Puri, Om

Charlie Wilson's War (Widescreen)

Political movies about backroom negotiations need not be dry or heavy-handed, as Charlie Wilson's War delightfully proves. Based on the true story of playboy congressman Wilson's efforts to fund Afghanistan's defense against the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, the film is borne along on breezy attitude and a peppery script by West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin. Wilson, played by Tom Hanks (who also produced), is the perfect hero for this kind of tale, because there's nothing perfect or heroic about him: He's a highball-swilling, fanny-pinching gadabout who becomes radicalized on the issue of helping the Afghans against their mighty aggressor. He has help in the form of a right-wing Texas anti-Communist (Julia Roberts) with a genius for raising money, and a sardonic CIA operative (Philip Seymour Hoffman, stealing the show) who lacks all the social skills Wilson has in abundance. Sorkin's syncopated speech is just the ticket for director Mike Nichols, who understands exactly how to keep this kind of political comedy popping (the complicated story comes in at a hair over 90 minutes, amazingly). Some scoundrels are on the right side of the angels, and the movie's Charlie Wilson is one of them. --Robert Horton

Beyond Charlie Wilson's War on DVD

More Tom Hanks

Films by Mike Nichols

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Stills from Charlie Wilson's War (Click for larger image)

Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman star in this compelling and witty film from Oscar®-winning director Mike Nichols and Primetime Emmy®-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing). Based on the outrageous true story Charlie Wilson's War shows how one congressman who loved a good time one Houston socialite who loved a good cause and one renegade CIA agent who loved a good fight conspired to bring about the largest covert operation in history.System Requirements:Running Time: 102 minutes Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/BIOGRAPHY Rating: R UPC: 025195004848 Manufacturer No: 61100566

Charlie Wilson's War (Full Screen)

Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman star in this compelling and witty film from Oscar®-winning director Mike Nichols and Primetime Emmy®-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing). Based on the outrageous true story Charlie Wilson's War shows how one congressman who loved a good time one Houston socialite who loved a good cause and one renegade CIA agent who loved a good fight conspired to bring about the largest covert operation in history.System Requirements:Running Time: 102 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/BIOGRAPHY Rating: R UPC: 025195004831 Manufacturer No: 61100565

Political movies about backroom negotiations need not be dry or heavy-handed, as Charlie Wilson's War delightfully proves. Based on the true story of playboy congressman Wilson's efforts to fund Afghanistan's defense against the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, the film is borne along on breezy attitude and a peppery script by West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin. Wilson, played by Tom Hanks (who also produced), is the perfect hero for this kind of tale, because there's nothing perfect or heroic about him: He's a highball-swilling, fanny-pinching gadabout who becomes radicalized on the issue of helping the Afghans against their mighty aggressor. He has help in the form of a right-wing Texas anti-Communist (Julia Roberts) with a genius for raising money, and a sardonic CIA operative (Philip Seymour Hoffman, stealing the show) who lacks all the social skills Wilson has in abundance. Sorkin's syncopated speech is just the ticket for director Mike Nichols, who understands exactly how to keep this kind of political comedy popping (the complicated story comes in at a hair over 90 minutes, amazingly). Some scoundrels are on the right side of the angels, and the movie's Charlie Wilson is one of them. --Robert Horton

Beyond Charlie Wilson's War on DVD

More Tom Hanks

Films by Mike Nichols

More Julia Roberts

Stills from Charlie Wilson's War (Click for larger image)

The Ghost and the Darkness

Val Kilmer stars as Lt. Col. John Patterson, a 19th-century Irish engineer drafted by Britain's railroad bosses to build a trestle bridge over an African river, thus expanding the empire a tiny bit more. In Tsavo, Patterson is instantly hailed for killing a man-eating lion that had been making life hell for native workers. But morale sinks when a pair of unstoppable big cats devour more men and destroy the project. Along comes an Ahab-like, expatriate American hunter (Michael Douglas) to help Patterson face the almost preternatural powers of the two killers. The script by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) is based on fact, though the film owes more to Spielberg (specifically to Jaws) than history. There are also suggestive echoes of Kipling and Conrad in the material and characters, and there are hints of emotional complexity and psychological nuance that make one wish this could have been a great film instead of a merely fun one. --Tom Keogh

A renowned big game hunter joins forces with an engineer to kill the lions which threaten completion of a bridge in 1896 East Africa.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 29-DEC-2004
Media Type: DVD

Wolf

Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer star in Wolf a wickedly funny wildly romantic white-knuckle thriller. James Spader Kate Nelligan Christopher Plummer and David Hyde Pierce co-star in this beastly tale of love and betrayal with equal measures of humor passion and delicious terror.System Requirements:Starring: Jack Nicholson Michelle Pfeiffer James Spader and Christopher Plummer Director: Mike Nichols Copyright: 1994 Columbia Produced by Douglas Wick; written by Jim Harrison Wesley Strick; DVD released on 11/25/1997; running time of 125 minutes; Closed Captioned. Interactive Menus Widescreen and Standard Versions Scene Selections Subtitles: English Spanish & Korean Languages: English French & Spanish English Two Channels or 5.1 Dolby Digital Side A is a Widescreen Version and preserves the original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio. Side B is a Full Frame/Standard Version and is re-formatted to fit your TV.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: R UPC: 043396711594 Manufacturer No: 71159

Sophisticated to a point, this well-executed wolf-man tale works due to its clever setting and enormous star power. We all know Jack Nicholson can go nuts, but the script makes his character aware of his changes, sometimes for the better, early on. The setting, a publishing house in the middle of a takeover, gives the characters dramatic life before the horror elements kicks in. A senior editor about to get the boot, Nicholson's character becomes a new man after being bitten by a wolf. He takes on challenges at work, lives a more robust life, and attracts a new love. But will his newfound energy consume him? Director Mike Nichols keeps the action alive in the first half, but the film peters out at the end with cheap theatrics and the overuse of slow motion. Michelle Pfeiffer has little to do as simply the love interest with a grittier than average personality. Better is James Spader as a smarmy colleague. Nicholson is in fine form, relying on his keen gift to spark interest (a twitch of the head, a look in the eyes), instead of heavy doses of movie makeup. Giuseppe Rotunno's sweeping camerawork sets the mood quite well. Easy to recommend, with the added feature it's hardly gratuitous. --Doug Thomas

City of Joy

In the best performance of his career Swayze stars as Max Lowe a disillusioned surgeon who travels to India after a young patient dies on the operating table. But Lowe's determination to quit medicine is challenged when he meets a committed British nurse who runs a free clinic in Calcutta's most dangerous neighborhood. And when her clinic - and the livelihood of her neighbors - is threatened by the brutal local "godfather" Max teaches the impoverished Indians the strength of their own unity.System Requirements:Running Time: 134 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396037052 Manufacturer No: 03705

Code 46

Like Gattaca did before it, Code 46 extrapolates from the present to posit a chilling, dystopian look at our genetically regimented future. In the corporate-controlled, near-future scenario presented by prolific director Michael Winterbottom and his regular screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, nations and languages have merged to form a polyglot society in which genetic imperfections are avoided by the strict enforcement of Code 46, which prohibits sex between people who share 100%, 50%, or even 25% matching DNA. As an insurance-fraud investigator in Shanghai to investigate the issuance of forged passports (a major offense in an overcrowded world), Tim Robbins meets his prime suspect (Samantha Morton, echoing her role in Minority Report), and their violation of Code 46 has tragic and ultimately dehumanizing repercussions. Fascinating as a "what-if" scenario, Winterbottom's film is more successful as a melancholy mood-piece than a science-fiction tale. While the plot and characters suffer from occasionally vague definition, Code 46 offers a fascinating study of human longing in an age of oppressive globalization. --Jeff Shannon

What if the person you desired most was the one person you were forbidden to love? Oscar® winner* Tim Robbins and Oscar® nominee** Samantha Morton "make a sexy and moving pair of desperadoes" (Entertainment Weekly) in this "provocative quietly erotic" (Premiere) sci-fi thriller from the director of 24 Hour Party People.In the near future privileged classes live and work "inside" cities while non-citizens scratch out a miserable existence "outside" in a vast desert. People cannot leave their designated zones without special visas known as "papeles." When fraudulent papeles surface Seattle investigator William Geld (Robbins) travels to Shanghai to ferret out the culprit and meets Maria Gonzalez (Morton) a woman with whom he has a passionate affair but breaks one of society's harshest laws: Code 46.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: NR UPC: 027616914354 Manufacturer No: 1007344

East Is East

Manchester in 1971 is not the ideal time and place to raise a proper Pakistani family. But George Khan (Om Puri), father of seven unruly moppets and husband to a willful British wife (Linda Bassett), is determined to wield his influence over his clan. But what a clan this is, with Nazir (Ian Aspinall), who refuses his arranged wife; Saleem (Chris Bisson) who creates--shall we say controversial?--works of art; Tariq (Jimi Mistry), the mod boy who lives for discos and English girls; Meenah (Archie Panjabi), the only girl and tomboy extraordinaire; and Sajid (Jordan Routledge), who lives in a dirty fur-trimmed parka. Abdul (Raji James) and Maneer (Emil Marwa) stay more quietly in the background, although they lend their voices to the chorus of dissent against traditional ways.

East Is East is Damien O'Donnell's directorial debut, and he nails the raucous tone from the opening scene, a church parade where the Pakistani children must do some deft maneuvering to avoid being seen by their Muslim father. At times such as these, the film is a straightforward comedy, and the children milk the cultural differences for every laugh they can. Yet the film takes a more somber turn when Saleem balks at his father's insistence on arranging Saleem's marriage. Puri is magnificent straddling the line between lovable father and brute enemy as he demands that the others obey his will, and his performance can be difficult to watch as he metamorphoses. Sympathies toward the characters shift throughout the film, highlighting the superb acting of the entire cast. Ultimately, though, humor wins out, making East Is East a tremendously fun film. --Jenny Brown

East-West

Like The Thief (1997), which was also nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Regis Wargnier's East-West is a turbulent romance set against the political backdrop of post-World War II Russia. But instead of a man, a woman, and a child, the story revolves around a man, a woman, a child--and another man.

Shortly after the war, Alexei (Oleg Menshikov), his wife, Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire), and their son travel to Russia from France to make a new life for themselves. But they quickly find that the situation in Alexei's homeland isn't quite as advertised and that they can't leave. Sacha (Sergie Bodrov Jr.) is a young athlete who lives in the same overcrowded apartment complex. Like Marie, he wants to escape, while Alexei decides to make the best out of an awful situation. Inevitably, Marie and Alexei grow apart as Sacha and Marie grow close, but one of these characters is harboring a secret that won't be revealed until the end. The film does double time as a thriller in that, at any time, any of these characters could be imprisoned or killed--including French actress Gabrielle (Catherine Deneuve, star of Wargnier's Oscar winning Indochine). She befriends Marie during a tour of Russia and offers to help her and Sacha make their getaway.

At its worst, East-West threatens to strain credibility, but Wargnier's assured direction and the sympathetic performances he elicits from his cast make for a believable and compelling drama. Although not an epic on the scale of Doctor Zhivago, Wargnier takes a more intimate approach to similar subject matter and, arguably, offers the superior bittersweet conclusion. --Kathy Fennessy

Baabul

Kyun! Ho Gaya Na

Starring: AMITABH BACHCHAN, VIVEK OBEROI, AISHWARYA RAI

Synopsis: 'KYUN! HO GAYA NA...' is a simple story about love and life. But then again who has said that love and life are all that simple...??? Diya Malhotra meets Arjun Khanna under unusual circumstances. It proves to be a perfect beginning to a memorable relationship. Once she arrives in Mumbai she realizes that she will be staying in the same house as Arjun. The ground is thus set for events that were always meant to be. That friendship that develops between Diya and Arjun, spiced up with their opposing views on love and marriage, from the heart of the film. 'KYUN! HO GAYA NA...' is a situational romantic comedy which warns, that cupid is always around when it senses true love.

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