Smart Money (DVD)
The story of two young men, Jimmy and Sal, who work for a bookie in order to raise the $50,000 it takes to buy a seat on New York`s Commodities Exchange. When the bookie begins to get hassled by the mob, Sal and Jimmy are the perfect candidates to take the fall.NR"
Director: Alex Hennech
ACTORS: Santio East, Bobby Kaman, Samuel Dobbins, Lira Angel
Shout Praises! Kids Gospel - The Ultimate Praise Party (DVD)
Featuring 9 music videos, this collection features children singing praise songs including When the Spirit of the Lord, I Will Praise, Jubilee, and many more!NR"
Doctor Zhivago (DVD) 2-Disc Set; Widescreen Boris Pasternak`s epic tale of star-crossed love during the Russian Revolution is remade for the television screen in this British miniseries, the first film adaptation of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO since David Lean`s legend...
Boris Pasternak`s epic tale of star-crossed love during the Russian Revolution is remade for the television screen in this British miniseries, the first film adaptation of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO since David Lean`s legendary 1965 feature. This version casts Hans Matheson (THE MISTS OF AVALON) as the title character, a doctor and poet torn between the love of his faithful wife Tonya (Alexandra Maria Lara) and the passion of his muse and mistress Lara (Keira Knightley, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM), herself the wife of a political revolutionary. Their love affair plays out against the wars and upheavals of czarist Russia until they--and the nation--are finally and irreparably altered by the advent of the Russian Revolution. This retelling of the literary classic is scripted by celebrated screenwriter Andrew Davies (BRIDGET JONES` DIARY) and features Sam Neill in a chilling performance as Lara`s villainous tormentor Komarovsky.
NR"
Director: Giacomo Campiotti
ACTORS: Hans Matheson, Keira Knightley, Sam Neill, Alexandra Maria Lara
A Thousand Acres (DVD)
A THOUSAND ACRES, director Jocelyn Moorhouse`s screen adaptation of Jane Smiley`s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, finds skeins of KING LEAR-like conflict running through the bedrock of a midwestern family. Jason Robards stars as Larry Cook, a powerful, stoic Iowa farmer who decides to retire and split his 1,000 acres of land among his three daughters. His two eldest daughters, Rose (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Ginny (Jessica Lange), live and work on the farm and happily accept the lucrative agreement, while the youngest, Larry`s favorite, Caroline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), has abandoned farming life for a law career in Des Moines and refuses to take part in the deal. Initially, Larry is consumed with rage and shuts out Caroline while Rose and Ginny go about running the farm with their dutiful but greedy husbands. However, as Larry begins to lose touch with his farming life, he loses touch with reality, and his painful descent into madness leaves him bitterly opposed to his daughters` ways of running the farm. Paranoid and disillusioned, he decides to sue Rose and Ginny with Caroline`s help in an effort to regain his patriarchal control. The lawsuit divides the family forever, leaving Rose and Ginny to suffer alone while realizing painful memories from their childhood. As Rose and Ginny discover their own individual strengths in the face of adversity, they learn how to survive on their own, without the protection of the farm and the suffocating presence of their father. Moorhouse`s film is an epic tale of loss and redemption that highlights strong and earthy performances from Pfeiffer and Lange.R"
Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
ACTORS: Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Robards, Colin Firth
Interiors (DVD)
After the tremendous success of ANNIE HALL, Woody Allen took a huge risk and turned serious with INTERIORS, his Bergmanesque masterpiece--a dark, intense look at a family suffocating itself in thoughts of failure and death. Geraldine Page is extraordinary as Eve, a troubled woman who cannot face reality. When Eve`s husband, Arthur (E.G. Marshall), announces that he`s moving out of the house, their three daughters (Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt, and Kristin Griffith) gather around the mother, attempting to help her through this crisis, but they have been raised with such coldness and aloofness that they are helpless.
The first movie that Allen wrote and directed but did not appear in, INTERIORS is about closed spaces, both physical and psychological. Most of the scenes feature the intense cast standing by windows, looking out at the world that is going on outside without them. The opening shot of Renata (Keaton) reaching out to the window, spreading her fingers, is mesmerizing. Gordon Willis`s photography washes the film in shades of black, white, and gray--the only color comes from Pearl (Maureen Stapleton), Arthur`s new lover, who is vibrant and impulsive, everything Eve`s family is not. The film also has no background music whatsoever; in fact, aside from one scene in which Pearl plays a jazz record, the only background sounds that can be heard are the quiet call of the ocean and the sisters` careful breathing. Slow-paced, bleak, and marvelously insightful, INTERIORS is a poignant film that should not be missed.PG"
Director: Woody Allen
