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15 Minutes (Infinifilm Edition)
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Starring: Niro, Robert De Burns, Edward Grammer, Kelsey Brooks, Avery Cattrall, Kim McCrary, Darius Theron, Charlize DiResta, John DiResta, John Niro, Robert De
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Director: Herzfeld, John Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 1 Minute
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.1/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com 15 Minutes wants to be provocative, but it exists in an alternate reality where rules of logic and credibility no longer apply. In his underrated film 2 Days in the Valley, writer-director John Herzfeld wryly exposed the underbelly of California's San Fernando Valley, but in the artificial New York City of 15 Minutes, he attempts a timely mixture of satire and social commentary that's only marginally convincing. Herzfeld's premise is both vivid and valid in addressing the deterioration of morals in American mass media, but in exploring the dark side of fame, the last few minutes of Taxi Driver have more impact than this entire movie. Robert De Niro stars as Eddie Flemming, a hotshot homicide detective whose current double-murder case teams him with arson investigator Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns). Their investigation leads to a pair of Eastern European nut-jobs (one Czech, one Russian) who've embarked on an impromptu killing spree--all captured on video by the Russian, who fancies himself an auteur of the American dream. In a pileup of contrivances, a reporter (Melina Kanakaredes) is also Eddie's girlfriend, and a tabloid TV host (Kelsey Grammer) seeks the killers' video with the scruples of Adolf Hitler. Blink and you'll miss Charlize Theron in a throwaway role, but that's nothing compared to the killing of a major character--a scene devoid of emotion that's more grist for the media mill. With appalling bloodlust, 15 Minutes sheds a sickening light on America's twisted character, but instead of illuminating, it only darkens the gloom. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. Description Robert DeNiro (Meet The Parents, Analyse This) and Ed Burns (Any Given Sunday, Saving Private Ryan) star as two detectives on the trail of two killers who videotape their crimes.
39 Steps - Criterion Collection, The
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Starring: Donat, Robert Carroll, Madeleine Ashcroft, Peggy Ashcroft, Dame Peggy Laurie, John Watson, Wylie Cellier, Frank Mannheim, Lucie Mannheim, Lucie McNaughton, Gus
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Director: Hitchcock, Alfred Rating: Unrated Running Time: 1 Hour 26 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.0/10 (IMDB) Black & White Stereo
Amazon.com essential video Hitchcock's first great romantic thriller is a prime example of the MacGuffin principle in action. Robert Donat is Richard Hannay, an affable Canadian tourist in London who becomes embroiled in a deadly conspiracy when a mysterious spy winds up murdered in Hannay's rented flat--and both the police and a secret organization wind up hot on his trail. With only a seemingly meaningless phrase ("the 39 steps"), a small Scottish town circled on a map, and a criminal mastermind identified by a missing finger as clues, quick-witted Hannay eludes police and spies alike as he works his way across the countryside to reveal the mystery and clear his name. At one point he finds himself making his escape manacled to blonde beauty Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), whose initial antagonism is smoothed by Hannay's charm and the sheer rush of her thrilling chase. It's classic Hitchcock all the way, a seemingly effortless balance of romance and adventure set against a picturesque landscape populated by eccentrics and social-register smoothies, none of whom is what he or she appears to be. Hitchcock would play similar games of innocents plunged into deadly conspiracies, most delightfully in North by Northwest, but in this breezy 1935 classic, Hitch proves that, as in any quest, the object of the search isn't nearly as satisfying as the journey. --Sean Axmaker --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition. Description The best known of Hitchcock’s British films, this civilized spy yarn follows the escapades of Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), who stumbles into a conspiracy that involves him in a hectic chase across the Scottish moors—a chase in which he is both the pursuer and the pursued. Adapted from John Buchan’s novel, this classic Hitchcock "wrong man" thriller encapsulates themes that anticipate the director’s biggest American films (especially North by Northwest), and is a standout among his early works.
All the President's Men
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Starring: Hoffman, Dustin Redford, Robert Warden, Jack Robards Jr., Jason Randolph, John Hoffman, Basil Abraham, F. Murray Abraham, Fahrid Murray Abraham, Fahrid Murray Collins, Stephen
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Director: Pakula, Alan J. Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 19 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.0/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video It helps to have one of history's greatest scoops as your factual inspiration, but journalism thrillers just don't get any better than All the President's Men. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford are perfectly matched as (respectively) Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, whose investigation into the Watergate scandal set the stage for President Richard Nixon's eventual resignation. Their bestselling exposŽ was brilliantly adapted by screenwriter William Goldman, and director Alan Pakula crafted the film into one of the most intelligent and involving of the 1970s paranoid thrillers. Featuring Jason Robards in his Oscar-winning role as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, All the President's Men is the film against which all other journalism movies must be measured. --Jeff Shannon
Antitrust
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Starring: Phillippe, Ryan Robbins, Tim Forlani, Claire Dushku, Nate Forlani, Claire Phillippe, Ryan Cook, Rachael Leigh Tso, Yee Jee Tso, Yee Jee Bellamy, Ned
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Director: (II), Peter Howitt Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 Hour 48 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.0/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com The term suspension of disbelief was invented for the idea that Ryan Phillippe could be a computer genius. As Milo, a slacker brainiac recruited by smilingly ominous software giant Gary Winston (Tim Robbins) to help build a global communications system, Phillippe still looks like a million bucks. He is also still doing the clenched, pouty grown-up voice that he always uses to show that he means business in this acting stuff (he's nothing if not earnest), and a pair of designer glasses completes the transformation. He's well matched in Antitrust by Claire Forlani, who, in turn, spends time pursing her lips and squinting her dewy eyes as Milo's troubled girlfriend, an artist who proves to be a liability when Milo discovers that Winston is killing off clever competitors like a dot-com f†hrer. Robbins, looking like David Letterman, seems willing to either take his role dead seriously or goof around a bit, but director Peter Howitt doesn't know how to play any of it (the actor was better used as a grinning madman in another flawed paranoid thriller, the underseen Arlington Road). Without any underlying menace or enough satirical bite to keep it interesting, the whole thing slips by passively in a mindless matinee kind of way until the over-the-top finale. Production designer Catherine Hardwicke has had some big, glossy fun creating Winston's campus and ornate private kingdom, and there's the cheapest of kicks in seeing Robbins's Bill Gates taken down publicly, but the film is definitely junior league. --Steve Wiecking --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Basic Instinct (Collector's Edition)
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Starring: Douglas, Michael Stone, Sharon
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Director: Verhoeven, Paul Rating: R Running Time:
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: Color Dolby
Amazon.com The take-no-prisoners sex thriller from 1992 now stands as a milestone in the career of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, but in the hands of director Paul Verhoeven Basic Instinct is an undeniably stylish and provocative study of obsession. In the role that made her a star (and showed the audience a little more skin than she intended), Sharon Stone plays the cleverly manipulative novelist Catherine Tramell who snares San Francisco detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) with her insatiable sexual appetite during the investigation of her boyfriend's murder. Tramell is the prime suspect, but the plot twists and turns until Curran is trapped in a dangerous cycle of dead ends and unsolved murders, never sure if Tramell is committing the crimes or if it is some other, unknown suspect. With a plot that keeps viewers guessing, Basic Instinct is the work of a director who is clearly in his element. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Bound
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Starring: Tilly, Jennifer Gershon, Gina Pantoliano, Joe Ryan, John Meloni, Christopher Sarafian, Richard C.
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Director: Wachowski, Andy / Wachowski, Larry Rating: NR Running Time: 110 minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.5/10 (IMDB) Color Surround Sound
VideoHound Golden Movie Retriever 2000: Ex-con Corky (Gershon) is busy fixing up her new apartment after serving five years for robbery. Her next-door neighbors are Caesar (Pantoliano), a neurotic, money-laundering mobster, and his sexy girlfriend, a seemingly dumb brunette named Violet (Tilly). The femme twosome hook up (in and out of bed) and hatch a plan to steal two million freshly laundered dollars from Caesar, who goes ballistic when he discovers the money gone. It's a flashy-but not substantive-thriller. Directorial debut for the brother Wachowski.
Butterfly Effect, The (Infinifilm Edition)
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Starring: Kutcher, Ashton Walters, Melora Smart, Amy Suplee, Ethan Rennie, Callum Keith Scott, William Lee Smart, Amy Henson, Elden Henson, Elden Schmidt, Kevin
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Director: Bress, Eric Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.4/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com Despite box-office dominance during its opening weekend, The Butterfly Effect is better suited to guilty-pleasure viewing at home. When writer-directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber (who penned Final Destination 2) aren't breaking their own haphazard rules of logic, they're filling this sordid thriller with enough unpleasantness to make eternal damnation seem like an attractive alternative. In a role-reversal from his That '70s Show persona, Ashton Kutcher plays a college-age psychology student who discovers, by re-reading his childhood journals, that he can revisit his past and alter traumatic events, hoping to improve their previously unfortunate outcomes. Instead, this foolhardy experiment in chaos theory (the titular "butterfly effect," popularized by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park) results in a variety of nightmarish permutations, each having dire consequences for him and/or his friends. This intriguing premise is explored with a few interesting twists and turns, but with subplots involving child pornography, animal cruelty, and profanely violent children, it's a stretch to call it entertainment. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. Description A young man struggling to access sublimated childhood memories finds a technique that allows him to travel back to the past. Occupying his childhood body, he is able to change history. But every change he makes has unexpected consequences.
Carlito's Way (Collector's Edition)
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Starring: Pacino, Al Penn, Sean Miller, Penelope Ann Miller, Penelope Ann Pacino, Al Penn, Sean Rebhorn, James Guzman, Luis Guzman, Luis Guzm‡n, Luis
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Director: Palma, Brian De Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 25 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.5/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video Al Pacino cuts a noble figure in this very enjoyable drama by director Brian De Palma (Scarface), based on a pair of books by Edwin Torres. Pacino plays a Puerto Rican ex-con trying hard to go straight, but his loyalty to his lowlife attorney (a virtually unrecognizable Sean Penn) and enemies on the street make that choice difficult. Penelope Ann Miller plays, somewhat unlikely, a stripper who has a romance with Pacino's character. The film finds De Palma tempering his more outlandish moves (think of Body Double or Snake Eyes) just as he did with the popular Untouchables and Mission: Impossible. But while Carlito's Way was not commercially successful and never rises to the level of greatness, it is a genuinely compelling movie graced with a fine performance by Pacino and a surprising one from Penn. --Tom Keogh --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Catch Me If You Can (Widescreen Edition)
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Starring: DiCaprio, Leonardo Hanks, Tom Walken, Christopher Hanks, Tom Brolin, James Walken, Christopher Anderson, Jamie Garner, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Baye, Nathalie
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Director: Spielberg, Steven Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 Hours 21 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.7/10 (IMDB) Color DTS Surround Sound
Amazon.com An enormously entertaining (if somewhat shallow) affair from blockbuster director Steven Spielberg. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Frank Abagnale, Jr., a dazzling young con man who spent four years impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer--all before he turned 21. All the while he's pursued by a dedicated FBI agent named Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), whose dogged determination stays one step behind Abagnale's spontaneous wits. Both DiCaprio and Hanks turn in enjoyable performances and the movie has a bouncy rhythm that keeps it zipping along. However, it never gets under the surface of Frank's drive to lose himself in other identities, other than a simplistic desire to please his father (Christopher Walken, excellent as always), nor does it explore the complex mechanics of fraud with any depth. By the movie's end, it feels like one of Frank's pilot uniforms--appearance without substance. --Bret Fetzer --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
City by the Sea (Widescreen Edition)
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Starring: Niro, Robert De McDormand, Frances Franco, James Forsythe, William McDormand, Frances Dushku, Eliza Franco, James Mount, Anson Mount, Anson Niro, Drena De
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Director: Caton-Jones, Michael Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 48 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.3/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com A welcome throwback to the cop dramas of the '70s, City by the Sea is an average film improved by its cast. Robert De Niro stars as veteran New Jersey detective Vincent LaMarca, lamenting the once glorious Asbury Park boardwalk, now dilapidated from the decay of changing times. A good cop but a regrettable father, LaMarca must confront past mistakes and repressed memories when his estranged son (James Franco) becomes the prime suspect in the killing of LaMarca's partner (George Dzundza). There's a nagging inevitability to Ken Hixon's otherwise intelligent screenplay, but De Niro and Frances McDormand--as LaMarca's compassionate neighbor and part-time girlfriend--turn this simmering drama into something deeper than it is. McDormand's role would be thin without the depth and humanity she brings to it, and both De Niro and Franco mine gold from their troubling father-son legacy. Based on a true story, City by the Sea has that kernel of authenticity that good actors thrive on. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. Description Drama. When a respected New York homicide detective (Robert De Niro) discovers the prime suspect in a murder case is his estranged son (James Franco), he is forced to return home to the decaying boardwalks of Long Beach, Long Island to confront the darkness of his past. During the course of the investigation, he realizes that his failures as a father - and his unresolved anguish about the painful estrangement - have deeply influenced his son's life, and he must put his own life on the line in order to do right by both his family and his profession.
Contender, The
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Starring: Oldman, Gary Allen, Joan Bridges, Jeff Allen, Joan Hemingway, Mariel Thomas, Robin Bridges, Jeff Rubinek, Saul Rubinek, Saul Hall, Philip Baker
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Director: Lurie, Rod Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 7 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.9/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video Depending on your perspective, The Contender can be praised and damned for the same reasons. A political thriller with an insider's view, it's deadly earnest in its defense of truth, justice, and the American way, but writer-director (and former film critic) Rod Lurie resorts to the same manipulation that his film purports to condemn. But with political savvy, a timely idea (a female vice president), and a cast of first-rate actors, this high-office chess game is unabashedly entertaining. You can argue with Lurie's tactics, but you can't fault his patriotic passion. In a role written especially for her, Joan Allen is outstanding (if a bit too saintly) as the Republican-turned-Democrat senator who is chosen by the president (Jeff Bridges) to fill a vice presidential vacancy. Bridges is a cagey chief executive, seemingly aloof as he gleefully challenges the White House's 24-hour kitchen staff but more than a match for the embittered and unscrupulous congressman (Gary Oldman) who plots to destroy Allen's character with seemingly dark secrets from her past. As a gender-switching response to the Lewinsky scandal, The Contender asks potent questions with its impassioned plea for integrity in public service. That makes this a film well worth defending, and the stellar cast (which includes Christian Slater and William Petersen) triumphs over most of the plot's hokey machinations. The ideas are more compelling than their execution, however, and although Lurie's climactic revelation is a vast improvement over the reckless cheat of his previous film Deterrence, it still threatens to tarnish the gloss of an otherwise fascinating film. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. DVD features Many Hollywood directors should follow Rod Lurie's lead and invite their stars to do the DVD commentary. Oscar nominee Joan Allan joins Lurie, turning the commentary track into an enjoyable conversation. It tends to be a lovefest at times but does give insight into the relationship between a lead actor and director during filmmaking. Over the end credits, Lurie mentions the brouhaha that actor (and producer) Gary Oldman started when he made discouraging comments about the film's final cut. It's... read more Description When the truth becomes a weapon, power comes at a stunning price. Gary Oldman, Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Christian Slater deliver electrifying performances in this controversial, suspenseful and critically-acclaimed thriller that Ebert & Roeper and the Movies call "exciting and unusually intelligent, two very enthusiastic thumbs up!" Sometimes you can assassinate a leader without firing a shot.
Cop Land - Director's Cut (Collector's Edition)
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Starring: Stallone, Sylvester Keitel, Harvey Liotta, Ray Adi, Alexandra Sciorra, Annabella Citro, Anthony J. Nascarella, Arthur Ellerin, Ben Ellerin, Ben Altman, Bruce
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Director: Mangold, James Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 56 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.7/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com After making a critically acclaimed debut with the low-budget independent drama Heavy, writer-director James Mangold took on this gritty crime drama, which was highly touted as Sylvester Stallone's long-awaited return to a serious dramatic role. With an illustrious cast of costars, including GoodFellas alumni Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Ray Liotta, Stallone plays Freddy Heflin, the ineffectual sheriff of a New Jersey suburb that a group of corrupt New York cops have turned into their own off-duty criminal empire. Deaf in one ear and desperate to prove his worth, the sheriff takes on the cops with standoffish assistance from an Internal Affairs cop (De Niro), resulting in an explosive climactic showdown. The stellar cast can't be beat, and Stallone is quite good as the overweight cop whose pride is on the line. Mangold's script is wildly uneven, but the film still packs a white-knuckled punch. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the DVD edition. DVD features Too often a "director's cut" only serves to comfort the bruised ego of a director whose film didn't perform as well as expected, but James Mangold's Cop Land actually benefits from the inclusion of subtle scenes and character details that add welcome depth to a story that now has room to breathe. It's not a significantly different film, but 11 minutes of restored material support Mangold's assertion (in his commentary with Sylvester Stallone, costar Robert Patrick, and coproducer Cathy Konrad)... read more
Dead Presidents
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Starring: Tate, Larenz David, Keith David, Keith Wright, N'Bushe Rodriguez, Freddy Woodbine, Bokeem Powell, Clifton Jr., James Pickens Jr., James Pickens Powell, Clifton
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Director: Hughes, Allen Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 59 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.3/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Twin brother codirectors Albert and Alan Hughes planned their first film, the 1991 ghetto crime drama Menace II Society as a response to John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, which they considered wimpy and moralistic. They set their sights on The Deer Hunter in this ambitious follow-up, and they just about pull it off. Larenz Tate (from Why Do Fools Fall in Love) plays Anthony Curtis, an open-hearted African American teenager who gets shipped out to Vietnam with several of his pals, witnesses unspeakable horrors, and then struggles to readjust to civilian life. The evolving textures of life in a declining inner-city neighborhood over a period of a decade are seamlessly evoked, and there's enough nuanced character development and personal interaction for a seven-hour miniseries. Still in their early 20s, the Hughes brothers are already poised and masterful moviemakers; they cover an enormous amount of historical and emotional ground, and every twist and turn is crystal clear. They betray their inexperience only at the very end, in an elaborately staged heist sequence that, while stunningly executed, feels a bit desperate, as if they were reaching blindly for a big payoff. Chris Tucker (Rush Hour) has a startling supporting role as a kid who becomes junkie during the war, and never quite recovers. --David Chute --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Deliverance
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Starring: Voight, Jon Reynolds, Burt Beatty, Ned Beatty, Ned Cox, Ronny Redden, Billy Glass, Seamon Deal, Randall Deal, Randall Coward, Herbert 'Cowboy'
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Director: Boorman, John Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 49 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.8/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video One of the key films of the 1970s, John Boorman's Deliverance is a nightmarish adaptation of poet-novelist James Dickey's book about various kinds of survival in modern America. The story concerns four Atlanta businessmen of various male stripe: Jon Voight's character is a reflective, civilized fellow, Burt Reynolds plays a strapping hunter-gatherer in urban clothes, Ned Beatty is a sweaty, weak-willed boy-man, and Ronny Cox essays a spirited, neighborly type. Together they decide to answer the ancient call of men testing themselves against the elements and set out on a treacherous ride on the rapids of an Appalachian river. What they don't understand until it is too late is that they have ventured into Dickey's variation on the American underbelly, a wild, lawless, dangerous (and dangerously inbred) place isolated from the gloss of the late 20th century. In short order, the four men dig deep into their own suppressed primitiveness, defending themselves against armed cretins, facing the shock of real death on their carefully planned, death-defying adventure, and then squarely facing the suspicions of authority over their concealed actions. Boorman, a master teller of stories about individuals on peculiarly mythical journeys, does a terrifying and beautiful job of revealing the complexity of private and collective character--the way one can never be the same after glimpsing the sharp-clawed survivor in one's soul. --Tom Keogh
Devil's Own, The
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Starring: Ford, Harrison Pitt, Brad Colin, Margaret Williams, Treat McElhone, Natascha Hearn, George Colin, Margaret McElhone, Natascha McElhone, Natascha Jones, Simon
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Director: Pakula, Alan J. Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 51 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 5.7/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Any movie starring Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford has got to be worth seeing, right? That's as close to a guarantee as this well-meaning thriller ever gets, however, and the talents of Pitt and Ford are absolutely vital in making any sense out of this dramatically muddled scenario. Ostensibly the movie's about an IRA terrorist (Pitt) who escapes from British troops in Belfast and travels to New York City, where he stays in the home of a seasoned cop (Ford) who has no idea of the terrorist's true identity. (Why a veteran cop would host a complete stranger in his home is one of those shaky details you're better off not thinking about.) But while Pitt's passionate character waits to make an arms deal for his IRA compatriots back in Ireland, The Devil's Own conveniently avoids any detailed understanding of the Northern Ireland conflict, focusing instead on the cop's moral dilemma when he discovers that his young guest is a terrorist. The film is superbly acted, and overall it's quite worthwhile, but don't look to it for an abundance of plot logic or an in-depth understanding of Protestant-Catholic tensions in Northern Ireland. (For that, take a look at In the Name of the Father or the underrated historical biopic Michael Collins.) --Jeff Shannon.
Disclosure
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Starring: Douglas, Michael Moore, Demi Sutherland, Donald Goodall, Caroline Miller, Dennis Baker, Dylan Forsyth, Rosemary Miller, Dennis Miller, Dennis Sadler, Nicholas
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Director: Levinson, Barry Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 9 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 5.9/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Michael Crichton's bestselling novel was both a high-tech thriller and source of controversy with its hot-button plot about a man's charge of sexual harassment against a female colleague and former lover. The movie, directed by Barry Levinson, turned these issues into a prurient thriller gussied up in glossy production values, virtual reality computer graphics, and steamy sex between Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. Having cornered the market on roles for men whose brains are located south of their waistline, Douglas is well cast as the computer-industry guy who loses a plush promotion to the opportunistic Moore, and he's perfected the expression of paranoid panic. If you don't think about it too much, this is one of those films that can draw you into its manipulative web and really grab your attention. Disclosure is more entertaining than thought provoking (because the filmmakers basically danced around the story's potential controversy), but there's enough star power and visual glitz to make this an enjoyable ride. --Jeff Shannon
Donnie Brasco
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Starring: Pacino, Al Depp, Johnny Madsen, Michael Heche, Anne Kirby, Bruno Kirby Jr., B. Grenier, Zach Becker, Gerry Becker, Gerry Tarantina, Brian
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Director: Newell, Mike Rating: R Running Time: 127 minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.5/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Based on a memoir by former undercover cop Joe Pistone (whose daring and unprecedented infiltration of the New York Mob scene earned him a place in the federal witness protection program), Donnie Brasco is like a de- romanticized, de-mythologized version of The Godfather. It offers an uncommonly detailed, privileged glimpse inside the world of organized crime from the perspective of the little guys at the bottom of Mafia hierarchy rather than from the kingpins at the top. Donnie Brasco is not only one of the great modern-day gangster movies to put in the company of The Godfather films and GoodFellas, but it is also one of the great undercover police movies--arguably surpassing Serpico and Prince of the City in richness of character, detail, and moral complexity. Donnie (Johnny Depp, a splendid actor) is practically adopted by Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino), a gregarious, low-level "made" man who grows to love his young protŽgŽ like a son. (Pacino really sinks into this guy's skin and polyester slacks, and creates his freshest, most fully realized character since his 1970s heyday.) As Donnie acclimates himself to Lefty's world, he distances himself from his wife (a terrific Anne Heche) and family for their own protection. Almost imperceptibly his sense of identity slips away from him. Questioning his own confused loyalties, unable to trust anybody else because he himself is an imposter, Donnie loses his way in a murky and treacherous no-man's land. The film is directed by Mike Newell, who also headed up Four Weddings and a Funeral and the gritty, true crime melodrama Dance with a Stranger. --Jim Emerson
Double Jeopardy
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Starring: Jones, Tommy Lee Judd, Ashley Greenwood, Bruce Elliott, Brennan Greenwood, Bruce MacLaren, John Evanko, Ed Gish, Annabeth Gish, Annabeth Elliott, Brennan
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Director: Beresford, Bruce Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 45 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.0/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Young Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) is happy as a clam, and why not? She's got a loving, successful husband (Bruce Greenwood), an adorable son, and an island home to die for. One morning, after a romantic sailing expedition with her husband, Libby finds herself covered in blood. Her husband's missing, the boat resembles a murder scene, and there's a knife on the deck. One might stop right there and call for help; Libby, however, takes matters--or, more specifically, the knife--into her own hands, and the moment she does, there's the Coast Guard. Faster than you can say frame-up, Libby's been charged with murder and jailed, with her young son stripped from her custody. It's all cut-and-dried, except for one thing: Libby's husband isn't dead, and she's about to track him down. And thanks to the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy rule, she can't be charged twice for his murder. Double Jeopardy has a singularly seductive revenge premise and, in Judd, one of the most seductive leading ladies to grace the silver screen in recent years. So then why does this thriller feel like it came from the bottom of the Lifetime television movie barrel? Instead of taking a gritty, hard-boiled approach, the film plays up all of Libby's mushy emotions--tellingly, the director here is Bruce Beresford, whose best film, Driving Miss Daisy, is as far from thriller territory as you can get. No matter how stoically or deviously Judd plays her, Libby comes across as a soccer mom with a slight taste for blood. Only in a few scenes, specifically when she tracks her wily husband to his new identity in New Orleans, does Judd get to strut her stuff, stealing an evening gown and crashing his charity auction. Most of the time, though, this thriller offers only a smattering of suspense. Well, at least like Libby, the filmmakers can't be condemned twice for the same crime. With Tommy Lee Jones duplicating his Fugitive role, as Libby's conscientious parole officer. --Mark Englehart --This text refers to the DVD edition.
Firm, The
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Starring: Cruise, Tom Tripplehorn, Jeanne Hackman, Gene Holbrook, Hal Brimley, Wilford Busey, Gary Cruise, Tom Strathairn, David Strathairn, David Hackman, Gene
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Director: Pollack, Sydney Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 34 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.6/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video By far the best adaptation of a John Grisham bestseller, this smart, fast-paced 1993 film--directed by Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa)--offers up the dilemma of a young lawyer whose life is turned upside down when he takes a job at a Southern law firm owned by the mob. Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise), having just graduated from Harvard Law, is besieged with offers but takes a job, too good to be true, with a small Memphis firm. He and his wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), are sucked in by the seemingly close-knit, collegial nature of the firm's partners and the expensive perks that come with the job. His mentor, Avery (Gene Hackman), teaches him the ropes, but Mitch and Abby begin to sense there's something wrong with this idyllic life. When a couple of associates turn up dead, Mitch begins to investigate the history of the firm; and when the FBI asks him to spy on the firm for them, Mitch realizes his life will never be the same and that, if discovered, he, his wife, and his long-lost brother will be in mortal danger. Mitch must use all his talents as a lawyer to outsmart the firm, the FBI, and the mob in order to reclaim control over his life. A very entertaining thriller that engages the audience at a breakneck pace while not taking itself too seriously. It also features some fine writing and strong performances from a large cast of exceptional actors. --Robert Lane --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Frantic
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Starring: Ford, Harrison Seigner, Emmanuelle Buckley, Betty Mahoney, John Virton, Dominique Klein, Gérard D'Audeville, Stéphane Spielvogel, Laurent Spielvogel, Laurent Ciron, Jacques
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Director: Polanski, Roman Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.5/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Living in exile in Paris after eluding a controversial charge of statutory rape in America, director Roman Polanski seemed professionally adrift during the 1980s, making only one film (the ill-fated Pirates) between 1979 and 1988. Then Polanski found inspiration--and a major star in Harrison Ford--to make Frantic, a thriller that played directly into Polanski's gift for creating an atmosphere of mystery, dread, escalating suspense, and uncertain fate. Set in Paris (Polanski couldn't go to Hollywood, so Hollywood came to him), the story begins when an American heart surgeon (Ford) arrives in the City of Lights with his wife (Betty Buckley) for a medical convention. They check into a posh hotel, and in a brilliantly directed scene, Ford takes a shower and emerges to find that his wife has vanished. This mysterious disappearance--and a confusion between two identical pieces of luggage--leads Ford into the Paris underground and a plot that grows increasingly dangerous as he approaches the truth of his wife's disappearance. The plot gets too complicated, and the pace drops off in the cluttered second half, but in Polanski's capable hands the film is blessed with moments of heightened suspense in the tradition of classic thrillers. --Jeff Shannon
Fugitive, The
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Starring: Ford, Harrison Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Lee Katsulas, Andreas Krabbe, Jeroen Pantoliano, Joe Ward, Sela Moore, Julianne Moore, Julianne Wood, Tom
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Director: Davis, Andrew Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 131 minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.7/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video Do you know anyone who hasn't seen this movie? A box-office smash when released in 1993, this spectacular update of the popular 1960s TV series stars Harrison Ford as a surgeon wrongly accused of the murder of his wife. He escapes from a prison transport bus (in one of the most spectacular stunt-action sequences ever filmed) and embarks on a frantic quest for the true killer's identity, while a tenacious U.S. marshal (Tommy Lee Jones, in an Oscar-winning role) remains hot on his trail. Director Andrew Davis hit the big time with this expert display of polished style and escalating suspense, but it's the antagonistic chemistry between Jones and Ford that keeps this thriller cooking to the very end. In roles that seem custom-fit to their screen personas, the two stars maintain a sharply human focus to the grand-scale manhunt, and the intelligent screenplay never resorts to convenient escapes or narrative shortcuts. Equally effective as a thriller and a character study, this is a Hollywood blockbuster that truly deserves its ongoing popularity. --Jeff Shannon
Heat
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Starring: Pacino, Al Niro, Robert De Kilmer, Val Kilmer, Val Sizemore, Tom Voight, Jon Venora, Diane Brenneman, Amy Brenneman, Amy Williamson, Mykelti
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Director: Mann, Michael Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 52 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.8/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video Having developed his skill as a master of contemporary crime drama, writer-director Michael Mann displayed every aspect of that mastery in this intelligent, character-driven thriller from 1995, which also marked the first onscreen pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The two great actors had played father and son in the separate time periods of The Godfather, Part II, but this was the first film in which the pair appeared together, and although their only scene together is brief, it's the riveting fulcrum of this high-tech cops-and-robbers scenario. De Niro plays a master thief with highly skilled partners (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore) whose latest heist draws the attention of Pacino, playing a seasoned Los Angeles detective whose investigation reveals that cop and criminal lead similar lives. Both are so devoted to their professions that their personal lives are a disaster. Pacino's with a wife (Diane Venora) who cheats to avoid the reality of their desolate marriage; De Niro pays the price for a life with no outside connections; and Kilmer's wife (Ashley Judd) has all but given up hope that her husband will quit his criminal career. These are men obsessed, and as De Niro and Pacino know, they'll both do whatever's necessary to bring the other down. Mann's brilliant screenplay explores these personal obsessions and sacrifices with absorbing insight, and the tension mounts with some of the most riveting action sequences ever filmed--most notably a daylight siege that turns downtown Los Angeles into a virtual war zone of automatic gunfire. At nearly three hours, the film qualifies as a kind of intimate epic, certain to leave some viewers impatiently waiting for more action, but it's all part of Mann's compelling strategy. Heat is a true rarity: a crime thriller with equal measures of intense excitement and dramatic depth, giving De Niro and Pacino a prime showcase for their finely matched talents. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Heavenly Creatures
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Starring: Lynskey, Melanie Winslet, Kate Peirse, Sarah Winslet, Kate Peirse, Sarah Kent, Diana Merrison, Clive Brophy, Jed Brophy, Jed Heath, Geoffrey
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Director: Jackson, Peter Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 49 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.7/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com essential video A starkly original film-going experience based on a true life story, this film from New Zealand director Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, The Frighteners) is a stirring drama that offers up the unexpected. The story concerns two girls, outcasts who become best friends, whose bizarre fantasy life becomes more intense as their bond becomes increasingly more obsessive. When the mother of one of the girls tries to intervene and split the girls apart, they kill her and stand trial for murder in what is to this day still a celebrated and controversial case. Kate Winslet (Titanic) and Melanie Lynskey create two sympathetic and yet uncomfortably eerie characters in riveting portrayals. Featuring some startling and unique moments of visual brilliance as well as a disturbing love story between the two girls, Heavenly Creatures is at once both unsettling and beautiful to behold. --Robert Lane --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Heist
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Starring: Hackman, Gene Pidgeon, Rebecca Lindo, Delroy Rockwell, Sam Lindo, Delroy Devito, Danny Rockwell, Sam Bilzerian, Alan Bilzerian, Alan Lussier, Robert
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Director: Mamet, David Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 49 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.5/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com David Mamet's Heist is--not unlike many of his previous films--amusing, manicured, and fraught with an awkward tension. If you've seen The Spanish Prisoner or House of Games, you're by now familiar with the plot-subverting gambit of the double-cross turned triple- and then quadruple-cross. Heist sticks to the formula. Likewise, the quips and laconic wit that adorn what can most accurately be called "Mametspeak" are again on display: "Cute as a pail full of kittens," for instance, and "Everybody needs money; that's why they call it money." What you haven't yet seen in a Mamet film is the magisterial charm of Gene Hackman. In the role of Joe Moore, an aging criminal out for one final score before cashing in, Hackman shows us all (Mamet included) how it's done, embodying tough-but-clever effortlessly. Delroy Lindo, as Joe's partner Bobby, picks up on Hackman's ultra-cool and gives plenty in return. While the script and the remaining cast (Danny Devito, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sam Rockwell) are serviceable, Heist is entirely Hackman's show to steal. --Fionn Meade --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Identity
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Starring: Cusack, John Liotta, Ray Peet, Amanda Molina, Alfred McGinley, John C. Busey, Jake Vince, Pruitt Taylor Peet, Amanda Peet, Amanda Scott, William Lee
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Director: Mangold, James Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.3/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com With an ace up its sleeve, Identity does for schizophrenia what The Silence of the Lambs did for fava beans and a nice chianti. On the proverbial dark and stormy night, this anxiety-laced thriller offers a tasty blend of And Then There Were None and Psycho, with a dash of Sybil for extra spice and psychosis. Things go from bad to worse when 10 unrelated travelers converge at an isolated motel and proceed to die, one by one, with no apparent connection... until they discover the common detail that's drawn them into this nightmare of relentless trauma. Even as it flunks Abnormal Psychology 101, Michael Cooney's screenplay offers meaty material for a superior ensemble cast including John Cusack and Rebecca DeMornay (who wins the Janet Leigh prize in a bitchy comeback role). Director James Mangold pivots the action around one character (played by his Heavy star, Pruitt Taylor Vince, in eye-twitching cuckoo mode), and half the fun of Identity comes from deciphering who's who, what's what, and who'll be the next to die. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. DVD features The Identity DVD features are not quite as enticing as they sound. Of chief interest is the extended branched version of the film (available in widescreen only), but there's only one added scene (an interesting but not critical minute-long sequence that would have been the first conference-room scene), and the differences in the alternate ending are so subtle that you'll miss them if you literally blink a few times. There's no question it could affect audience perception, but unlike most... read more Description A whodunit revolving around a group of 10 strangers who find themselves running from a desert storm. They hole up in a roadside motel that proves as hospitable as the Bates Motel. The patrons are killed, one by one, and the survivors must try to figure out who the killer is before they, too, check out... permanently! Stars John Cusack (upcoming The Runaway Jury, America’s Sweethearts), Ray Liotta (Narc, Hannibal, Unlawful Entry), Rebecca DeMornay (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Never Talk to Strangers), Jake Busey (Tomcats, Starship Troopers), Amanda Peet (upcoming The Whole Ten Yards, High Crimes), Alfred Molina (Frida, Chocolat), John C. McGinley (Stealing Harvard, The Animal, TV’s Scrubs), Directed by James Mangold (Kate & Leopold, Girl, Interrupted, Cop Land).
In the Line of Fire (Special Edition)
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Starring: Eastwood, Clint Malkovich, John Russo, Rene Thompson, Fred Dalton Russo, Rene Mcdermott, Dylan Russo, Rene Williams, Gregory Alan Williams, Gregory Alan Hughes, Sally
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Director: Petersen, Wolfgang Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 7 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.2/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video This smart, tautly directed thriller from Wolfgang Petersen is about the cat-and-mouse games between a Secret Service agent named Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) and the brilliant, psychopathic assassin (John Malkovich) who's itching to get the President in his cross hairs. The back-story--Horrigan is haunted by his inability to prevent John Kennedy's assassination (Eastwood is computer-generated into archival footage)--is more than a little hokey, but the plotting itself is smartly, even ingeniously, constructed. Petersen manages a viselike grip on the tension and Eastwood even gets to deliver an ever-more-timely lecture on the diminished nature of the office of President. Eastwood's as gruff and as infuriating to the by-the-book Powers That Be as ever, and Malkovich oozes delightful menace. Renee Russo capably costars as a colleague with whom Horrigan gets friendly. --David Kronke --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Insider, The
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Starring: Pacino, Al Crowe, Russell Plummer, Christopher Venora, Diane Hall, Philip Baker Crouse, Lindsay Mazar, Debi Tobolowsky, Stephen Tobolowsky, Stephen McGill, Bruce
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Director: Mann, Michael Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 38 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.9/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video As revisionist history, Michael Mann's intelligent docudrama The Insider is a simmering brew of altered facts and dramatic license. In a broader perspective, however, the film (cowritten with Forrest Gump Oscar-winner Eric Roth) is effectively accurate as an engrossing study of ethics in the corruptible industries of tobacco and broadcast journalism. On one side, there is Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), the former tobacco scientist who violated contractual agreements to expose Brown & Williamson's inclusion of addictive ingredients in cigarettes, casting himself into a vortex of moral dilemma. On the other side is 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), whose struggle to report Wigand's story puts him at odds with veteran correspondent Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer) and senior executives at CBS News. As the urgency of the story increases, so does the film's palpable sense of paranoia, inviting favorable comparison to All the President's Men. While Pacino downplays the theatrical excess that plagued him in previous roles, Crow is superb as a man who retains his tortured integrity at great personal cost. The Insider is two movies--a cover-up thriller and a drama about journalistic ethics--that combine to embrace the noble values personified by Wigand and Bergman. Even if the details aren't always precise (as Mike Wallace and others protested prior to the film's release), the film adheres to a higher truth that was so blatantly violated by tobacco executives seen in an oft-repeated video clip, lying under oath in the service of greed. --Jeff Shannon
Insomnia (Widescreen Edition)
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Starring: Pacino, Al Swank, Hilary Swank, Hilary Tutto, Ray D. Fromage, Marty Jackson, Jonathan Dooley, Paul Donovan, Martin Donovan, Martin Swank, Hilary
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Director: Nolan, Christopher Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 58 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.3/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com essential video As a more conventional follow-up to his innovative thriller Memento, Christopher Nolan's Insomnia offers ample proof that his skills are genuine. A superbly crafted remake of the 1997 Norwegian thriller, this moody police procedural is transplanted to a remote Alaskan town, where a veteran Los Angeles detective (Al Pacino) arrives to investigate the murder of a teenaged girl. Professional tragedy collides with psychological turmoil as the detective suffers from sleeplessness under the region's perpetual daylight, and a local rookie cop (Hilary Swank) begins to suspect that truths are being hidden as the disturbing case unfolds. While the Alaskan setting intensifies the atmospheric mystery, Pacino's bleary-eyed disorientation adds a rich layer to his character's erratic behavior, and the casting of Robin Williams as the killer was a risk that pays off nicely. In many respects better than the original, Insomnia is a Hollywood remake that's refreshingly free of compromise. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. Description Crime never sleeps. Neither does Will Dormer (AL PACINO), a veteran LAPD homicide detective sent north to Alaska to head a murder case. There his investigation is disrupted by an ever-shining Midnight Sun that wreaks sleep-depriving havoc on his body clock and brings Dormer's shady, guilt-plagued past into the light of day.
Jackie Brown - Miramax Collector's Edition
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Starring: Grier, Pam Jackson, Samuel L. Forster, Robert Forster, Robert Tucker, Chris Grier, Pam Fonda, Bridget Hamilton, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Lisa Gay McInerney, Elizabeth
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Director: Tarantino, Quentin Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 34 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.4/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video The curiosity of Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown is Robert Forster's worldly wise bail bondsman Max Cherry, the most alive character in this adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch. The Academy Awards saw it the same way, giving Forster the film's only nomination. The film is more "rum" than "punch" and will certainly disappoint those who are looking for Tarantino's trademark style. This movie is a slow, decaffeinated story of six characters glued to a half million dollars brought illegally into the country. The money belongs to Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson), a gunrunner just bright enough to control his universe and do his own dirty work. His just-paroled friend--a loose term with Ordell--Louis (Robert De Niro) is just taking up space and could be interested in the money. However, his loyalties are in question between his old partner and Ordell's doped-up girl (Bridget Fonda). Certainly Fed Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) wants to arrest Ordell with the illegal money. The key is the title character, a late-40s-ish flight attendant (Pam Grier) who can pull her own weight and soon has both sides believing she's working for them. The end result is rarely in doubt, and what is left is two hours of Tarantino's expert dialogue as he moves his characters around town. Tarantino changed the race of Jackie and Ordell, a move that means little except that it allows Tarantino to heap on black culture and language, something he has a gift and passion for. He said this film is for an older audience although the language and drug use may put them off. The film is not a salute to Grier's blaxploitation films beyond the musical score. Unexpectedly the most fascinating scenes are between Grier and Forster: two neo-stars glowing in the limelight of their first major Hollywood film after decades of work. --Doug Thomas --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition. DVD Features The documentary Jackie Brown: How It Went Down is basically a vacuous cast-and-crew lovefest, but their enthusiasm is genuine, and the other bonus features are consistently worthwhile. A 54-minute interview with Quentin Tarantino seems excessive until you fully appreciate the writer-director's passionate devotion to movies and movie knowledge; film students are advised to listen attentively. The gem of the bunch, however, is the complete "Chicks with Guns" infomercial that's partially seen in ... read more
JFK
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Starring: Costner, Kevin Oldman, Gary Jones, Tommy Lee Metcalf, Laurie Oldman, Gary Pozniak, Beata Rooker, Michael Sanders, Jay O. Sanders, Jay O. Doyle-Murray, Brian
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Director: Stone, Oliver Rating: R Running Time: 206 min (director's cut)
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.8/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video Director Oliver Stone added 17 minutes of previously unseen footage for the "director's cut" edition of his hypnotic courtroom epic about the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. That fateful day in Dallas set in motion a sequence of events that would only intensify the mystery behind Kennedy's death, causing New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) to begin an investigation that would gradually become a personal obsession. Bravura filmmaking combined with controversial treatment of historical facts and audacious speculation, this breathtaking revision of history presents a mesmerizing parade of shady figures and conspiracy theories, unfolding like a classic mystery based on history's greatest unsolved crime. A technical triumph boasting Oscar-winning cinematography and editing, Stone's film is guaranteed to grab the viewer's attention with its daring take on the JFK controversy. The stellar supporting cast includes Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Jack Lemmon, Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Kevin Bacon, and Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald. --Jeff Shannon
L.A. Confidential
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Starring: Spacey, Kevin Crowe, Russell Pearce, Guy Basinger, Kim DeVito, Danny De Vito, Danny Cromwell, James Strathairn, David Strathairn, David Rifkin, Ron
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Director: Hanson, Curtis Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 18 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.4/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video In a time when it seems that every other movie makes some claim to being a film noir, L.A. Confidential is the real thing--a gritty, sordid tale of sex, scandal, betrayal, and corruption of all sorts (police, political, press--and, of course, very personal) in 1940s Hollywood. The Oscar-winning screenplay is actually based on several titles in James Ellroy's series of chronological thriller novels (including the title volume, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz)--a compelling blend of L.A. history and pulp fiction that has earned it comparisons to the greatest of all Technicolor noir films, Chinatown. Kim Basinger richly deserved her Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a conflicted femme fatale; unfortunately, her male costars are so uniformly fine that they may have canceled each other out with the Academy voters: Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, and James Cromwell play LAPD officers of varying stripes. Pearce's character is a particularly intriguing study in Hollywood amorality and ambition, a strait-laced "hero" (and son of a departmental legend) whose career goals outweigh all other moral, ethical, and legal considerations. If he's a good guy, it's only because he sees it as the quickest route to a promotion. --Jim Emerson
Lantana
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Starring: LaPaglia, Anthony Rush, Geoffrey Hershey, Barbara Armstrong, Kerry Rush, Geoffrey LaPaglia, Anthony Blake, Rachael Colosmo, Vince Colosmo, Vince Robbins, Glenn
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Director: (II), Ray Lawrence Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.7/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com It's always slightly shocking to see a movie in which the actors look and behave like real people rather than glamorous movie stars--and that's part of the power of Lantana. But its real strength lies in its carefully observed script and the rich, committed performances of its cast. Anthony LaPaglia stars as a cop with an unsteady marriage; when he begins to investigate the disappearance of a noted therapist (Barbara Hershey), he suspects that her marriage to an academic (Geoffrey Rush) was similarly troubled, and he pursues the case as if his own marriage could be redeemed through it. Every character in Lantana is fully developed, sometimes with astonishing conciseness; the coincidences that drive the plot seem as faultlessly organic as the ones that might happen in your own experiences. (Lantana, incidentally, is a kind of plant; no doubt its interlocking foliage mirrors the movie's story.) --Bret Fetzer --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Life of David Gale (Widescreen Edition), The
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Starring: Spacey, Kevin Winslet, Kate Linney, Laura Linney, Laura Winslet, Kate Mitra, Rhona Mann, Gabriel McCarthy, Melissa McCarthy, Melissa Gast, Elizabeth
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Director: Parker, Alan Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 11 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.0/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) plays David Gale, a brilliant but hard-drinking anti-death penalty crusader on death row for a rape and murder that he claims he didn't commit. The victim of the crime is Gale's close friend and anti-death penalty colleague (Laura Linney, You Can Count On Me), so Gale argues that he's been set up to discredit the cause. Committed journalist Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet, Titanic) takes it upon herself to figure the whole thing out--and so we follow her through a ridiculous plot full of supposedly shocking twists that are telegraphed far in advance and make very little sense when they arrive. The overwritten script tries to cover too many hot-button issues and gives Spacey way too many showy scenes where he gets to be passionate and caring, which is creepier than his psychopath roles in The Usual Suspects and Seven. --Bret Fetzer --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Man Apart, A
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Starring: Diesel, Vin Tate, Larenz Olyphant, Timothy Silva, Geno Tate, Larenz Rodriguez, Marco Eastin, Steve Rivera, Emilio Rivera, Emilio Diesel, Vin
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Director: Gray, F. Gary Rating: R Running Time: 109 minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 5.4/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Buffed-up action star Vin Diesel plays a reckless DEA agent in A Man Apart, which aspires to merge big-budget action fare with a grittier, The French Connection-style procedural drama. When his wife is murdered by a mysterious drug lord called Diablo, Sean Vetter (Diesel) loses his moral bearings and risks the lives of his fellow agents in a quest for revenge. A Man Apart tries to give Diesel the opportunity to demonstrate a greater emotional range, but it's a mess; the supposedly tender scenes are generic and flat, while the action scenes are utterly incomprehensible. Much of the time it's unclear who's a cop and who's a thug, so when people get shot--and a lot of people get shot--it just becomes a bland wash of blood and bullets. --Bret Fetzer --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. Description Vin Diesel stars as a DEA agent on a deadly vendetta to take down the powerful drug cartel that killed his wife.
The Manchurian Candidate (Special Edition)
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Starring: Sinatra, Frank Harvey, Laurence Leigh, Janet Leigh, Janet Gregory, James Harvey, Laurence Silva, Henry Parrish, Leslie Parrish, Leslie Edwards, James
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Director: Frankenheimer, John Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 Hours 7 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.4/10 (IMDB) Black & White Stereo
Amazon.com essential video You will never find a more chillingly suspenseful, perversely funny, or viciously satirical political thriller than The Manchurian Candidate, based on the novel by Richard Condon (author of Winter Kills). The film, withheld from distribution by star Frank Sinatra for almost a quarter century after President Kennedy's assassination, has lost none of its potency over time. Former infantryman Bennet Marco (Sinatra) is haunted by nightmares about his platoon having been captured and brainwashed in Korea. The indecipherable dreams seem to center on Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), a decorated war hero but a cold fish of a man whose own mother (Angela Lansbury, in one of the all-time great dragon-lady roles) describes him as looking like his head is "always about to come to a point." Mrs. Bates has nothing on Lansbury's character, the manipulative queen behind her second husband, Senator John Iselin (James Gregory), a notoriously McCarthyesque demagogue. --Jim Emerson --This text refers to the DVD edition. DVD features In preparation for the 2004 remake, the special edition of this 1962 thriller delivers a few extra features, but the best reason to grab this edition is a new 5.1 Dolby sound mix and anamorphic widescreen transfer. Director John Frankenheimer's excellent commentary and a short 1988 reunion with the three main talents are retained from the first release. New extras includes a photo gallery and 15 minutes of reminiscences from actress Angela Lansbury. The other short is hosted by Frankenheimer... read more
Miller's Crossing
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Starring: Byrne, Gabriel Turturro, John Harden, Marcia Gay Finney, Albert Freeman, J.E. Mancini, Al Turturro, John Harden, Marcia Gay Harden, Marcia Gay Jeter, Michael
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Director: Coen, Joel Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 55 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.0/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com essential video Arguably the best film by Joel and Ethan Coen, the 1990 Miller's Crossing stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom, a loyal lieutenant of a crime boss named Leo (Albert Finney) who is in a Prohibition-era turf war with his major rival, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). A man of principle, Tom nevertheless is romantically involved with Leo's lover (Marcia Gay Harden), whose screwy brother (John Turturro) escapes a hit ordered by Caspar only to become Tom's problem. Making matters worse, Tom has outstanding gambling debts he can't pay, which keeps him in regular touch with a punishing enforcer. With all the energy the Coens put into their films, and all their focused appreciation of genre conventions and rules, and all their efforts to turn their movies into ironic appreciations of archetypes in American fiction, they never got their formula so right as with Miller's Crossing. With its Hammett-like dialogue and Byzantine plot and moral chaos mitigated by one hero's personal code, the film so transcends its self-scrutiny as a retro-crime thriller that it is a deserved classic in its own right. --Tom Keogh --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Missing (Widescreen Edition), The
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Starring: Jones, Tommy Lee Blanchett, Cate Schweig, Eric Blanchett, Cate Eckhart, Aaron Baker, Simon Wood, Evan Rachel Boyd, Jenna Boyd, Jenna Tavare, Jay
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Director: Howard, Ron Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 17 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.4/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Cate Blanchett blazes through The Missing, a new Western directed by Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13). The camera truly loves the planes of her face; even dusty and bedraggled, she radiates star power--which is good, because The Missing needs it. When her daughter is kidnapped by renegade Indians, Maggie Gilkeson (Blanchett) is forced to turn to her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones, Men in Black, The Fugitive), a man who abandoned her as a child to join an Indian tribe. Together, they pursue a malignant brujo (or witch), who sells young girls in Mexico. The Missing features solid supporting performances from Evan Rachel Wood, Eric Schweig, Aaron Eckhart, Val Kilmer, and feisty young Jenna Boyd as Maggie's youngest daughter Dot, who refuses to be left behind. Despite the cast and some gorgeous cinematography, though, The Missing never finds its stride. --Bret Fetzer --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. DVD features Most deleted scenes were deleted because they're a waste of time. The Missing's deleted scenes, however, suggest a far more intriguing movie than the one that got released in theaters; almost all of them hint at a less bland visual impulse, or surprising quirks to the characters' personalities. Perhaps because The Missing skips the usual director's commentary, this second disc supplements an hour's worth of making-of featurettes with almost 20 minutes of additional interviews with... read more Description The Missing is the story of Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett), a young woman raising her two daughters in an isolated and lawless wilderness. When her oldest daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) is kidnapped by a psychopathic killer with mystical powers (Eric Schweig), Maggie is forced to re-unite with her long estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones) to rescue her. The killer and his brutal cult of desperados have kidnapped several other teenage girls, leaving a trail of death and horror across the desolate landscape of the American Southwest.
Negotiator, The
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Starring: Jackson, Samuel L. Spacey, Kevin Morse, David Rifkin, Ron Spencer, John Walsh, J.T. Fallon, Siobhan Giamatti, Paul Giamatti, Paul Beatty, Bruce
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Director: Gray, F. Gary Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 20 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.2/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com essential video Although it eventually runs out of smart ideas and resorts to a typically explosive finale, this above-average thriller rises above its formulaic limitations on the strength of powerful performances by Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. Both play Chicago police negotiators with hotshot reputations, but when Jackson's character finds himself falsely accused of embezzling funds from a police pension fund, he's so thoroughly framed that he must take extreme measures to prove his innocence. He takes hostages in police headquarters to buy time and plan his strategy, demanding that Spacey be brought in to mediate with him as an army of cops threatens to attack, and a media circus ensues. Both negotiators know how to get into the other man's thoughts, and this intellectual showdown allows both Spacey and Jackson to ignite the screen with a burst of volatile intensity. Director F. Gary Gray is disadvantaged by an otherwise predictable screenplay, but he has a knack for building suspense and is generous to a fine supporting cast, including Paul Giamatti as one of Jackson's high-strung hostages, and the late J.T. Walsh in what would sadly be his final big-screen role. The movie should have trusted its compelling characters a little more, probing their psyches more intensely to give the suspense a deeper dramatic foundation, but it's good enough to give two great actors a chance to strut their stuff. --Jeff Shannon
Newton Boys, The
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Starring: McConaughey, Matthew Ulrich, Skeet Hawke, Ethan Cronauer, Gail D'Onofrio, Vincent Margulies, Julianna Yoakam, Dwight Karam, Jena Karam, Jena Matthews, Regina Mae
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Director: Linklater, Richard Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 Hours 2 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 5.7/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com The Newton Boys were the most successful bank robbers in the history of the United States. They never killed anyone, never snitched, and only robbed banks (just bigger thieves, in their opinion), until their final deal, which was a botched train robbery for $3 million. Engagingly played by Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D'Onofrio, the Boys don't have the kind of flaws of more brutal criminals that make for more volatile dramas. The film ambles along in a leisurely way to tell its story of the Newtons' bank-robbing career, with an ever-present air of reverent Americana. This may make some viewers impatient, and cause a glow in others. It seems like a departure for director Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused)--a costumer to be sure, but Linklater's deliberately amiable pace perfectly balances the Boys' personalities. You may wander into this movie and feel right at home. The golden-hued cinematography of Peter James (Driving Miss Daisy) adds a level of comfort that makes everything warm-like. The end credits intercut archival footage of two of the real-life Newton boys toward the end of their lives, one from a 1980 appearance with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. --Jim Gay
One Hour Photo (Widescreen Edition)
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Starring: Williams, Robin Nielsen, Connie Vartan, Michael Nielsen, Connie Vartan, Michael Searcy, Nick Smith, Dylan Rolfes, Andrew A Rolfes, Andrew A Daniels, Erin
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Director: Romanek, Mark Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 36 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.2/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com One Hour Photo may be more civilized than Taxi Driver, but it's just as effectively creepy. Like Martin Scorsese's classic, this riveting character study is so compassionately detailed that we sympathize with poor Sy Parrish (Robin Williams) even as he grows increasingly unhinged. Sy is a meticulously dedicated one-hour-photo technician, but the pictures he processes--particularly those belonging to the successful, seemingly happy family of Nina and Will Yorkin (Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan)--turn into the unhealthiest kind of obsession. The Yorkins' snapshots portray a joyful life that the lonely and traumatized Sy could never hope to achieve, and he sinks deeper and deeper into the solace they bring... until evidence of infidelity turns him into a seething crucible of righteous indignation. Propelled by Williams's flawless escape from the feel-good schmaltz of earlier roles, One Hour Photo is a simmering tour de force, tempered by writer-director Mark Romanek for maximum psychological impact. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Osterman Weekend, The
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Starring: Hauer, Rutger Hurt, John Nelson, Craig T. Nelson, Craig T. Hauer, Rutger Foster, Meg Shaver, Helen Yates, Cassie Yates, Cassie Starr, Christopher
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Director: Peckinpah, Sam Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 42 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 5.6/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com Sam Peckinpah's final film has a lot to recommend it, including a complicated story derived from a Robert Ludlum novel but laced with Peckinpah's hard questions about loyalty and the balance between civilization and basic instincts. Rutger Hauer stars as John Tanner, a television host with strong criticisms of America's cold-war conduct. Looking forward to a weekend of socializing with old friends (played by Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, and Chris Sarandon), Tanner is approached by a CIA agent (John Hurt) who tells him his friends may be Soviet agents. Tanner agrees to let the spy agency set up surveillance in his house; it turns out there is more to the agent's claims than meets the eye and Tanner's weekend eventually erupts into violence. Osterman is not Peckinpah at his best (though, typically, the director was under siege from production politics), but the maestro of montage certainly worked in some extraordinary action sequences. --Tom Keogh
Phone Booth
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Starring: Farrell, Colin Sutherland, Kiefer Whitaker, Forest Mitchell, Radha Texada, Tia Jones, Richard T. Jones, Richard Timothy Eldard, Ron Eldard, Ron Farrell, Colin
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Director: Schumacher, Joel Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 21 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.4/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com By some lucky quirk of fate, Phone Booth landed on Hollywood's A-list, but this thriller should've been a straight-to-video potboiler directed by its screenwriter, veteran schlockmeister Larry Cohen, who's riffing on his own 1976 thriller God Told Me To. Instead it's a pointless reunion for fast-rising star Colin Farrell and his Tigerland director, Joel Schumacher, who employs a multiple-image technique similar to TV's 24 to energize Cohen's pulpy plot about an unseen sniper (maliciously voiced by 24's Kiefer Sutherland) who pins his chosen victim (a philandering celebrity publicist played by Farrell) in a Manhattan phone booth, threatening murder if Farrell doesn't confess his sins (including a potential mistress played by Katie Holmes in a thankless role). In a role originally slated for Jim Carrey, Farrell brings vulnerable intensity to his predicament, but Cohen's irresistible premise is too thin for even 81 brisk minutes, which is how long Schumacher takes to reach his morally repugnant conclusion. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Play Misty for Me
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Starring: Eastwood, Clint Walter, Jessica Siegel, Don Ging, Jack Larch, John Mills, Donna Walter, Jessica Hervey, Irene Hervey, Irene Everts, Duke
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Director: Eastwood, Clint Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 43 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.0/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com essential video Clint Eastwood (making his very assured directorial debut) is a poetry-spouting stud-muffin DJ stalked by a maniacally amorous fan after a misguided one-night stand in this enjoyably schlocky, undeniably effective film about good intentions gone murderously wacky. Although many of the very '70s trappings presented here may ultimately be too dated to be taken seriously (including a very self-indulgent jazz number and a hilariously gooey seduction number between Eastwood and Donna Mills), the core premise of infatuation taken out of bounds remains uncomfortably plausible--and was influential enough to be appropriated by one of the biggest hits of the '80s. (Here's a hint--it starred Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, and a very unfortunate bunny rabbit). A well-staged and occasionally very frightening thriller worth watching for Jessica Walter's peerlessly unhinged performance alone. Frequent Eastwood collaborator Don Siegel (director of Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff, and The Beguiled, to name but a few) has a nice cameo as Murphy, the mustachioed, chess-playing bartender. --Andrew Wright --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Pledge, The
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Starring: Nicholson, Jack Toro, Benicio Del Toro, Benicio Del Shepard, Sam Smith, Lois Redgrave, Vanessa O'Keefe, Michael Nicholson, Jack Nicholson, Jack Mirren, Helen
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Director: Penn, Sean Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 4 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.9/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Jack Nicholson is detective Jerry Black, a respected and well-liked veteran of the Reno police force retiring to a life of angling with more than a little apprehension. Thus he jumps into a murder case, the slaying of a little girl, a mere six hours from retirement and makes a promise to the grieving mother to catch the killer. As his partner (an effectively abrasive Aaron Eckhart) squeezes a confession out of the severely mentally handicapped suspect (a thoroughly unsettling performance by Benicio Del Toro), Jerry is convinced that they've got the wrong man. As in Sean Penn's previous work, this is an actors' piece. Nicholson plays Jerry with restlessness under his easy-going, smiling calm; his patient fisherman's heart leaps at every nibble while he casts for a murder suspect. And Del Toro, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, and Mickey Rourke make striking impressions in their single-scene appearances. Penn is less concerned with the mystery than the emotional turmoil and Jerry's state of mind, interrupting moments of calm with jagged cuts and discomforting images (including some especially disturbing crime scene photos). Jerry's instincts and methods are sound and his sensitivity is real--he takes in a battered single mom (Robin Wright Penn) and her little girl, and develops a rewarding family life--but his passion for justice turns to unhealthy, destructive obsession. That's ultimately what we're left with at the conclusion of this often off-putting but ultimately fascinating film. The truth will not always set you free. --Sean Axmaker --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Pulp Fiction - Miramax Collector's Edition
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Starring: Travolta, John Jackson, Samuel L. Thurman, Uma Jones, Angela Willis, Bruce Arquette, Rosanna Thurman, Uma Buscemi, Steve Buscemi, Steve Plummer, Amanda
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Director: Tarantino, Quentin Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 34 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.7/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video With the knockout one-two punch of 1992's Reservoir Dogs and 1994's Pulp Fiction writer-director Quentin Tarantino stunned the filmmaking world, exploding into prominence as a cinematic heavyweight contender. But Pulp Fiction was more than just the follow-up to an impressive first feature, or the winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival, or a script stuffed with the sort of juicy bubblegum dialogue actors just love to chew, or the vehicle that reestablished John Travolta on the A-list, or the relatively low-budget ($8 million) independent showcase for an ultrahip mixture of established marquee names and rising stars from the indie scene (among them Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin, and Phil Lamar). It was more, even, than an unprecedented $100-million-plus hit for indie distributor Miramax. Pulp Fiction was a sensation. No, it was not the Second Coming (I actually think Reservoir Dogs is a more substantial film; and P.T. Anderson outdid Tarantino in 1997 by making his directorial debut with two even more mature and accomplished pictures, Hard Eight and Boogie Nights). But Pulp Fiction packs so much energy and invention into telling its nonchronologically interwoven short stories (all about temptation, corruption, and redemption amongst modern criminals, large and small) it leaves viewers both exhilarated and exhausted--hearts racing and knuckles white from the ride. (Oh, and the infectious, surf-guitar-based soundtrack is tastier than a Royale with Cheese.) --Jim Emerson --This text refers to the DVD edition. DVD Features This collector's edition of Pulp Fiction retains several supplemental features from the out-of-print Criterion Collection laserdisc, adding some fine bonus material of its own. A new documentary combines cast and crew interviews from various sources with on-set footage and healthy hindsight on the Pulp Fiction phenomenon, while the Charlie Rose hour from 1994 remains a definitive interview from the peak of Quentin Tarantino's stratospheric success. Better yet is Michael Moore's priceless... read more
Q & A
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Starring: Nolte, Nick Hutton, Timothy Assante, Armand Hutton, Timothy O'Neal, Patrick Calderon, Paul Dutton, Charles S. Guzman, Luis Guzman, Luis Chrysis, International
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Director: Lumet, Sidney Rating: R Running Time: 2 Hours 12 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.2/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com A grim, disheartening view of the underside of city life, Q & A is a legal drama with a disturbing twist. Not exactly a whodunit--the guilt of policeman Nick Nolte is established early on--the plot follows the closing of the circle around him. Leading the murder investigation is Timothy Hutton's young, idealistic district attorney Al Reilly, who finds himself battling a fraudulent and cynical culture. Racism, corruption, and political machinations are all added to the mix, resulting in a film that is just a little too dense and slow-moving to capture the imagination. Director Sidney Lumet creates a feeling of enveloping darkness around Hutton, who slowly manages to let the light in and bring the truth to the surface. With an obviously small budget, the film has more of a made-for-television feel than that of a big blockbuster and some of the performances err too much on the side of cliché. The concept of the New York melting pot is fairly effectively dismissed by the film, painting a picture of distrust between communities that often spills into violence, both verbal and physical. Not quite as unremittingly bleak as Harvey Kietel's Bad Lieutenant, Q & A is still a tough, dark piece of cinema. --Phil Udell
Reservoir Dogs - (Mr. Blond) 10th Anniversary Special Limited Edition
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Starring: Keitel, Harvey Roth, Tim Keitel, Harvey Penn, Chris Madsen, Michael Tierney, Lawrence Roth, Tim Baltz, Kirk Baltz, Kirk Bender, Lawrence
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Director: Tarantino, Quentin Rating: R Running Time: 100 minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.3/10 (IMDB) Color DTS Surround Sound
Amazon.com essential video Quentin Tarantino came out of nowhere (i.e., a video store in Manhattan Beach, California) and turned Hollywood on its ear in 1992 with his explosive first feature, Reservoir Dogs. Like Tarantino's mainstream breakthrough Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs has an unconventional structure, cleverly shuffling back and forth in time to reveal details about the characters, experienced criminals who know next to nothing about each other. Joe (Lawrence Tierney) has assembled them to pull off a simple heist, and has gruffly assigned them color-coded aliases (Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, Mr. White) to conceal their identities from being known even to each other. But something has gone wrong, and the plan has blown up in their faces. One by one, the surviving robbers find their way back to their prearranged warehouse hideout. There, they try to piece together the chronology of this bloody fiasco--and to identify the traitor among them who tipped off the police. Pressure mounts, blood flows, accusations and bullets fly. In the combustible atmosphere these men are forced to confront life-and-death questions of trust, loyalty, professionalism, deception, and betrayal. As many critics have observed, it is a movie about "honor among thieves" (just as Pulp Fiction is about redemption, and Jackie Brown is about survival). Along with everything else, the movie provides a showcase for a terrific ensemble of actors: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Christopher Penn, and Tarantino himself, offering a fervent dissection of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" over breakfast. Reservoir Dogs is violent (though the violence is implied rather than explicit), clever, gabby, harrowing, funny, suspenseful, and even--in the end--unexpectedly moving. (Don't forget that "Super Sounds of the Seventies" soundtrack, either.) Reservoir Dogs deserves just as much acclaim and attention as its follow-up, Pulp Fiction, would receive two years later. --Jim Emerson --This text refers to the DVD edition.
Runaway Jury (Widescreen Edition)
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Starring: Cusack, John Hackman, Gene Hoffman, Dustin Beals, Jennifer Hoffman, Dustin Cusack, John Hackman, Gene McGill, Bruce McGill, Bruce Guzman, Luis
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Director: Fleder, Gary Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 Hours 7 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.9/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Based on the bestseller by John Grisham, Runaway Jury is a slick thriller that's exciting enough to overcome the gaps in its plot. The ultimate target has been changed: Grisham's legal assault on the tobacco industry was switched to the hot-button issue of gun control (no doubt to avoid comparison to The Insider) in a riveting exposé of jury-tampering. Gene Hackman plays the ultra-cynical, utterly unscrupulous pawn of the gun-makers, using an expert staff and advanced electronics to hand-pick a New Orleans jury that will return a favorable verdict; Dustin Hoffman (making his first screen appearance with real-life former roommate Hackman) defends the grieving widow of a gun-shooting victim with idealistic zeal, while maverick juror John Cusack and accomplice Rachel Weisz play both ends against the middle in a personal quest to hold gun-makers accountable. It's riveting stuff, even when it's obvious that Grisham and director Gary Fleder have glossed over any details that would unravel the plot's intricate design. --Jeff Shannon
Score, The
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Starring: Norton, Edward Brando, Marlon De Niro, Robert Bassett, Angela Harrold, Jamie Soles, Paul
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Director: Oz, Frank Rating: R Running Time:
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.8/10 (IMDB) Color DigitalSound
Nick Wells, a professional criminal, decides to leave the business for good, since he nearly got caught on his last job. His plan is to live in peace with his girl Diane, running his Montreal jazz club NYC. Soon Max, his good friend and financial partner in the illegal affairs, comes along with an offer Nick can't refuse: A historical and priceless French sceptre has been discovered while being smuggled into the country. It is now under massive surveillance in the Montreal Customs House, and soon to be returned to France. Nick has to team up with Max' man inside, the young, talented and aggressive thief Jackie Teller to get the precious item, and suffer no more financial problems ever. Only one question remains: Who will trick whom out of their share?
Sommersby
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Starring: Gere, Richard Foster, Jodie Flaherty, Lanny Pullman, Bill Flaherty, Lanny Windom, William Wellman, Wendell Kelley, Brett Kelley, Brett Faison, Frankie
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Director: Amiel, Jon Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 Hour 53 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 5.9/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Based on the French film, The Return of Martin Guerre (which itself was based on a famous court case), this 1993 film by director Jon Amiel recasts the same essential story in post-Civil War Tennessee, in a dirt-poor town suffering the effects of the South's loss. Jodie Foster plays Laurel Sommersby, a widow whose husband died in the Civil War--or so everyone thinks. Then one day, Jack Sommersby (Richard Gere) strolls back into town and back into Laurel's bed--but he's a changed man. Gone is the selfish, nasty individual no one much liked. In his place is a friendly, sensitive, and resourceful new Jack who not only rekindles the long-dead fire of his marriage, but revives the entire town. Except for one small catch: He may not actually be Jack Sommersby at all. Beautifully shot by Amiel (with a great assist from cameraman Philippe Rousselot) from a script by Nicholas Meyer and Sarah Kernochan, the film features a sturdy, even flinty performance by Foster and a beguiling one by Gere. Though the ending will squeeze the tear ducts, the film earns those tears. --Marshall Fine --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Spartan
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Starring: Luke, Derek Kilmer, Val Macy, William H. Bell, Kristen Texada, Tia H. Macy, William
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Director: Mamet, David Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 47 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.2/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com Writer-director David Mamet (House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner) applies his gift for con games to the world of politics with Spartan. A super-duper Secret Service agent (Val Kilmer, Wonderland) is assigned to find the kidnapped daughter of the President of the United States; was she kidnapped because of who she is, or as part of white slavery ring? Is she dead or alive? To find out the answers, Kilmer puts on disguises, engages in elaborate ruses, and kills ruthlessly--only to discover that he himself may be the one being fooled. Mamet pushes his macho/cryptic dialogue into laughably bad territory and some plot twists seriously test one's suspension of disbelief, but that's part of the game; like any con artist, Mamet knows how to hook you and reel you in, no matter how absurd things get. Also featuring Derek Luke, William H. Macy, and Ed O'Neill. --Bret Fetzer --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition. Description When Robert Scott (Val Kilmer) is recruited to find Laura, the daughter of a government official, he is paired with novice Curtis (Derek Luke). Scott and Derek stumble upon a white slavery ring, which may have some connection to Laura?s disappearance.
Swap, The
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Starring: DeNiro, Robert
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Director: Broderick, John Rating: NR Running Time: 85 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: Color Stereo
Taking Lives
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Starring: Jolie, Angelina Hawke, Ethan Karyo, TchŽky Karyo, Tcheky Anglade, Jean-Hugues Jolie, Angelina Martinez, Olivier Dano, Paul Dano, Paul Lacoste, André
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Director: Caruso, D.J. Rating: NR Running Time: 1 Hour 49 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 5.5/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
From Barnes & Noble Reminiscent of such intense thrillers as The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, this stylish nail-biter provides top-billed Angelina Jolie with yet another eccentric role to add to her impressive gallery of colorful characters. She plays Illeana Scott, a humorless FBI profiler with nearly preternatural abilities. Working with French-Canadian detectives (Tcheky Karyo and Olivier Martinez) investigating a bizarre murder in Montreal, Scott uncovers evidence suggesting the culprit is a serial killer who adopts the identities of his victims. Her best lead is a young man (Ethan Hawke) who claims to have witnessed the murder and now fears he?s targeted for death. The cat-and-mouse aspect of this blood-chilling film is extremely well handled by director D. J. Caruso (The Salton Sea), who relies on his actors to carry the script over several bumpy patches. There is, per usual, a strong ?red herring? character and a Big Twist, but in other respects Caruso?s film avoids clichŽ. Like many movies of its type, Taking Lives won?t stand up under careful scrutiny or post-screening analysis, but it?s extremely well acted by a superb cast and maintains an eerie atmosphere throughout. Ed Hulse From All Movie Guide A female detective on the trail of a psychotic killer discovers love in a dangerous time in this thriller, based on the novel by Michael Pye. Illeana Scott (Angelina Jolie) is a special agent with the FBI who has a reputation for using offbeat methods, but also boasts a strong record as a criminal profiler. Scott is called in by a former Quantico colleague (Tcheky Karyo) to assist two Canadian police detectives, Paquette (Olivier Martinez) and Duval (Jean-Hugues Anglade), who are on the trail of a serial killer who has been doing business in and around Montreal for close to two decades. The murderer has a history of assimilating many aspects of the lives of his victims after he kills them, but there's been a witness to his most recent crime. Art gallery owner James Costa (Ethan Hawke) saw the killer during an assault, and now finds himself working as an only marginally willing decoy for Scott. As Scott and Costa follow the killer's trail, they find themselves becoming attracted to one another, which is not necessarily a comfort to Scott as she finds her quarry moving closer and closer. Taking Lives also stars Kiefer Sutherland and Gena Rowlands. Mark Deming
Thomas Crown Affair, The
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Starring: McQueen, Steve Dunaway, Faye Burke, Paul Kotto, Yaphet Martin, Todd Melville, Sam Powell, Addison Pace, Judy Pace, Judy Armus, Sidney
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Director: Jewison, Norman Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 42 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.8/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com essential video Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes, and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not people, they're walking clothes racks. (McQueen looks like he'd rather be in jeans than Crown's natty three-piece suits.) The Thomas Crown Affair is a catalog of '60s conventions, from its clipped editing style to its photographic trickery (the inventive Haskell Wexler behind the camera) to its mod design. You can almost sense director Norman Jewison deciding to "tell his story visually," like those newfangled European films; this would explain the long passages of Michel Legrand's lounge jazz ladled over endless montages of the pretty Dunaway and McQueen at play. (The opening-credits song, "Windmills of Your Mind," won an Oscar.) It's like a "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" ad come to life, and much more interesting as a cultural snapshot than a piece of storytelling. --Robert Horton --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition. Amazon.com Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes, and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not... read more
Thomas Crown Affair, The
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Starring: Brosnan, Pierce Russo, Rene Leary, Denis Gazzara, Ben Faison, Frankie Weaver, Fritz Keating, Charles Margolis, Mark Margolis, Mark Lombard, Michael
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Director: McTiernan, John Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 53 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.7/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com For the Hollywood remake rule, which dictates that an update of an older film be inferior to the original in almost every aspect, The Thomas Crown Affair stands as a glorious exception. The original 1968 film, starring a dapper Steve McQueen and a radiant Faye Dunaway, was a diverting pop confection of mod clothes and nifty break-ins, but not much more. John McTiernan's new version, though, cranks up the entertainment factor to mach speed, turning what was a languid flick into a high-adrenaline caper romance. Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) is now a man of industry who likes to indulge in a little high-priced art theft on the side; Catherine Banning (Rene Russo) is the insurance investigator determined to get on his tail in more ways than one. If you're thinking cat-and-mouse game, think again--it's more like cat vs. smarter cat, as both the thief and the investigator try to outwit each other and nothing is off-limits, especially after they start a highly charged love affair that's a heated mix of business and pleasure. What makes this Thomas Crown more enjoyable than its predecesor is McTiernan's attention to detail in both the set action pieces (no surprise from the man who helmed Die Hard with precision accuracy) and the developing romance, the witty and intelligent script by Leslie Dixon (she wrote the love scenes) and Kurt Wimmer (he wrote the action scenes), and, most of all, its two stunning leads (both over 40 to boot), combustible both in and out of bed. Brosnan, usually held prisoner in the James Bond straitjacket, lets loose with both a relaxed sensuality and a comic spirit he's rarely expressed before. The film, however, pretty much belongs to Russo, who doesn't just steal the spotlight, but bends it to her will. Beautiful, stylish, smart, self-possessed, incredibly sexy, she's practically a walking icon; it's no wonder Crown falls for her hook, line, and sinker. With Denis Leary as a police detective smitten with Russo, and Faye Dunaway in a throwaway but wholly enjoyable cameo as Brosnan's therapist. --Mark Englehart
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
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Starring: Eastwood, Clint Bridges, Jeff Kennedy, George Busey, Gary Lewis, Geoffrey Kennedy, George Dodson, Jack Bridges, Jeff Bridges, Jeff Lennear, Claudia
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Director: Cimino, Michael Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 45 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.8/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com essential video Jeff Bridges actually corralled an Oscar nomination for his spirited, oddball performance in this genre crime story, directed by first-timer Michael Cimino who (a short two films later) would bring down a studio with Heaven's Gate. Clint Eastwood plays a bank robber par excellence with a flair for explosives who is being hunted by his former partners, who think he has their loot from their last job. Bridges is his eager apprentice and sidekick, who helps him escape; when Eastwood finally makes peace with his hunters, Bridges convinces them to try a daring robbery--but things inevitably go awry. The relationship between Eastwood and Bridges is both funny and touching in this, one of Eastwood's better post-Dirty Harry efforts. --Marshall Fine --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
To Catch a Thief
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Starring: Grant, Cary Kelly, Grace Landis, Jesse Royce Vanel, Charles Anys, Georgette Royce Landis, Jessie Willie Davis, Wee Anys, Georgette Anys, Georgette
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Director: Hitchcock, Alfred Rating: Unrated Running Time: 1 Hour 46 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.4/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com This minor 1955 work by Alfred Hitchcock, one of the lighter entries of his creative peak in the 1950s, is still imbued with the master's stock themes of shared guilt and romantic ambivalence. It is also hardly lacking in Hitchcockian cinematic inventiveness, such as a famous, often-imitated sequence in which some smooching between stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly is intercut with a fireworks show that just happens to be going on outside in a Riviera setting. Grant plays a reformed cat burglar who is suspected of reviving his trade, though he knows someone else is using his old methods. A very enjoyable experience, but don't get this confused with Hitchcock's other Cary Grant film of that decade, which was a masterpiece: North by Northwest. --Tom Keogh --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
True Romance - Unrated Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition)
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Starring: Slater, Christian Arquette, Patricia Hopper, Dennis Arquette, Patricia Rubinek, Saul Penn, Chris Walken, Christopher Ferrell, Conchata Ferrell, Conchata Slater, Christian
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Director: Scott, Tony Rating: Unrated Running Time: 2 Hours 1 Minute
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 7.6/10 (IMDB) Color DTS Surround Sound
Amazon.com It was directed with energetic skill by Top Gun Tony Scott, but this breathtaking 1993 thriller (think of it as an adolescent crime fantasy on steroids) has Quentin Tarantino written all over it. True Romance is really part of a loose trilogy that includes Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, with a crackling Tarantino screenplay that rides a fine line between raucous comedy and violent excess. Christian Slater plays Clarence, the comic-book lover who meets a beguiling prostitute named Alabama (Patricia Arquette), confronts her vicious pimp (Gary Oldman), and embarks on a cross-country odyssey with $5 million worth of Mafia cocaine. Mayhem ensues, culminating in a favorite Tarantino climax--the "Mexican standoff"--in which a roomful of guys are pointing guns at each other, waiting to see who shoots first. Brutal, profane, and totally outrageous, True Romance is not for everyone, but with a supporting cast that includes Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, Brad Pitt, and Val Kilmer (as the ghost of Elvis!), you can be sure this movie will never be boring. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition. DVD features While the unrated director's cut remains identical in content to the earlier DVD of True Romance, the bonus material on this special edition is exclusive and outstanding. Quentin Tarantino had heretofore avoided DVD commentaries for his own films, so his first-rate, rapid-fire commentary here is a welcomed opportunity to set the record straight on the history of Tarantino's screenplay, his approval of director Tony Scott's "happy" ending (paired here with Tarantino's tragic ending as an... read more Description This rock'n'roll adventure story tells of two unlikely lovers who accidentally double-cross the Detroit mob by stealing valuable contraband. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, flee to Los Angeles where they are sought by both gangsters and cops.
Truth About Charlie/Charade, The
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Starring: Newton, Thandie Wahlberg, Mark Robbins, Tim Levine, Ted Newton, Thandie Dillane, Stephen Wahlberg, Mark Hamilton, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Lisa Gay Salengro, Christophe
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Director: Demme, Jonathan Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 Hour 45 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 4.6/10 (IMDB) Color DTS Surround Sound
Amazon.com It seems blasphemous to remake Stanley Donen's classic romantic thriller Charade, but The Truth About Charlie achieves its own unique identity. Rather than mimic the inimitable chemistry of the original, director Jonathan Demme takes a vividly contemporary approach, with Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton well cast in roles originated by Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The plot's essentially the same, kicking into high gear when Newton--the unwitting courier of a priceless treasure--is chased around Paris by her murdered husband's military cohorts, an avuncular embassy official (Tim Robbins), and a suave stranger (Wahlberg) whose true identity remains elusive. In a film filled with twists and turns, Demme fails to find a consistent tone of humor, romance, and danger. But he's crafted a peculiar Parisian valentine, seasoned with Gallic cameos (singer Charles Aznavour, Anna Karina, director Agnès Varda) and vibrantly alive with music, style, and forward momentum. Charade it's not, but that's not necessarily a complaint. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Usual Suspects (Special Edition), The
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Starring: Byrne, Gabriel Spacey, Kevin Palminteri, Chazz Spacey, Kevin Esposito, Giancarlo Palminteri, Chazz Pollak, Kevin Toro, Benicio Del Toro, Benicio Del Hedaya, Dan
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Director: Singer, Bryan Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 46 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 8.7/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com essential video Ever since this convoluted thriller dazzled audiences and critics in 1995 and won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie's twisting screenplay, The Usual Suspects has continued to divide movie lovers into opposite camps. While a lot of people take great pleasure from the movie's now-famous central mystery (namely, "Who is Keyser Sšze?"), others aren't so easily impressed by a movie that's too enamored of its own cleverness to make much sense. After all, what are we to make of a final scene that renders the entire movie obsolete? Half the fun of The Usual Suspects is the debate it provokes and the sheer pleasure of watching its dynamic cast in action, led (or should we say, misled) by Oscar winner Kevin Spacey as the club-footed con man who recounts the saga of enigmatic Hungarian mobster Keyser Sšze. Spacey's in a band of thieves that includes Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, and Benicio Del Toro, all gathered in a plot to steal a large shipment of cocaine. The story is told in flashback as a twisted plot being described by Spacey's character to an investigating detective (Chazz Palmintieri), and The Usual Suspects is enjoyable for the way it keeps the viewer guessing right up to its surprise ending. Whether that ending will enhance or extinguish the pleasure is up to each viewer to decide. Even if it ultimately makes little or no sense at all, this is a funny and fiendish thriller, guaranteed to entertain even its vocal detractors. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the DVD edition.
Veronica Guerin
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Starring: Blanchett, Cate Hinds, Ciar‡n Hinds, Ciaran McSorley, Gerard Blanchett, Cate Wycherley, Don Farrell, Colin Kinlan, Laurence Kinlan, Laurence Bergin, Emmet
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Director: Schumacher, Joel Rating: R Running Time: 1 Hour 38 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.7/10 (IMDB) Color Stereo
Amazon.com Ireland's most beloved and tragic contemporary hero/martyr gets the Hollywood treatment in the fact-based thriller Veronica Guerin, an average film made recommendable for a fine performance by Cate Blanchett in the title role. The life, work, and assassination of the slain Irish journalist is respectfully chronicled in this gritty, streetwise biopic by director Joel Schumacher, beginning with her 1996 murder (by Irish gangsters) and flashing back to her diligent efforts, begun in 1994, to expose the drug trade that plagued Ireland for most of the decade. Blanchett is flawless in a role that combines passion, courage, and recklessness in a way that doesn't sugar-coat Guerin's character or imbue her with artificial heroics. Unfortunately, Schumacher (who makes room for an unbilled Colin Farrell cameo) and a naggingly unsophisticated screenplay turn Guerin's complex story into a conventionally accessible thriller that sometimes seems too good to be true, which is ironic given that Guerin's story was fictionalized in the marginally better 2000 film When the Sky Falls, starring Joan Allen. Recommendable for Blanchett's performance and two memorably villainous roles for Ciar‡n Hinds and Gerald McSorley, Veronica Guerin is an adequate tribute that could and should have been exceptional. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the Theatrical Release edition.
Wild Things
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Starring: Dillon, Matt Bacon, Kevin Campbell, Neve Richards, Denise Murray, Bill Russell, Theresa Rubin-Vega, Daphne Wagner, Robert Wagner, Robert Perry, Jeff
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Director: McNaughton, John Rating: Unrated Running Time: 1 Hour 48 Minutes
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Category: Mystery & Suspense User Rating: 6.6/10 (IMDB) Color Dolby
Amazon.com Wild Things is the kind of lurid, trashy thriller that you'll either dive into with unabashed pleasure or turn away from in prudish disgust; it's entirely your choice, but we suggest the former option since it's obviously much more fun. The plot's so convoluted it's hardly worth describing, except to say that it's set in humid Florida and involves a respected high school teacher (Matt Dillon--yes, Matt Dillon as a teacher!) who is faced with accusations of rape by a student (Denise Richards, from Starship Troopers) who had been giving him the kind of attention most people would consider improper for such a "nice" young lady. Another student (Neve Campbell) raises a similar charge against the teacher, and that's when a police officer (Kevin Bacon) begins to investigate the allegations. Just when you think the movie's gone overboard with its shameless sex and absurdly twisted plot, in drops Bill Murray as an unscrupulous lawyer (of course) to spice things up with insurance scams and welcomed comic relief. As directed by John McNaughton (who has a way of making just the right moves with this kind of film noir melodrama), Wild Things is a bona fide guilty pleasure--the kind of movie you may be ashamed to enjoy, but what the heck, you'll enjoy it anyway. --Jeff Shannon