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New Video and DVD Releases
Part 1: This Week's Releases on Video/DVD

by Ivana Redwine

There are some interesting video/DVD releases slated for August 13, 2002, including "Birthday Girl," "Showtime," and "In the Bedroom." Let's take a look at these films, along with a few additional releases of interest, and take a sneak peek at what's coming next week to video and DVD.


"Birthday Girl" (2002)

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Tagline: "Before they share a future, they have to survive her past."

Length: 93 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality and language


Nicole Kidman and Ben Chaplin star in this movie that starts out like a comedy, then takes a turn into darker territory. John Buckingham (Chaplin) is a lonely bank clerk in England who mail-orders a bride from Russia. When Nadia (Kidman) first arrives, John is unhappy with her because she smokes and can't speak English. However, she is cheerful, and he begins to accept her when she indulges his sexual fantasies involving bondage. Then on Nadia's birthday, two Russian men, who may or may not be her cousins, suddenly arrive at John's home. These men are Alexei (Vincent Cassel) and Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz), and John initially thinks they are simply freeloaders. But it's not long before John's life is turned inside out, resulting in nasty threats and violence.

Selected Special DVD Features:

  • Music Video
  • Widescreen Anamorphic Format

Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Clockstoppers" (2001)

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Tagline: "Freeze the future."

Length: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG for action violence and mild language

Produced by Nickelodeon, this is a sci-fi adventure movie aimed at kids. Zak (Jesse Bradford) attends high school, where he befriends Francesca (Paula Garces), a pretty student from Venezuela. At home, Zak finds a special watch that has come into the possession of his dad, a college science teacher. The watch was given to Zak's father by the friendly Dr. Dopler (French Stewart), who had been involved in experimentation with it. Zak soon discovers that when he's wearing the watch, he can push a button on it and invisibly move at incredibly high speed around everyone else. But a wealthy man named Gates wants to use the watch for diabolical purposes and has Zak's dad kidnapped. That leaves it up to Zak, with help from Paula, to use the watch to rescue his father.

Selected Special DVD Features:

  • Music Videos
  • Widescreen Anamorphic Format

Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.


"In the Bedroom" (2002)

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Tagline: "A young man. An older woman. Her ex-husband. Things are about to explode ... "

Length: 130 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for some violence and language

This hard-hitting drama was a Best Picture Oscar nominee, and three actors—Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei—received Oscar nominations for their performances in it. Matt Fowler (Wilkinson) is a doctor in a small Maine town, where he lives with his wife Ruth (Spacek), a high school teacher. Their son Frank (Nick Stahl) has just graduated college and is home for the summer. He's involved in a romance with the thirty-something Natalie (Tomei), a working class mother of two who is estranged from her abusive husband. Then one of the characters is killed, and the film becomes a closely observed study of Ruth and Matt and how the married couple deals with the aftermath of the death. Ninety-two percent of the Rotten Tomatoes critics liked "In the Bedroom."

Selected Special DVD Features:

  • Widescreen Anamorphic Format
  • Closed-Captioned

"The New Guy" (2002)

DVD - Cover Art





 

Tagline: "A zero will rise."

Length: 93 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, language, crude humor, and mild drug references

This is a nonstandard teen comedy with some grossness—in one sequence a camera is used to broadcast a difficult bowel movement—but the movie also has some heart. Dizzy Gillespie Harrison (DJ Qualls), who lives with his father (Lyle Lovett), is a misfit at his high school where he is picked on by other students. Then Dizzy is put in prison, and an inmate (Eddie Griffin) advises him to get himself expelled from his current school so he can attend another, where he can reinvent himself. Dizzy follows the advice, and shows up at his new school behaving differently and going by the name Gil. Although Dizzy/Gil's new persona brings about problems of a different kind, it has an overall positive effect on both himself and others. Ninety-four percent of the Rotten Tomatoes critics didn't like "The New Guy."

Selected Special DVD Features:

  • Available in Full-Screen and Widescreen Anamorphic Formats
  • Music Video

"Showtime" (2002)

DVD Cover





 

Tagline: "Lights. Camera. Aggravation."

Length: 95 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for action violence, language, and some drug content

Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy star in this action comedy. Mitch Preston (De Niro) is a Los Angeles police detective who's been on the force for 28 years. Trey Sellars (Murphy) is a less experienced L.A. police officer who is an aspiring actor. Although Preston doesn't like the idea, he's forced to accept Sellars as a partner and appear on a TV reality show called "Showtime," which is produced by Chase Renzi (Rene Russo). While doing the show, Preston and Sellars try to bring to justice a really bad guy who has a really big gun. William Shatner and Johnnie Cochran appear in this movie, which does better with breaking glass, setting cars afire, and chase sequences than it does with being laugh-out-loud funny.

Selected Special DVD Features:

  • Available in Full-Screen and Widescreen Anamorphic Formats

Next page Additional Video/DVD Releases of Interest This Week Page 1, 2, 3, 4


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