Sales Rank:4027 List Price: $14.99 Lowest New Price: $4.88 Lowest Used Price: $3.98 MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Format:
Collector's Edition
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Director(s):
Robert Rodriguez
Sarah Kelly
Actor(s):
Robert Rodriguez
Quentin Tarantino
George Clooney
Juliette Lewis
Harvey Keitel
From a match made in heaven comes a movie spawned in hell! Young hotshot director Robert Rodriquez (El Mariachi, Desperado) teamed up with Pulp Fiction auteur Quentin Tarantino (offering his services as writer and co-star) to make this outrageous, no-holds-barred hybrid of high-octane crime and gruesome horror. QT plays Richard Gecko, a borderline psychopath who breaks his career-criminal brother, Seth (George Clooney), out of prison, after which they rob a bank and leave a trail of dead and wounded in their bloody wake. Then they hijack a mobile home driven by a former Baptist minister (Harvey Keitel) who quit the church after his wife's death and hit the road with his two children (played by Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu). Heading to Mexico with their hostages, the infamous Gecko brothers arrive at the Titty Twister bar to rendezvous for a money drop, but they don't realize that they've just entered the nocturnal lair of a bloodthirsty gang of vampires! With not-so-subtle aplomb, Rodriguez and Tarantino shift into high gear with a nonstop parade of gore, gunfire, and pointy-fanged mayhem featuring Salma Hayek as a snake-charming dancer whose bite is much worse than her bark. If you're a fan of Tarantino's lyrical dialogue and pop-cultural wit, you'll have fun with the road-movie half of this supernatural horror-comedy, but if your taste runs more to exploding heads and eyeballs, sloppy entrails and morphing monsters, the second half provides a connoisseur's feast of gross-out excess. Bon appétit! --Jeff Shannon
Sales Rank:10336 List Price: $49.98 Lowest New Price: $29.75 Lowest Used Price: $26.98 MPAA Rating: Unrated
Format:
Box set
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Dolby
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Director(s):
David Howard
Eugene Forde
Hamilton MacFadden
James Tinling
Lewis Seiler
Actor(s):
Warner Oland
Drue Leyton
Ray Milland
Mona Barrie
Douglas Walton
Disk 1: CHARLIE CHAN IN LONDON (1934) *Full Screen Feature *The Legacy of Charlie Chan Featurette (15:00) *Theatrical Trailer
Disk 2: CHARLIE CHAN IN PARIS (1935) *Full Screen Feature *In Search of Charlie Chan Featurette (20:00) *Charlie Chan In London Trailer
Disk 3: CHARLIE CHAN IN EGYPT (1935) *Full Screen Feature *The Real Charlie Chan Featurette (20:00) *Charlie Chan In London Trailer
Disk 4: CHARLIE CHAN IN SHANGHAI (1935) *Full Screen Feature *ERAN TRECE Fullscreen Feature (79:00) *Eran Trece Theatrical Trailer *Charlie Chan In London Trailer
Sales Rank:7803 List Price: $49.99 Lowest New Price: $36.68 Lowest Used Price: $32.91 MPAA Rating: Unrated
Format:
Box set
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Director(s):
George Marshall
Hal Walker
Norman Taurog
Actor(s):
Dean Martin
Jerry Lewis
Donna Reed
Barbara Bates
Joseph Calleia
A nightclub act with a handsome singer and an anarchic monkey-boy became a potent box-office force in the early 1950s. Although their wild live antics never translated intact to the screen, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were an instant movie hit; they had two films in the box-office top ten of 1951, and another two in the top ten of 1952. Paramount repays this effort with its Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Collection, Volume One, which gathers most of their early efforts at the studio.
Martin and Lewis were introduced in 1949's My Friend Irma, a big-screen version of a popular radio show. The boys are in support, but their high jinks were the hit of the movie, and their portion of screen time ballooned in My Friend Irma Goes West, which they basically take over. Both movies are enjoyable comedies, and especially in the sequel Lewis's lunatic style of mugging, vocal calisthenics, and physical shtick makes him look like an animal uncaged.
Not included in this set is their first starring vehicle, At War with the Army. The next six consecutive films are here, beginning with one of their best, 1951's That's My Boy. Jerry plays the athletically hopeless son of a famous football hero (Eddie Mayehoff, a funny man). It's a measure of how much Lewis had grabbed the public's imagination that Dino doesn't show up until the film is 20 minutes old. (Lewis later wrote that he arranged for "That's Amore" to be included in The Caddy to bolster Martin's popularity.) Also from 1951, Sailor Beware is a service comedy with some hilarious sequences--Lewis conducting a male chorus, for instance, or undergoing a slightly surreal medical exam--and the team still has a freshness despite the movie formula. Their timing together in the punchdrunk-boxer routine shows some of the chemistry they must have had onstage.
Jumping Jacks (1952) is the least of Martin & Lewis's service comedies, with Lewis as a showbiz performer who pretends to be in the military as a favor to Dean. The Stooge, same year, is one of their best teamings, this time with a touch of pathos along with the laughs: Martin is a self-centered singer who can't acknowledge that his hired stooge is the reason his act is boffo. Along with the backstage stuff, the movie demonstrates how skilled Lewis's singing was, even in a comic purpose.
1953's Scared Stiff is a warmed-over remake of the Bob Hope comedy The Ghost Breakers, and shows that the boys were overworked; the story is lame and the clowning feels more desperate (although Lewis has a few moments imitating co-star Carmen Miranda). In The Caddy, from the same year, Martin indulges his real-life passion for golf, and Lewis plays the neglected caddy. It's a return to form, borrowing a Stooge vibe, and boasts an odd framing story with the boys playing a nightclub act very much like Martin & Lewis.
Unless you're already a fan, your enthusiasm for this set will depend on your tolerance for Jerry Lewis and his manic, childlike dementia. Either you'll laugh, resist, or become fascinated at the naked, look-at-me neediness of his act. Dean Martin can be appreciated for the difficult job of playing straight man to this craziness (notice, too, how his singing voice comes into its own, from imitation Bing Crosby in the first couple of pictures to the familiar, relaxed style of vintage Dino). The DVD set provides no supporting features, but this is the first chapter of a hugely profitable and popular showbiz phenomenon. Just one more thing: "Who's your little whoozis? Who's your toitle dove?" --Robert Horton
Sales Rank:4817 List Price: $14.97 Lowest New Price: $2.79 Lowest Used Price: $0.68 MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Format:
AC-3
Closed-captioned
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Dolby
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Director(s):
Actor(s):
Keanu Reeves
Al Pacino
Charlize Theron
Jeffrey Jones
Judith Ivey
Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in The Witches of Eastwick; Robert De Niro did it in Angel Heart (as Louis Cyphre--get it?). In The Devil's Advocate Al Pacino takes his turn as the great Satan, and clearly relishes his chance to raise hell. He's a New York lawyer, of course, by the name of John Milton, who recruits a hotshot young Florida attorney (Keanu Reeves) to his firm and seduces him with tempting offers of power, sex, and money. Think of the story as a twist on John Grisham's The Firm, with the corporate evil made even more explicit. Reeves is wooden, and therefore doesn't seem to have much of a soul to lose, but he's really just our excuse to meet the devil. Pacino's the main attraction, gleefully showing off his--and the Antichrist's--chops at perpetrating menace and mayhem. The film was directed by Taylor Hackford (Against All Odds, Dolores Claiborne), who provides alternate-track commentary for the movie itself, plus a dozen deleted scenes. Also note: due to a settlement with artist Frederick Hart over the movie's use of a sculpture resembling his Ex Nihilo in Washington's National Cathedral, future releases of the film will be altered. --Jim Emerson
Sales Rank:3213 List Price: $9.98 Lowest New Price: $4.23 Lowest Used Price: $0.99 MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Format:
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Full Screen
NTSC
Director(s):
Actor(s):
Nancy Travis
Matt Keeslar
Kimberly J. Brown
David Dukes
Judith Ivey
On regular television, punctuated by frenetic commercials, the leisurely pace of the horror miniseries Rose Red probably felt grueling; but on its own terms, the effect is like settling into a long book full of detail--a book not unlike those of Stephen King, who wrote the script. The story (about a researcher into the paranormal who takes a team of psychics into a haunted house) recycles themes that King has used before--a telekinetic girl, a house with its own consciousness--but for his fans, the familiarity is probably comfortable and even enjoyable. The cast (including Nancy Travis, Julian Sands, and Melanie Lynsky from Heavenly Creatures) give committed performances, and the special effects are television-grade but used pretty well. Most of it doesn't make much sense, but at its best Rose Red is absurd and creepy at the same time. --Bret Fetzer
Sales Rank:9144 List Price: $14.98 Lowest New Price: $6.67 Lowest Used Price: $8.42 MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Format:
Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
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Full Screen
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC
Director(s):
Actor(s):
Peter O'Toole
Daryl Hannah
Steve Guttenberg
Donal McCann
Mary Coughlan
Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, My Favorite Year) gives an exuberant performance in High Spirits. Peter Plunkett (O'Toole) hopes to save his mortgaged castle by turning it into a tourist attraction--the most haunted castle in Ireland. When American tourists arrive--among them Jack (Steve Guttenberg) and Sharon (Beverly D'Angelo), a couple whose marriage is rapidly disintegrating--Plunkett's tomfoolery arouses the real ghosts, who decide to give these interlopers everything they're asking for. But when Jack accidentally helps a beautiful ghost named Mary (Daryl Hannah), she decides he's the man to help her break the curse she's been suffering for 200 years. High Spirits is an odd foray into comedy by director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire). The special effects are clumsy, but the strong supporting cast includes Jennifer Tilly, Peter Gallagher, and Liam Neeson as Mary's murderous 200-year-old husband. --Bret Fetzer
Sales Rank:5559 List Price: $14.99 Lowest New Price: $7.45 Lowest Used Price: $5.55 MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Format:
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Director(s):
Actor(s):
Anjelica Huston
Raul Julia
Christopher Lloyd
Elizabeth Wilson
Christina Ricci
The Addams Family Director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) brings his distinctly cartoonish sensibility to this feature film version of the old Charles Addams comic strip. Anjelica Huston was born to play Morticia Addams, matriarch of the ghoulish Addams clan, while the late Raul Julia is a very agreeable, lusty Gomez. But it's Christina Ricci who arguably steals the show as their stone-faced daughter, Wednesday. As is often the problem with adaptations of comics or television shows, somehow an original story has to be implemented that doesn't clutter things up. But clutter is an issue here as the script gets tangled on a lame plot concerning efforts to steal the Addams' house and fortune. Still, it's fun to see an ideal cast reanimate an old favorite. --Tom Keogh
The Addams Family Values This somewhat more cohesive follow-up to The Addams Family has the same director, Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black), but a better story line. Joan Cusack plays a busty gold digger who ingratiates herself into the Addams home and convinces Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) that she wants to marry him. Besides Lloyd, the cast includes Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia, ideal as those Brontëan lovers, Morticia and Gomez. But Christina Ricci again walks away with the best moments as the chilly Wednesday Addams, making life miserable for two camp counselors (Peter MacNicol and Christine Baranski) who want her to fit in with other kids.--Tom Keogh
Sales Rank:4509 List Price: $22.97 Lowest New Price: $5.45 Lowest Used Price: $1.89 MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Format:
Closed-captioned
Color
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DTS Surround Sound
DVD-Video
Special Edition
Subtitled
Widescreen
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Director(s):
Actor(s):
Anthony Hopkins
Julianne Moore
Gary Oldman
Ray Liotta
Frankie Faison
Yes, he's back, and he's still hungry. Ten years after The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, reprising his Oscar-winning role) is living the good life in Italy, studying art and sipping espresso. FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster), on the other hand, hasn't had it so good--an outsider from the start, she's now a quiet, moody loner who doesn't play bureaucratic games and suffers for it. A botched drug raid results in her demotion--and a request from Lecter's only living victim, Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited), for a little Q and A. Little does Clarice realize that the hideously deformed Verger--who, upon suggestion from Dr. Lecter, peeled off his own face--is using her as bait to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding, quite certain he'll capture the good doctor.
Taking the basic plot contraptions from Thomas Harris's baroque novel, Hannibal is so stylistically different from its predecessor that it forces you to take it on its own terms. Director Ridley Scott gives the film a sleek, almost European look that lets you know that, unlike the first film (which was about the quintessentially American Clarice), this movie is all Hannibal. Does it work? Yes--but only up to a point. Scott adeptly sets up an atmosphere of foreboding, but it's all buildup for anticlimax, as Verger's plot for abducting Hannibal (and feeding him to man-eating wild boars) doesn't really deliver the requisite visceral thrills, and the much-ballyhooed climatic dinner sequence between Clarice, Dr. Lecter, and a third unlucky guest wobbles between parody and horror. Hopkins and Moore are both first-rate, but the film contrives to keep them as far apart as possible, when what made Silence so amazing was their interaction. When they do connect it's quite thrilling, but it's unfortunately too little too late. --Mark Englehart