Erwin, Bill

Somewhere in Time (Collector's Edition)

A young writer sacrifices his life in the present to find happiness with a beautiful woman in the past.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: REEVE/SEYMOUR
Title: SOMEWHERE IN TIME
Street Release Date: 01/07/2003
Domestic
Genre: DRAMA

It's silly, it's superficial, it's so desperately earnest about its tale of time-spanning love that you almost wish for a cheap flatulence gag just to break the solemn mood. But there's something so unabashedly gushy and entertaining about Somewhere in Time that you can't begrudge its enduring popularity. The film has become a staple of romantic-movie lovers since its release in 1980, and endless showings on cable TV have turned it into a dubious classic of sorts--a three-hanky weeper that anyone can enjoy as a guilty pleasure or a beloved favorite, with no apologies necessary.

In his first film after the star-making success of Superman, Christopher Reeve stars as a contemporary playwright who visits a posh hotel and sees the portrait of an actress (Jane Seymour) who had performed there in 1912. He becomes obsessed with this beautiful woman and learns all he can about her, and then discovers a method of hypnotically transporting himself backward in time to meet her. "Is it ... you?" she says upon seeing the lovestruck playwright, and it's clearly a mutual attraction. But even the slightest reminder of the playwright's modern time can jar him from his seemingly real existence in the past, so his wonderful love affair is constantly just a step from being stolen away.

Based on Richard Matheson's novel Bid Time Return, this flaky film may strain one's tolerance for plot holes and corny romance, but it's hard to deny its lasting appeal--and let's face it, guys, it'll make wives and girlfriends swoon if they're in a tearjerker mood. --Jeff Shannon

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Given the presence of both Steve Martin and John Candy, one would expect this John Hughes comedy to be much, much funnier than it is. Certainly it's not for lack of effort on the part of its stars. Martin is an uptight businessman trying to get home from New York for the holidays. But one thing after another gets in his way--most of it having to do with Candy, a boorish but well-meaning boob who takes a liking to him. Together they travel all over the map; no matter how hard Martin tries to shake him, he can't. But Hughes's writing is never as sharp as it should be and this film winds up being only intermittently humorous. --Marshall Fine

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-JAN-2002
Media Type: DVD

The Land Before Time (Anniversary Edition)

This 1988 animated feature from Don Bluth (An American Tail) focuses on an orphaned young dinosaur, Littlefoot, who has to make his way to the paradise of the Great Valley in order to survive a plague. Along the way, he meets up with some other dinos from different species, and they all bond and travel together. On the way, they have plenty of adventures. Even with elements of suspense, this is a pretty relaxed movie that isn't in a particular hurry to roll out its story. Kids will like the originality of the concept, and the themes of friendship and cooperation are well woven into the fabric of the entertainment, plus the music is great. Bluth's artwork looks good, though--as always--he never seems to quite catch up with the quality of the Disney machine. --Tom Keogh

Dennis the Menace (Special Edition)

The Hank Ketcham comic strip about a mischievous boy named Dennis Mitchell (Mason Gamble) becomes a film directed by Nick Castle (The Last Starfighter) based on a weak script by John Hughes (The Breakfast Club). Gamble is fine and Walter Matthau is persuasive as the grouchy neighbor Mr. Wilson, but Hughes spoils everything by throwing in a formulaic subplot about a criminal (Christopher Lloyd) who doesn't know what he's getting into by abducting Dennis. Been there, done that. --Tom Keogh

Hank Ketcham's popular comic-strip kid comes to uproarious screen life in Dennis the Menace, from writer/producer John Hughes, the creative force behind the family mega-hits Home Alone and Beethoven. Young Mason Gamble is all-boy, all-menace, all-Dennis right down to his slingshot and dog, Ruff.

DVD Features:
Challenges:Dennis's Tin Can Challenge
DVD ROM Features:Garbage Contraption game
Featurette:Behind-the-scenes featurette
Interactive Menus
Interviews:Memories of a Menace, a 10th anniversary visit with Mason Gamble; conversations with Walter Matthau and John Hughes
Scene Access
TV Special:Original network special "A Menace Named Dennis"
Theatrical Trailer:Trailers of this and the sequel "Dennis the Menace Strikes Again"

She's Having a Baby

A very young couple find their dreams of a perfect life in a perfect house have turned into the traditional marital nightmares, further complicated by the news of an impending addition to the family.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 13-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD

Having delved repeatedly into the world of teenage joys and sorrows, from Sixteen Candles to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, writer-director John Hughes took a step into adulthood (or some facsimile of it) with She's Having a Baby. Peppered with whimsical asides and busy voice-over observations, the movie is shamelessly fun to watch, even if it doesn't add up to anything especially profound. Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern are newlyweds struggling through the tribulations of a youthful marriage. Along with the usual uncertainties, Bacon is sacrificing his dreams of becoming a writer to work in an ad agency, and his best supposed pal (Alec Baldwin, just before stardom) tries to seduce his wife. Hughes may have been reflecting on his own past job in advertising, and maybe that explains why the movie plays like a superficial, if entertaining, TV commercial. --Robert Horton

Frank Sinatra - The Early Years Collection (It Happened in Brooklyn / Step Lively / The Kissing Bandit / Double Dynamite / Higher and Higher)

Includes Double Dynamite It Happened in Brooklyn Step Lively Higher and Higher and The Kissing Bandit.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883929011520 Manufacturer No: 1000037360

The young, skinny Frank Sinatra was a big-band singer and the heartthrob of the bobby-soxers when he launched his movie career--a moment in time memorably captured by Frank Sinatra: The Early Years Collection. Five movies take the gangly kid from Hoboken through his hesitant first forays into the Hollywood game; everything here is in the minor-but-tuneful category, before he re-launched his career with From Here to Eternity. It's a fun set for Sinatra fans, not so essential for the casual viewer (and no extra features for vintage-movie mavens). Frankie's first feature, in 1943, was Higher and Higher, in which he plays--hmm--a young singer named Frank Sinatra. All right, it's not much of a stretch, but the kid fits quite comfortably into a madcap ensemble that includes Jack Haley, Mary Wickes, Dooley Wilson, and a youthful (practically unformed) Mel Torme. This is the kind of wacky universe in which a scullery maid has a French accent (it's Michele Morgan) and a British nobleman has a Danish accent (it's piano comedian Victor Borge). The film is completely insane, but fun. Step Lively (1944) has the same director, Tim Whelan, and a similarly over-heated farce in play: a theatrical producer (obnoxious George Murphy) tries to whip together a show while dodging hotel managers (Adolphe Menjou, deadpan Walter Slezak). Frankie's in there as a playwright who also sings. It's a version of the Broadway play that also served the Marx Brothers in Room Service, but the whole thing is really too labored to pay off. It Happened in Brooklyn (1947) doesn't offer much in the way of substance (Sinatra is a WWII vet returning to his beloved, but now less friendly, Brooklyn), but at least Frank is teamed with Jimmy Durante. Oh, and Kathryn Grayson and Gloria Grahame are in there too, even if the real love match is Sinatra and Durante singing together. Tunes are by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, including "Time After Time."

1948's The Kissing Bandit became for Sinatra what The Silver Chalice would be for Paul Newman: a source of self-mockery in later years. A truly bizarre concoction about the son of a Zorro-like bandit settling in Boston, the film has one specialty number featuring Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, and Ricardo Montalban, and a lot of filler. Sinatra's career was sliding by the time Double Dynamite (1951) was released, and the movie did little to help. Frankie's a poor bank clerk who scores on a horse-racing bet but can't prove he didn't actually rob the bank. It isn't great, although Groucho Marx at least has one of his better solo roles, while Jane Russell is stuck in a dizzy-dame part (rather than her preferred sassy mode). For Sinatra, career resurgence would have to wait a while--this box set gives you the superstar-in-waiting. --Robert Horton

Desert Heat

International star and martial arts master Jean-Claude Van Damme kicks into high gear in DESERT HEAT a scorching high-intensity action-thriller. Desperate to flee the inner demons raging inside him mysterious loner Eddie Lomax (Van Damme) rides to the last outpost of an abandoned desert highway prepared to end it all. But when a savage gang steals his prized cycle and leaves him for dead Eddie's life is saved by a soulmate from his past. Burning with a new reason to live Eddie sets off on a one-man search and destroy mission against his attackers. Fueled by Van Damme's powerful take-no-prisoners performance DESERT HEAT is an explosively sexy and sensational adventure from first blast to last.System Requirements:Running Time: 95 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 043396042261

Versatility, thy name is Van Damme! So Arnold cries in End of Days? Hah! In this relentless revenge actioner, Jean-Claude not only cries, but has a drunk scene, suffers suicidal despair, does a little slapstick, and still manages to flash his ubiquitous butt. Which, of course, is what his legion of fans want to see him kick plenty of (other people's butts, that is; not his own). Van Damme may no longer generate any box-office heat (like 1998's Legionnaire, this bypassed theaters to go straight to video), but he at least gives his fans what they want. Originally titled Coyote Moon, Desert Heat recalls that guilty pleasure Road House, as Eddie Lomax (Van Damme) comes to the rescue of a gallery of colorful characters terrorized by slobbering, drug-dealing bikers and rednecks in a dilapidated desert town. And this time, it's personal. As one denizen ominously observes, "There's trouble on the hoof and it's coming this way" for the three ill-fated bullies who beat up and shot Eddie and left him for dead. Despite its desert setting, Heat is an oasis for great character actors who pick up Van Damme's considerable slack. They include Danny Trejo (Con Air) as Eddie's Native American friend Johnny Sixtoes, Pat Morita (The Karate Kid), Larry Drake (Darkman), Vincent Schiavelli (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ghost), Bill Erwin (Candy Stripe Nurses), and luscious Jaime Preslly as Dottie the waitress. The director is credited as Danny Mulroon, a pseudonym for John Avildsen, the Academy Award-winning director of Rocky. His career, too, seems to be on the ropes, but he keeps punching with some welcome eccentric touches. At one point Johnny gives the recuperating Eddie a foot massage (didn't he see Pulp Fiction?). And the script offers such goodies as a lovelorn bus driver (Tom's brother, Jim Hanks) inviting Dottie to see Yojimbo, and one biker's plea for mercy from a local tough: "Jessie, we were in high school together. I signed your yearbook." --Donald Liebenson

Chairman of the Board

Edison (Carrot Top) is a surfing would-be inventor who makes goofy Rube Goldberg-style gadgets. Here's a taste: a drinking glass with a forehead heater to prevent brain freeze. They're all pretty much like that. The chairman of a large corporation (Jack Warden), who had shown interest in Edison's "ideas," dies and leaves Edison in charge of his company. Another would-be benefactor (Larry Miller), beaten out of his inheritance by Edison, makes it his evil mission to wrest control of the company from the ne'er-do-well with the shock of silly hair. A thin formula on which to hang some amazingly unfunny gags, all done in a broad cartoon-style, but with no flair. Puts the stupid in Stupid Comedy, then takes out all the comedy. Well, okay, not all. The videotaped will takes the form of a game show, presenting things to be inherited as prizes in the manner of Wheel of Fortune, complete with its own Vanna White. The rest is one lame attempt at a joke after another, with some time taken for Carrot Top to do pale imitations of Jim Carrey, possibly unintentionally. Highlights include Cindy Margolis. --Jim Gay

The Willies

Wes Craven's Invitation to Hell