Vance, Courtney B

The Hunt for Red October (Special Collector's Edition)

Before Harrison Ford assumed the mantle of playing Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan hero in Patriot Games, Alec Baldwin took a swing at the character in this John McTiernan film and hit one to the fence. If less instantly sympathetic than Ford, Baldwin is in some respects more interesting and nuanced as Ryan, and drawing comparisons between both actors' performances can make for some interesting postmovie discussion. That aside, The Hunt for Red October stands alone as a uniquely exciting adventure with a fantastic costar: Sean Connery as a Russian nuclear submarine captain attempting to defect to the West on his ship. Ryan must figure out his true motives for approaching the U.S. McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard) made an exceptionally handsome movie here with action sequences that really do take one's breath away. --Tom Keogh

Based on Tom Clancy's bestseller, directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard) and starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER sweats with high-tech anxiety and the tension of men who hold Doomsday in their hands. A new technologically-superior Soviet nuclear sub, the Red October, is heading for the U.S. coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius (Connery). The American government thinks Ramius is planning to attack. A lone CIA analyst (Baldwin) has a different idea: he thinks Ramius is planning to defect, but he has only a few hours to find him and prove it - because the entire Russian naval and air commands are trying to find him, too. The hunt is on!

The Tuskegee Airmen

This true story of the black flyers who broke the color barrier in the U.S. Air Force during World War II is a well-intentioned film highlighted by an excellent cast. Proud, solemn, Iowa-born Laurence Fishburne and city-kid hipster Cuba Gooding Jr. are among the hopefuls who meet en route to Tuskegee Air Force Base, where they are among the recruits for an "experimental" program to "prove" the abilities of the black man in the U.S. armed services. Fighting prejudice from racist officers and government officials and held to a consistently higher level of performance than their white counterparts, these men prove themselves in training and in combat, many of them dying for their country in the process. Andre Braugher costars as a West Point graduate who takes charge of the unit in Africa and in Italy (where it's christened the 332nd). The film is rousing, if slow starting and episodic, but it's periodically grounded by a host of war movie clichés, notably the calculated demise of practically every trainee introduced in the opening scenes (ironic given the 332nd's real-life combat record--high casualties for the enemy, low casualties among themselves, and no losses among the bombers they escorted). Ultimately the Emmy-nominated performances by moral backbone Fishburne and the dedicated Braugher and the energy and cocky confidence of Gooding give their battles both on and off the battlefield the sweet taste of victory. --Sean Axmaker

Featuring an all-star cast headed by Laurence Fishburne, fireballs of high speed air action explode off the screen in this exciting story of the "Fighting 99th," the first squadron of black American pilots to be allowed to fight for their country. Based on the true story.

Dangerous Minds

This "To Ma'am with Love" is much more an escapist popcorn movie than the inner-city document its marketing suggested. Michelle Pfeiffer plays real-life former Marine Louanne Johnson, a high school English teacher who meets resistance from kids and administration alike at a tough urban school in Northern California. Pfeiffer is good, and her character's overall development even survives various post-production story cuts. (A romance with Andy Garcia's character was completely eliminated before release; Garcia is nowhere in sight.) The actors who play Johnson's students are also fine, and the whole film becomes the latest in a long tradition of sentimental movies about teachers who change the lives of kids. --Tom Keogh

Top Hollywood star Michelle Pfeiffer (I AM SAM, WHAT LIES BENEATH) is the driving force behind this gripping and uplifting smash hit! Based on an incredible true-life story -- Pfeiffer is former U.S. Marine LouAnne Johnson, a first-time high school teacher assigned to a class of tough but smart inner city students. When conventional methods fail to reach them, the feisty Ms. Johnson tries the unconventional -- defying the rules and creating her own curriculum! In the process, she instills a new self-confidence in her students -- motivating them toward their greatest potential. Critically acclaimed and powered by a riveting star performance, DANGEROUS MINDS is hard-hitting, crowd-pleasing entertainment you won't soon forget!

The Adventures of Huck Finn

Huckleberry Finn's age has been scaled down in this 1993 Disney film in order to accommodate star Elijah Wood's young years at the time. But that's not the only concession Mark Twain's great American novel must make to Disney revisionism. Wood's Huck, as adapted for the screen by writer-director Stephen Sommers, is all rascal and only nominally a philosopher, which takes a lot of the soul out of Twain's extraordinary story about Huck's enlightenment while traveling with the slave Jim (Courtney B. Vance) along the Mississippi river. Big chunks of the journey are also minimized in significance, and not just for the sake of storytelling economy. Jason Robards Jr. and Robbie Coltrane brighten things up, but overall this is an unnecessarily simplified version of an important story. --Tom Keogh

Climb aboard for an extraordinary version of Mark Twain's sweeping adventure when Walt Disney Pictures presents THE ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN. It's the unforgettable saga of a mischievous youngster and a runaway slave on a wild expedition to freedom. As the pair take the ride of their lives down the treacherous Mississippi River, they run into an entertaining assortment of offbeat characters and face one challenging adventure after another! You won't want to miss this sensational telling of Twain's classic tale -- an action-packed mix of thrills and excitement!

Beyond the Law

Charlie Sheen is a fearless cop, who goes undercover in order to infiltrate a notorious motorcycle gang, in this film based on a true story. He soon finds a new outlaw persona taking hold of him and risks destroying himself by getting too close to the evil he has sworn to fight.

Hamburger Hill

Because it was released less than a year after Oliver Stone's Platoon and within months of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, this exceptionally well-made film about one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War was largely overshadowed and overlooked. It's a pity, because in some respects this is the best of the Vietnam films of the late 1980s, at least in terms of the everyday authenticity it depicts. Stripped clean of dramatically extraneous narrative, the movie opts instead for a straightforward approach to its day-by-day account of one of the war's costliest victories--a deadly siege on Hill 937 in the Ashau Valley, where soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division engaged the enemy over the course of eleven brutal assaults between May 10th and 20th, 1969. The film specifically follows the 3rd Squad, 1st Platoon, a mixture of "new guys" and battle-weary "short-timers" who fought against terrifying odds and suffered a 70% casualty rate. From first scene to last, Hamburger Hill traces the rise and fall of their battle experience, from the horror of firefights to the camaraderie of men who've faced death and survived. Racial tensions flare and subside, trusts are established, and courage emerges from unexpected places. Through it all, writer Jim Carabatsos and director John Irvin maintain a purity of focus that pays tribute to the soldier's life without promoting false patriotism or gung-ho theatrics. In addition, the film features a cast full of talented and well-known actors in the early stages of their careers, including Dylan McDermott (from the TV series "The Practice") and Don Cheadle, before gaining fame in Devil in a Blue Dress and Boogie Nights. --Jeff Shannon

Space Cowboys

This slice of cornball Americana is so much fun you'll be tempted to stand up and salute. Director and costar Clint Eastwood manages to turn what might have been ludicrous into a jubilant tribute to age and experience, and Space Cowboys succeeds as two movies in one--a comedy about retired pilots given one last shot at glory and an Apollo 13-like thriller with all the requisite heroics. With a dream cast of Hollywood vets playing old farts described in tabloids as "The Ripe Stuff," the movie jumps from a 1958 prologue (establishing their lost bid for space travel) to 40-plus years later, when the retired Air Force aces (Eastwood, James Garner, Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones) volunteer to rescue a falling Russian satellite that only Eastwood's character can repair.

It turns out that Russky bird is a cold war leftover equipped with live nuclear warheads, and Space Cowboys revs up to a rousing climax in which our heroes prove their mettle. But first the comedy: watching these codgers struggle to pass NASA's physical tests is a total hoot, with running gags about wrinkles, dentures, and oysters for sagging libidos. (Sutherland is the scene-stealer, but they're all having a blast.) Once in space, the movie gets down to business, and the visual-effects wizards at Industrial Light and Magic provide stunning vistas from Earth's orbit; a shot looking down at the boot of Italy is particularly beautiful. A subplot involving a weasely NASA administrator (James Cromwell) is rather perfunctory, but it hardly matters. Space Cowboys earns its wings, once again demonstrating Eastwood's comfort with any genre he chooses. --Jeff Shannon

In 1958, the members of Team Daedalus, a group of top Air Force test pilots, were ready to serve their country as the first Americans in space but were pushed aside. Now, as a Russian satellite fails and is about to crash into earth, Team Daedalus is back in action in a rescue mission.

The Jack Ryan Special Edition Collection (The Hunt for Red October/Patriot Games/Clear and Present Danger/The Sum of All Fears)

All four Jack Ryan movies are now available in Special Collector's Editions. This new set is the first to feature new editions of The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger that deliver these action-packed movies in 5.1 Surround Sound and DTS. New cast and crew interviews also included. The set also contains the previously released Special Collector's Edition of The Sum of All Fears and all four films are in a series slipsleeve.

The Preacher's Wife

This tedious remake of the classic Christmas movie The Bishop's Wife falls on its face by significantly altering the careful design of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert E. Sherwood's story for the original film. In Sherwood's version, a rather wooden, inept bishop and his lonely wife unknowingly take into their lives a heaven-sent angel who aids the former and ends up falling in love with the latter. In this unnecessary update, an inner-city preacher (Courtney B. Vance) and his estranged spouse (Whitney Houston) are visited by a celestial goof (Denzel Washington), whose unsolicited offer of help is enough to galvanize Vance's character to fix his own problems. What that means is this: by the second act, there's no reason to have Washington's angel in the story. Even his infatuation with the missus isn't enough to warrant his hanging around this movie; the change is a colossal blunder by director Penny Marshall. Vance ends up stealing the film from Washington, but it's a Pyrrhic victory; for the most part this movie just seems like a series of random scenes between opportunities for Houston to belt out songs. --Tom Keogh

Starring Academy Award(R)-winner Denzel Washington (Best Actor, TRAINING DAY, 2001; Best Supporting Actor, GLORY, 1989; REMEMBER THE TITANS, THE HURRICANE) and multi-talented Whitney Houston (THE BODYGUARD, WAITING TO EXHALE), here's a delightful romantic comedy to send spirits soaring! Washington plays a charming angel named Dudley who's sent to earth to help a young minister (Courtney B. Vance -- DANGEROUS MINDS) and his beautiful wife (Houston) revive their marriage! But things take a hilarious twist when Dudley accidentally falls in love with the preacher's wife. From director Penny Marshall (RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN) and featuring screen favorite Gregory Hines (RENAISSANCE MAN), this critically acclaimed comedy hit also showcases nine dynamic songs by Grammy Award(R) winner Houston, including the Top 10 hit "I Believe In You And Me."

The Last Supper

Painted in mile-wide strokes of black satirical comedy, The Last Supper turns intolerance into a parlor trick, then repeats it ad nauseam in case we missed the joke. Still, redundancy can be fun when applied to the premeditated murder of right-wing extremists by self-righteous left-wing zealots; director Stacy Title is an equal-opportunity offender, never taking sides. The grisly high jinks commence when a truck-driving, child-molesting, Hitler-loving ex-Marine (Bill Paxton, acing the role) is accidentally killed while dining with a clutch of snobby liberal grad students, played with uniform excellence by Cameron Diaz (showing early promise), Ron Eldard, Courtney B. Vance, Annabeth Gish, and coproducer Jonathan Penner. Having acquired a taste for blood, the wine-poisoning liberals stage "last suppers" with hand-picked targets (Charles Durning, Mark Harmon, Jason Alexander, and ultimately Ron Perlman), eventually attracting a suspicious sheriff (fine work by SNL alumnus Nora Dunn). It's got all the subtlety of a pile-driver, but The Last Supper craftily defends free speech by exposing its most vicious violations. --Jeff Shannon