Krumholtz, David

Serenity (Collector's Edition)

The action-packed adventure Serenity continues with the fully loaded Special Collector's Edition! With over 60 minutes of all-new bonus features and never-before-seen footage this must-own set takes you deeper into the incredible worlds created by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Angel and Firefly). It's an exclusiveedge-of-your-seat experience that can't be missed.System Requirements:Running Time: 119 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 025195008938 Manufacturer No: 61101072

Serenity offers perfect proof that Firefly deserved a better fate than premature TV cancellation. Joss Whedon's acclaimed sci-fi Western hybrid series was ideally suited (in Browncoats, of course) for a big-screen conversion, and this action-packed adventure allows Whedon to fill in the Firefly backstory, especially the history and mystery of the spaceship Serenity's volatile and traumatized stowaway, River Tam (Summer Glau). Her lethal skills as a programmed "weapon" makes her a coveted prize for the power-hungry planetary Alliance, represented here by an Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who'll stop at nothing to retrieve River from Serenity's protective crew. We still get all the quip-filled dialogue and ass-kicking action that we've come to expect from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Whedon goes a talented step further here, blessing his established ensemble cast with a more fully-developed dynamic of endearing relationships. Serenity's cast is led with well-balanced depth and humor by Nathan Fillion as Captain Mal Reynolds, whose maverick spirit is matched by his devotion to crewmates Wash (Alan Tudyk), Zoe (Gina Torres), fun-loving fighter Jayne (Adam Baldwin), engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite), doctor Simon (Sean Maher), and Mal's former flame Inara (Morena Baccarin), who plays a pivotal role in Whedon's briskly-paced plot. As many critics agreed, Serenity offered all the fun and breezy excitement that was missing from George Lucas's latter-day Star Wars epics, and Whedon leaves an opening for a continuing franchise that never feels cheap or commercially opportunistic. With the mega-corporate mysteries of Blue Sun yet to be explored, it's a safe bet we haven't seen the last of the good ship Serenity. --Jeff Shannon

10 Things I Hate About You

It's, like, Shakespeare, man! This good-natured and likeable update of The Taming of the Shrew takes the basics of Shakespeare's farce about a surly wench and the man who tries to win her and transfers it to modern-day Padua High School. Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is a sullen, forbidding riot grrrl who has a blistering word for everyone; her sunny younger sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) is poised for high school stardom. The problem: overprotective and paranoid Papa Stratford (a dryly funny Larry Miller) won't let Bianca date until boy-hating Kat does, which is to say never. When Bianca's pining suitor Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets wind of this, he hires the mysterious, brooding Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) to loosen Kat up. Of course, what starts out as a paying gig turns to true love as Patrick discovers that underneath her brittle exterior, Kat is a regular babe. The script, by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, is sitcom-funny with peppy one-liners and lots of smart teenspeak; however, its cleverness and imagination doesn't really extend beyond its characters' Renaissance names and occasional snippets of real Shakespearean dialogue. What makes the movie energetic and winning is the formula that helped make She's All That such a big hit: two high-wattage stars who look great and can really act. Ledger is a hunk of promise with a quick grin and charming Aussie accent, and Stiles mines Kat's bitterness and anger to depths usually unknown in teen films; her recitation of her English class sonnet (from which the film takes its title) is funny, heartbreaking, and hopelessly romantic. The imperious Allison Janney (Primary Colors) nearly steals the film as a no-nonsense guidance counselor secretly writing a trashy romance novel. --Mark Englehart

A cool cast of young stars is just one of the things you'll love about this hilarious comedy hit! On the first day at his new school, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt -- HALLOWEEN: H2O, TV's "3RD Rock From The Sun") instantly falls for Bianca (Larisa Oleynik -- THE BABY SITTERS CLUB), the gorgeous girl of his dreams. The only problem is that Bianca is forbidden to date ... until her ill-tempered, completely un-dateable older sister Kat (Julia Stiles -- THE BOURNE IDENTITY, SAVE THE LAST DANCE) goes out too! In an attempt to solve his problem, Cameron singles out the only guy who could possibly be a match for Kat: a mysterious bad-boy (Heath Ledger -- A KNIGHT'S TALE, THE PATRIOT) with a nasty reputation of his own! Also featuring a hip soundtrack -- this witty comedy is a wildly entertaining look at exactly how far some guys will go to get a date!

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (Unrated Extended Edition)

From the director of Dude, Where's My Car? comes another crazed tale of two friends on a perilous quest--in this case, to eat burgers at the fast food restaurant White Castle. The pair--repressed Harold (John Cho, Better Luck Tomorrow) and freewheeling Kumar (Kal Penn, Love Don't Cost a Thing)--get extremely high and set off on the road, only to be sidetracked by skateboarding hooligans, racist cops, an inbred tow truck driver, and Neil Patrick Harris--yes, Doogie Howser, M.D. The humor is all over the map, and it would be nice if there were one female character who wasn't a caricature, but Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle has a loose, gregarious charm, and the movie's canniness about the cliches of the buddy-movie genre give it a sneaky subversive feel--just the fact that neither of the heroes is white puts a different spin on just about every circumstance. Surprisingly clever, cheerfully stupid. --Bret Fetzer

In the year's funniest comedy, two guys on a quest to satisfy their cravings for burgers find themselves on a hilarious all-night adventure as they run into one screwy obstacle after another.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
DVD ROM Features
Deleted Scenes
Featurette
Interviews
Music Video
Other:Spansh Subtitles!

Serenity (Widescreen Edition)

Serenity offers perfect proof that Firefly deserved a better fate than premature TV cancellation. Joss Whedon's acclaimed sci-fi Western hybrid series was ideally suited (in Browncoats, of course) for a big-screen conversion, and this action-packed adventure allows Whedon to fill in the Firefly backstory, especially the history and mystery of the spaceship Serenity's volatile and traumatized stowaway, River Tam (Summer Glau). Her lethal skills as a programmed "weapon" makes her a coveted prize for the power-hungry planetary Alliance, represented here by an Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who'll stop at nothing to retrieve River from Serenity's protective crew. We still get all the quip-filled dialogue and ass-kicking action that we've come to expect from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Whedon goes a talented step further here, blessing his established ensemble cast with a more fully-developed dynamic of endearing relationships. Serenity's cast is led with well-balanced depth and humor by Nathan Fillion as Captain Mal Reynolds, whose maverick spirit is matched by his devotion to crewmates Wash (Alan Tudyk), Zoe (Gina Torres), fun-loving fighter Jayne (Adam Baldwin), engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite), doctor Simon (Sean Maher), and Mal's former flame Inara (Morena Baccarin), who plays a pivotal role in Whedon's briskly-paced plot. As many critics agreed, Serenity offered all the fun and breezy excitement that was missing from George Lucas's latter-day Star Wars epics, and Whedon leaves an opening for a continuing franchise that never feels cheap or commercially opportunistic. With the mega-corporate mysteries of Blue Sun yet to be explored, it's a safe bet we haven't seen the last of the good ship Serenity. --Jeff Shannon

The crew of Serenity find themselves wanted by the Interplanetary Alliance when they agree to hide a man and his sister on their spaceship.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 23-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVD

Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story (Two-Disc Special Edition)

One of the most iconic figures in rock history Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) had it all: the women (over 411 served) the friends (Elvis The Beatles) and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle (a close and personal relationship with every pill and powder known to man). But most of all he had the music that transformed a dimwitted country boy into the greatest American rock star who never lived. A wild and wicked send-up of every musical biopic ever made WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is gut-busting proof that when it comes to hard rocking living and laughing a hard man is good to find.System Requirements:Running Time: 216 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/SATIRE Rating: UNRATED UPC: 043396250789 Manufacturer No: 25078

The Pixar-like roll of Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad) continues with another sure-fire hit. In charting the meteoric rise, catastrophic fall and Lazarus-like rise of rocker Dewey Cox, Walk Hard parodies the classic Hollywood bio-pic, cashing in mostly on Walk the Line. John C. Reilly, one of Hollywood's most solid character actors, makes the most of his Golden Globe-nominated star turn as Dewey, whose road to stardom is paved with a childhood tragedy that claims the life of his prodigiously talented brother ("The wrong kid died," is his father's mantra), instant stardom (his first record is a hit just 35 minutes after it was recorded), sex and drugs, and the inevitable "dark (effen) period" that leads him to rehab. Reilly gets solid backup from current and former Saturday Night Live alumni, including Kirsten Wiig as his incredibly fertile first wife who has no faith in his musical aspirations ("You're never going to make it," she cheerily ends one phone call); Tim Meadows, never better, as Dewey's drummer, who, in one of the film's best scenes, does a poor job of dissuading him from trying marijuana); and Chris Parnell as his bass player. Jenna Fischer leaves Pam back at The Office as Darlene, Dewey's virtuous duet partner. Hilarious cameos give Walk Hard a great "Hey!" factor: Hey, that's Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly. Hey, that's "Kenneth" from 30 Rock. Hey, there's Jack Black and Paul Rudd as--no kidding--Paul McCartney and John Lennon revealing "a rift in the Beatles." Some of the jokes are obvious (come on; the guy's last name is Cox), others inspired. But the decades-spanning music, echoing the styles of gritty Johnny Cash, romantic Roy Orbison, obtuse Bob Dylan, trippy Brian Wilson, and even a bit of anachronistic punk rock, is as pitch perfect and affectionately observed as in The Rutles, This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. Walk Hard earns its R-rating, particularly for a sure-to-be-talked-about scene of hotel-room debauchery. But: Hilarious? Outrageous? Twisted? To quote the title of one of Dewey's hit songs, "Guilty as Charged." --Donald Liebenson

On the DVD
Though an unaccountable box office disappointment, Walk Hard is poised for discovery and cult status on DVD. You'd think the film had pretty much exhausted all the puns and double-entendres you could get out of Dewey Cox's last name, but the Elvis-inspired "A Christmas Song from Dewey Cox," the "Cox Sausage Commercial" and "The Real Dewey Cox," which are among this two-disc set's extra features, manages to get even more mileage out of that juvenile joke. Speaking of which, there is a "cockumentary" devoted to actor Tyler Nilson, who provides the film with its most shocking laugh during the hotel orgy scene, The Unbearably Long, Self-Indulgent Director's Cut contains, ahem, extended footage of that scene and features the deleted setups for some of the theatrical cut's more inexplicable gags (a deleted montage reveals just how Dewey and band member Theo wound up in bed together). Better than a gag reel is the "Line-O-Rama," a hit-and-miss compilation of improv outtakes. Full song performances give this film's Oscar-worthy music its due. The Daily Show's John Hodgman gets "The Last Word" in a celebrity profile spoof that was originally broadcast on Comedy Central. With a more traditional "Making of" featurette and entertaining audio commentary by writer Judd Apatow, director Jake Kasdan, and star John C. Reilly, Walk Hard walks even harder on DVD. --Donald Liebenson

Beyond Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

On Blu-ray

The Soundtrack

UMD for PSP

Stills from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (click for larger image)

Numb3rs - The Complete First Season

FBI Special Agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) recruits his mathematical genius brother Charlie (David Krumholtz) to help the Bureau solve a wide range of challenging crimes in Los Angeles. The two brothers take on the most confounding criminal cases from a very distinctive perspective. Assisting Don at the FBI is his partner Terry Lake (Sabrina Lloyd) and new recruit David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard).Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) is Charlie s friend and colleague who urges Charlie to focus more on his university studies than on FBI business. Don and Charlie s father Alan Eppes (Judd Hirsch) is pleased to see his two sons working together but fears their competitive nature will lead to trouble.System Requirements:Running Time 544 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 097360475340 Manufacturer No: 047534

"Everything is numbers," states Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz) in the pilot of Numb3rs, a satisfying (and educational!) new crime drama. Executive-produced by brothers/film directors Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and Tony Scott (Top Gun), it's like CSI with algorithms and probabilities instead of blood spatter and DNA swabs, which separates it from the slew of gruesome forensics-centered cop shows currently on the air. In this case, it's a brains-vs.-brawn matchup: a brilliant math professor (Krumholtz) consulting on crimes for an FBI agent (Rob Morrow) who happens to be his older brother. While Don, Morrow's character, busts the baddies with his team of agents, Charlie's scribbling formulas on chalkboards and statistically deducting a rapist's next target by comparing his pattern to a sprinkler system. (Yes, it sounds geekier than it is). As the show progresses, Charlie--not yet desensitized to people's fates relying on his findings--takes it harder and harder when his hypotheses don't always result in justice. It sounds very cerebral, but the cops and robbers concept plus brother-to-brother dynamics make it all go down easy. There's an unpretentious way the premise is executed, which ends up making math--get this--fun.

The DVD set features episode commentary by cast and crew, and a peek at the unaired pilot that starred many different actors (including Anna Deveare Smith and Michael Rooker) who were dropped when the episode was overhauled. Morrow, who wasn't even in the pilot, was cast later with Judd Hirsch as their father to replace the original (blonder) actors because, as producers admitted, casting Krumholtz as Charlie took the family in an "ethnically specific direction." The jokes also abound in a behind-the-scenes featurette, where Morrow defines the series as "Rain Man … plus an extra Jew." --Ellen A. Kim

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (Widescreen Edition)

Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story (Widescreen Edition)

The Pixar-like roll of Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad) continues with another sure-fire hit. In charting the meteoric rise, catastrophic fall and Lazarus-like rise of rocker Dewey Cox, Walk Hard parodies the classic Hollywood bio-pic, cashing in mostly on Walk the Line. John C. Reilly, one of Hollywood's most solid character actors, makes the most of his Golden Globe-nominated star turn as Dewey, whose road to stardom is paved with a childhood tragedy that claims the life of his prodigiously talented brother ("The wrong kid died," is his father's mantra), instant stardom (his first record is a hit just 35 minutes after it was recorded), sex and drugs, and the inevitable "dark (effen) period" that leads him to rehab. Reilly gets solid backup from current and former Saturday Night Live alumni, including Kirsten Wiig as his incredibly fertile first wife who has no faith in his musical aspirations ("You're never going to make it," she cheerily ends one phone call); Tim Meadows, never better, as Dewey's drummer, who, in one of the film's best scenes, does a poor job of dissuading him from trying marijuana); and Chris Parnell as his bass player. Jenna Fischer leaves Pam back at The Office as Darlene, Dewey's virtuous duet partner. Hilarious cameos give Walk Hard a great "Hey!" factor: Hey, that's Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly. Hey, that's "Kenneth" from 30 Rock. Hey, there's Jack Black and Paul Rudd as--no kidding--Paul McCartney and John Lennon revealing "a rift in the Beatles." Some of the jokes are obvious (come on; the guy's last name is Cox), others inspired. But the decades-spanning music, echoing the styles of gritty Johnny Cash, romantic Roy Orbison, obtuse Bob Dylan, trippy Brian Wilson, and even a bit of anachronistic punk rock, is as pitch perfect and affectionately observed as in The Rutles, This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. Walk Hard earns its R-rating, particularly for a sure-to-be-talked-about scene of hotel-room debauchery. But: Hilarious? Outrageous? Twisted? To quote the title of one of Dewey's hit songs, "Guilty as Charged." --Donald Liebenson

Beyond Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

On Blu-ray

The Soundtrack

UMD for PSP

Stills from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (click for larger image)

Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-APR-2008
Media Type: DVD

The Santa Clause (Full Screen Special Edition)

After Santa has a fatal accident, Scott Calvin dons Santa's suit and assumes his role and identity (including beard and stomach), not realizing there is no loophole in the Santa Clause.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 7-SEP-2004
Media Type: DVD

Divorced toy company executive Scott Calvin (Tim Allen of Home Improvement and the Toy Story movies) is pleased to have his son Charlie for Christmas, though the boy himself isn't happy about it. But when Santa Claus accidentally topples off the roof of the house and falls with a thud in the snow, Scott finds himself taking the merry old elf's place and earning new respect in his son's eyes. When the night ends, the reindeer take them to the north pole, and Scott discovers that by donning the fabled red suit, he's inadvertently agreed to become the next Santa Claus. The next morning he wakes up in his own bed and thinks it's all a dream--only Charlie remembers it with crystal clarity. Scott now has to deal with his suspicious ex-wife (Wendy Crewson, Air Force One) and her psychiatrist boyfriend (Judge Reinhold, Beverly Hills Cop), who both think he's playing tricks with Charlie's mind, and also with his own out-of-control body, which is putting on weight and growing a prodigious beard. The Santa Clause probably won't supplant It's a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street as anyone's favorite holiday film, but it's an enjoyable, straightforward family film, anchored by the affable charisma of Allen. --Bret Fetzer

Ray (Widescreen Edition)

Jamie Foxx's uncannily accurate performance isn't the only good thing about Ray. Riding high on a wave of Oscar buzz, Foxx proved himself worthy of all the hype by portraying blind R&B legend Ray Charles in a warts-and-all performance that Charles approved shortly before his death in June 2004. Despite a few dramatic embellishments of actual incidents (such as the suggestion that the accidental drowning of Charles's younger brother caused all the inner demons that Charles would battle into adulthood), the film does a remarkable job of summarizing Charles's strengths as a musical innovator and his weaknesses as a philandering heroin addict who recorded some of his best songs while flying high as a kite. Foxx seems to be channeling Charles himself, and as he did with the life of Ritchie Valens in La Bamba, director Taylor Hackford gets most of the period details absolutely right as he chronicles Ray's rise from "chitlin circuit" performer in the early '50s to his much-deserved elevation to legendary status as one of the all-time great musicians. Foxx expertly lip-syncs to Ray Charles' classic recordings, but you could swear he's the real deal in a film that honors Ray Charles without sanitizing his once-messy life. --Jeff Shannon

More on Ray Charles

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (CD)	The Genius of Ray Charles (CD)	Ray Charles and Betty Carter--Dedicated to You (CD)
Genius & Soul--The 50th Anniversary Collection (CD)	Ray: A Tribute to the Movie, the Music, and the Man (book)	More Albums by Ray Charles