The Best Man
from Universal Studios
A glossy romantic comedy, The Best Man centers on four college friends and the women in their lives, all brought back together for a wedding. Taye Diggs (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) plays the title character, a young writer whose first novel is a barely fictionalized account of his college days, featuring barely fictionalized versions of all his friends. This novel hasn't yet been released, but ambitious TV producer Nia Long (Soul Food) has snagged an advance copy in the hopes of getting an early interview with Diggs. Unfortunately, when this advance copy begins circulating among the college gang, they discover it reveals some secrets that may have a disastrous effect on the wedding. The Best Man features a handsome, charming cast and a propulsive story, but the female characters are poorly developed and the male banter is, to say the least, chauvinistic. This banter is mostly to comic effect, but by the end it still leaves a sour taste that the movie's happy ending doesn't counter. With a particularly strong performance by Terrence Howard as an aimless but relentlessly honest member of the college quartet. --Bret Fetzer
Rebound: The Legend of Earl "The Goat" Manigault
from Hbo Home Video
The Players Club
from New Line Home Video
Ice Cube (Friday) makes his directorial debut with this comedy about the inhabitants and employees of a steamy Los Angeles strip club.
DVD Features:
Music Video
Production Notes
Theatrical Trailer
The Jacksons - An American Dream (The Complete Miniseries)
by Karen Arthur
from Motown
The miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream begins in the 1940s, when Joseph Jackson (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and Katherine (Angela Bassett) meet and fall in love, and ends in the 1980s, when their sons reunite for the 1983 Victory Tour that brought them back together as the Jacksons. During the first part, "The Early Years," the couple starts a family, and although times are tough, Joseph still finds time to play music on the side. When he discovers that his sons have inherited the same talent, the Jackson 5 are born. They sign with Motown and start churning out the gold records. The second part, "The Success Years," begins in 1970 at the peak of their fame, but by 1976, the hits have started to dry up. If the acting is uneven and the story somewhat sanitized, Bassett is affecting, and the series includes Emmy-winning choreography and a combination of original and re-created material, ranging from "I Want You Back" (1969) to Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (from 1982's multi-platinum Thriller). --Kathleen C. Fennessy
The Salon
by Mark Brown
from 20th Century Fox
The Salon stars Vivica A. Fox (Jenny) as the inheritor of a neighborhood beauty salon. Jenny is being forced to sell her shop to the Department of Water and Power (DWP) due to eminent domain. She has not told the other tenants in the salon and is trying to build a case to save the shop. The DWP is represented by a hot shot attorney (Darrin Dewitt Henson) who takes a liking to her and a romance begins. This is a fresh look on the inside of a salon where anything can happen.System Requirements:Running Time: 99 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 024543405542 Manufacturer No: 2240554
Bagdad Cafe
by Percy Adlon
from MGM (Video & DVD)
Jasmin (Marianne Sägebrecht), a German tourist, has just walked off from her husband at the side of the road in the middle of the Mojave Desert; Brenda (CCH Pounder) has just kicked her husband out of the roadside cafe-motel they operate. When Jasmin arrives at the cafe, the two begin developing a prickly but ultimately rewarding friendship. Many other movies have tried to duplicate Bagdad Cafe's mixture of loose storytelling, off-kilter metaphors, and rich emotions, but most often these imitators leave out the random chaos of life and the awkward pain of change that Bagdad Cafe captures with such a gentle touch. Bagdad Cafe earns both its quirkiness and its sentiment by keeping one foot firmly rooted in reality. Director Percy Adlon teamed with star Sägebrecht in two other similarly offbeat movies, Sugarbaby and Rosalie Goes Shopping; his more recent features without her haven't been as successful. Still, he continues to be noted for his odd but lively use of color filters and jagged editing. Bagdad Cafe also features the great Jack Palance (Shane, Requiem for a Heavyweight, City Slickers) playing an easy-going painter; the opportunity to be an ordinary person, rather than his usual wicked fiends, brings ou