Questel, Mae

Funny Girl

Ah, Barbra. Of all her onscreen personas, she sparkles in none as she does in her role as 1930s comedian Fanny Brice in the musical Funny Girl. Portraying the life of this star of stage and radio, Brice preens and prances and sings, captivating her audience both onscreen and off. Fanny Brice started life on the Lower East Side of New York, the daughter of a Jewish saloon owner. Not the prettiest girl around, Brice still managed to quickly rise to stardom as a performer in the Ziegfield Follies. A shrewd, obstinate woman, Brice dictated her own success story on stage; things were a different matter in romance. Falling hard for the stunning Nick Arnstein (suavely played by Omar Sharif), Brice must navigate a difficult marriage. While kids may love the tunes (which include the now-infamous "People," as in "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world"), the plot is definitely adult-oriented. Enjoy this one, but don't go too far out of your way for the sequel, Funny Lady. --Jenny Brown

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Special Edition)

You know exactly what you're getting in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: another goofball, slapstick comedy of chaos and catastrophe with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and family. This time, there's no traveling involved: Clark and Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) prepare for a nice Christmas with the kids (played by none other than Juliette Lewis and Roseanne star Johnny Galecki), when their home is invaded by backwoods cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and his brood, along with assorted other crazy and/or stuffy relatives. Complications, of course, are inevitable. The film is preceded by National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) and National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) and followed by National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation (1997). Directed by Jeremiah Chechik, who went on to do Benny & Joon and the Sharon Stone remake of Diabolique. --Jim Emerson

In this 3rd Lampoon outing, Clark is determined to have an old fashioned Christmas. The disasters begin when his crude cousin from Kansas arrives unannounced.
Genre: Christmas
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 7-OCT-2003
Media Type: DVD

New York Stories

Collection of three films about life in modern-day New York.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 8-APR-2003
Media Type: DVD

Three views of life in the city of all cities comprise this film, with segments directed by Woody Allen, Francis Coppola, and Martin Scorsese. The best of the three is "Life Lessons," directed by Scorsese, about an artist (played by Nick Nolte) who uses his hypersuccess to lure beautiful young aspiring artists to serve as his assistant/lovers. The segment is an astute portrait of the nature of the New York art world. In "Life Without Zoe," Coppola portrays the life of the privileged Zoe, the daughter of a world-renowned flutist, whose adventures on the Upper East Side (in the upper echelons of society) play like something approaching a cartoon. Woody Allen finishes up the film with his "Oedipus Wrecks," a typical Allen number about a successful New York lawyer who's still hounded by his mother--the title tells you all you need to know. Though stronger segments to complement Scorsese's would have made this film much more interesting and enjoyable, it does provide an accurate glimpse into this wondrous city and is a must-see for anyone fascinated by New York. --James McGrath

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Full Screen Edition)

You know exactly what you're getting in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: another goofball, slapstick comedy of chaos and catastrophe with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and family. This time, there's no traveling involved: Clark and Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) prepare for a nice Christmas with the kids (played by none other than Juliette Lewis and Roseanne star Johnny Galecki), when their home is invaded by backwoods cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and his brood, along with assorted other crazy and/or stuffy relatives. Complications, of course, are inevitable. The film is preceded by National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) and National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) and followed by National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation (1997). Directed by Jeremiah Chechik, who went on to do Benny & Joon and the Sharon Stone remake of Diabolique. --Jim Emerson

Cartoon Crazy's Spooky Toons

Spooky Toons culls 13 vintage cartoons, each centering on some poor bug-eyed creature contracting a usually misguided case of the creeps. To say it's fraught with the sort of frightful scenes that remind one of bats and broomsticks, though, would be misleading. Mostly, these nuggets (most less than 10 minuts long) jog nostalgia. Casper, star of two segments, was never fond of scaring folks to begin with, and Betty Boop, the other double-billed character, is too cutesie-poo to pull off a portrayal of genuine fear. Still, Spooky Toons ought to sit well with fans of the form and those more concerned with old-fashioned fun than Halloween-focused fare, as it trots out some early, largely forgotten gems. For instance, there's Balloon Land, about a town full of walking, talking balloons forever on the run from the roguish, rhyming Pin Cushion ("I always have a pin at hand / That's the reason I am panned"), and Ouija Board, a partly animated featurette following the adventures of a cartoon clown who leaps off a storyboard and wreaks havoc in his studio's art department. Another standout--Huffless, Puffless--seems misplaced in this collection, but it's still a joy to watch. It has a crew of hipster dragons haranguing a nonsmoking member of the tribe: "John, stop puttin' it on. Ain't no joke--you've gotta smoke!" In the end, of course, the puffless dragon overpowers his air-polluting peers, much the same way this compilation's winning lineup overpowers its watered-down theme. --Tammy La Gorce

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 1 & 2

Get not just one, but two Christmas vacations! First, the Griswolds prepare for a family seasonal celebration, but things never run smoothly for Clark (Chevy Chase), his wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious relatives. Then, join Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) as he and his family go on an expenses-paid holiday tour of the South Pacific and end up shipwrecked on a remote island.

A Christmas Story/National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Special Edition)

Funny Girl [Region 2]

Ah, Barbra. Of all her onscreen personas, she sparkles in none as she does in her role as 1930s comedian Fanny Brice in the musical Funny Girl. Portraying the life of this star of stage and radio, Brice preens and prances and sings, captivating her audience both onscreen and off. Fanny Brice started life on the Lower East Side of New York, the daughter of a Jewish saloon owner. Not the prettiest girl around, Brice still managed to quickly rise to stardom as a performer in the Ziegfield Follies. A shrewd, obstinate woman, Brice dictated her own success story on stage; things were a different matter in romance. Falling hard for the stunning Nick Arnstein (suavely played by Omar Sharif), Brice must navigate a difficult marriage. While kids may love the tunes (which include the now-infamous "People," as in "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world"), the plot is definitely adult-oriented. Enjoy this one, but don't go too far out of your way for the sequel, Funny Lady. --Jenny Brown

Christmas Vacation [Region 2]

You know exactly what you're getting in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: another goofball, slapstick comedy of chaos and catastrophe with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and family. This time, there's no traveling involved: Clark and Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) prepare for a nice Christmas with the kids (played by none other than Juliette Lewis and Roseanne star Johnny Galecki), when their home is invaded by backwoods cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and his brood, along with assorted other crazy and/or stuffy relatives. Complications, of course, are inevitable. The film is preceded by National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) and National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) and followed by National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation (1997). Directed by Jeremiah Chechik, who went on to do Benny & Joon and the Sharon Stone remake of Diabolique. --Jim Emerson

Popeye the Sailor