Daly, Jane

Mission Impossible III (Widescreen Edition)

Super-spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has retired from active duty to trains new IMF agents. But he is called back into action to confront the toughest villain he's ever faced - Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) an international weapons and information provider with no remorse and no conscience. Hunt assembles his team - his old friend Luther Strickell (Ving Rhames) transportation expert Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and background operative Zhen (Maggie Q) to rescue one of his very own trainees Lindsey (Keri Russell) who was kidnapped while on a surveillance detail of Davian. It soon becomes evident that Davian is well-protected well-connected and downright malicious forcing Hunt to extend his journey back into the field in order to rescue his wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) and uncover IMF double agents in the process.System Requirements:Running Time: 125 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097363398745 Manufacturer No: 339874

At the time of its release, Mission: Impossible III's box office was plagued by the publicity backlash against couch-jumping star Tom Cruise. It's too bad, because this third installment of the spy thriller franchise deserved a better reception than it got. First-time feature director J.J. Abrams (bigwig TV director/producer of Lost, Alias, & Felicity) proves more than able-bodied in creating a Mission: Impossible that's leaner and less over-stylized than John Woo's sequel and less confusing than Brian De Palma's original. Plot is still a throwaway here (Cruise's Ethan Hunt rescues his kidnapped former trainee and works to steal a device that... well, we don't really know what it does, but it's something about mass destruction that costs $850 million), but the action sequences, particularly one where Ethan faces down a helicopter on a bridge and gets flung hard against the side of a car, are particularly impressive since Cruise, at 44, is still doing most of his own stunts and shows no hint of the weathered look that's struck his action-star peers. (Though no Mission: Impossible stunt will ever be quite as simultaneously nail-biting and funny as the first film's wire-dangling break-in of CIA headquarters.)

Mission: Impossible III boasts a pedigreed cast, particularly Oscar® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) as baddie arms dealer Owen Davian. Hoffman plays Owen all teeth-clenched and cool, especially when threatening to kill Ethan in front of his lovely new wife (Michelle Monaghan) who has no idea of his spy life. But in his first action-film lead role, Hoffman's almost too calm and collected to really make a memorable villain, especially when the rest of the cast--Ving Rhames (the only other cast member to return for all three films), Asian film star Maggie Q, and an underused Jonathan Rhys-Meyers--are a highlight as Ethan's IMF team. Mission: Impossible is still fun popcorn spy fare, and if Cruise chooses to end the franchise here, at least he goes out on a high note. --Ellen A. Kim

North Dallas Forty

A very savvy, 1978 film directed by Ted Kotcheff (First Blood) dealing with the seamier side of professional football. Phillip Elliott and Maxwell (Nick Nolte and Mac Davis, respectively) are players for a Texas football team loosely based on the championship Dallas Cowboys. Though at the peak of his football career, Elliott is a personal and physical mess, needing all manner of drugs prescribed by the team physician to play and even to move around. The indifference of the team management and the hypocritical stance toward recreational drug use versus the drug abuse practiced by the players leads to a crisis of conscience for Nolte. The combination of Nolte's volatile presence and Davis's understated performance as the quarterback who thinks he's seen it all helps make North Dallas Forty one of the best sports films around. --Robert Lane

Mission - Impossible III (Full Screen Edition)

At the time of its release, Mission: Impossible III's box office was plagued by the publicity backlash against couch-jumping star Tom Cruise. It's too bad, because this third installment of the spy thriller franchise deserved a better reception than it got. First-time feature director J.J. Abrams (bigwig TV director/producer of Lost, Alias, & Felicity) proves more than able-bodied in creating a Mission: Impossible that's leaner and less over-stylized than John Woo's sequel and less confusing than Brian De Palma's original. Plot is still a throwaway here (Cruise's Ethan Hunt rescues his kidnapped former trainee and works to steal a device that... well, we don't really know what it does, but it's something about mass destruction that costs $850 million), but the action sequences, particularly one where Ethan faces down a helicopter on a bridge and gets flung hard against the side of a car, are particularly impressive since Cruise, at 44, is still doing most of his own stunts and shows no hint of the weathered look that's struck his action-star peers. (Though no Mission: Impossible stunt will ever be quite as simultaneously nail-biting and funny as the first film's wire-dangling break-in of CIA headquarters.)

Mission: Impossible III boasts a pedigreed cast, particularly Oscar® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) as baddie arms dealer Owen Davian. Hoffman plays Owen all teeth-clenched and cool, especially when threatening to kill Ethan in front of his lovely new wife (Michelle Monaghan) who has no idea of his spy life. But in his first action-film lead role, Hoffman's almost too calm and collected to really make a memorable villain, especially when the rest of the cast--Ving Rhames (the only other cast member to return for all three films), Asian film star Maggie Q, and an underused Jonathan Rhys-Meyers--are a highlight as Ethan's IMF team. Mission: Impossible is still fun popcorn spy fare, and if Cruise chooses to end the franchise here, at least he goes out on a high note. --Ellen A. Kim

Tom Cruise returns as Special Agent Ethan Hunt who faces the mission of his life in Mission: Impossible III." Director J. J. Abrams ("Lost" "Alias") brings his unique blend of action and drama to the billion-dollar franchise.System Requirements:Running Time: 125 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097361184548 Manufacturer No: 118454

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

Though Bob (Benjamin) Clark made his mark on Hollywood with films as diverse as Porky's and A Christmas Story, he began his career with this imaginative zombie tale. Alan Ormsby (who also wrote Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People and directed the cult horror film Deranged) penned the script and stars as Alan, a flamboyant theater director who brings his company--whom he condescendingly refers to as his "children"--to a rotting graveyard on a fogbound island. There he begins a ceremony to raise the dead, but it's all an elaborate practical joke, just another mind game by the would-be demagogue... or so he thinks. As Alan continues his midnight games of manipulation and degradation, it turns out the joke's on him as the graveyard rises to life. The acting, though amateurish, is energetic and delivered with gusto, and the awkward, theatrical dialogue becomes oddly appropriate (if somewhat stiff) in the affected presence of preening Alan. The often-slow extended introduction pays off in a carnage-riddled zombie blowout, like Night of the Living Dead compressed into a half-hour highlight reel. Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things is the work of ambitious beginners, but they deliver the goods when it counts with solid low-budget effects and a well-directed finale that turns the tense humor into unrelenting horror.

The DVD mastering is unaccountably sloppy: images jerk and intermittently slow down, the action hiccups, and in the second half red and blue flares rim the right side of the picture. --Sean Axmaker

The SET-UP: Five young kinky actors and their artistic director come to a desolate and nearly forgotten burial island, complete with a morbid history of MURDER, RAPE, CURSES and DEMONS. Alan (Alan Ormsby), the brilliant but bizarre Director of the company, has brought them to this foreboding place to dabble in witchcraft; specifically to dig up a fresh corpse and use it in a ritual ceremony which is supposed to raise the dead from their graves.The PAY-OFF: It seems as though Alan has really gathered his "children" here, only to play a practical joke on them and then to party the rest of the night away. However, the joke's on Alan. His bizarre ritual ceremony really does raise the dead from their graves...only they're in no mood to party! NOTE: "BENJAMIN" CLARK is really "BOB" CLARK, the creative director behind the hit films PORKY'S, BLACK CHRISTMAS and A CHRISTMAS STORY among others. ALAN ORMSBY, though he turned in what has been described as "...one of the most obnoxious screen performances in history!", has actually made a mark for himself as the screenwriter for such memorable films as MY BODYGUARD, CAT PEOPLE, KARATE KID 3 and PORKY'S 2. Bonus Features: Scene Selection| Original Theatrical Trailer| Photo Gallery| Actor Bios. Specs: DVD5; Dolby Digital Mono; 87 minutes; Color; 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - PG; Year - 1972; SRP - $9.99.

Deathdream

Mission Impossible III (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Tom Cruise returns as Special Agent Ethan Hunt who faces the mission of his life in Mission: Impossible III." Director J. J. Abrams ("Lost" "Alias") brings his unique blend of action and drama to the billion-dollar franchise.System Requirements:Running Time: 125 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097361184647 Manufacturer No: 118464

At the time of its release, Mission: Impossible III's box office was plagued by the publicity backlash against couch-jumping star Tom Cruise. It's too bad, because this third installment of the spy thriller franchise deserved a better reception than it got. First-time feature director J.J. Abrams (bigwig TV director/producer of Lost, Alias, & Felicity) proves more than able-bodied in creating a Mission: Impossible that's leaner and less over-stylized than John Woo's sequel and less confusing than Brian De Palma's original. Plot is still a throwaway here (Cruise's Ethan Hunt rescues his kidnapped former trainee and works to steal a device that... well, we don't really know what it does, but it's something about mass destruction that costs $850 million), but the action sequences, particularly one where Ethan faces down a helicopter on a bridge and gets flung hard against the side of a car, are particularly impressive since Cruise, at 44, is still doing most of his own stunts and shows no hint of the weathered look that's struck his action-star peers. (Though no Mission: Impossible stunt will ever be quite as simultaneously nail-biting and funny as the first film's wire-dangling break-in of CIA headquarters.)

Mission: Impossible III boasts a pedigreed cast, particularly Oscar® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) as baddie arms dealer Owen Davian. Hoffman plays Owen all teeth-clenched and cool, especially when threatening to kill Ethan in front of his lovely new wife (Michelle Monaghan) who has no idea of his spy life. But in his first action-film lead role, Hoffman's almost too calm and collected to really make a memorable villain, especially when the rest of the cast--Ving Rhames (the only other cast member to return for all three films), Asian film star Maggie Q, and an underused Jonathan Rhys-Meyers--are a highlight as Ethan's IMF team. Mission: Impossible is still fun popcorn spy fare, and if Cruise chooses to end the franchise here, at least he goes out on a high note. --Ellen A. Kim

And Then There Was One (True Stories Collection TV Movie)

Two people find themselves in the midst of the worst tragedy imaginable..the family is diagnosed with AIDS. No couple ever tried harder to have children than Roxy and Vinnie Ventola. For four years they endured test, injections and even a miscarriage. Then, Miranda, a beautiful baby girl, is born. Their daughter becomes the center of their lives. They balance their successful TV writing careers with the joy of spoiling her, but suddenly, Miranda becomes ill. While in the hospital, both of Miranda's lungs collapse. Roxy and Vinnie soon learn the truth - Miranda has AIDS. They, too have AIDS from the transfusion Roxy received after her miscarriage.The Ventolas begin their battle against this killer disease. The determination that brought Miranda to them now gives them the courage to fight, and there is more love between them than anyone will ever know.

Runaway Father

hard to find

Star [Region 2]