New Videos Coming Out This Week

There are some particularly interesting new releases this week, including Malena, Monkeybone - Special Edition, Thirteen Days - Infinifilm Edition, and Die Hard - The Ultimate Collection. Let’s take a quick look at what the new releases scheduled for July 10, 2001, have to offer.

Down to Earth

Tagline: "A story of premature reincarnation."

Length: 87 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language, sexual humor and some drug references

Chris Rock stars in this comedy based on the 1978 movie Heaven Can Wait. Lance Barton (Rock), a young black man who aspires to be a stand-up comic, is called to heaven by mistake. Upon discovering the error, the angels return Lance to earth, but the only body available for Lance to occupy is that of millionaire Charles Wellington, an older white man. Most of the film’s humor then derives from the older, white Wellington behaving like the younger, black Lance, particularly when Lance (in Wellington’s body) becomes smitten with an attractive young activist played by Regina King.

Formats Available: DVD, VHS

Malena

Tagline: "A world at war. A young man coming of age. And the woman who changed his life forever."

Length: 92 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality/nudity, language and some violence

From writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso) comes the Italian-language film Malena, a reminisce by an older man of his boyhood in a small town in Sicily in the early 1940s. Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) is a teenage boy who becomes obsessed with a sexy-looking schoolteacher named Malena Scordia (Monica Bellucci). The early part of the movie lightheartedly shows how every male in town is captivated by Malena, whose husband is overseas in the military. But when Malena’s husband is killed in the war, the film takes a dark turn, and Malena is eventually forced to trade on her ability to attract men just to survive.

Formats Available: DVD, VHS

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