horror
Georgetown Productions Inc.
R

Joseph Zito
Horror
Georgetown Productions Inc.
R
Thought to be killed by the sole survivor of the last Crystal Lake Massacre, Jason kills his way back to the lake to once again murder its inhabitants. This time, has Jason met his match in the little boy Tommy?

Peter Yates
Crime, Thriller, Drama
Paramount Pictures

Eddie's friends are numerous, but the term friends is suspect. As a small time hood Eddie is about to go back to jail. In order to escape this fate he deals information on stolen guns to the feds. Simultaneously he is supplying arms to his bank robbing/kidnapping hoodlum chums. But who else is dealing with the feds? Who gets the blame for snitching on the bank robbers?

Alexandra Pelosi
Documentary
Home Box Office (HBO)
NR
Documentary filmmaker Alexandria Pelosi tours red state America examining the practices, politics and beliefs of fundamentalist evangelical Christians. Interviewees include Jerry Falwell (who kicked her out on learning that her mother is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) and Ted Haggard, disgraced former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, and members of the Christian professional wrestling circuit.

Nicole Holofcener
Drama
This Is That Productions
R
Four women friends: three are wealthy and married plus there's Olivia, a former teacher who's now a maid. The marriages are in various states of health: Franny and Matt are happy and very rich. Christine and David write screenplays together, are remodeling their house, and argue. Jane is angry all the time and Aaron, who's an attentive husband, strikes everyone as gay. Franny sets up Olivia with a friend of hers, Mike, a personal trainer, and Olivia takes him with her to a couple of housecleaning jobs. A benefit dinner for ALS, an awkward guy named Marty whose place Olivia cleans, and a French maid's outfit figure in the story. Is there more to life than its problems?

Various
Comedy
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. As its ratings following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, illustrated, "Friends" has matured into television's most beloved comfort show. The peerless ensemble--Jennifer Aniston, a pre-Arquette Courtney Cox, Emmy winner Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer--makes a lasting first impression in the first season's 24 episodes, which are presented chronologically on four discs. The perky "Pilot" introduces unlucky-in-love Monica, runaway bride Rachel, sad sack Ross, New Age ditz Phoebe, wise guy Chandler, and womanizer Joey. The focus of the first season is Ross's unrequited love for Rachel, but we have these moments to remember: the arrival of Marcel the monkey ("The One with the Monkey"); Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe's "cleansing ritual" ("The One with the Candy Hearts"); the escalating game of shower peek-a-boo ("The One with the Boobies"); Joey as Al Pacino's butt double ("The One with the Butt"); Ross taking lessons from Joey in how to "talk dirty" ("The One with the Stoned Guy"); former "Must-See TV" stars Helen Hunt and George Clooney ("The One with Two Parts"); and Chandler spilling the beans to Rachel about Ross's feelings for her ("The One Where Rachel Finds Out"). Though its devoted fans can recite these episodes chapter and verse, "Friends" maintains its sparkle through repeat viewings, a testament to the sharp writing as well as the cast's lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry and lived-in performances. The episodes are presented uncut and extended, with previously unseen dialogue and scenes. And those who hate "Friends" and would like to drown the characters in the opening credits' fountain are directed to the episode "The One with the Boobies," in which guest star Fisher Stevens hilariously nails the "dysfunctional group dynamic ... co-dependent, emotionally stunted, sitting in your stupid coffeehouse and you're all like, 'Define me, define me.'" "--Donald Liebenson"

Various
Comedy
Warner Home Video
Suitable for 12 years and over
Arguably the best series, this season's episodes really developed the characters as the show's popularity took off. Love is in the air as Rachel and Ross, both finally realising they're attracted to each other, nearly get it together, don't, and then finally do. Joey gets that role as Dr Drake Ramoray in "Days of Our Lives" and moves out of the flat he shares with Chandler, precipitating a bust-up between the two best buddies. Monica dates Richard, the hunky, older eye-doctor played by Tom Selleck, and Phoebe makes a video of that seminal song for a generation, "SmellyCat". --Leslie Felperin

Various
Comedy
Warner Home Video
Suitable for 12 years and over
Seemingly low-key but as wittily crafted as the first two series, this season develops minor characters--Gunther, Central Perk's proprietor, who is in love with Rachel; Phoebe's half-brother Frank (played by rising-star Giovanni Ribisi); the chick and duck--who will play key parts later on while the foundations for crucial story lines developed in Series 4 are laid down. The most momentous story arc covers Rachel and Ross splitting up when she suggests they take a "break" and he sleeps with the girl from the copy shop. Phoebe gets to know her little brother Frank who falls in love with the much-older Alice, for whom Phoebe will bear triplets in a later series. Monica pines after Richard and then starts dating the millionaire Pete, although towards the end Chandler is trying to persuade her he's good boyfriend material--clearly an omen of things to come. "--Leslie Felperin"

Various
Comedy
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

"Friends"' fourth season, one of the very best and most consistently satisfying, begins with Chandler urinating on Monica's leg to relieve a jellyfish sting. It ends with the two in bed and in lust. In between are several benchmark episodes and rich, character-enriching plot developments that keep this series from coasting on comfort level. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) agrees to become a surrogate mother for her long-lost brother (Giovanni Ribisi). Chandler (Matthew Perry) "crosses the line" after falling in love with Joey's girlfriend, and is forced to spend one memorable Thanksgiving in a box. Rachel (Jennifer Aniston in what should have been her Emmy year) desperately pursues the recently divorced Joshua (then real-life squeeze Tate Donovan). Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Chandler trade spaces with Monica (Courtney Cox) and Rachel, and then, with provocative (albeit offscreen) sapphic compensation, return to their humble abode. And Ross meets the warm and wonderful Emily (Helen Baxendale), setting the stage for a London wedding and classic season finale that revitalizes our rooting interest in the whole Ross and Rachel thing. Especially jolly good in this two-parter are the scene-stealing British character actors, including Hugh Laurie as the unfortunate airline passenger seated next to Rachel as she wings toward London to tell Ross she loves him ("And by the way, it seems to be perfectly clear that you were on a break," he tries to reason with her), and Tom Conti and an absolutely fabulous Jennifer Saunders as Emily's squabbling parents. As "Friends" winds down, it is a pleasure to return to one of its glory years. "--Donald Liebenson"

Various
Comedy
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

Divorce number 2 is immediately on the cards as the fifth season opens with "The One After Ross Says Rachel." As of this point, Ross's character undergoes some extreme personality changes (which apparently lost David Schwimmer many female fans). His incessant whining drives all the Friends to distraction, especially in "The One Where Ross Moves In" with Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc). Later things get uncomfortable both at work and at home when he goes through a period of rage ("The One with Ross's Sandwich"). While all this downplays his failed relationship with Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), the real idea is to allow focus on the secret pairing of Chandler and Monica (Courteney Cox) after a night of passion in London. This made for a return to the show's appealingly silly atmosphere as poor Joey is caught in the middle of everyone's secrets. Building to "The One Where Everybody Finds Out," the silliness pauses for some genuinely touching interplay between Perry and Cox. The previous year's semi-serious thread about Phoebe's (Lisa Kudrow) birth gets forgotten fast: to distract the viewer she's introduced to Gary (Michael Rapaport) in "The One with the Cop." This leads to some hilarious parodying with Phoebe interrogated about apartment hunting, and the guys excited and then scared in "The One with the Ride-Along." She's more than over him by the time of the two-part finale, "The One in Vegas," though, especially since she missed out on London. Just in case fans thought Chandler and Monica had permanently stolen the spotlight, a cliffhanger shocks expectation again with Ross and Rachel bursting out of a chapel.... "--Paul Tonks"

Various
Comedy
Warner Home Video
Suitable for 12 years and over
Always there for you, the hit sitcom "Friends" has matured and blossomed over the years. The beginning of the sixth series finds the sextet back from Las Vegas where Ross and Rachel managed to get married in a state of pronounced intoxication, thus upstaging the intended nuptials of Chandler and Monica. The first half of the season follows Ross' failure to arrange the annulment, while Monica and Chandler move in together and Rachel sets up house with Phoebe. Joey gets a shapely new roommate in the shape of Elle Macpherson. Halfway through the series, we are given a wonderful fantasy peak at a parallel universe where Rachel married Barry after all, Ross' wife Carol never realised she was gay, Monica is still fat, Chandler is a writer, Joey is starring as Dr Drake Remoray on "Days of Our Lives" and Phoebe is a stockbroker. The closing arc of the series features a guest appearance from Bruce Willis in two episodes as the father of Ross' new girlfriend Elizabeth--who ends up romancing Rachel. --"Leslie Felperin"

Various
Comedy
Warner Bros. Television

When we start the show, Rachel Green comes in wearing a wedding dress after leaving her fiancée at the altar. Rachel worked at Central Perk for a while and finally gets a job at Bloomingdale's and later Ralph Lauren. She has a baby with Ross Geller and they decide to keep the baby. Ross Geller is a paleontologist, and has had three wives. His first wife, Carol, finds out she is a lesbian and is pregnant with his baby. His second wife, Emily, is crushed when he calls this new wife Rachel instead of Emily. His third wife, Rachel, happens when they get drunk and decide to get married. Ross's sister, and Rachel's best friend, Monica Geller-Bing is a chef, and finally marries Chandler Bing. Chandler Bing is Ross's best friend, and secretly dated his sister for about 6-7 months. Monica and Chandler want to have a baby after Rachel has hers, but they can't have any. They decide to adopt a baby. They are shocked to find out that the pregnant mother is having twins. Chandler's former roommate, Joey Tribbiani, is a not so bright, but sweet actor. We played on Days of Our Lives has Dr. Drake Ramoray. Monica's other former roommate, Phoebe Buffay, is a masseuse, and a singer. Her most famous song is "Smelly Cat." Phoebe at the end marries a guy named Mike Hannigan. Phoebe was also was a surrogate mother for her brother's triplets. Ross and Rachel find out that they love each other when Rachel is assigned to live in Paris for a job that pays a lot. Monica and Chandler decide to move to a suburban house to raise the babies. The show ends when Monica and Chandler are moving to their new house, Ross and Rachel are living together again,and Phoebe is married to Mike.

Various
Comedy
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

The eighth season of "Friends" picks up just moments after Monica and Chandler said, "I do." But the focus of this season is firmly on Rachel's pregnancy, as the story progresses from fatherhood revelations in "The One with the Red Sweater" and "The One Where Rachel Tells..." toward complicated new feelings for Rachel, Ross, and Joey, culminating in the maternity ward two-parter "The One Where Rachel Has a Baby." But it's not all Rachel's pregnancy story. Standalone highlights include "The One with the Rumor" in which the "We Hate Rachel" club started in high school by Ross and a certain Mr. Jennifer Aniston (an uncredited Brad Pitt) is revealed; while "The One with Monica's Boots" has Monica and Chandler arguing over finances when Phoebe and Ross are arguing over the attentions of Sting's wife, Trudie Styler (cameoing as herself). Relationship complications fall upon Phoebe as "The One with the Tea Leaves" hooks her up with a stellar cameo from Alec Baldwin. "The One with Joey's Interview" has Matt LeBlanc in top form preparing to be interviewed by "Soap Opera Digest". But time starts to tick faster for everyone in "The One Where Rachel Is Late," as Joey's WWI movie finally arrives, but is overshadowed by the wait for Rachel's overdue arrival. Naturally it's all build-up to the cliffhanger finale and a final emotional surprise. "--Paul Tonks"

Various
Comedy
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

"Friends"' penultimate season could well be called "The One with All the Romantic Arcs." Phoebe meets Mike (Paul Rudd virtually joining the ensemble). Rachel attempts to "move on" from Ross with a rival co-worker (guest star Dermot Mulroney). Ross meets Charley (Aisha Tyler, welcome colorblind casting), a paleontologist with an intimidating roster of Nobel Prize-winners in her dating history (so, of course, she hooks up with Joey). Other storylines, including Chandler's transfer to Tulsa and Rachel's sudden lust for Joey, are not as compelling as previous seasons', and an indication that inspiration is flagging. But while one is hard-pressed to add any of these episodes to the "Friends" pantheon, what redeems the season are the grace notes: Phoebe channeling a New England WASP to impress Mike's parents ("The One with Ross's Inappropriate Song") or playing naughty girl to Ross's "daddy" ("The One with the Lottery"); Joey's confession that he doesn't get it when people punctuate the air with finger quotes ("The One Where Emma Cries"); and Chandler's discomfort (and ultimate revenge) as an audience member at a ranting feminist's one-woman show ("The One with the Soap Opera Party").
On the guest star front, "Friends" welcomes back Jon Lovitz, who reprises his character from the classic first-season episode, "The One with the Stoned Guy" in "The One with the Blind Dates," and Hank Azaria as David the "Science Guy" who returns to complicate Phoebe's love life. Christina Applegate is a riot as "Rachel's Other Sister," and it's surprising that NBC didn't go all "Suddenly Susan" on Freddie Prinz Jr. after his surprisingly funny stint in "The One with the Male Nanny." Selma Blair is a seductive co-worker who makes a play for Chandler in "The One with Christmas in Tulsa," and Jeff Goldblum portrays a master thespian who mistakes Joey's urge to urinate as method acting. For "Friends" fanatics, it's a coup to get the episodes complete and uncut as opposed to their commercial-laden syndicated counterparts. For more casual viewers, let's just say of this comparatively lackluster season (by "Friends"' own gold standards) that the show was on a break. "--Donald Liebenson"

Various
Television
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

Throughout its phenomenal run, "Friends" demonstrated that familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. But isn't it nice that even after 10 years, we could still learn something new about these intimately observed characters? Tidbits revealed in the episode "The One Where the Stripper Cries": Ross (David Schwimmer) and Monica (Courtney Cox Arquette) used to entertain at family gatherings as Donny and Marie; ("Oh God, that's right," remembers Rachel. "I blocked that out.") and Chandler (Matthew Perry) kissed Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) at a college party in the 1980s.
See the 10 or more seasons club. The best was saved for "The Last One": At one time, Ross (David Schwimmer) pursued being a professional dancer ("Do you realize we almost made it 10 years without that coming up?," he remarks).
"Friends"' tenth season is all about life changes and closure. Monica and Chandler buy a house and make plans to adopt. Once New Age free spirit Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) gets married. Rachel is offered a job in Paris, prompting Ross to finally proclaim his love. View clips and vote for your favorite "Friends" moment. Two of "Friends"'s most invaluable players are granted worthy send-offs. Janice (Maggie Wheeler) resurfaces as a prospective homebuyer in the house next door to Monica and Chandler in "The One Where Estelle Dies," and Central Perk fixture Gunther (James Michael Tyler) at last professes his adoration of Rachel in "The Last One." Christina Applegate makes a welcome return in "The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits" and Danny DeVito is the unlikely and very temperamental stripper in "The One Where the Stripper Cries." Just friends? See our guide to who kissed whom on "Friends". Greg Kinnear is at his smarmy best as Ross's new girlfriend's Nobel-prize-winning ex-boyfriend in "The One with Ross' Grant." Dakota Fanning has a sweet scene with Joey (Matt LeBlanc) in "The One with Princess Consuela" and Anna Faris joins Paul Rudd (Phoebe's husband Mike, a.k.a. Crap Bag in "Princess Consuela") as a recurring cast member in "The One with the Birth Mother."
"Friends"' final season quickly recovers from the Joey-Rachel misstep to find its consistent and satisfying groove. As each Friend turns in their key to the apartment each had shared at one time or another over the past 10 years in "The Last One," could "Friends" end on a happier or more poignant note? This final addition to the "Friends" DVD library, too, rises to the momentous occasion with a more generous package of features, including a lengthy gag reel and reflections from the ensemble. "--Donald Liebenson"
They'll Be There For You

"Friends - The One With All Ten Seasons"

"Friends: The Official Trivia Guide"
(book)
"Friends: The One With All the Trivia"
(video game)
"Friends 'Til the End: The Official Celebration of All Ten Years"
(book)
"Friends"
(soundtrack)
"Friends Again"
(soundtrack)

Robert Rodriguez
Action
A Band Apart
R
Seth Gecko and his younger brother Richard are on the lam after a bloody bank robbery in Texas. They escape across the border into Mexico and will be home-free the next morning, when they pay off the local kingpin. They just have to survive 'from dusk till dawn' at the rendezvous point, which turns out to be a Hell of a strip joint.

Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes
Crime
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
R
It is 1888 in London, and the unfortunate poor lead horrifying lives in the city's deadliest slum, Whitechapel. Harassed by gangs and forced to walk the streets for a living, Mary Kelly and her small group of companions trudge on through this daily misery, their only consolation being that things can't get any worse. Yet things somehow do when their friend Ann is kidnapped and they are drawn into a conspiracy with links higher up than they could possibly imagine. The kidnapping is soon followed by the gruesome murder of another woman, Polly, and it becomes apparent that they are being hunted down, one by one. Sinister even by Whitechapel standards, the murder grabs the attention of Inspector Fred Abberline, a brilliant yet troubled man whose police work is often aided by his psychic abilities. Abberline becomes deeply involved with the case, which takes on personal meaning to him when he and Mary begin to fall in love. But as he gets closer to the truth Whitechapel becomes more and more dangerous for Abberline, Mary, and the other girls. Whoever is responsible for the grisly acts is not going to give up his secret without a fight....will they be able to survive the avenging force that has been sent after them from hell?

Terence Young
Action & Adventure
Fox/MGM
PG
Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, the second James Bond spy thriller is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose latest mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by a lovely assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. "From Russia with Love" is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics, and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. "--Jeff Shannon"

Michael Grossman
Action, Drama, History, Thriller
Clavius Base
NR
Through dramatization, this series relates the story of the conquest of the moon by the Americans, from the Mercury and Gemini projects to the legendary Apollo missions.

Martin Ritt
Comedy
Columbia Pictures Corporation
PG
In the early 1950s Howard Prince, who works in a restaurant, helps out a black-listed writer friend by selling a TV station a script under his own name. The money is useful in paying off gambling debts, so he takes on three more such clients. Howard is politically pretty innocent, but involvement with Florence - who quits TV in disgust over things - and friendship with the show's ex-star - now himself blacklisted - make him start to think about what is really going on.

Lewis Milestone
Comedy
The Caddo Company

Hildy Johnson, newspaper reporter, is engaged to Peggy Grant and planning to move to New York for a higher paying advertising job. The court press room is full of lame reporters who invent stories as much as write them. All are waiting to cover the hanging of Earl Williams. When Williams escapes from the inept Sheriff, Hildy seizes the opportunity by using his $260 honeymoon money to payoff an insider and get the scoop on the escape. However, Walter Burns, the Post's editor, is slow to repay Hildy back, hoping that he will stay on the story. Getting a major scoop looks possible when Hildy stumbles onto the bewildered escapee and hides him in a roll-top desk in the press room. Burns shows up to help. Can they keep Williams' whereabouts secret long enough to get the scoop, especially with the Sheriff and other reporters hovering around?

Billy Wilder
Comedy
Universal Pictures
PG
Hildy Johnson is the top reporter on a Chicago newspaper during the 1920s. Tired of the whole game he's determined to quit his job to get married. His scheming editor, Walter Burns, has other plans though. It's the day before guilty (but insane) murderer, Earl Williams, is due to go to the gallows and Burns tempts Johnson to stay and write the story.

Michael Kirk
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Michael Kirk
Documentary
PBS (DIRECT)
Unrated
FRONTLINE investigates the causes of the worst economic crisis in 70 years and how the government responded.  The film chronicles the inside stories of the Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Brothers collapse, the propping up of insurance giant AIG and the $700 billion bailout.  It also examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn't see, couldn't stop and haven't been able to fix.

Various
Documentary
PBS

n/a
Documentary
PBS (DIRECT)
NR
All of the measures by the feds to stem the tide in the financial meltdown have added hundreds of billions of dollars to our national debt.  FRONTLINE reports on how this debt will constrain and challenge the new administration, and on the growing chorus, that without fiscal reform the US government may face a debt crisis of its own in years to come that make the current financial problems look almost painless by comparison.

Various
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Various
Documentary
PBS

Caroline Suh
Documentary
Oscilloscope Laboratories
Unrated
It's hard to run for office - even in high school. And the campaign for student body president at Stuyvesant, perhaps the most prestigious public high school in the country, is almost as sophisticated as any presidential election. Candidates must choose running mates, navigate primaries, write political platforms, perform in televised debates, shake as many hands as possible, and win newspaper endorsements. But unlike presidential candidates, they also have to do their homework, take their SATs and write their college applications. FRONTRUNNERS follows the recent elections at the country's most competitive high school, exploring how politics works at a nascent level. As the race unfolds, it takes on undertones familiar to anyone who has watched a national election -- revealing that teenagers have an implicit understanding of how strategy, race, gender, personality, platforms, charisma, and hairstyle figure into a winning campaign.

Ron Howard
Drama
Universal Studios
R
Sounds like a good match: a historical drama from the author of The Queen, but with an American subject in the generational wheelhouse of director Ron Howard. And so Peter Morgan's Tony-winning play morphs into a Hollywood movie under the wing of the Apollo 13 guy. Morgan's subject is a curious moment of post-Watergate shakeout: British TV host David Frost's long-form interviews with ex-President Richard Nixon, conducted in 1977. It was a big ratings success at the time, justifying the somewhat controversial decision to cut an enormous check for Nixon's services. The movie adds a mockumentary note to the otherwise straightforward style, having direct-to-camera addresses from various aides to Frost and Nixon (played by the likes of Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, and Kevin Bacon); these basically tell us things we already glean from the rest of the movie, adding unnecessary melodrama and upping the stakes. In this curious scheme, the success of Frost's career, which could bellyflop if he doesn't get something worthwhile out of the cagey, long-winded Nixon, is given somewhat more weight than the actual revelations of the interviews. Even with these questionable storytelling decisions, there's still the spectacle of two actors going at it hammer and tongs, and on that level the movie offers some heat. Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair not only in The Queen but also in another Morgan-scripted project, The Deal, is adept at catching David Frost's blow-dried charm, as well as the determination beneath it. Frank Langella's physical performance as Nixon is superb, and he certainly can be a commanding actor, though veteran Nixon-watchers might find that he misses a certain depth of self-pity in the man. Both actors were retained from the original stage production, a rare thing in Hollywood--and probably Howard's best decision of the project. --Robert Horton

Jørn Winther
Documentary, History
David Paradine Productions
NR
Although this DVD provides a real-life look at the landmark interviews conducted in 1977 between David Frost and Richard Nixon, it is not the entire session as originally broadcast. Rather, this is an edited, 88-minute condensation of the sections of the interviews that focused on the Watergate cover-up, Nixon's ultimate downfall. As such, it is a thoroughly gripping experience: Nixon begins the session as a wily combatant, but Frost (an experienced talk-show host, but hardly a political heavyweight) is such a dogged, indeed surprisingly forceful, questioner that he eventually corners the ex-President into facing some tough issues. The drama of this, which consists entirely of two men sitting in chairs, without any other documentary clutter, is actually much more gripping than Ron Howard's dramatized version of the event, "Frost/Nixon", which labors to add melodrama to an already riveting situation. If you didn't live through the Watergate scandal, it might help to have a refresher on some of the basics before you watch (Frost briefly introduces the interviews with a spot of background), but in a way it's also not necessary, for the real punch here is watching a man of power be forced to publicly confront the fact that he abused that position. Nixon's bitter smile and his large capacity for self-pity are in full close-up view, creating a sense of pathos (even if you know the man did wrong). Those complications are richer than fiction, and give more insight into how Nixon could have brought about the circumstances that made him the only U.S. President to resign the office. "--Robert Horton"

Bernard Knowles
Mystery
Alfa Film

Courtney Hunt
Crime, Drama
Cohen Media Group
R
Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women - one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances - are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Ray and Lila - and a New York State Trooper as opponent in an evolving cat-and-mouse game.

Steve Anderson
Documentary
Bad Apple Films

This challenging and provocative documentary takes a look on all sides of the infamous F-word. Its taboo,obscene and controversial, yet somehow seems to permeate every single aspect of our culture-from Hollywood, to the schoolyard to the Senate floor in Washington D.C. It's the word at the very center of the debate on Free Speech - and everyone seems to have an opinion. FUCK will exam how the word is impacting our world today thru interviews, film and television clips, music, and original animation by Oscar nominee Bill Plympton. Scholars and linguists will examine the long history of fuck. Comedians, actors, and writers who have charted and popularized the upward course of fuck will be heard from, often while defending the Constitutional Right of Free Speech, all the way to the Supreme Court. FUCK will visit with those who actually fuck for a living. We'll hear from advocates who oppose fuck and it's infringement into our everyday lives. We'll watch some of the most famous and infamous film and television clips that feature fuck, we'll hear some of the most famous fucks ever uttered and we'll feel the impact of fuck on our everyday lives.

Andrew Davis
Action
Warner Bros. Pictures
PG-13
A well respected Chicago surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble has found out that his wife, Helen, has been murdered ferociously in her own home. The police found Kimble and accused him of the murder. Then, Kimble (without Justifiable Reason) was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. However, on the way to prison, Kimble's transport crashed. Kimble escapes and is now on the run. Deputy Samuel Gerard from Chicago takes charge of the chase of Kimble. Meanwhile, Kimble makes up his own investigation to find who really killed his life, and to lure Gerard and his team into it as well.

Sidney Lumet
Drama
Pennebaker Productions

Val Xavier (Marlon Brando), a drifter of obscure origins arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence (Anna Magnani), a sex-starved woman whose husband Jabe M. Torrance (Victor Jory) is dying of cancer upstairs. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere (Joanne Woodward), the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family, who covets his snakeskin jacket as much as his body and tries to seduce him in the cemetery. Val is more attracted to the mature Lady and gets her pregnant.

Ramy A. Hassan
Short
Contagion Films

Steven Soderbergh
Comedy
Miramax Films
R
Arty film-within-a-film revolves around seven people with little in common whose lives collide.

Stanley Kubrick
Action
Natant

A two-segment look at the effect of the military mindset and war itself on Vietnam era Marines. The first half follows a group of recruits in basic training under the command of the punishing Sgt. Hartman. The second half shows one of those recruits, Joker, covering the war as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, focusing on the Tet offensive.

Music Video & Concerts
Good Times Video / Sunset Strategic Marketing (SSM)
G
Rare footage of the sensational Beatles: hysterical crowds, press conferences, interviews, TV clips, newsreels and more.

Michael Haneke
Crime
Wega Film

Two seemingly well-educated young men, who call each other Paul and Peter among other names, approach a family on vacation. They are, apparently, friends of the neighbors, and, at the beginning, their true intentions are not known. But soon, the family is imprisoned and tortured in its own house violently, which the viewers are forced mostly to imagine and to share a certain complicity with the criminals. It might be some kind of game with the lives of husband, wife, son, and dog, but why are they doing it?

Michael Haneke
Crime
Celluloid Dreams
R
In this English-language remake of a deconstruction in the way violence is portrayed in the media, a family settles into its vacation home, which happens to be the next stop for a pair of young, articulate, white-gloved serial killers on an excursion through the neighborhood.

Andrew Bujalski
Comedy
Fox Lorber

Marnie just graduated from college, drinks likes she's still in school, and is looking for a temp job but a permanent boyfriend. She loves a guy who doesn't love her (?), ping-pongs between awkward romantic alternatives and even less suitable jobs.

Judd Apatow
Comedy, Drama
Universal Pictures
R
George is a very successful stand up comedian who learns that he has an untreatable blood disorder and is given less than a year to live. Ira is a struggling up-and-coming stand up comedian who works at a deli and has yet to figure out his onstage persona. One night, these two perform at the same club and George takes notice of Ira. George hires Ira to be his semi-personal assistant as well as his friend.

Richard Lester
Comedy
Quadrangle Films S.A.

Pseudolus is the laziest slave in Rome and has but one wish, purchase his freedom. When his master and mistress leave for the day he finds out that the young master has fallen in love with a virgin in the house of Lycus, a slave dealer specializing in beautiful women. Pseudolus concocts a deal in which he will be freed if he can procure the girl for young Hero. Of course, it can't be that simple as everything begins to go wrong.

Anthony Mann
Action & Adventure
Criterion
Unrated
Seconds into Anthony Mann's hardboiled horse opera, Barbara Stanwyck absent-mindedly plays with a pair of scissors. Not to worry: she'll put them to use soon enough. Until that time, Stanwyck's volatile heiress, Vance, alternately flatters and manipulates her egotistical father, T.C. Jeffords (a feisty Walter Huston in his final performance). It's the 1870s and T.C.'s ranch, the Furies, inspires envy throughout the New Mexico territory. If Vance picks a suitable husband, T.C. promises her a handsome dowry. Unfortunately, she chooses brutal gambler Rip Darrow ("Rear Window"'s Wendell Corey). If it wasn't for Vance's friendship with Mexican-American squatter Juan (Gilbert Roland), she wouldn't inspire much sympathy, but Vance stands up for the Herreras when financiers pressure the Jeffords to throw them off their land. Then, T.C. takes up with scheming socialite Flo ("Rebecca"'s Dame Judith Anderson), and the tense relations between father and daughter explode into all-out war. By the end, those scissors end up in someone's face, leading to a cycle of revenge-oriented violence. Adapted from Niven Busch's novel by "Red River"'s Charles Schnee, "The Furies" isn't as deliriously over-the-top as Busch's "Duel in the Sun", but it plays more like Shakespearean tragedy than Technicolor camp, and Stanwyck owns the screen from start to finish. The excellent extras include erudite commentary from film historian Jim Kitses, a terrific 1967 interview with Mann for British TV, a playful 1931 chat with Huston, remembrances from Mann's daughter Nina, an essay from critic Robin Wood, and a new printing of Busch's original novel. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Charles Lamont
Comedy
Universal International Pictures (UI)

The Kettles and their fifteen children are about to be evicted from their rundown rustic home when Pa wins the grand prize by coming up with a new tobacco slogan. Birdie Hicks is jealous of the family's new wealth, which includes a completely automated modern home, and accuses Pa of stealing the slogan. Reporter Kim Parker proves Birdie wrong and marries Tom Kettle.

Various
Comedy
Fox Film Corporation
PG
Set in the year 3000, "Futurama" is the acme of sci-fi animated sitcom from "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. While not as universally popular as "The Simpsons", "Futurama" is equally hip and hilarious, thanks to its zippy lateral-thinking contemporary pop cultural references, celebrity appearances (Pamela Anderson and Leonard Nimoy are among a number of guest stars to appear as disembodied heads in jars), and Bender, a distinctly Homer Simpson-esque robot. Part of "Futurama"'s charm is that with decades of sci-fi junk behind us, we've effectively been living with the distant future for years and can now have fun with it. Hence, the series stylishly jumbles motifs ranging from "Lost in Space"-style kitsch to the grim dystopia of "Blade Runner". It also bridges the gap between the impossible dreams of your average science fiction fan and the slobbish reality of their comic reading, TV-watching existence. Groening himself distinguishes his two series thus: ""The Simpsons" is fictional. "Futurama" is real."
The opening season (premiered in 1999) sees nerdy pizza delivery boy Fry transferred to the 31st century in a cryogenic mishap. There, he meets the beautiful, one-eyed Leela (voiced by "Married with Children"'s Katey Sagal) and the incorrigible alcoholic robot Bender. The three of them join Fry's great (great, great, etc.) nephew Professor Farnsworth and work in his intergalactic delivery service. Hyper-real yet strangely recognizable situations ensue--Fry discovers he's a billionaire thanks to 1,000 years' accrued interest, Leela must fend off the attentions of Captain Kirk-like Lothario Zapp Brannigan, and Fry accidentally drinks the ruler of a strange planet of liquid beings. "--David Stubbs"

Various
Comedy
Fox Film Corporation

Matt Groening's second season of the 31st century sci-fi sitcom "Futurama" maintained the high scripting standards of the first and also well brought improved digital animation. Couch potato Fry now seems thoroughly reconciled to his new existence, transported 10 centuries hence to "New New York" and working for Professor Farmsworth's delivery service. He's surrounded by a cast of freaks, including the bitchily cute Amy (with whom he has a romantic brush) and Hermes, the West Indian bureaucrat. Most sympathetic is the one-eyed Leela (voiced by Katey Segal). Like Lisa Simpson, she is brilliant but unappreciated; she finds solace in her pet Nibbler, a tiny creature with a voracious, carnivorous appetite. By contrast, Bender, the robot, is programmed with every human vice, a sort of metal Homer Simpson with a malevolent streak.
In one of the best episodes, Bender is given a "feelings" chip in order to empathize with Leela after he flushes Nibbler down the toilet. Elsewhere, Fry falls in love with a mermaid when the team discover the lost city of Atlanta, Fry and Bender end up going to war after they join the army to get a discount on gum, and John Goodman guest stars as Santa Claus, an eight-foot gun-toting robot. Brimful with blink-and-you'll-miss-them hip jokes (such as the sign for the Taco Bellevue hospital) and political and pop satire, "Futurama" isn't a stern warning of things to come but rather, as the makers put it, "a brilliant, hilarious reflection of our own materially (ridiculously) overdeveloped but morally underdeveloped society." "--David Stubbs"

Various
Comedy
Fox Film Corporation

Good news, everyone, the third DVD volume of "Futurama" is just as funny as ever--irreverent, boundlessly inventive, warmhearted, and chock-full of in-jokes, sight gags, and fleeting references to all manner of pop-culture icons and obscure genre classics. In fact, if the show has a problem, it's that it's all so lovingly crafted that scarcely a frame goes by without something both funny and clever going on: when a horse wins a race by a quantum fraction, Prof. Farnsworth fulminates, "You changed the result by observing it!" Recurring minor characters (Elzar the chef, the robot mafia, the mutants in the sewers) pop up unexpectedly throughout, providing another wink to dedicated fans; like "Red Dwarf", this is a show that loves the genre it sets out to spoof. Shame, then, that the show has had a troubled broadcast history and never quite found the mainstream appeal of its stablemate "The Simpsons".
Fry and the "Planet Express" team find themselves stranded on a planet of unfeasibly large women ("Amazon Women in the Mood"), standing in for psychotic Robo-Santa ("A Tale of Two Santas", with John Goodman reprising his evil robot), and variously falling in love with each other and sundry other humans, aliens, man-bots, fem-bots, virtual reality constructs, and even the "Planet Express" ship itself.
"Futurama, Vol. 3" comprises 22 episodes on four discs. As with previous DVD sets, the animated menus are a treat, and there's a selection of bonus features including deleted scenes, storyboards, commentaries on every episode, animatics, "How to draw" tips, and more. Sheer heaven. "--Mark Walker"

Richard A. Colla
Comedy
Filmways Pictures
PG
Detectives Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, and Bert Kling are part of the 87th Precinct's team investigating a murder-extortion racket run by a mysterious deaf man. While attempting to investigate and prevent the murders of several high-ranking city officials, they also must keep track of the perpetrators of a string of robberies. Further complicating matters is a rash of arson attacks on homeless men.