| New Videos/DVDs |
There are some interesting video/DVD releases slated for March 12, 2002, including "Joy Ride," "Zoolander," and "Sexy Beast." Let's take a look at these films, along with a few additional releases of interest, and take a sneak peek at next week's videos and DVDs.
"Heist" (2001)
Tagline: "Love makes the world go 'round... Love of Gold."
Length: 111 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language and some violence
Written and directed by David Mamet, "Heist" is a clever crime drama that stars Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito. Joe Moore (Hackman) is an aging professional thief who is preparing to retire and enjoy life with his younger wife Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon). But Moore’s fence Mickey Bergman (DeVito) manages to arrange things so that Moore must pull one last job and futhermore, Bergman’s hotheaded, unreliable nephew Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell) must be part of Moore’s team. Soon Moore, his longtime partner Bobby Blane (Delroy Lindo), and Jimmy are planning the heist of a planeload of Swiss gold. But Jimmy takes an interest in Fran, and by the time the heist is carried out, Moore and Jimmy have come to distrust each other. "Heist" has a sensibility that is closer to an art house film than to a mainstream action movie.
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Widescreen Anamorphic Format
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Joy Ride" (2001)
Tagline: "It started as a joke. Now the joke is on them."
Length: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for violence/terror and language
This taut thriller stars Paul Walker, Leelee Sobieski, and Steve Zahn. Lewis (Walker) is a college student who makes a cross-country automobile trip, picking up his brother Fuller (Zahn) and his friend Venna (Sobieski) along the way. They pull a prank on a truck driver who calls himself Rusty Nail, but things go awry and a motel occupant is severely beaten as a result. It’s not long before Lewis, Venna, and Fuller hear Rusty Nail on their CB radio and realize that he is after them. Much of the rest of the movie revolves around a series of hair-raising incidents where the psychotic trucker uses his huge tractor-trailer rig to try to run down the three young people. Although “Joy Ride” has a few funny moments, it’s basically an unusually well-crafted thriller. Fully 77 percent of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie a positive review.
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Widescreen Anamorphic Format
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Liam" (2001)
Tagline: "Big heroes come in small packages."
Length: 88 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for some nudity and language
This drama tells the tale of a working-class Irish family living in Liverpool
during the Great Depression. While the young boy Liam (Anthony Borrows) prepares
for his first communion, his father (Ian Hart) loses his job and finds it difficult
to get another. Liam’s loving mother (Claire Hackett) struggles to keep
the family together, and his older sister Teresa (Megan Burns) takes work as
a maid for a wealthy Jewish family. As Liam tries to come to terms with the
Roman Catholic concept of sin, his family must pawn things with a Jewish pawnbroker
to keep afloat financially. Eventually, Liam’s proud father comes to believe
that Jews are at the root of his problems, and he joins a fascist organization
where he can vent his anti-Semitic feelings. Most of “Liam” consists
of a carefully drawn portrait of the title character and his family, but as
the movie nears its end, it takes a melodramatic turn.
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Closed-Captioned
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Sexy Beast" (2001)
Tagline: "Sometimes it's hard to say no."
Length:
88 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, strong violence and some sexuality
Ben Kingsley gives a fine performance in this crime drama. Gary “Gal” Dove (Ray Winstone) is a criminal who has happily retired to Spain’s Costa del Sol with his wife Deedee (Amanda Redman), a former porn star. But Gal’s tranquillity is shattered by the news that violent London gangster Don Logan (Kingsley) is coming to recruit him for a heist that requires his special safecracking skills. Gal eventually has little choice but to give in to Logan’s demands, and he travels to London where he participates in a robbery that involves drilling into a vault from a Turkish bath next door to a bank. “Sexy Beast” is a character-driven drama that features both humor and brutality, and a whopping 87 percent of the critics on the Rotten Tomatoes Web site liked this movie.
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Widescreen Anamorphic Format
- Commentary by Ben Kingsley and Jeremy Thomas
"The Wash" (2001)
Length:
93 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, drug use, some sexuality and violence
Starring Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg and written and directed by DJ Pooh, this loosely structured comedy may have been inspired by the 1976 movie “Car Wash.” Sean (Dr. Dre) takes a job as the manager of a car wash where his roommate Dee Loc (Snoop Dogg) and a number of other colorful characters are employed. Mr. Washington (comedian George Wallace) owns the car wash, and Antoinette (Angell Conwell) is the saucy cashier there. In his new role as manager, Sean butts heads with Loc, who deals marijuana on the side at the car wash. But when Mr. Washington gets kidnapped by a pair of bungling criminals, all the car wash employees decide to try to set their differences aside while they attempt to rescue him. In its theatrical release, 93 percent of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes found “The Wash” to be rotten, but it may play better on the small screen.
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Widescreen
- Two-Disc Set
"Zoolander" (2001)
Tagline: "3% Body Fat. 1% Brain Activity."
Length: 89 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 on appeal for sexual content and drug references.
This politically incorrect comedy about the fashion industry stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Stiller
also cowrote and directed the film, and his wife, father, mother, and sister appear in it. In the
movie, Derek Zoolander (Stiller) is a veteran top male model whose career is threatened by Hansel
(Wilson), a newcomer to modeling. This sends the monumentally stupid Zoolander into a funk and sets him
up to be brainwashed by a nefarious group of fashion designers to kill the prime minister of Malaysia.
The fashion designers want to get rid of the prime minister because his support of laws restricting
child labor endangers their industry. There are some big laughs in “Zoolander” and about two-thirds of
the critics on Rotten Tomatoes liked the movie, but many questioned the appropriateness of specifying
the head of state of a real country as the target of an assassination plot.
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Deleted Scenes
- Outtakes
- Widescreen Anamorphic Format
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
Additional Releases of Interest:
"Juliet of the Spirits" - Criterion Collection (1965)
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Widescreen Anamorphic Format
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Night of the Living Dead" - Millennium Edition (1968)
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Full-Screen Format
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet" - Special Edition (1996)
Selected Special DVD Features:
- Widescreen Anamorphic Format
- Music Videos
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
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