Guyer, Murphy

Devil's Advocate

Kevin Lomax (Reeves) an ambitious talented young district attorney joins a powerful New York law firm headed by the mysterious and charismatic John Milton (Pacino). as Lomax faces the intense seduction of success and money he is increasingly tempted.Running Time: 144 min.System Requirements:Produced by Arnon Milchan Arnold Kopelson; written by Jonathan Lemkin Tony Gilroy; DVD released on 12/01/1998; running time of 144 minutes; Closed Captioned. Copyright: 1997 Warner Bros.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 085391617228

Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in The Witches of Eastwick; Robert De Niro did it in Angel Heart (as Louis Cyphre--get it?). In The Devil's Advocate Al Pacino takes his turn as the great Satan, and clearly relishes his chance to raise hell. He's a New York lawyer, of course, by the name of John Milton, who recruits a hotshot young Florida attorney (Keanu Reeves) to his firm and seduces him with tempting offers of power, sex, and money. Think of the story as a twist on John Grisham's The Firm, with the corporate evil made even more explicit. Reeves is wooden, and therefore doesn't seem to have much of a soul to lose, but he's really just our excuse to meet the devil. Pacino's the main attraction, gleefully showing off his--and the Antichrist's--chops at perpetrating menace and mayhem. The film was directed by Taylor Hackford (Against All Odds, Dolores Claiborne), who provides alternate-track commentary for the movie itself, plus a dozen deleted scenes. Also note: due to a settlement with artist Frederick Hart over the movie's use of a sculpture resembling his Ex Nihilo in Washington's National Cathedral, future releases of the film will be altered. --Jim Emerson

Lewis & Clark - The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

Another reliably well-crafted, generally engrossing documentary from Ken Burns, Lewis & Clark employs the director's now-familiar approach to his subjects, from its elegant juxtaposition of period illustrations and portraits against newly filmed footage of historic sites to Burns's repertory of accomplished actors to provide gravitas for quotes from the key figures. Granted the formula has become familiar enough to allow parody, but Burns knows how to invest his historical investigations with movement and drama, making this four-hour journey a worthwhile trip.

As narrated by Hal Holbrook, Dayton Duncan's script explicates the agenda presented by Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, placing it in the context of the young country's gamble in Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, and the expedition's goals for opening the West. While preserving the heroic scale of the undertaking, Burns also finds time to delve into the politics of the venture and the disparate personalities of the two explorers; in particular, Duncan and Burns look at the career of Lewis, the presidential protégé, his moody demeanor, and his untimely death. The film also looks beyond its titular leaders to examine the personalities of their corps of soldiers, their boatmen, and the Indians they met and depended on, most notably their female Shosone guide, Sacagawea. --Sam Sutherland

Ken Burns Presents: The West

Parallel Sons

An intelligent and haunting depiction of sexual passion and the interplay between desire and identification, John G. Young`s first feature is a festival favorite that`s been three years waiting for a release. Set in a redneck, upstate town, it`s about a white teenager who`s totally black-identified - does his blond hair in dreads, plays hip-hop, makes the Autobiography of Malcolm X his bible - although he`s never met a black person. His life takes a turn when he falls in love with Knowledge, a young black man who`s been wounded escaping from prison.

Perfect Murder, Perfect Town

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 27-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD

The murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was tabloid fodder for years, but Perfect Murder, Perfect Town earns respect with its riveting focus on facts. In adapting his own bestselling book with writer Tom Topor, producer-director Lawrence Schiller (who chronicled the O.J. Simpson trial in An American Tragedy) wrangles dozens of characters into a complicated but coherent portrait of justice gone awry. Beginning with the Christmas-night murder in 1996 and spanning 18 months of investigation, this three-hour telefilm shows how sloppy police work, legal loopholes, and political conditions in Boulder, Colorado, made JonBenét's murder virtually unsolvable. Ronny Cox and CSI's Marg Helgenberger play the highly suspect Ramsey parents, steadfastly maintaining an innocent façade; their performances are ripe with ambiguity. Schiller also dramatizes the machinations of a tabloid journalist (Sean Whalen); a religious detective (Kris Kristofferson) hired by the Ramseys; the backstage maneuvering of Boulder's district attorney (Ken Howard); the poorly secured crime scene; and much more. With its semi-documentary approach and first-rate cast, the film covers a lot of territory but it's never confusing or exploitative. And still, the mystery remains. --Jeff Shannon

Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip

Subtitled "America's First Road Trip," Horatio's Drive captures the remarkable odyssey of Horatio Nelson Jackson, a doctor from Vermont who--accompanied by a former professional bicyclist and a bulldog named Bud--helmed the first trip from coast to coast in a car. In 1903, after making a $50 bet he could drive to New York City in 90 days, Nelson set off from San Francisco in a used Winton two-seater than he bought for $3000 and proceeded to cross a country where most roads, if they existed at all, were still made of dirt. Pulling together newspaper articles, period movies, and Jackson's own photographs and passionate love letters to his wife, famed documentarian Ken Burns crafts a love letter of his own to the automobile and the ways it has shaped American life. Horatio's Drive is both educational and completely entertaining. --Bret Fetzer

Horatio's Drive recounts the simultaneously inspirational and hilarious saga of Horatio Nelson Jackson, an eccentric Vermont doctor, who in 1903 - on a visionary whim and a 50-dollar bet - became the first person to drive an automobile across the continent, heralding the future of the "horseless carriage" as a vehicle destined for more than inner-city travel and as a machine that would transform American life.

The West

Since its premiere on PBS in September 1996, The West has rightfully assumed its place as a milestone event in television history, and remains the single most ambitious and authoritative audio-visual history of the American West. Spanning centuries but focusing primarily on the period of 1800 to 1915, when America was virtually redefined by westward expansion, this outstanding 12.5-hour film is itself a triumphant effort to redefine Americans' collective understanding of the West and its impact on national identity. Directed by Stephen Ives and executive produced by Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz), the film follows the theory adopted by previous Ken Burns productions--namely, that "history is biography"--and unfolds through a wealth of personal anecdote and intimate documentation.

The film's lasting achievement is its interweaving of the two distinct threads of western history--the triumph of westward expansion from the urban areas of the East, and the tragic dispossession of the Native Americans who had populated North America for thousands of years. Where previous historical perspectives tended to emphasize one direction or the other, The West (written by Geoffrey C. Ward and Dayton Duncan) achieves a delicate balance, illustrating how nearly every story of pioneering idealism was countered by incidents of tragic loss and suffering.

Brilliantly narrated by Peter Coyote, the series gains further depth and authority through interviews with more than 75 historians and experts. Foremost among them is N. Scott Momaday, scholar, historian, and Kiowa Indian, whose contribution to the series is deeply affecting. Other experts include historians Richard White, Patricia Nelson Limerick, and Stephen Ambrose; writers Michael Dorris and Maxine Hong Kingston; Lakota descendant Charlotte Black Elk; former Texas governor Ann Richards; and many others. When viewed in its entirety, this outstanding, truly epic documentary combines all of its separate episodes to form an emotionally involving narrative of astonishing depth and unprecedented accuracy. To say that The West is essential viewing would be an understatement; this film should be considered mandatory to any balanced awareness of America's turbulent and glorious westward movement. --Jeff Shannon

Produced by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, this sweeping documentary reveals the American West stripped of its Hollywood mythology, yet filled with intense drama and peopled with a mix of larger-than-life heroes and villains. Spanning the years from the first European advance into the wilderness to the dawn of the 20th century, the series portrays the profound, often devastating impact the onrushing white settlers, adventurers and exploiters had on Indian peoples and the land. In vivid imagery and in words spoken by many of today's best-known personalities, The West shows how the discovery of gold in California changed the country forever. Witness the torrent of violence triggered by the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the tragedies at Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee -- all the key events and the people who created and shaped this great American story.

Lewis & Clark - The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

Another reliably well-crafted, generally engrossing documentary from Ken Burns, Lewis & Clark employs the director's now-familiar approach to his subjects, from its elegant juxtaposition of period illustrations and portraits against newly filmed footage of historic sites to Burns's repertory of accomplished actors to provide gravitas for quotes from the key figures. Granted the formula has become familiar enough to allow parody, but Burns knows how to invest his historical investigations with movement and drama, making this four-hour journey a worthwhile trip.

As narrated by Hal Holbrook, Dayton Duncan's script explicates the agenda presented by Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, placing it in the context of the young country's gamble in Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, and the expedition's goals for opening the West. While preserving the heroic scale of the undertaking, Burns also finds time to delve into the politics of the venture and the disparate personalities of the two explorers; in particular, Duncan and Burns look at the career of Lewis, the presidential protégé, his moody demeanor, and his untimely death. The film also looks beyond its titular leaders to examine the personalities of their corps of soldiers, their boatmen, and the Indians they met and depended on, most notably their female Shosone guide, Sacagawea. --Sam Sutherland

Sent by President Thomas Jefferson to find the fabled Northwest Passage, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the most important expedition in American history a voyage of danger and discovery from St. Louis to the headwaters of the Missouri River, over the Continental Divide to the Pacific. It was the United States' first exploration of the West and one of the nation's most enduring adventures. This extraordinary film tells the remarkable story of the entire Corps of Discovery not just the two famous Captains, but the young army men, French-Canadian boatmen, Clark's African-American slave, and the Shoshone woman named Sacagawea, who brought along her infant son. Journey with them all, across a breath-taking landscape in an unforgettable experience that explores both the history and promise of America.

Unforgivable Blackness - The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Ken Burns's documentary style is so unencumbered; the subject matter is effortlessly presented. His regular mix of photos, subtle sound effects, excellent musical score, and actor readings of historical text hasn't changed since his breakthrough of The Civil War. And it doesn't need to. Even though this 220-minute production is a biography--on heavyweight champion Jack Johnson--the film resonates about the how race was dealt with in the early part of the 20th century. Four decades after the Emancipation, the American black was still struggling to find elementary terms of equality. Along came a strong and headstrong man who took on sport decades before Jackie Robinson and became the key figure in heavyweight fighting, a champion against the longest odds.

Samuel L. Jackson voices Johnson's words with great verve and helps create an absorbing picture of Johnson along with various historians and boxing experts laying down the tale of the tape. Here's a man so smart and patient in the ring who took great liberties in his day-to-day life, unafraid to showcase his success, and ruffle the morals of the time (including, most scandalously, marrying a white woman). Viewing film of his prizefights, the amateur eye can understand Johnson's style and bravura. Burns's certainly takes his time and, as usual, has a vast awry of facts of how the world reacted to news of Johnson's success and the conspiracy which led to his downfall. The highlight, natch, are two of Johnson's epic fights near the end of his reign as champ (and the search for a "Great White Hope"). The appearance of James Earl Jones (who won a Tony for his portrayal of Johnson in 1959) and Wynton Marsalis's musical score are grand touches. --Doug Thomas

From the celebrated director of Academy Award-nominated "Brooklyn Bridge" and "Statue of Liberty," UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS: THE RISE AND FALL OF JACK JOHNSON follows Jack Johnson's remarkable journey from his humble beginnings in Galveston, Texas, as the son of former slaves, into the brutal world of professional boxing, where, in turn-of-the century Jim Crow America, the heavyweight champion was an exclusively "white title." Despite the odds, Johnson was able to batter his way up through the professional ranks, and in 1908 he became the first African-American to earn the title Heavyweight Champion of the World.

Lewis & Clark - The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

Another reliably well-crafted, generally engrossing documentary from Ken Burns, Lewis & Clark employs the director's now-familiar approach to his subjects, from its elegant juxtaposition of period illustrations and portraits against newly filmed footage of historic sites to Burns's repertory of accomplished actors to provide gravitas for quotes from the key figures. Granted the formula has become familiar enough to allow parody, but Burns knows how to invest his historical investigations with movement and drama, making this four-hour journey a worthwhile trip.

As narrated by Hal Holbrook, Dayton Duncan's script explicates the agenda presented by Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, placing it in the context of the young country's gamble in Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, and the expedition's goals for opening the West. While preserving the heroic scale of the undertaking, Burns also finds time to delve into the politics of the venture and the disparate personalities of the two explorers; in particular, Duncan and Burns look at the career of Lewis, the presidential protégé, his moody demeanor, and his untimely death. The film also looks beyond its titular leaders to examine the personalities of their corps of soldiers, their boatmen, and the Indians they met and depended on, most notably their female Shosone guide, Sacagawea. --Sam Sutherland