Enberg, Alexander

Gia (Unrated Edition)

It's late 70's New York. Studio 54 designer jeans drugs and disco. This is the outrageous breathtaking story of the first fashion super-model - her rise to the top and her fall caught up in a whirlwind of drugs sex and celebrity.Running Time: 126 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359154027

There's a reason why Cindy Crawford was dubbed "Baby Gia" when she first hit the modeling scene. Indeed, Crawford, now the world's best-known supermodel, greatly resembled model Gia Carangi, who went from high school to the cover of British Vogue in less than two years. Carangi appeared on many more covers of Vogue (French, British, Italian, and American) and Cosmopolitan before dying of complications from AIDs (she was an IV heroin user) in 1986. Now most people recognize Carangi's name from this powerful HBO film that stars Golden Globe-winner Angelina Jolie, who comes by her talent honestly. Jolie is the daughter of veteran actor Jon Voight, and her own training as a model serves her well--she has the moves. Throughout, she's heartbreaking--as no doubt the real Carangi was--effective, and stunning.

With good source material (Stephen Fried's A Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia), Jolie's stunning performance, and strong directing by Michael Cristofer, the movie goes beyond the merely sensational. The script was cowritten by Cristofer and novelist Jay McInerney, whose Bright Lights, Big City covers similar territory. As a cautionary tale, Gia works. But to watch Jolie in her character's tragic self-destruction is utterly compelling. --N.F. Mendoza

Pump up the Volume

In the suburban hinterlands of Arizona, pirate-radio DJ Hard Harry wages a one-man war against boredom from his bedroom transmitter by night. In between great Lenny Bruce-style stream-of-consciousness rants, Harry attacks the airwaves with the likes of the Descendents, Bad Brains, and Concrete Blonde, as well as occasionally kickin' it old school with some early hip-hop. By day, though, Hard Harry is Mark Hunter, a painfully shy new kid who's anonymous to the point of being invisible at Hubert Humphrey High School. Completely misunderstood by his '60s-era parents, Mark is desperate to keep his radio alter ego separate from his day-to-day persona, especially as his radio shows draw more attention from the authorities. Fellow misfit Nora (Samantha Mathis, in her first feature role) eventually discovers Hard Harry's true identity, much to Mark's chagrin, and the two of them become torchbearers against the stifling status quo of the town as they dodge the police, the school administration, and the FCC. There are familiar high school authority archetypes (the assistant principal with clip-on tie, lemon-yellow K-Mart short-sleeved dress shirt, military flattop, and bulky key ring) and a rather strained subplot of a corrupt school administration. Mainly, though, this is a rousing teen call-to-arms that showcases Slater's talents as he developed the cynical, sarcastic neo-Jack Nicholson delivery that would become his trademark. He's at his best during his radio monologues (making them truly seem ad-libbed), and his influences become clear as he checks out a copy of How to Talk Dirty and Influence People from the library. --Jerry Renshaw

A shy teen turns on the high school crowd when he broadcasts outrageous nightly monologues on a pirate radio station. Starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.

America's Sweethearts

America's Sweethearts is just the kind of romantic froth that makes for pleasant viewing on a lazy, rainy day. While Julia Roberts, John Cusack, and Catherine Zeta-Jones offer high-wattage marquee value, costar and cowriter Billy Crystal reworks Singin' in the Rain for latter-day Hollywood, where estranged superstars Gwen (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie (Cusack) reluctantly promote their latest movie by pretending their messily disputed relationship is still going strong. The studio chief (Stanley Tucci) is desperate for a hit, so he hires a seasoned publicist (Crystal) to orchestrate a press junket that will cast everyone in a profitable light. The catch: The director (Christopher Walken) has abducted his own film in an act of artistic extortion, and Gwen's sister and longtime assistant Kiki (Roberts) is the true object of Eddie's desire.

Chaos ensues at the luxury hotel where the junket is scheduled, and America's Sweethearts pokes easy fun at the cynical machinery that keeps Hollywood running. Quotable quips are delivered in abundance, and while Zeta-Jones is readily convincing as a bitchy narcissist, Roberts effortlessly steals the show with her trademark charms. All of which makes America's Sweethearts lightly entertaining, even though it never rises (like Roberts's earlier Notting Hill) to the level of classic romantic comedy, hampered by a script that too often substitutes easy laughs for ripe satirical invention, flashing a phony grin when it should be baring its fangs. --Jeff Shannon

Gia

There's a reason why Cindy Crawford was dubbed "Baby Gia" when she first hit the modeling scene. Indeed, Crawford, now the world's best-known supermodel, greatly resembled model Gia Carangi, who went from high school to the cover of British Vogue in less than two years. Carangi appeared on many more covers of Vogue (French, British, Italian, and American) and Cosmopolitan before dying of complications from AIDs (she was an IV heroin user) in 1986. Now most people recognize Carangi's name from this powerful HBO film that stars Golden Globe-winner Angelina Jolie, who comes by her talent honestly. Jolie is the daughter of veteran actor Jon Voight, and her own training as a model serves her well--she has the moves. Throughout, she's heartbreaking--as no doubt the real Carangi was--effective, and stunning.

With good source material (Stephen Fried's A Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia), Jolie's stunning performance, and strong directing by Michael Cristofer, the movie goes beyond the merely sensational. The script was cowritten by Cristofer and novelist Jay McInerney, whose Bright Lights, Big City covers similar territory. As a cautionary tale, Gia works. But to watch Jolie in her character's tragic self-destruction is utterly compelling. --N.F. Mendoza

Junior

Arnold Schwarzenegger as a pregnant man? The Terminator with cramps and morning sickness? That was all the teasing audiences needed to flock to this 1994 farce, which reunited Arnold with his director and costar from Twins, Ivan Reitman and Danny De Vito. Reitman had also directed the Austrian muscleman in Kindergarten Cop, and they brought the same breezy quality of those earlier films to this enjoyable fluff, in which Arnold plays a scientist who uses his own body to test a revolutionary new fertility drug. His colleague De Vito talks him into the experiment, which succeeds beyond their wildest expectations when Arnold begins a full-term pregnancy. Emma Thompson offers a wealth of comedic support as the biologist who moves into Schwarzenegger's lab while he's coping with his "maternal" condition, and Pamela Reed (who was also in Kindergarten Cop) adds to the fun as De Vito's pregnant ex-wife. What's surprising about this mainstream hit is not that it makes the most of its absurd premise, but that it's also sweetly heartwarming in its treatment of role reversal and the joys and pains of pregnancy. It's a good-natured vehicle for a different side of Schwarzenegger's star appeal, and the fact that it works at all is a tribute to Reitman and his cleverly talented cast. --Jeff Shannon

Air Panic

From a secret location, a psychotic computer genius named Cain carries out a personal crusade of distruction. With a group of innocent people in Cain's site, a brilliant federal agent sets out to bring him down. Unfortunately, time is running out.

Air Panic

Air Panic

Junior [Region 2]

Arnold Schwarzenegger as a pregnant man? The Terminator with cramps and morning sickness? That was all the teasing audiences needed to flock to this 1994 farce, which reunited Arnold with his director and costar from Twins, Ivan Reitman and Danny De Vito. Reitman had also directed the Austrian muscleman in Kindergarten Cop, and they brought the same breezy quality of those earlier films to this enjoyable fluff, in which Arnold plays a scientist who uses his own body to test a revolutionary new fertility drug. His colleague De Vito talks him into the experiment, which succeeds beyond their wildest expectations when Arnold begins a full-term pregnancy. Emma Thompson offers a wealth of comedic support as the biologist who moves into Schwarzenegger's lab while he's coping with his "maternal" condition, and Pamela Reed (who was also in Kindergarten Cop) adds to the fun as De Vito's pregnant ex-wife. What's surprising about this mainstream hit is not that it makes the most of its absurd premise, but that it's also sweetly heartwarming in its treatment of role reversal and the joys and pains of pregnancy. It's a good-natured vehicle for a different side of Schwarzenegger's star appeal, and the fact that it works at all is a tribute to Reitman and his cleverly talented cast. --Jeff Shannon

Last Gasp [Region 2]