Ashton, John

Some Kind of Wonderful (Special Collector's Edition)

After dominating the teen-movie genre for the bulk of the 1980s, writer-producer (and sometimes director) John Hughes proved that he had at least one good movie left in him before squandering his talent on lame comedies throughout the 1990s. Like The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful treated its teenaged characters like real people with real feelings, hopes, fears, and desire. Mary Stuart Masterson gives a great performance as a tomboy drummer named Watts who's secretly in love with her best friend, Keith (Eric Stoltz), an aspiring artist who is oblivious to her affection because he's got a crush on Amanda (Lea Thompson), the popular high school beauty. Watts will even go so far as to chauffeur a date for Keith and Amanda, if only to prove--after a lot of patient, emotional anguish--that she's better for Keith than Amanda could ever be. The movie's drama comes from Keith's gradual realization that there's more to love than surface attraction, and Hughes gets extra mileage out of the romantic confusion by allowing Thompson's character to be more than a shallow campus cutie. All three of the leads are good fits in their roles, and this was one of the few teen films of the '80s to add genuine depth to its mainstream appeal. It's one of the few John Hughes movies to stand the test of time. --Jeff Shannon

A young tomboy Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) finds her feelings for her best friend Keith (Eric Stoltz) run deeper than just friendship when he gets a date with the most popular girl in school Amanda (Lea Thompson). Unfortunately the girl's old boyfriend Hardy (Craig Scheffer) who is from the rich section of town is unable to let go of her and plans to get back at Keith.System Requirements:Running Time: 94 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097360422047 Manufacturer No: 042204

Breaking Away

Peter Yates's flag-waving film stands with To Kill a Mockingbird and American Graffiti as one of the best films about small-town Americana. Steve Tesich won an Oscar for his semi-biographical screenplay about four 19-year-olds who don't know what to do after high school. Dave Stohler (Dennis Christopher) and his three friends--ex-football star Mike (Dennis Quaid), wily comedian Cyril (Daniel Stern), and tough kid Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley)--are doomed to live in the college town of Bloomington, Indiana, where the local kids (nicknamed "Cutters"--a derogatory reference to quarry workers and their blue-collar families) are looked down on by the uppity students of nearby Indiana University.

Stohler escapes into a world of Italian bicycling, picking up the lingo, the accent, and a good share of the talent of his heroes. He is also the scourge of his father's life. The used-car salesman (Paul Dooley) doesn't understand his son's affection for bicycling or, for that matter, his pride in being a "Cutter."

Breaking Away rehabilitates the word heartwarming as Tesich's uncommonly intelligent script gives us well-rounded characters and a potent sense of place. The grandstanding finale--the real life "Little 500" bike race--gives the film a perfect, crowd-pleasing end. However, the film never sacrifices the development of characters for the action. Dooley is especially effective in one of those once-in-a-lifetime roles. The lifelong character actor's place in film history is established with this indispensable performance. --Doug Thomas

This charming, Academy Award winner (1979, Screenplay) cycles high on comedy as four friends come to terms with life after high school. When top-notch cyclist Dave (Dennis Christopher) learns that the world's bicycling champions are always Italian, he attempts to turn himself into an Italian, driving his parents (Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley) crazy. But everything changes after he meets the Italian racing team-an encounter that ultimately leads him and his friends (Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley) to challenge the local college boys in the town's annual bike race.

Breaking Away (Widescreen Edition)

Peter Yates's flag-waving film stands with To Kill a Mockingbird and American Graffiti as one of the best films about small-town Americana. Steve Tesich won an Oscar for his semi-biographical screenplay about four 19-year-olds who don't know what to do after high school. Dave Stohler (Dennis Christopher) and his three friends--ex-football star Mike (Dennis Quaid), wily comedian Cyril (Daniel Stern), and tough kid Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley)--are doomed to live in the college town of Bloomington, Indiana, where the local kids (nicknamed "Cutters"--a derogatory reference to quarry workers and their blue-collar families) are looked down on by the uppity students of nearby Indiana University.

Stohler escapes into a world of Italian bicycling, picking up the lingo, the accent, and a good share of the talent of his heroes. He is also the scourge of his father's life. The used-car salesman (Paul Dooley) doesn't understand his son's affection for bicycling or, for that matter, his pride in being a "Cutter."

Breaking Away rehabilitates the word heartwarming as Tesich's uncommonly intelligent script gives us well-rounded characters and a potent sense of place. The grandstanding finale--the real life "Little 500" bike race--gives the film a perfect, crowd-pleasing end. However, the film never sacrifices the development of characters for the action. Dooley is especially effective in one of those once-in-a-lifetime roles. The lifelong character actor's place in film history is established with this indispensable performance. --Doug Thomas

This charming, Academy Award winner (1979, Screenplay) cycles high on comedy as four friends come to terms with life after high school. When top-notch cyclist Dave (Dennis Christopher) learns that the world's bicycling champions are always Italian, he attempts to turn himself into an Italian, driving his parents (Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley) crazy. But everything changes after he meets the Italian racing team-an encounter that ultimately leads him and his friends (Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley) to challenge the local college boys in the town's annual bike race.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension

"The very oddest good movie in many a full moon" Buckaroo Banzai combines "humor imagination a little oriental mysticism and a passel of sharp performances [into] very chic sci-fi" (Time)! Oscar® nominees* Peter Weller and John Lithgow team with Emmy® winners Ellen Barkin and Christopher Lloyd for a fiendishly clever action-packed adventure in an outlandish world you'll want to visit again and again!Brilliant brain surgeon Banzai (Weller) just made scientific history. Shifting his Oscillation Overthruster into warp speed he's the first man ever to travel to the Eighth Dimension and come back sane! But when his sworn enemy the demented Dr. Lizardo (Lithgow) devises a plot to steal the Overthruster and bring an evil army of aliens back to destroy Earth Buckaroo goes cranium to cranium with the madman in an extra-dimensional battle that could result in total annihilation of the universe!*1993: Short Film/Live Action Partners (Weller); 1983: Supporting Actor Terms Of Endearment (Lithgow)System Requirements:Running Time: 102 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG UPC: 027616862785 Manufacturer No: 1002040

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension is one of the most agreeably insane movies ever made. Peter Weller stars as Buckaroo, an acclaimed neurosurgeon, particle physicist, and, of course, rock star. He travels with the Hong Kong Cavaliers, a band of hard-rocking scientists who are also really good dressers. Buckaroo's interdimensional experiments with his Operation Overthruster throw him (and the Earth) straight into the middle of an alien war, and before you know it, he's got just a few hours to save the world. Confused? Hang on, we're only 10 minutes into the movie. Buckaroo Banzai hurls you right into the middle of its comic-book universe and keeps going at a breakneck pace. It's chock-full of overlapping jokes (even as we're trying to make sense of Dr. Lizardo's hospital room, a voice calmly announces that "lithium is no longer available on credit" over the PA system), hilarious throwaway dialogue ("You're like Jerry Lewis: you give me hope to carry on."), and weirdness just for the sheer joy of it ("Why is there a watermelon there?" "I'll tell you later."). You'll want to watch it at least twice--there's just no way to catch everything the first time around. Ellen Barkin has a terrific time doing a dead-on film noir moll parody as Penny Priddy, and John Lithgow turns in a brilliant manic performance as Dr. Lizardo/John Whorfin. There is no reason not to own this movie unless you are cold and dead inside. Laugh while you can, Monkey Boys. --Ali Davis

Peter Weller plays that Renaissance Man, Buckaroo Banzai, a neurosurgeon, car racer, rock singer, and alien chaser in this overdone sci-fi adventure from 1984. After crashing his nuclear-fueled race car and causing a disturbance in the eighth dimension, Banzai releases some extremely unappealing aliens into our atmosphere. First-time director W.D. Richter (Late for Dinner) pulls out all the stops, resulting in a manic dash that is often incoherent. The intent may have been to re-create old-time serials with a pulp-fiction bent, but the screenplay, full of macho dialogue and cool poses, tries too hard. We could have done with a less complicated story and more character development. Still, consider this flawed fun, because it may be silly, but it is also clever. Originally released as The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. -- Rochelle O'Gorman

Instinct

Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor; Cuba Gooding Jr. is a talented guy with a lot of charm. Both have recently won Oscars (Best Actor for The Silence of the Lambs and Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire, respectively); neither can make Instinct compelling. Hopkins plays a brilliant anthropologist studying gorillas who entered into their world, becoming part of their family, and who killed two park rangers in the gorillas' habitat. Gooding plays a brilliant young psychiatrist who's supposed to evaluate Hopkins and determine whether he's fit to stand trial. Hopkins, along with a number of other psychotics, is being held at a prison, which serves to illustrate the movie's themes about control and freedom. It's not so much that the ideas themselves are hokum--nature versus civilization is always a rich topic--it's that Instinct boils them down to inane sound bites. Psychology is reduced to a game in which the psychiatrist's job is to trick the patient into believing the correct thing or revealing the key that will solve the puzzle. There's not a credible moment in the whole movie, despite the presence of a good cast, including Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H, Klute, Without Limits, and many, many others) and Maura Tierney (TV's Newsradio). --Bret Fetzer

In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything in an attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.and the bizarre actions of this madman.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 6-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD

She's Having a Baby

Having delved repeatedly into the world of teenage joys and sorrows, from Sixteen Candles to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, writer-director John Hughes took a step into adulthood (or some facsimile of it) with She's Having a Baby. Peppered with whimsical asides and busy voice-over observations, the movie is shamelessly fun to watch, even if it doesn't add up to anything especially profound. Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern are newlyweds struggling through the tribulations of a youthful marriage. Along with the usual uncertainties, Bacon is sacrificing his dreams of becoming a writer to work in an ad agency, and his best supposed pal (Alec Baldwin, just before stardom) tries to seduce his wife. Hughes may have been reflecting on his own past job in advertising, and maybe that explains why the movie plays like a superficial, if entertaining, TV commercial. --Robert Horton

A very young couple find their dreams of a perfect life in a perfect house have turned into the traditional marital nightmares, further complicated by the news of an impending addition to the family.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 13-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD

The Tommyknockers

The Tommyknockers is a TV miniseries based on Stephen King's 1987 novel. An alien spacecraft has been buried beneath the Burning Woods near the small rural New England community of Haven for millions of years, but has now by chance been unearthed by Bobbi (Marg Helgenberger) while digging around in the woods behind her house. The structure in the woods begins to exert a glowing-green influence on the town, causing the people to invent Rube Goldberg-like gizmos, develop the gift of telepathy, lose their teeth, and form a hive-mind mentality bent on digging up the ship and revivifying the desiccated aliens within. Luckily, Bobbi's significant other is an alcoholic poet (Jimmy Smits) who needs to learn to face his fears. He also has a metal plate in his head that prevents the hive-minders from reading his thoughts and makes him immune to the neon-green influence of the aliens. Ultimately, it's up to him to save the day. Although the acting is topnotch, especially from Smits and Helgenberger, and there are plenty of gooseflesh moments, there are also enough plot holes here to fuel a very long and enjoyable evening's conversation. Why do the aliens start in at this time, when they've been causing legends in the woods for ages? Where does an alien ship buried for ages get all that dry ice? How does the Smits character make a living as a poet? One suspects that King's fine sense of New England characterizations is given short shrift here, and that the woods in his mind teem with more alien thoughts than the TV miniseries form could embody. Welcome appearances by congenial actors abound, notably Joanna Cassidy, E.G. Marshall and Robert Carradine. And there's a slutty postal letter-carrier played authentically by Traci Lords. --Jim Gay

Beverly Hills Cop (Special Collector's Edition)

While its sequels were formulaic and safe, the first Beverly Hills Cop set out to explore some uncharted territory, and succeeded. A blend of violent action picture and sharp comedy, the film has an excellent director, Martin Brest (Scent of a Woman), who finds some original perspectives on stock scenes (highway chases, police rousts) and hits a gleeful note with Murphy while skewering L.A. culture. Good support from Judge Reinhold and John Ashton as local cops not used to doing things the Detroit way (Murphy's character hails from the Motor City). Paul Reiser has a funny, brief moment at the beginning, and Bronson Pinchot makes a hilarious impression in a great, never-to-be-duplicated scene with the star. --Tom Keogh

Murphy stars as a street-wise detective who pursues his friend's murderer to Beverly Hills where he gets involved in a network of smugglers and drug peddlers.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 12-DEC-2003
Media Type: DVD

Little Big League

When the owner of the hapless Minnesota Twins (talk about art imitating life) dies and leaves his grandson (Luke Edwards) the team in his will, the 12-year-old decides to manage the team himself. Aside from the obvious headline value of his move, no one seems to like the idea and the kid finds himself battling for his fledgling managerial career. Eventually, however, he wins the confidence of his favorite player (Timothy Busfield) and before long has the team playing like kids: for the fun of it, rather than the money. (Now there's a concept.) Though billed as a family movie, the saccharine level is high enough to scare off most adults. But kids, particularly baseball fans, will eat it up, as much for the appearances of baseball stars like Ken Griffey Jr. and Paul O'Neill as for the plot itself. --Marshall Fine

Baseball's a funny and fun game when a 12-year-old becomes manager of the Minnesota Twins and inspires them to play with the joy of youngsters.Running Time: 120 min.System Requirements:Running Time 119 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG UPC: 053939251227

The Rhinemann Exchange

Based on the gripping book by best-selling author Robert Ludlum (The Bourne Ultimatum) the must-see miniseries The Rhinemann Exchange arrives on DVD for the very first time! Filled with international intrigue and suspense this World War II thriller follows a U.S. intelligence officer to Argentina where he must arrange the exchange of industrial diamonds and top-secret technology between the Germans and the Allied forces. With a powerhouse cast that includes Stephen Collins and Lauren Hutton The Rhinemann Exchange contains all the original 5 unedited TV hours and is a jewel of an adventure that you can't afford to miss!System Requirements:Running Time: 248 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 025195004879 Manufacturer No: 61100569