New Videos Coming Out This Week
Here's what you need to know to plan your next trip to the video store. There are some interesting video/DVD releases slated for Tuesday, November 27, 2001, including "Divided We Fall," "Made," "Pootie Tang," and "The Road Home." 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.
"Divided We Fall"
Length: 117 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence and sexual content
Set in a Czechoslovakian town during World War II, this Czech-language film is a domestic drama with some humorous elements. Josef and Marie are a childless Czech couple, struggling with the stress of the war and the German occupation. Then a Jew asks them to hide him, and they reluctantly acquiesce, letting him move into their pantry. Nevertheless, Josef and Marie still maintain a close relationship with a Nazi collaborator, leading to some unexpected and perilous conflicts. What sets "Divided We Fall" apart from most Holocaust-related movies is that the characters don’t fit neatly into the saint or sinner categories -- instead, they are ordinary people having to muddle their way through a series of morally complex situations.
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Made"
Length: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, some drug use and sexuality
"Made" is a character-driven indie crime comedy that is written and directed by Jon Favreau. In L.A., Bobby (Favreau) and Ricky (Vince Vaughn) are buddies who inhabit a seedy world of boxing, nightclubs, and shady construction jobs. Bobby would like to make enough money so his stripper girlfriend (Famke Janssen) and her young daughter could have a better life, and Ricky tags along with whatever Bobby does. When Bobby’s sleazy boss Max (Peter Falk) sends Bobby to New York on a criminal errand, Ricky goes with him, and the buddies are in for quite an adventure, including tangling with a mobster named Ruiz (Sean Combs). Most of the humor in "Made" revolves around the hapless Ricky, who has a gift for getting involved in bad situations and making them worse.
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Pootie Tang"
Tagline: "Too cool for words"
Length: 70 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sex-related material, language and drug content
"The Chris Rock Show," a comedy on cable television, featured a regular character called Pootie Tang, and now a movie has been made about him. In the film, Lance Crouther plays Pootie and Chris Rock has three different small roles. Pootie is a world-famous recording artist, movie personality, and crime fighter who speaks in an idiosyncratic way, saying things like "I’m gonna sine your pitty on the runny kine. Sipi-tai!" In the film, Pootie’s crusading against cigarettes, fast food, and malt liquor pits him against the nefarious Dick Lecter (Robert Vaughn), who heads up a company selling these products. Among those appearing in the movie are Wanda Sykes, Jennifer Coolidge, JB Smoove, and Reg E. Cathey. "Pootie Tang" is basically a series of comedy sketches that rely for much of their humor on references to pop culture.
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"The Road Home"
Length: 89 minutes
MPAA Rating: G
Set in a remote Chinese village, "The Road Home" is a Mandarin-language drama directed by Zhang Yimou. In about 1998 Yusheng (Sun Honglei), a man in his late thirties, returns to the village where he was raised to help his mother Di (Zhao Yuelin) bury his father Changyu. These opening scenes are in black and white, but as Yusheng reflects on his parents’ marriage forty years earlier, the film bursts into color. The central story in the movie is set in 1958 and tells how the then 18-year-old Di (played by Zhang Ziyi of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" fame) and the then 20-year-old Changyu (Zheng Hao) had a storybook courtship and married for love, breaking the tradition of arranged marriage. When Yusheng’s ruminations end, the film returns to black and white to show his father’s somber funeral procession.
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
Additional Releases of Interest:
"The Blue Angel" (1931)
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"The Last Wave" - Criterion Collection (1977)
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Moscow on the Hudson" (1984)
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"The Owl and the Pussycat" (1970)
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
"Willow" (1988)
Selected Special DVD Features:
Formats Available: The above information on special features refers to the DVD; this film is also available on VHS.
Next page A Sneak Peek at Next Week Page1, 2
