New Videos Coming Out This Week

There are some interesting films coming out this week on video and DVD. The two I'm looking forward to the most are Almost Famous and Wonder Boys. I enjoyed them both when I saw them in theaters and can hardly wait to see them again at home. Let's take a quick look at these two films and some others that are due to be released on March 13, 2001.

The 6th Day

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in this thriller set in the near future when people routinely have their pets cloned. Although illegal, an evil corporation clones humans as well. In a case of mistaken identity the corporation clones the unsuspecting Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger), who then must figure out just what is going on while avoiding the thugs sent by the corporation to kill him.

Almost Famous

Set in the early 1970s, this is a coming-of-age story about William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a 15-year-old boy who gets assigned by Rolling Stone to write a story about an up-and-coming rock band. Writer/director Cameron Crowe, while still a teenager himself, started his career as a journalist writing profiles for Rolling Stone, and this probably accounts for the earnest, semi-autobiographical feel that makes the film so memorable. Along with vividly recreating the era’s rock-music milieu, the solid performances give this movie a feeling of heartfelt authenticity. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical, and Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand both received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress.

The Crew

Richard Dreyfuss and Burt Reynolds star in this comedy about four mobsters, all of whom have retired to the same rundown residential hotel in Miami. When plans to upgrade the hotel and charge higher rents threaten to price them out of their rooms, the four try to thwart those plans by embarking on a wacky scheme to make it look like a murder has been committed in the hotel.

The Legend of Drunken Master

Jackie Chan stars in this martial arts movie featuring virtuoso action sequences. Chan plays the role of Wong Fei-hung, a martial arts master who must stop foreign gangsters from smuggling precious artifacts out of China. Wong employs a style of fighting that involves duping his opponent either by pretending to be drunk or by being less drunk than the opponent thinks.

Wonder Boys

In this unusual comedy/drama based on Michael Chabon’s novel, Michael Douglas stars as Grady Tripp, a tired, depressed college professor and novelist who is having a mid-life crisis. His third wife has left him, he’s gotten his department chairman’s wife pregnant, and his editor is hounding him to finish his new novel. Tripp’s first novel, The Arsonist’s Daughter, was a literary triumph that once made him one of the wonder boys of the literary world. But he hasn’t published anything since then, and his new novel is a bloated, baroque concoction that’s spinning wildly out of control with no end in sight. Memorable characters, fine acting, and dialogue that crackles with wit make this one of the year’s most entertaining films. Also, the music in the movie is especially good, including Bob Dylan's Golden Globe award-winning song "Things Have Changed."