DVD

[Rasputin]

Jarhead: 2-Disc Collector’s Edition

“All wars are the same. All wars are different,” says Marine sniper Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Sam Mendes’ Jarhead. The same can be said for war movies. And with Hollywood about done purging its guilt and bullet-riddled soul over Vietnam, the Gulf War (and eventually, the Iraq War) represents an opportunity for a new generation of filmmakers to binge on a combustible brew of rage, sadness, and helplessness, then purge through cinema.

[Rasputin]

Zathura

This is the third of author Chris Van Allsburg’s novels to be adopted for the screen. In 2004, Robert Zemeckis directed Tom Hanks in The Polar Express (originally published in ’85), a charming tale of a child’s crisis of faith in Santa Claus. In 1995, Joe Johnston directed Robin Williams in Jumanji (originally published in ’82), a tale about a board game with supernatural powers that can entrap a player, or transform a home into a jungle, or invade with wild beasts pulled directly from the African savannah. Zathura (published in ‘02) owes much to Jumanji. There is another magical board game with supernatural powers, but its scope has expanded dramatically. This game sweeps its players and their home into deep space to face perils that could have been pulled from a ‘30s Flash Gordon serial.



Zathura is the tale of two brothers from a broken home. Danny (Jonah Bobo) and Walter (Josh Hutcherson) are spending the weekend at their father’s (Tim Robbins) newly acquired fixer-upper house in some quite suburb. They are six and ten years old, respectively, highly competitive, and very needy, competing intensely for their dad’s attention. Walter is the older of the two and has reached an age when he has the upper hand, able to throw around a baseball or a football with his dad while his young, uncoordinated brother can only look on with envy.

[Rasputin]

Elizabethtown

What’s happened to Cameron Crowe?One of our most enjoyable, accessibly literate mainstream filmmakers has lost his way. After 2001’s what-the-hell-was-that Vanilla Sky, Crowe seemingly returned to his character-based strengths in Elizabethtown. But the movie is a messy, meandering collection of tragedy and sentimentality that never achieved liftoff.

[Rasputin]

MacGyver: The Complete Fifth Season

MacGyver: The Complete Fifth Season

I’m sorry, MacGyver fans, I wish I could offer you more, but by the end of my task reviewing this fifth season of the popular Richard Dean Anderson action/drama, I absolutely must throw my hands up in the air and cry uncle.In my review of season four, I wrote:What started as a mildly enjoyable shoot-em-up crime-fighting turns into nothing more than a mulleted gentleman making ridiculous contraptions out of Play-Doh and string cheese and then making ridiculous faces as he turns and runs away.

[Rasputin]

V.I.P.: The Complete First Season

For those of you who thought Baywatch wasn’t brainy enough – and there were, what, four of you, maybe five? – V.I.P. offers all the jiggle with just a little bit of goofy fun. Like the hour-long equivalent of Howard Stern’s painfully overlooked Son of the Beach, V.I.P. balances thread bare, Charlie’s Angels- like narrative, tight tops, and more than a little swimsuit action. As Valerie Irons, an actress-turned-bodyguard-for-hire and head of V.I.P.

[Rasputin]

The Ice Harvest

started watching the DVD of The Ice Harvest, the new film from director Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day) at around 10:30 a.m. When it was over, it didn’t really hit me one way or the other, good or bad. In such cases, I’ll wait a few hours, then reconsider it. It is now 8 p.m. as I write this, ten hours after seeing it, and I’ve decided that the movie had absolutely no effect on me. The ingredients are there.

[Rasputin]

A History of Violence

love David Cronenberg, and I love that he bided so much time between his last all-out classic (Naked Lunch) and The History of Violence, a movie as rock-solid as it is difficult to wrap one’s brain around. After all, Cronenberg’s bohemian filmmaking tendencies have been to subvert and slink around audience expectations, from the gender-bending homosex of M. Butterfly to Dead Ringers’ dirty gynecology. Not even die-hard Cronen-heads know what to do with the guy.

[Rasputin]

Top Selling DVDs .

1. Once Upon A Time In America
2. Beautiful Girls
3. Never Been Kissed
4. Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion
5. Basic Instinct
6. Red Heat
7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
8. Tamara
9. The Bubble Boy
10. Bambi II

[Rasputin]

The Dying Gaul

No one goes to the movies to have a bad time or to learn anything." – Jeffrey Tishop (Campbell Scott), The Dying Gaul

Acclaimed playwright Craig Lucas ("Prelude To A Kiss") makes his feature film debut adapting The Dying Gaul for the screen and directing the incendiary trio of Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson. A venomous drama that jabs mid-Nineties Hollywood while using it as a backdrop for a malicious little thriller, The Dying Gaul is explosive, dense entertainment that surprises you in ways you don't see coming.

Sarsgaard stars as grieving screenwriter Robert Sandrich, whose screenplay (which serves as the film's title) has just crossed the desk of hotshot executive Jeffrey Tishop (Scott) – Jeffrey's interested in the script, save for the narrative dealing with a homosexual relationship. If Robert acquiesces and makes his homosexual couple straight, Jeffrey will pay a million dollars for The Dying Gaul. Along the way, Robert becomes enmeshed in an increasingly uncertain relationship with both Jeffrey and his wife, former screenwriter Elaine (Clarkson), which builds to a devastating conclusion.

[Rasputin]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2-Disc Special Edition


Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire is an imposing one hundred and fifty-seven minute long and, yet, somehow it seems incomplete. There is little to hint of academic progress during the school year, few scenes are in the classroom demonstrating the slow and laborious mastery of wizardry. I’m told by friends who have more time than I and who’ve managed to digest Potter in print that this film leaves out more material than any previous episode.

[nikania]

This is exactly true. I have read all the books and have seen all the movies. The last one leaves out more than the previous ones.

[Rasputin]

Basic Instinct (1992)

When a cop's search for a ruthless killer leads him to wealthy and seductive author, his involvement turns personal, and he must balance their affair with the mounting evidence against her.

[Rasputin]

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) (2006)

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) (2006)

Set in contemporary Moscow, NIGHT WATCH revolves around the conflict and balance maintained between the forces of light and darkness -- the result of a medieval truce between the opposing sides. As night falls, the dark forces battle the super-human "Others" of the Night Watch, whose mission is to patrol and protect. But there is constant fear that an ancient prophecy will come true: that a powerful...

[Rasputin]

Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

Drama about the rise and fall of Jewish-American gangsters in New York at the beginning of the century through the 1960s.

[Rasputin]

Never Been Kissed (1999)

A copy editor in her early twenties gets her chance to become a reporter at a Chicago daily. Her first assignment consists of a feature on what cool high school students are doing. In order to uncover the life of the hip high schoolers, she must go undercover as a student herself. Meanwhile, her slacker brother decides to go back to the same high school in hopes of getting a second chance at being...