The James Bond film franchise has had more than one overarching cultural icon to surmount. While Sean Connery's Bond may forever be the standard by which all others are judged, John Barry set an equally high musical standard with his elegantly sophisticated Bond scores. But by the time Pierce Brosnan took his belated, fifth-generation shot at Bondom, the producers of the series felt the need to modernize its music. That daunting task fell to modern musical synthesist Eric Serra, the accomplished longtime collaborator of French director Luc Besson (Le Femme Nikita, The Professional, The Fifth Element, and particularly The Big Blue). And the French musician tackled it with his adventurous spirit of genre-hopping only slightly muted. If anything, the incorporation of an orchestra into Serra's trademark blend of tense electronica, industrial dance beats, and exotic music samples seems like an effort (foisted upon him by the producers?) to move Bond into the 21st century, yet retain some semblance of his 1960s roots. It's a game effort of genre reinvention that's been unfairly trashed by many of the Bond overfaithful, but it's one that Serra admirers will find instantly inviting. --Jerry McCulley ... Read more

Features

• Soundtrack

Asin: B000000WAK
Subjects:  1. Pop    2. Soundtracks & Film Scores   

Geena Davis and her former husband, director Renny Harlin, attempted to pick up the pieces after the debacle of their box-office disaster, Cutthroat Island. What they came up with was this repulsive ode to American film noir, based on a script by Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) about an amnesiac schoolteacher (Davis) who searches for her true identity and finds she is actually a secret agent immersed in a deadly plot to topple the government. Mechanistic in its violence, obnoxious in its attitude, the film makes Davis, a once-promising actress, nothing more than a special effect. She tosses one to sadists in the audience by allowing her character to be beaten, punched unconscious, and tortured. The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, plus Dolby surround sound, theatrical trailer, cast information, optional French-language soundtrack and optional Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Dolby
• Widescreen

Asin: 0780618548
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure   

The 20th James Bond adventure, Die Another Day succeeds on three important fronts: it avoids comparison to Austin Powers by keeping its cheesy humor in check, allows Halle Berry to be sexy and worthy of a spinoff franchise, and keeps pace with the technical wizardry that modern action films demand. Pierce Brosnan's got style and staying power as James Bond, now bearing little resemblance to Ian Fleming's original British super-spy, but able to hold his own at the box office. He's paired with American agent Jinx (Berry) in chasing a genetically altered North Korean villain (Rick Yune) armed with a satellite capable of destroying just about anything. John Cleese and Judi Dench reprise their recurring roles (as "Q" and "M," respectively); they're accompanied by weapons-laden sports cars, a hokey cameo by Madonna (who sings the techno-pulsed theme song), and enough double-entendres to keep Bond-philes adequately shaken and stirred. With clever nods to 007's cinematic legacy, Die Another Day makes you welcome the familiar end-credits promise: James Bond will return. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen
• Dolby
• DTS Surround Sound

Asin: B00005JLBE
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure   

If you thought The Recruit was full of surprises, Basic will spin your head around. Assuming that cleverness is its own reward, this military mystery shares many of The Recruit's strengths and weaknesses, offering multi-layered deception as its dramatic raison d'etre. Copping plenty of machismo attitude befitting a semi-effective thriller from Die Hard director John McTiernan, John Travolta stars as an ex-Army Ranger-turned-DEA agent, recruited by an Army investigator (Connie Nielsen) to solve the fratricide of a reviled Sergeant (Samuel L. Jackson) who was allegedly killed while commanding a Special Forces training mission in the hurricane-swept rainforests of Panama. Two survivors (Giovanni Ribisi in a showboat role, and Brian Van Holt) recall the ill-fated mission as the truth unfolds, Rashomon-style, in a series of repetitive flashbacks. Tricky enough to hold one's attention as it grows increasingly irrelevant, Basic is so enamored of its bogus ingenuity that its ultimate twist is a letdown. A second viewing might prove rewarding, if only to confirm that it all holds together. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen
• Dolby

Asin: B00009L1TA
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama   

The least successful film in this series was directed by stylemaster (and content-underachiever) David Fincher. Ripley, the only survivor of her past mission, awakens on a prison planet in the far corners of the solar system. As she tries to recover, she realizes that not only has an alien gotten loose on the planet, the alien has implanted one of its own within her. As she battles the prison authorities (and is aided by the prisoners) in trying to kill the alien, she must also cope with a distinctly shortened lifespan that awaits her. But the striking imagery makes for muddled action and the script confuses it further. The ending looks startling but it takes a long time--and a not particularly satisfying journey--to get there. --Marshall Fine ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• HiFi Sound
• NTSC

Asin: 6302561868
Subjects:  1. Science Fiction   

Before Harrison Ford assumed the mantle of playing Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan hero in Patriot Games, Alec Baldwin took a swing at the character in this John McTiernan film and hit one to the fence. If less instantly sympathetic than Ford, Baldwin is in some respects more interesting and nuanced as Ryan, and drawing comparisons between both actors' performances can make for some interesting postmovie discussion. That aside, The Hunt for Red October stands alone as a uniquely exciting adventure with a fantastic costar: Sean Connery as a Russian nuclear submarine captain attempting to defect to the West on his ship. Ryan must figure out his true motives for approaching the U.S. McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard) made an exceptionally handsome movie here with action sequences that really do take one's breath away. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• NTSC

Asin: 0792116887
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure   

Everything clicked in this 1994 action hit, from the premise (a city bus has to keep moving at 50 mph or blow up) to the two leads (the usually inscrutable Keanu Reeves and the cute-as-a-button Sandra Bullock) to the villain (Dennis Hopper in psycho mode) to the director (Jan De Bont, who made this film hit the ground running with an edge-of-your-seat opening sequence on a broken elevator). This is the sort of movie that becomes a prototype for a thousand lesser films (including De Bont's lousy sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control), but Speed really is a one-of-a-kind experience almost anyone can enjoy. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• NTSC

Asin: 6303257844
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure   

Coming after The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, this thriller about a collaboration between two serial killers feels like a pale attempt to cash in on the success of those earlier, better films. That's a pity, because this film certainly has its strengths--particularly in the central performances of Morgan Freeman as a forensic detective and Ashley Judd as a would-be victim who escaped from one of the killers. Director Gary Fleder demonstrates visual flair and maintains an involving undercurrent of tension, but as this adaptation of James Patterson's novel approaches its climax, familiar elements combine to form a chronic case of thriller déjà vu. It's altogether competent filmmaking in the service of a moribund story of competing psychopaths, and by the time the serial killers reach the home stretch of their twisted contest, the movie's dangerously close to Freddy Kruger territory, with a finale that could've been borrowed from any dozen similar thrillers. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen
• Dolby

Asin: 6305127565
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama   

The VTech 2528 offers 2.4 GHz high-frequency technology for longer range and reduced interference. Plus, the built-in TeleZapper helps reduce annoying telemarketing calls--a special tone fools many automated telemarketing computers into thinking your number has been disconnected. Caller ID with call waiting tells you who's calling even when you're already talking to someone else (a subscription from your local phone company is required). A 50-name-and-number phone book and 99 caller ID entries make dialing your most important numbers quick and easy. Additional features include headset compatibility and amessage-waiting indicator for voice mail. ... Read more

Features

• 2.4 GHz analog operation
• Built-in TeleZapper helps reduce annoying telemarketing calls
• Caller ID with call waiting
• 50 name and number phonebook directory
• 99 name and number caller ID memory

Asin: B000075B6F
Subjects:  1. Phones (Telephones)    2. Cordless    3. Cordless (Cord-less)    4. Caller ID (CID)    5. (Identification Display)    6. 2.4 GHz (2.4GHz, gigahertz)   

Take a high diver who witnesses a murder from his perch 80 feet above aMississippi casino. Add a cooler-than-thou con artist from Detroit who's out totake over the Dixie mafia's lucrative Gulf Coast drug business. Throw in acrooked deputy sheriff and an honest state cop. Put them all in costume alongwith a bunch of other "reenactors" bent on refighting an important Civil Warbattle, season with plenty of historic detail, and you've got all the classicingredients of an Elmore Leonard novel--except for drama, suspense, or mystery,that is. This is a rib-tickler in the Carl Hiaasen/Dave Barry tradition ratherthan the kind of thriller Leonard wrote before Hollywood discovered him. As theauthor himself explains, his intent was to entertain himself by gathering an oddassortment of characters, building a story as they bump heads, and seeing whathappens. And as usual, he carries it off with style, wit, and brio. Readers willbe casting the inevitable movie in their heads (Samuel L. Jackson is a lock forRobert, who glides into town in a flashy Jag and gets the action going) as theychuckle their way to the last hilarious page. --Jane Adams ... Read more

Isbn: 0060083948
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General   

A movie that only true horror buffs could love, Army of Darkness is officially part 3 in the wild and wacky Evil Dead trilogy masterminded by the perversely inventive director Sam Raimi, who would later serve as executive producer of the popular syndicated TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Raimi's favorite actor, Bruce Campbell, returns as Ash (hero of the first two Evil Dead flicks), a hardware-store clerk who is magically transported--along with his beat-up Oldsmobile and a chainsaw attachment for his severed left forearm--to the brutal battlefields of the 14th century. He quickly assumes power (who else in the Middle Ages packs a shotgun and a chainsaw?), and unites his band of medieval knights against the dreaded Army of the Dead. Raimi gleefully subverts almost every horror-movie cliché as he serves up a nonstop parade of blood, gore, and vicious sword-bearing skeletons--an affectionate homage to animator Ray Harryhausen's classic Jason and the Argonauts. The frantic action is fun while it lasts, but even at 80 minutes Army of Darkness nearly wears out its welcome. You know that Raimi can maintain the mayhem for only so long before it grows tiresome, and fortunately this madcap movie quits while it's ahead. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Features

• Color
• THX
• Widescreen
• Dolby

Asin: B00001ODHJ
Subjects:  1. Horror   

For the first 90 minutes of the movie, Affleck and Beckinsale find a nice, appealing chemistry that plays on his strengths as a movie star and hers as a serious actress--he gives her glamour, she gives him smarts. Their truncated romance--the beginning of which is told in flashback so we can get right to the point where he has to leave her to go to England--works, thanks to their charm. They're no Kate and Leo from Titanic (a strategy the film strives hard toward), but they're pretty darn adorable in their own right. Hartnett, as the not entirely unwelcome third wheel, squints bravely but makes only a slight dent in the film. Everyone else in Pearl Harbor--from Cuba Gooding Jr.'s brave navy seaman to Jon Voight's able impersonation of FDR--is pretty much a glorified walk-on, taking a backseat to the pyrotechnics and action sequences that keep the three-hour film in fairly constant motion. But when that action does take hold, Pearl Harbor is quite a thrilling ride. --Mark Englehart ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen
• Dolby
• DTS Surround Sound

Asin: B00003CXTG
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama