Eziashi, Maynard

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

Africa's the place and Ace is on the case setting out to rescue an animal he loathes: a bat! Jim Carrey (Batman Forever) returns as Ace the alligator-wrasslin' elephant-calling monkeyshining loogie-launching burning coals-crossing disguise-mastering pet detective. If you're ready to laugh like a pack of hyenas if you want more fun than an industrial-sized barrel of monkeys you know what to do. Heed the call.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 085391162988 Manufacturer No: 116298

Color Me Kubrick

Color Me Kubrick tells the slyly amusing and "true-ish" story about a brazen impostor who pretended to be one of the world's greatest filmmakers. As British comedies go it's a bit of a trifle, but constantly enjoyable for cinephiles devoted to Stanley Kubrick and his films. In a foppishly flamboyant performance, John Malkovich dons a fab-ulously colorful wardrobe and uses a comical variety of voices as Alan Conway, an eccentrically gay outcast who spent most of the 1990s convincing his gullible targets that he was Stanley Kubrick, despite bearing no resemblance to the real Kubrick and knowing next to nothing about the director's celebrated films. Preying (with startling success) upon their ignorance and their fawning desire to seek favors from this "legendary filmmaker," Conway conned his mostly gay victims into giving him money, sex, and other kinds of ill-earned appreciation, and Color Me Kubrick (completed two years before its simultaneous release to theaters and DVD) does a terrific job of showing how Conway managed to maintain this charade for nearly a decade before he was "outed" by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, whose own encounter with Conway would eventually lead to the faux-Kubrick's undoing.

It's pretty slight stuff, as comedies go, but it boasts plenty of authority behind the camera: Both director Brian Cook and screenwriter Anthony Frewin were close associates of Kubrick's for decades, and they have terrific fun by peppering their film with a variety of Kubrickian in-jokes, from the frequent use of music featured in Kubrick's own films to a variety of visual in-jokes that Kubrick worshippers will instantly recognize. Add to this Malkovich's crazily unhindered performance, and you've got a nice little cult comedy that will keep you laughing if you're in the right mood. Keep your eyes wide open for cameo appearances by Marisa Berenson (who appeared in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon), Peter Sallis (the voice of Wallace in the Wallace and Gromit films), and director Ken Russell, among others. --Jeff Shannon

John Malkovich gives a hilarious tour-de-force as Alan Conway a conman who successfully passed himself off as the famed and notoriously reclusive director Stanley Kubrick for the last decade of the filmmaker's life despite knowing very little about Kubrick. It'd be a farce of the highest order if it weren't based on a true story.System Requirements:Run Time: 87 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 876964000789 Manufacturer No: 10078

Janice Beard

Janice Beard 45 WPM is a film for anyone who ever swam in the typing pool. It also provides reassurance that anyone who works in an office isn't alone in feeling alone. Scottish Janice (newcomer Eileen Walsh) suffers a never-ending bad hair day while temping at Kendon Motors during a car launch. She's earning pennies for her agoraphobic mother, to whom she sends elaborately staged videos fibbing about her successes in the big world. So simple a life gets complicated by the evil machinations of typing-pool shark Julia (a fantastic Patsy Kensit), and the dangerous allure of office boy Sean (Rhys Ifans sporting the same haircut from Notting Hill). An industrial espionage subplot tugs the light-hearted tone downward only very occasionally. Co-written and directed by first-timer Clare Kilner, on its original release this became a film festival favorite thanks to its dizzy charm (especially Walsh), for seeing the Kensit of Absolute Beginners struggle at a salsa class, and for opening with the line: "My father died in childbirth." --Paul Tonks

We are introduced to Janice Beard at her ill-starred beginnings. Her father dies of a heart attack during her birth which plunges her mother into a post-natal, post-mortem agoraphobic depression that lasts 23 years. Determined to earn the money for her mother's treatment, Janice sets off into the work force with no skills or experience with disastrous results. Struggling to win everyone over, she thinks she has found love with the mail room boy but has actually become a pawn in an industrial espionage scheme that could ruin the company. Can little Janice find a cure for her mother, save the company and find true love in the bargain? Anything is possible!

Bopha!

In his directorial debut, actor Morgan Freeman cast a knowing eye on the ways the racist apartheid movement in South Africa--now demolished--divided South African blacks even from each other in this story of a black policeman. Danny Glover plays the cop, who believes he's trying to help his people, even while serving as a pawn of the racist government. When his son gets involved in the antiapartheid movement, he finds himself torn between his family (including long-suffering wife Alfre Woodard) and what he believes is his duty. A sorrowful, anger-tinged film featuring a complex performance by the marvelous Glover, who seems to come apart at the seams before your very eyes. --Marshall Fine

Mister Johnson

British East Africa, 1923. Harry Rudbeck, an ambitious army officer, wants to build a road to bring the outside world to the backwater town where he is posted. Struggling to find ways around Foreign Service bureaucracy, he relies on his resourceful African clerk, Mr. Johnson. But when Johnson's can-do attitude runs afoul of British law, Rudbeck must make a painful decision. The film is deliberately paced, and the topnotch cinematography, art direction, and soundtrack all conspire to immerse you into the sweltering heat of East Africa. Maynard Eziashi gives winning performance as Johnson, a man so intent on becoming important that it destroys him. Like many of director Bruce Beresford's movies, this is a clear-eyed look at the way a collision of two cultures can lead to tragedy. Rudbeck must ultimately face the fact that his own ambition leads to the death of his friend, and Pierce Brosnan (as Rudbeck) and Beresford refuse to sentimentalize the man at all. Among Beresford's films, this is much closer in tone to Breaker Morant than to the kinder, gentler Driving Miss Daisy. --Geof Miller

Mister Johnson

British East Africa, 1923. Harry Rudbeck, an ambitious army officer, wants to build a road to bring the outside world to the backwater town where he is posted. Struggling to find ways around Foreign Service bureaucracy, he relies on his resourceful African clerk, Mr. Johnson. But when Johnson's can-do attitude runs afoul of British law, Rudbeck must make a painful decision. The film is deliberately paced, and the topnotch cinematography, art direction, and soundtrack all conspire to immerse you into the sweltering heat of East Africa. Maynard Eziashi gives winning performance as Johnson, a man so intent on becoming important that it destroys him. Like many of director Bruce Beresford's movies, this is a clear-eyed look at the way a collision of two cultures can lead to tragedy. Rudbeck must ultimately face the fact that his own ambition leads to the death of his friend, and Pierce Brosnan (as Rudbeck) and Beresford refuse to sentimentalize the man at all. Among Beresford's films, this is much closer in tone to Breaker Morant than to the kinder, gentler Driving Miss Daisy. --Geof Miller

Mister Johnson

British East Africa, 1923. Harry Rudbeck, an ambitious army officer, wants to build a road to bring the outside world to the backwater town where he is posted. Struggling to find ways around Foreign Service bureaucracy, he relies on his resourceful African clerk, Mr. Johnson. But when Johnson's can-do attitude runs afoul of British law, Rudbeck must make a painful decision. The film is deliberately paced, and the topnotch cinematography, art direction, and soundtrack all conspire to immerse you into the sweltering heat of East Africa. Maynard Eziashi gives winning performance as Johnson, a man so intent on becoming important that it destroys him. Like many of director Bruce Beresford's movies, this is a clear-eyed look at the way a collision of two cultures can lead to tragedy. Rudbeck must ultimately face the fact that his own ambition leads to the death of his friend, and Pierce Brosnan (as Rudbeck) and Beresford refuse to sentimentalize the man at all. Among Beresford's films, this is much closer in tone to Breaker Morant than to the kinder, gentler Driving Miss Daisy. --Geof Miller

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls [Region 2]

This inevitable sequel finds Jim Carrey reprising his role as the world's greatest pet detective. His latest case, the disappearance of a rare African white bat, draws him out of his spiritual retreat at a Tibetan monastery following the tragic outcome of his previous case. That traumatic experience, which makes for a hilarious opening-scene send-up of the Stallone thriller Cliffhanger, prompts Ace to venture to Africa, where he goes native with the tribe that hired him to find their symbolic bat. From that point anything goes, with Carrey pushing the boundaries of good taste (what, you were expecting good taste?) up to and including his now-infamous "birth" scene from the backside of a mechanical rhinoceros. Lighten up, and don't be ashamed if you find yourself laughing. --Jeff Shannon

When Brendan Met Trudy

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls [Region 2]

This inevitable sequel finds Jim Carrey reprising his role as the world's greatest pet detective. His latest case, the disappearance of a rare African white bat, draws him out of his spiritual retreat at a Tibetan monastery following the tragic outcome of his previous case. That traumatic experience, which makes for a hilarious opening-scene send-up of the Stallone thriller Cliffhanger, prompts Ace to venture to Africa, where he goes native with the tribe that hired him to find their symbolic bat. From that point anything goes, with Carrey pushing the boundaries of good taste (what, you were expecting good taste?) up to and including his now-infamous "birth" scene from the backside of a mechanical rhinoceros. Lighten up, and don't be ashamed if you find yourself laughing. --Jeff Shannon