Dukes, David

The Winds of War

An engrossing, 1983 television miniseries based on a bestselling work of historical fiction by Herman Wouk, The Winds of War is an admirable production reminiscent of the era of Hollywood's epic features. At the center of the globe-trotting story is the Henry family, whose laconic but straight-shooting patriarch is United States Navy Commander Victor "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum), sent to Hitler's Berlin in the spring of 1939 as a naval attaché to the then-neutral American embassy. A keen observer, Pug deduces that Germany is not preparing for war on two fronts (western Europe on one side, Russia on the other) despite what the Nazis want the world to believe, meaning that Hitler must be working out a secret peace deal with Stalin. Pug's prescience makes him a favorite eyewitness in Berlin for Franklin D. Roosevelt (Ralph Bellamy); the irony is that Pug is far less sagacious when it comes to the realities of his family.

Polly Bergen plays unhappy wife Rhoda, who turns to A-bomb developer Palmer Kirby (Peter Graves) for comfort. Pug's 19-year-old daughter, Madeline (Lisa Eilbacher), defies her iron-willed dad's decision that she stay in school by taking a job for CBS radio in New York. Compliant son Warren (Ben Murphy) can't seem to get Pug's attention despite doing everything right (including becoming a Navy pilot, eventually present at the bombing of Pearl Harbor). By contrast, Pug spends more time fuming over black sheep son Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent), who is working in increasingly Fascist Italy as an assistant to an art historian (John Houseman) while trying hard to woo the latter's exasperating niece, Natalie (Ali MacGraw). The story of Byron and Natalie takes up much of The Winds of War as the pair traverse Poland during the shock of Hitler's 1939 assault, and Jewish Natalie later finds herself trapped inside Italy facing the threat of concentration camps. Before The Winds of War ends, each of these characters will end up in places and situations, and with historical figures (Churchill, Mussolini) as well as ordinary people, they would not have anticipated outside the pressures of war. The program's length and smart script allow for a lot of ideas and background detail that pull a viewer in--happily. --Tom Keogh

Last Stand At Saber River

Tom Selleck rides into Western adventure in grand gritty style as Paul Cable in Last Stand at Saber River from the novel Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty Out of SightRunning Time: 93 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. UPC: 053939676723

Tom Selleck shows a harder side of his persona as a disillusioned Confederate who returns home in the waning days of the Civil War in this adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel. His wife, Suzy Amis, isn't ready to forgive him for leaving his family behind for the "adventure" of war, and his children hardly remember him. Haunted by his actions in the war and caught in a power struggle in the Arizona territory, Selleck's soul-scarred survivor makes a last stand to protect the only thing left that matters to him--his homestead and his family. The film has its share of gunfights, showdowns, conspiracies, and Civil War rivalries, and even a runaway stagecoach, but its power lies in the somber exploration of how misunderstandings and conflicts tear at a marriage during such a volatile time, when ideals are set against duty to family. Director Dick Lowry's lean style makes the most of the gorgeous landscapes, and he creates a strong dramatic tension in the bubbling undercurrent between Selleck, who leaves behind the jovial character of his Louis L'Amour Westerns for a man hardened and embittered by war, and Amis, an excellent actress who brings to life a woman who shoots, speaks her mind, and harbors resentment just as well as any brooding male hero. Keith and David Carradine costar as Union wranglers who hold a grudge against the Confederate veteran. One of the most mature TV Westerns ever made. --Sean Axmaker

And the Band Played On

Based on the bestselling book by Randy Shilts this powerful and enlightening movie tells of the discovery of the disease we now know as AIDS. An unforgettable tale of scientific struggle corruption deceit tragedy and triumph.Running Time: 141 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359096228 Manufacturer No: 90962

A superior, made-for-cable film, this Home Box Office adaptation of Randy Shilts's chronicle detailing the emergence of AIDS in America and the fight against bureaucracy and society for a cure is a taut, outrageous, and affecting true-life drama. Matthew Modine (Birdy, Married to the Mob) is featured as a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control at the time when the first reports of a disease plaguing the gay community were heard. Modine and his colleagues embark on an investigation that resembles a compelling detective story as they try to track the source of the disease and discover a cure. Their efforts are thwarted by an ambivalent government and a turf war between French physicians and a celebrated American researcher (Alan Alda) who seems to place his own glory above the dead and the dying. Featuring heartfelt performances from a stellar cast including Richard Gere, Glenne Headly, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin, Ian McKellen, Saul Rubinek, and Lily Tomlin, this impassioned film stands as an impressive and important document of one of the darkest eras in modern human history, and a tribute to the spirit of those who sought to save lives. --Robert Lane

Rose Red

On regular television, punctuated by frenetic commercials, the leisurely pace of the horror miniseries Rose Red probably felt grueling; but on its own terms, the effect is like settling into a long book full of detail--a book not unlike those of Stephen King, who wrote the script. The story (about a researcher into the paranormal who takes a team of psychics into a haunted house) recycles themes that King has used before--a telekinetic girl, a house with its own consciousness--but for his fans, the familiarity is probably comfortable and even enjoyable. The cast (including Nancy Travis, Julian Sands, and Melanie Lynsky from Heavenly Creatures) give committed performances, and the special effects are television-grade but used pretty well. Most of it doesn't make much sense, but at its best Rose Red is absurd and creepy at the same time. --Bret Fetzer

War & Remembrance - Vol. 2, The Final Chapter: Parts 8 - 12

The second half of this massive miniseries covers events from the last two years of World War II with members of our fictitious family--the Henrys--scattered throughout the world. Pariah "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) visits Russia and England as an advisor--and proposes to his much-younger lover, Pamela (Victoria Tennant)--before retuning to the Pacific theater to join his son Byron (Hart Bochner), a submariner, in battling the Japanese. Meanwhile, Byron's wife, Natalie (Jane Seymour), and her uncle (John Gielgud) continue their harrowing plight, starting in the "Paradise Ghetto" and leading to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

This half--11.5 hours--aired on ABC in May 1989, six months after the first half. Unfortunately there is no kinetic battle sequence like the first half's Midway clash to absorb the viewer. Director Dan Curtis relies more on newsreel footage (and the sometimes heavy-handedness of narrator William Woodson) to cover large events. To compensate, the filmmakers give inordinate screen time to the conspiracy to kill Hitler (Steven Berkoff) by his inner circle. Like in Herman Wouk's novel, Hitler's decision to eliminate the Jews is the backbone of the entire series and the film's steely reenactments of these events--an amazing achievement for network television--is quite harrowing. Authenticity (filming at Auschwitz) plus ace performances (Seymour has been rarely better, Gielgud is outstanding) combine for a powerful statement, although the whole production is sometimes weighed down by the soap-opera elements of the Henrys' lives. The original Winds of War miniseries had a higher caliber cast, which is missed here. However, a few actors shine in their atypical performances, including Barry Bostwick (who tied with Gielgud for the Golden Globe) as a flamboyant submariner and David Dukes as a desk side attaché who reaches new depths in the war. Although admired and very watchable, the series did not impact the industry as much as its predecessor or sweep the award circuit as other miniseries (Roots, Holocaust, etc.) did, although it did take home the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries.

The 7-DVD set contains an informative booklet, a CD soundtrack, and a disc of extras. Dan Curtis makes comments over 70 select minutes of the series (shown out of context), hitting the highlights of filming, a nice way of letting the filmmaker talk without searching for the commentary throughout the various discs. There's a new 30-minute feature combining new and old footage on the making of this massive production, and a 15-minute featurette on composer Bob Cobert. --Doug Thomas

War and Remembrance - Volume 1 - Parts 1-7

The ambitious TV event War and Remembrance was the final opus in the golden age of the maxi-miniseries. This six-disc set offers the first half (seven episodes) of ABC's mammoth 30-hour production of Herman Wouk's bestseller--itself a sequel to the landmark Winds of War--mixing fictional and real characters around the events of World War II. It starts a week after the attack on Pearl Harbor and abruptly stops in July 1943 with the fall of Mussolini. Only half of the first series' lead actors return, including Robert Mitchum as the patriarch Captain "Pug" Henry. Although Mitchum is too old and less dashing than he should be, his presence is exactly what the series needs as it wavers between pop entertainment and a graphic look at the atrocities of war. The series' multiple storylines branch from the Henry family tree, from his sons' naval battles to his daughter-in-law's (Jane Seymour) harrowing flight through Europe with her famous father (John Gielgud), witnessing firsthand the collapse of European Jewish life in the grip of Nazi power.

Director Dan Curtis said that after The Winds of War, the opportunity to show the Jews' plight led him to take on another daunting production. He takes the viewer into Auschwitz with unflinching realism (producer and former internee Branko Lustig returned to the subject a decade later with Schindler's List) and is just as deft with a few massive battle sequences combining models with colorized footage. Sometimes the soap opera of the characters' affairs seems pretty sappy, especially with some uneven acting. The DVD set also contains two featurettes from 1988 and 2002. --Doug Thomas

Date With an Angel

A Little Romance

Sandwiched between Slap Shot and The World According to Garp, George Roy Hill made this effervescent film about first love. A sharp American girl (Diane Lane, in her debut) and a film-loving Parisian boy (Thelonious Bernard, in his only film) fall innocently in love. When the girl's zealous mother (Sally Kellerman) goes ballistic, the young couple fall under the spell of a curious gentleman (none other than Laurence Olivier), who plants the seed to make their love last forever: to kiss under a Venetian bridge at sunset. As the love story becomes an adventure with the young lovers crossing France and Italy, Allan Burns's Oscar-nominated script and Hill's deft touch turn this into a romance for the ages and a movie to smile about. George Delerue's Oscar-winning score and the picturesque European scenery don't hurt either. Ages 7 and older. --Doug Thomas

An American teenager living in Paris meets and falls in love with a French teenager. Encouraged by an old con man, the two decide to elope.

Without a Trace

This is every parent's nightmare: Your kid goes off to school one morning--and never comes back. Based on the case of young New Yorker Etan Patz, who disappeared in the early 1980s, this film casts Kate Nelligan as the distraught mother who lashes out at the police (in the person of a relentless detective played by Judd Hirsch), who make her and her husband suspects, even as she hounds them to find her child and drives away her husband (David Dukes) and friends (including Stockard Channing) with her intensity and single-mindedness. The first film by producer Stanley Jaffe, all of the goodwill he earns two-thirds of the way through is squandered on a Hollywood ending that doesn't square with the real case: Etan Patz was never found. --Marshall Fine

One morning, six-year-old Alex Selky got dressed, waved goodbye to his mother and set off for school. Somewhere along the short two-block walk, he disappeared. Now for his mom Susan (Oscar®-nominee Kate Nelligan of THE PRINCE OF TIDES - 1992 in a performance The Los Angeles Times hails as "superb"), life becomes a sudden nightmare of police and reporters, panic and suspicion, despair and fear. But as the hours become days and months, can Susan convince her friends, her estranged ex-husband (David Dukes), the media, and the overworked detective in charge of the case (Oscar®-nominee Judd Hirsch of ORDINARY PEOPLE - 1981, and A BEAUTIFUL MIND) that a mother's hope must somehow survive? Stockard Channing of THE WEST WING co-stars in this stunning drama about a woman who refuses to give up her fight to find the truth - no matter how heartbreaking - behind how her only child could vanish WITHOUT A TRACE.

Gods and Monsters

Ian McKellen delivers a riveting award-winning performance as Hollywood horror director James Whale. It's 1957 and Whale's heyday as the director of Frankenstein Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man is long behind him. Retired andia semi-recluse he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When his dour housekeeper Hannah (Lynn Redgrave) hires a handsome young gardener Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser) the flamboyant director and simple yard man develop an unlikely friendship. This powerful and poignant relationship will change their lives forever.System Requirements:Starring Brendan Fraser Ian McKellen Lolita Davidovich Lynn Redgrave Directed by Bill Condon Running time: 105 minutes Copyright Lion's Gate 2003Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 031398833222 Manufacturer No: 71872

One of the most critically acclaimed films of 1998 and winner of several awards including the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Gods and Monsters is a compassionate speculation about the final days of James Whale (1889-1957), the director of Frankenstein and 20 other films of the 1930s and '40s, who was openly gay at a time when homosexuality in Hollywood was discreetly concealed. Adapted and directed by Bill Condon from Christopher Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, the film stars Ian McKellen in a sublime performance as the white-haired Whale, who is portrayed as a dapper gent and amateur artist prompted by failing health into melancholy remembrance of things past. Flashbacks of lost love, World War I battle trauma, and glory days in Hollywood combine with Whale's present-day attraction to a newly hired yard worker (Brendan Fraser) whose hunky, Frankenstein-like physique makes him an ideal model for Whale's fixated sketching.

The friendship between the handsome gardener and his elderly gay admirer is by turns tenuous, humorous, mutually beneficial, and ultimately rather sad--but to Condon's credit Whale is never seen as pathetic, lecherous, or senile. Equally rich is the rapport between Whale and his long-time housekeeper (played with wry sarcasm by Lynn Redgrave), who serves as protector, mother, and even surrogate spouse while Whale's mental state deteriorates. Flashbacks to Whale's filmmaking days are painstakingly authentic (particularly in the casting of look-alike actors playing Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester), and all of these ingredients combine to make Gods and Monsters (executive produced by horror novelist-filmmaker Clive Barker) a touchingly affectionate film that succeeds on many levels. It is at once a keen glimpse of Hollywood's past, a loving tribute to James Whale, and a richly moving, delicately balanced drama about loneliness, memory, and the passions that keep us alive. --Jeff Shannon