OnVideo JULY Video Reviews

OnVideo JULY Video Reviews

ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER
This Oscar-winning film traces the search by an emotionally devastated mother -- honoring the wishes of her dead 18-year-old son -- to learn more about her son's father, whom she left 20 years before. Her journey takes her to Barcelona, where she meets up with an actress performing in a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and gets drawn into criss-crossing narrative threads, female solidarity and new emotional connections.
Director: Pedro Almodovar. Stars: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Penelope Cruz, Antonio San Juan, Candela Pena, Rosa Maria Sarda. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 101 min.), Drama, 1999, Box office gross: $7.373 million, (Columbia TriStar), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/11, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

ANGELA'S ASHES
Frank McCourt's best-selling memoir of his impoversihed Irish childhood in the 1930s comes to the big-screen via the deft hand of director Alan Parker. Parker captures the time and place perfectly -- though he does sink into stereotype and cliche at times -- and keys in on the book's sense of triumph of the human spirit over deprivation and ignorance.
Director: Alan Parker. Stars: Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 145 min.), Drama, 1999, Box office gross: $12.867 million, (Paramount), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/18, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

BEACH, THE
Adventure yarn about a chain-smoking American backpacker (Leonardo DiCaprio) who travels to Thailand to escape Western culture. There he comes across a map leading him to a hidden eden on a Thai island, where the paradise of a beach commune turns sour. For DiCaprio fans only.
Director: Danny Boyle. Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Virginie Ledoyen, Tilda Swinton, Robert Carlyle, Guillaume Canet. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 118 min.), Drama, 2000, Box office gross: $39.758 million, (Fox), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/25, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

BOILER ROOM
Fast-paced, exciting drama about young stockbrokers making millions in stock-market scams -- making cold calls from a boiler room and selling worthless stock to gullible clients. The film follows the rise and fall of Seth (Giovanni Ribisi), who moves up fast in this tainted world only to uncover a secret dirtier than he imagined (which may be surprising since he's already involved in duping people out of their life's earnings) behind the company he works for.
Director: Ben Younger. Stars: Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Nia Long, Nicky Katt, Scott Caan, Ben Affleck, Jamie Kennedy, Ron Rifkin. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 117 min.), Drama, 2000, Box office gross: $16.889 million, (New Line), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/11, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

DOWN TO YOU
Romantic comedy about first love of two collegians (played by Freddie Prinze Jr. and Julia Stiles), told in non-linear fashion and sprinkled with post-modern conceits (actors addressing the camera), with all sorts of oddball side characters: a post-Harvard porn actress, a Jim Morrison wannabe, party dudes, egotistical actors, etc.
Director: Kris Isacsson. Stars: Freddie Prinze Jr., Julia Stiles, Selma Blair, Shawn Hatosy, Zak Orth, Rosario Dawson. CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 91 min.), Comedy, 2000, Box office gross: $19.847 million, (Miramax), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/11, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

DROWNING MONA
Exceedingly boring slapstick comedy about a small town police investigation (led by chief Danny DeVito) into the "accidental" death of the town shrew (Bette Midler) -- killed when her Yugo mysteriously plunges into the Hudson River -- and the various denizens who all have a motive for her demise. This is a film in which even the characters you're supposed to like are so despicable that you wish that they'd all end up with Mona's fate.
Director: Nick Gomez. Stars: Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Jamie Lee Curtis, Neve Campbell, Casey Affleck, Will Ferrell. CC, (MPAA rating: PG-13, 91 min.), Comedy, 2000, Box office gross: $15.427 million, (Columbia TriStar), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/25, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

HURRICANE, THE
Story of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (Denzel Washington) who was framed by a racist cop for the murder of three people in a bar in Paterson, N.J., in 1966, and his 20-year fight for freedom. Carter became a cause celebre among celebrities and politicians, and Bob Dylan even wrote a song about him. The film is a moving tribute to one man's spirit and triumph in the face of despair.
Director: Norman Jewison. Stars: Denzel Washington, Vicellous Reon Shannon, John Hannah, Liev Schreiber, David Paymer, Deborah Kara Inger. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 146 min.), Drama, 1999, Box office gross: $50.669 million, (Universal), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/11, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

ISN'T SHE GREAT

This highly underrated "bio" of Jacqueline ("Valley of the Dolls") Susann has Bette Midler at her best as the pulp fiction writer who stimulated millions with her "vulgar" books that unabashedly tore through the sleazy side of show business; she was there at the birth of mass culture in the 1960s and became one of its first handmaidens. Director Andrew ("The Freshman," "Honeymoon in Vegas") Bergman has more than a bio in mind here -- his characters are born full-blown at the beginning of the film and relentlessly move forward without stopping to take a breath. The film, like the culture it surveys, is designed as one big gloss, a puff piece that hardly taps into the real demons and horrors sitting below the surface of Susann's life (her terrible domestic life, her drug use, her bout with cancer, her affairs) - - and that's the idea. We're drawn into Midler and Nathan Lane's (her agent/husband) actions, the sets, the clothes, the music -- and we're effectively transported to -- and understand -- a piece of another era (shallow as this one may be). And isn't that what good films can do?
Director: Andrew Bergman. Stars: Bette Midler, Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, David Hyde Pierce, John Cleese, Amanda Peet. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 96 min.), Bio-Drama, 2000, Box office gross: $2.954 million, (Universal), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/18, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

MAGNOLIA
Director Paul Thomas Anderson followed his epic "Boogie Nights" with this three-hour ensemble exploration of one day and night in the interlocking lives of a dozen people in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, examining their dour lives and dreams -- replete with an apocalyptic (of sorts) ending. Audiences either loved or hated this massive three-hour epic -- seeing it as a masterpiece or as a failed and boring study of askew personalities.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. Stars: Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 188 min.), Drama, 1999, Box office gross: $22.170 million, (New Line), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/25, DVD: August 29. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

MY DOG SKIP
Delightful coming-of-age tale, based on the memoirs of Rhodes scholar Willie Morris, about a young boy -- and his constant companion, a Jack Russell terrier he receives on his 9th birthday -- growing up in Yahoo, Mississippi during WWII. Willie is a shy, sensitive, retiring boy, and his experiences with Skip teach him a variety of life's lessons -- about friendship, bravery and death -- as he grows to become a strong young man. And he realizes that love and loyalty are the most important things that one can nourish in life. A wonderful tale for youngsters and adults alike -- and one guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes and heart. Diane Lane (as the mother) and Kevin Bacon (as dad) turn in their best performances ever.
Director: Jay Russell. Stars: Frankie Muniz, Kevin Bacon, Diane Lane, Luke Wilson, Catlin Wachs, Bradley Coryell. CC, (MPAA rating: PG, 93 min.), Family, 2000, Box office gross: $30.582 million, (Warner), $22.96 SRP, Available: 7/11, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

NINTH GATE, THE
Johnny Depp plays a book detective hired by a weird client (Frank Langella) to locate copies of an extremely rare 17th century book -- "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom" -- which supposedly holds the key to a spell to conjure up the devil. Naturally all kinds of occult bad things befall Depp on his journey. A visually stunning work by director Roman Polanski in his first film since 1994's "Death and the Maiden."
Director: Roman Polanski. Stars: Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner, James Russo. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 133 min.), Thriller, 2000, Box office gross: $18.300 million, (Artisan), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/18, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

SCREAM 3
The guys and girls of "Scream" are back in this second sequel, this time grown past the adolescence of high school and off to the adolescence of Hollywood (save for Neve Campbell's linchpin character, who's hiding out in Northern California, still licking her wounds). Guess who calls? Not as scary as the series' predecessors. Billed as the final chapter.
Director: Wes Craven. Stars: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette, Parker Posey, Jenny McCarthy, Patrick Dempsey Lance Henriksen. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 117 min.), Horror, 1999, Box office gross: $84.896 million, (Miramax), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/4, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM?
Comic battle of the sexes that founders with weak script that dregs out all the same old cliches on the differences between men and women. Garry Shandling is an alien from an advanced civilization sent to Earth to impregnate a woman (he chooses Annette Bening) to save his race. A bit corny, and kind of a setback for the more-often-than not brilliant director Mike Nichols.
Director: Mike Nichols. Stars: Gary Shandling, Annette Bening, Greg Kinnear, Ben Kingsley, Linda Fiorentino, John Goodman. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 100 min.), Comedy, 2000, Box office gross: $6.291 million, (Columbia TriStar), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/18, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

WHOLE NINE YARDS, THE
Wonderful crime comedy about a loser of a suburban-dwelling dentist (Matthew Perry) with a shrewish wife (Rosanna Arquette) who discovers that his new neighbor (Bruce Willis) is a hitman on the run and decides to turn him in for a finder's fee to the Chicago Hungarian mafia. This one is full of double-crossers: the dentist's wife, who wants to hire someone to kill her husband; the hitman's wife, who conspires with the dentist; and the Chicago crime lord who conspires with everyone. They all want the same thing: "The whole nine yards": a stash of millions. Surprisingly fine turn by Perry as the befuddled dentist whose world comes crashing down about him. The humor here vacillates from subtle to broad, but it's the understated black comedy aspects that pushes the film forward.
Director: Jonathan Lynn. Stars: Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Rosanna Arquette, Michael Clarke Duncan, Natasha Henstridge, Amanda Peet, Kevin Pollak. CC, (MPAA rating: R, 98 min.), Comedy, 2000, Box office gross: $57.020 million, (Warner), No SRP, Priced for rental, Available: 7/11, DVD: Day & Date. Buy or preorder this title at up to 40% discount

All films are screened using the DVD version, when available, on a reference Onkyo DV-S717 DVD player.

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June 15, 2000