Turturro, Nicholas

First Sunday

FIRST SUNDAY (DVD MOVIE)

Ice Cube continues his winning streak as a likeable everyman in family movies with First Sunday, an initially silly, disposable comedy that picks up emotional power and authenticity by the second act. Cube plays ne'er-do-well Durell, an out-of-work Baltimore dad who needs over $17,000 to keep his ex from taking their son with her to Atlanta for good. Desperate to raise the cash but hamstrung by his self-defeating attitude and the criminal antics of his goofy sidekick, LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), Durell gives in to temptation and decides he and LeeJohn should rob a church. The crime goes badly when it turns out a number of parishioners are in the building at the time, and a hostage situation develops. Events take a twist when the would-be thieves become the beneficiaries of Christian charity and forgiveness from the men and women they've kidnapped, and a bigger criminal is revealed in the congregation's mix. A terrific supporting cast including Michael Beach, Chi McBride, Keith David, Malinda Williams, Loretta Devine, and Katt Williams bring strong humor and dignity to the film's latter half, compensating for some unpleasant missteps (a pointless scene at a massage parlor) earlier in the story. Writer-director David E. Talbert is especially sharp during a spirited, gospel performance scene, which simply crackles on screen. --Tom Keogh

The Longest Yard (Widescreen Edition)

Adam Sandler is no Burt Reynolds, but his remake of The Longest Yard is amusing enough to stand on its own. Inheriting the role played by Reynolds played in the 1974 original, Sandler plays Paul Crewe, a scandalized former football star who violates his parole and winds up back in the slammer, where an ambitious, corrupt warden (James Cromwell) manipulates him into forming a convict football squad to compete with a team of bullying prison guards. But where the original (directed with characteristic ruggedness by Robert Aldrich) was a semi-comic study of inmate resistance against powerful oppressors, Sandler's version is a formulaic comedy about winning against the bad guys. That makes it a softer, less meaningful film, and Sandler (reuniting here with Peter Segal after Anger Management and 50 First Dates) lacks the depth to convey anything more than amiable redemption, resulting in a movie that's easily enjoyed and easily forgotten. A co-starring role for Chris Rock could have been electrifying; instead it's just OK, as is Reynolds as the prison team's old-pro coach. That leaves us with a few good laughs on the football field and from Cloris Leachman as the warden's elderly, oversexed secretary, good work from rapper Nelly in a supporting role, and the lovely sight of Courteney Cox (as Crewe's nagging girlfriend) in a dazzling low-cut dress. In unnecessary remakes like this, fringe benefits count for a lot. --Jeff Shannon

The story of pro quarterback Paul Crewe (Sandler) and former college champion and coach Nate Scarboro (Reynolds) who are doing time in the same prison. Asked to put together a team of inmates to take on the guards Crewe enlists the help of Scarboro to coach the inmates to victory in a football game fixed to turn out quite another way.System Requirements:Starring: Adam Sandler Chris Rock Burt Reynolds William Fichtner James Cromwell Directed By: Peter Segal Running Time: 113 Min. Copyright Paramount Pictures 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097363434948 Manufacturer No: 343494

The Longest Yard (Full Screen Edition)

The story of pro quarterback Paul Crewe (Sandler) and former college champion and coach Nate Scarboro (Reynolds) who are doing time in the same prison. Asked to put together a team of inmates to take on the guards Crewe enlists the help of Scarboro to coach the inmates to victory in a football game fixed to turn out quite another way.System Requirements:Starring: Adam Sandler Chris Rock Burt Reynolds William Fichtner James Cromwell Directed By: Peter Segal Running Time: 113 Min. Copyright Paramount Pictures 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097360462845 Manufacturer No: 046284

Adam Sandler is no Burt Reynolds, but his remake of The Longest Yard is amusing enough to stand on its own. Inheriting the role played by Reynolds played in the 1974 original, Sandler plays Paul Crewe, a scandalized former football star who violates his parole and winds up back in the slammer, where an ambitious, corrupt warden (James Cromwell) manipulates him into forming a convict football squad to compete with a team of bullying prison guards. But where the original (directed with characteristic ruggedness by Robert Aldrich) was a semi-comic study of inmate resistance against powerful oppressors, Sandler's version is a formulaic comedy about winning against the bad guys. That makes it a softer, less meaningful film, and Sandler (reuniting here with Peter Segal after Anger Management and 50 First Dates) lacks the depth to convey anything more than amiable redemption, resulting in a movie that's easily enjoyed and easily forgotten. A co-starring role for Chris Rock could have been electrifying; instead it's just OK, as is Reynolds as the prison team's old-pro coach. That leaves us with a few good laughs on the football field and from Cloris Leachman as the warden's elderly, oversexed secretary, good work from rapper Nelly in a supporting role, and the lovely sight of Courteney Cox (as Crewe's nagging girlfriend) in a dazzling low-cut dress. In unnecessary remakes like this, fringe benefits count for a lot. --Jeff Shannon

Mo' Better Blues

With Mo' Better Blues, the story of a young trumpeter's rise to jazz-world stardom, Spike Lee set out to counter Clint Eastwood's cliché-ridden biopic of Charlie Parker in Bird. But the final product, a slick, glossy drama (with hip-hop jazz provided by Gangstarr no less), is just as superficial as the numerous Alger-esque stories of music stardom to which movie audiences are accustomed.

Denzel Washington gives a typically charismatic performance as the trumpeter in question, as does Wesley Snipes as his sax-playing rival. And as with most Spike Lee films, there are numerous solid performers in small roles such as Bill Nunn, Latin-music star Rubén Blades, and comedian Robin Harris. One character, however, attracted unwanted attention: John Turturro's role as an unscrupulous music-industry exec. Critics called the Turturro character, who is at once money hungry, swarthy, and perpetually shrouded in darkness, a classic anti-Semitic caricature. But the charge seems almost irrelevant in Spike Lee's cartoonish, overstylized world of impossibly hunky jazzmen, curvaceous hangers-on, and incessant bebop. --Ethan Brown

Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington gives a riveting performance in Spike Lee's breathtaking film on music and love. Talented trumpeter Bleek Gilliam (Washington) is obsessed by his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo (Joie Lee) and Clarke (Cynda Williams). But when he is forced to come to the aid of his manager and childhood friend (Spike Lee), Bleek finds his world more fragile that he ever imagined. Stunning cinematography, a rousing score and superlative performances come together in this unforgettable feast for the senses.

Jungle Fever

Spike Lee's 1991 story about an interracial relationship and its consequences on the lives and communities of the lovers (Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra) is one of his most captivating and focused films. Snipes and Sciorra are very good as individuals trying to reach beyond the limits imposed upon them for reasons of race, tradition, sexism, and such. Lee makes an interesting and subtle case that they are driven to one another out of frustration with social obstacles as well as pure attraction--but is that enough for love to survive? John Turturro is featured in a subplot as an Italian American who grows attracted to a black woman and takes heat from his numbskull buddies. --Tom Keogh

Excess Baggage

Alicia Silverstone was so hot after the success of Clueless that she formed her own production company at the age of 19, and Excess Baggage was the first movie she chose as a starring vehicle. Silverstone plays Emily, a spoiled rich girl who has everything but her father's affection, so she decides to stage her own kidnapping to see if dad will come to his senses and appreciate the daughter he so blindly disregards. But when Emily locks herself in the trunk of her own car, she's surprised when the car is stolen by Vincent (Benicio Del Toro, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), a professional car thief whose partner (Harry Connick Jr.) has misplaced $200,000 of the Mob's money. Christopher Walken stars as Emily's "Uncle Ray," who's hot on her trail as she goes on the lam with Vincent. It's not the meandering plot that matters so much as the funny dialogue between Silverstone and Del Toro, who steals his scenes with a smoky mumble and easygoing charm. This one is mostly for Alicia fans, but the film has got enough good laughs and low-key appeal to make it a home-video sleeper. --Jeff Shannon

Hellraiser - Inferno

This is the first Hellraiser sequel that doesn't bear the imprimatur of creator Clive Barker, and that makes it a sequel that many Hellraiser fans will want to disown, but they shouldn't dismiss it altogether. Now under the control of Miramax producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the franchise takes an entirely new direction, and Inferno is primarily a detective thriller in which a corrupt cop (Craig Sheffer) takes on a case that will judge his soul and, ultimately, damn him forever. His judge and jury will be Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and his legion of twisted Cenobites, but before he can be tried and condemned, Sheffer's cop will watch as those around him are killed off one by one, leaving a trail of blood (and telltale severed fingers) that leads back to the torment of his own youth.

So, what you really have here is a variation on It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, with all the themes reversed to hellish extremes. The plot doesn't hold together all that well, but you can't fault the film for establishing and maintaining a heavily somber tone. This is pretty dark stuff, after all, and although Hellraiser fans will lament that Pinhead's appearance is relatively brief, he's presented here in an intriguing new light--not merely an icon of pain and suffering, but a giver of counsel and justice to those (like Sheffer's cop) who arguably deserve the eternal anguish they will receive. Does that make Pinhead a good guy? If this otherwise lugubrious sequel achieves anything, it's that it raises that question and lets the viewer decide. --Jeff Shannon

A spine-tingling thriller, HELLRAISER: INFERNO is the next inescapably terrifying chapter in the heart-stopping HELLRAISER series! It's the powerful story of a shady L.A. detective (Craig Sheffer -- THE PROGRAM, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT) who finds himself lost in a darkly nightmarish world of evil when he solves the mysterious puzzle box that releases the diabolical demon, Pinhead! As those around him begin to meet tragic fates, he sets out to conquer the horrifying Pinhead and escape eternal hell! Also starring popular Nicholas Turturro (TV's NYPD BLUE, EXCESS BAGGAGE), HELLRAISER: INFERNO combines great special effects and relentless thrills to deliver exciting, edge-of-your-seat entertainment!

Hillside Strangler (Unrated Edition)

Based on the true story of the Hillside Strangler who terrorized Los Angeles in 1978 and 1979. No one knew that the brutal serial sex killings were the work of not one man, but cousins! C. Thomas Howell and Nicholas Turturro star in this chilling, true story from the makers of Ed Gein and Ted Bundy. Available in a shocking, unrated version.

Big Shot - Confessions of a Campus Bookie

Based on actual events, Big Shot: Confessions of a Campus Bookie plays like a frat-house blend of Casino and Goodfellas. Originally broadcast on FX, it's got the sanitized veneer of a TV movie, but it's an honest, R-rated appraisal of Bennie Silman, a Brooklyn-born student at Arizona State University who reaped--and lost--a fortune in 1994 by fixing basketball games with the help of star player Stevin "Hedake" Smith. Perfectly cast as Silman, the always-interesting David Krumholtz ("Bernard" from the Santa Clause movies) speaks to the camera, inviting us into his first-person account of money, girls, and the Mafia. It's a party animal's fantasy until the bloody-nosed climax, directed with edgy energy, but not enough substance, by Ernest R. Dickerson (who fared marginally better with his Showtime film Our America). Krumholtz and Tory Kittles (as Smith) make this a compelling enterprise, however, and the real Bennie Silman appears in a coda that roots the movie in harsh, cautionary reality. --Jeff Shannon

When Benny Silman left Brooklyn for Arizona State University, he felt like he was stepping into a Coppertone commercial. The Sun, the beautiful girls?life was good. Once he discovered the bright lights of Vegas and the adrenaline rush of gambling, things got even better. Soon he was the "campus bookie" making good cash and having a blast with his buddies. It wasn't until he began to fix basketball games that his high stakes life began to spin out of control. This is the real-life story of the 1994 Arizona State University point-shaving scandal that rocked the NCAA.

Hillside Strangler (R-Rated Edition)

Based on the true story of the Hillside Strangler who terrorized Los Angeles in 1978 and 1979. No one knew that the brutal serial sex killings were the work of not one man, but cousins! C. Thomas Howell and Nicholas Turturro star in this chilling, true story from the makers of Ed Gein and Ted Bundy.