Dushku, Eliza

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Dimension Collector's Series)

The comic characters \""Bluntman and Chronic\"" are based on real life stoners Jay and Silent Bob; when they see no profit from the motion picture adaptation of the comic, they set out to ruin the film.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 5-AUG-2003
Media Type: DVD

With sidesplitting dialogue and rampant profanity, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back reunites Kevin Smith's dynamic duo in supreme lowbrow style. It's the fifth comedy in Smith's celebrated New Jersey "trilogy." Here Quick-Stop potheads Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) wreak vengeance on Hollywood, where Miramax is making a "Bluntman & Chronic" feature inspired by J. and S.B., but without their permission. En route from Jersey to La La Land, Jay and his "hetero life mate" encounter sexy jewel thieves (including the delightful Shannon Elizabeth), a precocious orangutan, a dimwit wildlife marshal (Will Ferrell), and a nonstop parade of in-jokes, harmless (yet controversial) gay jokes, and splendid celebrity cameos. While gently biting the Miramax hand that feeds him, and paying affectionate homage to the Star Wars saga, Smith sheds all inhibitions to give Jay and Silent Bob a stellar sendoff that's nasty, sassy, and undeniably hilarious. --Jeff Shannon

Bring It On (Widescreen Collector's Edition)

Sunny, happy Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) is the new leader of the Toros, the cheerleading squad of Rancho Carne, an affluent San Diego high school that has lousy football players but one hell of a cheerleading team. National champions, they're the ones who bring in the bodies to the football games with their award-winning moves and sassy grace, and they're poised to take their sixth national cheer title. Torrance's new reign as cheer queen, though, is cut short when she discovers that her snotty, duplicitous forerunner was regularly stealing routines from the East Compton Clovers, the hip-hop influenced cheerleaders of a poor inner city school, and passing them off as the original work of the Toros. Scrambling to come up with a new routine for the Toros--and do the right thing by giving the Clovers their due--Torrance butts heads with the proud and understandably wary Isis (Gabrielle Union), the leader of the Clovers, who wants nothing to do with a rich blond white girl, but does want to get her squad to the championships. Problem is, only one team can take home the national title. Who's it gonna be?

An unexpected box-office hit in the late summer of 2000, Bring It On is a smart, snappy teen comedy that bristles with good cheer (literally) and lively, down-to-earth characters. The story may be fairly predictable (who's going to win the big championship?), but director Peyton Reed and screenwriter Jessica Bendinger have fleshed out their characters with formidable strength and provided them with sharp dialogue. Dunst is a radiant comedian, projecting warmth, determination, sincerity, and a sublime airheadedness, and Union is an impressive dancer and counterpart to Dunst, matching her admirably despite her limited onscreen time. An excellent young supporting cast rounds out the film, most notably Eliza Dushku (Faith of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Jesse Bradford (Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill) as siblings new to Rancho Carne, who become Torrance's best friend and potential new boyfriend, respectively. All in all, a pleasantly surprising and intelligent teen movie. Don't miss the opening sequence, a hilarious send-up of all those high school cheerleading routines you had to sit through at boring pep rallies. --Mark Englehart

True Lies

Arnold Schwarzenegger is special agent Harry Tasker a top spy in the ultra-secret Omega Sector who also dances a mean tango- although to his neglected wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) he's just a dull computer salesman. But while Harry's been busy fighting terrorists Helen's been gathering secrets of her own. And when their two secret lives unexpectedly collide Harry and Helen find themselves in the clutches of international terrorists fighting to save not only their marriage but their lives as well. Packed with non-stop action spectacular special effects and unprecedented stunts this "domestic epic" from director James Cameron (Titanic Terminator 2: Judgment Day) is a rollicking 90's twist on the super spy genre.System Requirements:Running Time: 150 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 086162162688 Manufacturer No: 4116268

Wrong Turn

Sultry Eliza Dushku runs for her life in a snug white tanktop, pursued by inbred backwoods cannibals in Wrong Turn. Dushku (Bring It On, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and a clump of other attractive young people (including Six Feet Under's Jeremy Sisto and Desmond Harrington of We Were Soldiers) get waylaid in the deep West Virginia wilds by a trio of grotesque mountain men, all given realistic ugliness by makeup artist Stan Winston (Interview with the Vampire, Terminator 2). Wrong Turn is the sort of movie where you know who's going to die by the order they appear in the credits, but fans of the inbred backwoods cannibals genre (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes) will find much to savor, particularly the scene in which Dushku and Harrington are trapped under a squalid bed while the inbred backwoods cannibals prepare one of their friends for dinner. Grisly. --Bret Fetzer

An indescribable nightmare begins when a group of young friends is stranded on an isolated road deep in the Appalachian hills of West Virginia, with no hope of rescue. Desperate and fearing for their lives, the horror surges as they find themselves relentlessly pursued by a force of evil beyond their imagination! Featuring a hip ensemble of up-and-coming young stars, this blood-curdling epic is a shock-a-minute horror rush that will leave you screaming for more!

This Boy's Life

For Toby Wolff and his divorced mom Caroline 1950s life wasn't all fun and games. These two free spirits and cross-country travelers settle in the Pacific Northwest where life will be better. They hope. This Boy's Life the Wolffs' true story "is every boy's life" the Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan wrote. The dynamic teaming of Robert DeNiro (Analyze This Meet the Parents) Ellen Barkin (The Big Easy Sea of Love) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic Gangs of New York) sparks this funny touching slice-of-life drama that pits rebellious teen Toby (DiCaprio) against his tyrannical new stepfather Dwight (DeNiro). Directed by Michael Caton-Jones (Memphis Belle City by the Sea) This Boy's Life is one to remember.Running Time: 115 min.System Requirements:Running Time 115 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 085392461929

Robert De Niro gets top billing, but young Leonardo DiCaprio is the revelation of This Boy's Life, an astute, often painful drama of growing up in the 1950s Pacific Northwest, based on the autobiographical novel by Tobias Woolf. DiCaprio plays Tobias, a good kid with a bad boy streak but an unwavering love for his divorced mother (Ellen Barkin). "I want to be a better boy," he promises from under a greasy pompadour, and tries to prove it when she marries single father Dwight (DeNiro), a bully who parents through intimidation and humiliation. DiCaprio is magnetic in his first starring role, full of anger, hope, and confusion as he drifts back to juvenile delinquency, and his intensity gives the true story of survival and triumph its charge. DeNiro is frightening and pathetic as Dwight, and Dwight's youngest daughter is played by future star and vampire slayer Eliza Dushku. --Sean Axmaker

True Lies

From The Terminator to Titanic, you can always rely on writer-director James Cameron to show you something you've never seen on the big screen before. The guy may not consistently pen the most scintillating dialogue in the world (and, especially in this movie, he doesn't seem to have a particularly high regard for women), but as a director of kinetic, push-the-envelope action sequences, he is in a class by himself. In True Lies, the highlight is a breathtaking third-act jet and car chase through the Florida Keys. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a covert intelligence agent whose wife of 15 years (Jamie Lee Curtis) finally finds out that he's not really a computer salesman and who becomes mixed up in a case involving nuclear arms smuggling. Tom Arnold is surprisingly funny and engaging as Schwarzenegger's longtime spy partner, and Bill Paxton is a smarmy used-car salesman (is that redundant?) whom Arnold thinks is having an affair with his wife. Purely in terms of spectacular action and high-tech hardware, True Lies is a blast. --Jim Emerson

A man whose wife believes him to be a boring computer salesman is in reality a secret agent.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 26-AUG-2003
Media Type: DVD

Bye, Bye Love

Ah, the sensitive male of the 1990s. He's nowhere to be found in this wan comedy about three divorced dads and the weekend each spends with his kids. It opens with the ritual of the divorced: mothers handing off kids to dads in neutral territory, the local McDonald's. Then the three buddies at the center of this film (Paul Reiser, Randy Quaid, and Matthew Modine) go their separate ways. Reiser is looking for a way to win his ex-wife back (and comes across as a hangdog drip); Modine is the group's womanizer who chases a variety of females, while seemingly ignoring his kid. Quaid has the film's only comedically fruitful role as the group's most cynical member who goes on the world's worst blind date with the hilariously off-the-wall Janeane Garofalo. Harmless, occasionally funny, but unremarkable. --Marshall Fine

Sex and Breakfast

James (Macaulay Culkin) and Heather (Alexis Dziena) along with Ellis (Kuno Becker) and Renee (Eliza Dushku) are two twenty-something couples whose lives are intertwined as they experiment with group sex as a way to sort out the rudiments of a successful relationship - sex love and communication. After a series of mishaps fueled by jealousy confusion and insecurities; they soon find that true love and lasting relationships (at their core) are ultimately about more than sex and breakfast.System Requirements:Running Time: 82 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/ROMANTIC COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 687797121790 Manufacturer No: FLP-12179

The New Guy

Aimed at teens with numb senses of humor, The New Guy earns its chuckles mostly by accident. Most of the comedy is DOA, although the cast--especially DJ Qualls in the title role--possesses a modicum of scrappy charm. DJ plays a "blip" on his high school's social radar, briefly jailed for chronic misbehavior and mentored in coolness by a fellow inmate (Eddie Griffin), who becomes the funky "new guy" at a new school, where he's worshipped as a mysterious hipster and attracts the hottest cheerleader (Eliza Dushku). Directed without a shred of inspiration (by a cowriter of There's Something About Mary) and looking like a drab 16-millimeter industrial film, the movie would be a waste of time were it not for its abiding cheerfulness, rock-star cameos (Henry Rollins, Gene Simmons, Tommy Lee), Lyle Lovett as DJ's dad, and a fresh cast that almost makes this lowbrow mess worthwhile. --Jeff Shannon

The New Guy (Director's Cut)

Aimed at teens with numb senses of humor, The New Guy earns its chuckles mostly by accident. Most of the comedy is DOA, although the cast--especially DJ Qualls in the title role--possesses a modicum of scrappy charm. DJ plays a "blip" on his high school's social radar, briefly jailed for chronic misbehavior and mentored in coolness by a fellow inmate (Eddie Griffin), who becomes the funky "new guy" at a new school, where he's worshipped as a mysterious hipster and attracts the hottest cheerleader (Eliza Dushku). Directed without a shred of inspiration (by a cowriter of There's Something About Mary) and looking like a drab 16-millimeter industrial film, the movie would be a waste of time were it not for its abiding cheerfulness, rock-star cameos (Henry Rollins, Gene Simmons, Tommy Lee), Lyle Lovett as DJ's dad, and a fresh cast that almost makes this lowbrow mess worthwhile. --Jeff Shannon