Palminteri, Chazz

The Usual Suspects (Special Editon)

Masterful atmospheric and dripping with suspense this winner of two Academy Awards® is the "freshest funniest and scariest crime thriller to come along since Pulp Fiction" (Rolling Stone). Stephen Baldwin Gabriel Byrne Kevin Pollack Kevin Spacey (in his first Oscar®-winning role) and Oscar® winner Benicio Del Toro underworld kingpin in this "thoroughly engrossing film" (HBO) that's "a polished exercise in pure virtuoso style" (Los Angeles Times)!System Requirements:Starring: Suzy Amis Stephen Baldwin Gabriel Byrne Benicio Del Toro Giancarlo Esposito Chazz Palminteri Kevin Pollak Pete Postlethwaite and Kevin Spacey. Directed By: Bryan Singer. Running Time: 106 Min. Color. This film is presented in both "Widescreen" and "Standard" formats. Copyright 2002 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE

Ever since this convoluted thriller dazzled audiences and critics in 1995 and won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie's twisting screenplay, The Usual Suspects has continued to divide movie lovers into opposite camps. While a lot of people take great pleasure from the movie's now-famous central mystery (namely, "Who is Keyser Söze?"), others aren't so easily impressed by a movie that's too enamored of its own cleverness to make much sense. After all, what are we to make of a final scene that renders the entire movie obsolete? Half the fun of The Usual Suspects is the debate it provokes and the sheer pleasure of watching its dynamic cast in action, led (or should we say, misled) by Oscar winner Kevin Spacey as the club-footed con man who recounts the saga of enigmatic Hungarian mobster Keyser Söze. Spacey's in a band of thieves that includes Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, and Benicio Del Toro, all gathered in a plot to steal a large shipment of cocaine. The story is told in flashback as a twisted plot being described by Spacey's character to an investigating detective (Chazz Palmintieri), and The Usual Suspects is enjoyable for the way it keeps the viewer guessing right up to its surprise ending. Whether that ending will enhance or extinguish the pleasure is up to each viewer to decide. Even if it ultimately makes little or no sense at all, this is a funny and fiendish thriller, guaranteed to entertain even its vocal detractors. --Jeff Shannon

Ever since this convoluted thriller dazzled audiences and critics in 1995 and won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie's twisting screenplay, The Usual Suspects has continued to divide movie lovers into opposite camps. While a lot of people take great pleasure from the movie's now-famous central mystery (namely, "Who is Keyser Söze?"), others aren't so easily impressed by a movie that's too enamored of its own cleverness to make much sense. After all, what are we to make of a final scene that renders the entire movie obsolete? Half the fun of The Usual Suspects is the debate it provokes and the sheer pleasure of watching its dynamic cast in action, led (or should we say, misled) by Oscar winner Kevin Spacey as the club-footed con man who recounts the saga of enigmatic Hungarian mobster Keyser Söze. Spacey's in a band of thieves that includes Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, and Benicio Del Toro, all gathered in a plot to steal a large shipment of cocaine. The story is told in flashback as a twisted plot being described by Spacey's character to an investigating detective (Chazz Palmintieri), and The Usual Suspects is enjoyable for the way it keeps the viewer guessing right up to its surprise ending. Whether that ending will enhance or extinguish the pleasure is up to each viewer to decide. Even if it ultimately makes little or no sense at all, this is a funny and fiendish thriller, guaranteed to entertain even its vocal detractors. --Jeff Shannon

The Last Dragon

Get ready for some seriously big hair. The Last Dragon--or, to call it by its full title, Berry Gordy's the Last Dragon--is a stunning example of 1980s camp cinema. One-name kung fu wonder Taimak plays Leroy Green, a.k.a. Bruce Leroy, a humble student of kung fu who has achieved the highest level of skill, but hasn't yet found his inner master. Wandering through the streets of New York in a Chinese peasant outfit, he accidentally becomes the protector of nightclub hostess/video jockey Laura Charles (played by former Prince protégé Vanity, who also costarred in the trash classic Action Jackson). She's being threatened by a height-challenged mobster who wants her to play his girlfriend's video (the girlfriend is something of a Cyndi Lauper look-alike, played by Broadway star Faith Prince). Meanwhile, a man who calls himself Sho'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, wants to kick Leroy's ass and prove himself the baddest kung fu master in town. Add to this Leroy's smart-mouthed brother Richie (who calls Leroy "the chocolate-covered yellow peril"), a dregs-of-Motown soundtrack (DeBarge is a high point), ninja battles, pseudo-Eastern philosophical babble, and a jaw-dropping club performance by Vanity, and you have a hilarious example of why we're all so very glad the '80s are over. Featuring a bit role by William H. Macy (Fargo, Magnolia). --Bret Fetzer

A Bronx Tale

Chazz Palminteri wrote the script for this excellent story of an Italian American boy (Lillo Brancato) who grows up in the 1960s caught between the strong influences of his blue-collar, straight- arrow father (Robert De Niro) and a Mafia chieftain (Palminteri) who is his all-purpose mentor. De Niro makes his directorial debut with this production and, except for a little stiffness, does very well by the characters and their world. The story does not go precisely where one might expect it to go: Palminteri knows better than to force the central figure to choose between the two most important men in his life, and he doesn't fill time with stock drama about crime or family conflict. Joe Pesci makes an extremely effective and uncredited appearance at the end as a man who doesn't have to do more than speak softly to communicate how dangerous he is. --Tom Keogh

Running Scared

Trying to explain the wildly accelerated plot of this non-stop action thriller would be like convincing Quentin Tarantino to retell the saga of The Sopranos in 15-minutes or less. Don't misunderstand, Running Scared wastes little time on the nuanced details that make the violent, narratively precise, and intricately characterized world of The Sopranos so stylish and compelling. But boy, does it have style to spare, not to mention plenty of violence, narrative, and a cast of characters that all engage in a heady battle for your attention. Paul Walker has the unenviable task of fleshing out the role of a low-level mob flunky who's assigned to get rid of a gun that was involved in a bloody drug deal gone bad. When he botches even that little job, it's not just his wife who gets mad at him. Creepily threatened kids, put-upon women who save the day, and an array of pimps, hookers, sleazy gangsters and dirty cops straight ouuta central casting are all part of the intricate jumble of the story (not to mention bullet-time close-ups and a nifty scene that imparts the inherent danger of hockey pucks in a whole new light). It's hard to believe this outlandish piece of ultraviolence came from writer/director Wayne Kramer, the same creative mind that gave us the smooth little caper flick The Cooler. Don't think about that too hard though. Considering the madcap rush of Running Scared's wicked fun and inspired lunacy, you won't have the time to anyway. --Ted Fry

Slick, fast-paced and brutally shocking, this gritty actioner will jolt your senses like nothing else you've ever experienced. Struggling mob hand Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) finds his life turned inside-out when a "hot" weapon he's in charge of concealing goes missing. With two mafia families and a team of crooked cops watching his every move, Joey sets out on a chilling, bloody pursuit, maneuvering his way through a horrific web of creeps and criminals, praying he can retrieve the gun and make it home to his family -- alive.

Oscar

Oscar was Sylvester Stallone's agreeable, 1991 effort at broad comedy, a fast-talking, suspender-snapping gangster farce featuring the Rambo star as a 1930s Chicago mob boss, Snaps Provolone, trying to go straight during overlapping personal crises. No, this isn't Billy Wilder, but director John Landis (Coming to America) has crackling fun with Oscar's fruit salad of traditional comic themes and tools, including mistaken identities, a powerful man's weakness for his children, and a nonstop parade of outre secondary characters. The cast includes Kirk Douglas as Stallone's father, whose deathbed wish compels Snaps to go into legitimate banking at the exact moment the latter's daughter (Marisa Tomei) announces her love for a chauffeur. Meanwhile, another woman claiming to be Snaps's offspring is engaged to a fellow (Vincent Spano) who has stolen $50,000 of the big man's money. Wackiness ensues. The winning cast includes Peter Riegert, Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, Eddie Bracken, Harry Shearer, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Bruce Davison. --Tom Keogh

Hollywood superstar Sylvester Stallone teams up with comedy director John Landis (ANIMAL HOUSE, TRADING PLACES, COMING TO AMERICA), and the results are hilarious! Stallone plays Chicago's #1 gangster, "Snaps" Provolone. After promising his father that he'll quit his life of crime, Snaps realizes it's an offer he should have refused! As the mobster tries to quit the rackets, everybody gets into the act -- friends, family -- even the Feds! Snaps soon discovers going straight is the toughest job he's ever pulled! Critics coast-to-coast praised this fun-filled big-screen treat -- you'll find it packed with laughs from beginning to end!

Hoodwinked (Widescreen Edition)

Hoodwinked fuses the classic fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood with the crisscrossing storylines of film noir--pretty ambitious stuff for a computer-animated cartoon. The police cordon off Grandma's cottage and an amphibious version of William Powell named Nicky Flippers (voiced by David Ogden Stiers, M*A*S*H) begins interrogating the suspects: A Little Red in bell-bottoms (Anne Hathaway, Ella Enchanted), a Wolf turned investigative journalist (Patrick Warburton, The Woman Chaser), a snow-boarding Granny (Glenn Close, 101 Dalmatians), and a dimwitted would-be Woodsman (Jim Belushi, Curly Sue), each of whom have very different reasons for ending up in that cottage living room. The visual style of Hoodwinked mixes a clunky, video-game look with an homage to the stop-motion puppetry of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and other Rankin-Bass holiday specials. While sometimes awkward, there are also moments of surreal beauty, such as when a depressed Red wanders through a field of blue and red flowers--and moments of lunatic comedy, such as the Schnitzel song, which is irresistibly bizarre. The Shrek-style pop-culture references grow annoying, but the left-field goofiness of a yodeling goat points toward a far more distinct and delightful comic world. Also featuring the voices of Anthony Anderson (Kangaroo Jack), rapper Xzibit, and an especially witty turn by Andy Dick (NewsRadio) as a deceptively cute bunny rabbit. --Bret Fetzer

So you think you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Don't be too sure. . . . One of your favorite fairy tales is turned upside-down and inside-out in what the L.A. Times called "high-energy, imaginative entertainment." With irreverent storytelling, spunk and wit, Hoodwinked delivers a comedy caper for the young, the young at heart and everyone in between. When the police arrive at Granny's cottage in the woods to answer a domestic disturbance call, it looks like just another open-and-shut case. But Red, Granny, the Big Bad Wolf and the Woodsman are not your usual suspects, as they have their own dark secrets, wily deceptions and conflicting accounts of the crime. Together, they must put aside their differences and find their own original twist on Happily Ever After in this "raucous, genre-busting, animated gem (Entertainment Weekly, The Must List)."

Poolhall Junkies

Johnny was a poolhall hustler, one of the best, until he discovered how his manager Joe had ruined his life. he left Joe int he hands of some heavy-duty drug dealers and split the scene. Now he's trying to go legit, save his relationship with his girlfriend Tara, and maybe even save his life. Johnny's younger brother Danny is eager to follow in his footsteps -- eager enough to find himself deep in debt to Joe, who has returned with a new poolhall protege. When Danny robs a store to pay back Joe, it's time for his big brother to take his cue. The final game has a payoff that's bigger than money, bigger than life, bigger than either player can imagine. Because somewhere on the edge of the 8-ball waits a man's soul.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Audio commentary with Mars Callahan and Chris Corso
Biographies:Cast and crew bios
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Theatrical Trailer:Original theatrical trailer

Stuart Little (Deluxe Edition)

This live-action version of E.B. White's novel doesn't have quite the magic of, say, Toy Story. Instead of entertainment the whole family can be enthralled with, Stuart Little is squarely aimed, and successfully so, at the 4- to 10-year-old watcher. Does this make it a bad family film? Not in the slightest. The gee-whiz visual effects (created by original Star Wars wizard John Dykstra) and the film's ebullient wholesomeness make this a welcome addition to the home library.

In E.B. White's world, it's hardly surprising that human parents would adopt "outside their species." The smooth-talking mouse Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) seems the perfect new child for parents Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie, especially with an adorable wardrobe of very small sweaters and pants. Harder is fitting in with the Little's family cat, Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane, who also deftly voiced Timon in director Rob Minkoff's last feature, The Lion King). The simple story deals with Stuart trying to fit in with his new life, including big brother George (Jerry Maguire's scene-stealing Jonathan Lipnicki). And of course there's an adventure when Snowbell's schemes lead Stuart into true danger, in the form of the devious plans of an alley cat named Smokey (voiced by Chazz Palminteri). Brisk--85 minutes--amusing, and tolerably cute, Stuart Little stands tall. Two curios: The effects are so cleanly done that we could call Stuart the first successfully computer-animated actor, and the screenplay was cowritten by M. Night Shyamalan, who made bigger waves in 1999 writing and directing The Sixth Sense. --Doug Thomas

STUART LITTLE (DELUXE EDITION) (DVD MOVIE)

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

A film adaptation of Dito Montiel's memoir of the same name, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a compelling, thoughtful movie based on Montiel's childhood growing up in 1980s Queens. A writer and director who understands his limitations, Montiel wisely left the acting to the pros. Shia LaBeouf (Holes) plays him during his adolescence, while Robert Downey Jr. (Good Night, and Good Luck, Wonder Boys) portrays the grown-up Dito. Never mind that there is absolutely no physical resemblance between the two actors; LaBeouf and Downey are so convincing in their roles it doesn't matter. Switching effortlessly from present day (where Dito is a successful author) to the past (where he is a tough little kid trying to figure out if there is life beyond New York), A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints tackles Dito's complicated relationship with his parents (Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest), as well as the friends he left behind. Eric Roberts is magnificent in a small role as one of Dito's tough, childhood buddies. His powerful performance makes viewers remember there was a time when Roberts was better known for his acting skills than for being Julia's big brother. Montiel--a first-time filmmaker--won the Director's Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival for his autobiographical movie. Raw, gritty, and honest, Saints) makes a strong impact and leaves the viewer curious as to how the rest of Montiel's life will work out. --Jae-Ha Kim

Arthur and the Invisibles (Widescreen Edition)

(Family) Ten-year-old Arthur in a bid to save his grandfather's house from being demolished goes looking for some much-fabled hidden treasure in the land of the Minimoys a tiny people living in harmony with nature.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: PG UPC: 796019801713 Manufacturer No: 80171

First released in France, Luc Besson's Arthur and the Invisibles is a touching computer animated adventure that makes up in look and in character for what it lacks in narrative originality. As a direct hybrid of Excalibur and A Bug's Life, Arthur stars a heroic ten year-old, Arthur (Freddie Highmore), who draws a sword from a stone to fight a miniature battle in the garden before finding treasure valuable enough to save his grandfather's farm from purchase by developers. Arthur's grandfather, Archibald, having long ago discovered the miniscule world of Minimoys, garden gnome-like elves that lived in his yard, shrunk himself in order to hunt elusive rubies that were hidden in their evil Mecropolis, headed by Maltazard (David Bowie). Now Arthur must assist the benevolent Minimoy clan, ruled by The King (Robert De Niro) and Princess Selenia (Madonna), in challenging Maltazard for possession of the jewels. Shots taking the viewer down through grass blades into the microscopic, yet gigantic yard world readjust one's sense of size, as do scenes, for example, in which a small, elven Arthur fights mosquitoes with catapulted tomatoes. Meanwhile, live action scenes of Arthur's worried grandmother (Mia Farrow) provide respite from a completely computerized world. Bowie, as he did in Legend, steals the show, bringing to life his Darth Vader-like character who chose evil over good in a past adventure. Corny one-liners sometimes spoil the mood, but overall the film's thematic blend of fantasy and environmentalism, like Princess Mononoke, will delight children with its positive message. --Trinie Dalton