Velez, Eddie

Repo Man (Collector's Edition)

A volatile, toxic potion of satire and nihilism, road movie and science fiction, violence and comedy, the unclassifiable sensibility of Alex Cox's Repo Man is the model and inspiration for a potent strain of post-punk American comedy that includes not only Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), but also early Coen brothers (Raising Arizona, in particular), Men in Black, and even (in a weird way) The X-Files. Otto, a baby-face punk played by Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a coke-snorting, veteran repo-man-of-honor prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens of every stripe. It may seem chaotic at first glance, but there's a "latticework of coincidence" (as Tracey Walter puts it) underlying everything. Repo Man is a key American movie of the 1980s--just as Taxi Driver, Nashville, and Chinatown are key American movies of the '70s. With a scorching soundtrack that features Iggy Pop, Fear, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies. --Jim Emerson

White Chicks (Unrated and Uncut Edition)

Roasted by critics but surprisingly tenacious at the box office, White Chicks is the kind of comedy that thrives (well, maybe) on home video. Faint praise indeed, but it allows comedy fans an opportunity to cut the Wayans brothers (costars Marlon and Shawn, and director-cowriter Keenen Ivory) some slack and at least try to answer the obvious question, what were they thinking? For the sake of charity, let's ignore charges of reverse racism that plagued this would-be comedy about a pair of FBI agents (Marlon and Shawn) who go undercover as over-privileged white debutantes to thwart a kidnapping scheme, and let's allow that comedy--not social satire--is the Wayans' top priority. If you can get past the fart jokes, the freakishly unconvincing "white chick" makeup, seemingly endless gags about "white chicks" getting hit on by lusty black guys, and a plot that really doesn't matter at all, you just might find a laugh or two in the Wayans' attempt to understand women through a bit of friendly gender reversal. Tootsie it's not, but at least White Chicks offers more entertainment that Nicky and Paris Hilton, who partially inspired the story. Just ask yourself, which freak show do you prefer? --Jeff Shannon

From the director of Scary Movie comes WHITE CHICKS a gender-bending gut-busting comedy starring funnymen Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. What happens when two fumbling FBI agents disguise themselves as mega-rich princesses to infiltrate high society? Snap! It's frantic antics and nonstop hilarity as the brothers go from hapless G-men to haute couture G-strings...with attitude! Groovin' tunes hardcore jams and a sidesplitting disco dance-off with the bluebloods fuel outrageous laughs from start to finish in WHITE CHICKS - two brothers just keepin' it real. Sort of.DVD FeaturesUnrated & Uncut Edition includes footage not seen in theatres.Wayans Brothers Audio CommentaryHow'd They Do That? featurette - A look behind the scenes at the make-up special effects used in the filmA Wayans Comedy featurette - The idea process & humor of creating a comedySTARZ! Encore featurette: On the Set - Behind-the-scenes making-of special.FilmographiesPreviewsAudio: Dolby Digital 5.1 (English French)English French SubtitlesClosed CaptioningAnamorphic Widescreen PresentationSystem Requirements:Running Time 108 MinsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: UNRATED UPC: 043396086593 Manufacturer No: 08659

The Hunted (Widescreen Edition)

William Friedkin's taut direction highlights The Hunted, a bloodsport thriller that works best without dialogue. It's a prime vehicle for costars Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, whose rugged screen personas are perfectly matched in a manhunt between a military assassin and the man who trained him to kill. Traumatized by atrocities in Kosovo four years earlier (the site of an action-packed prologue), Hallam (Del Toro) is seemingly psychotic and now killing in the forests of Oregon; Bonham (Jones) is lured out of retirement by a tenacious FBI agent (Connie Nielsen) to end Hallam's murder spree. The hackneyed plot is derivative to a fault (no surprise from the screenwriters of Collateral Damage), and the whole movie's a foregone conclusion, but Friedkin inspires fine work from his well-trained stars while exploring the ambiguity of Hallam's character. Lushly photographed by Caleb Deschanel, The Hunted is a survivalist's dream, militarily authentic and most effective when its primal instincts are cinematically expressed. --Jeff Shannon

Directed by Academy Award winner William Friedkin, THE HUNTED follows FBI agent Abby Durrell (Nielson) and her new recruit, L.T. Bonham (Jones) - a specialist in deep-woods tracking, as they team up to track and hunt down trained assassin, Aaron Hallam (Del Toro), who made a sport out of fatally shooting deer hunters in the forests outside Portland, Oregon. Using his well-honed nature skills to locate Hallam, Bonham soon finds himself and his partner lured into a gut-wrenching game of cat and mouse. With ruthless precision and murderous skill, Hallam remains one step ahead of his pursuers as Bonham and Durrell try to outwit him in the natural and urban wildernesses before Hallem turns them into his next victims.

White Chicks (PG-13 Rated Edition)

Roasted by critics but surprisingly tenacious at the box office, White Chicks is the kind of comedy that thrives (well, maybe) on home video. Faint praise indeed, but it allows comedy fans an opportunity to cut the Wayans brothers (costars Marlon and Shawn, and director-cowriter Keenen Ivory) some slack and at least try to answer the obvious question, what were they thinking? For the sake of charity, let's ignore charges of reverse racism that plagued this would-be comedy about a pair of FBI agents (Marlon and Shawn) who go undercover as over-privileged white debutantes to thwart a kidnapping scheme, and let's allow that comedy--not social satire--is the Wayans' top priority. If you can get past the fart jokes, the freakishly unconvincing "white chick" makeup, seemingly endless gags about "white chicks" getting hit on by lusty black guys, and a plot that really doesn't matter at all, you just might find a laugh or two in the Wayans' attempt to understand women through a bit of friendly gender reversal. Tootsie it's not, but at least White Chicks offers more entertainment that Nicky and Paris Hilton, who partially inspired the story. Just ask yourself, which freak show do you prefer? --Jeff Shannon

From the director of Scary Movie comes WHITE CHICKS a gender-bending gut-busting comedy starring funnymen Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. What happens when two fumbling FBI agents disguise themselves as mega-rich princesses to infiltrate high society? Snap! It's frantic antics and nonstop hilarity as the brothers go from hapless G-men to haute couture G-strings...with attitude! Groovin' tunes hardcore jams and a sidesplitting disco dance-off with the bluebloods fuel outrageous laughs from start to finish in WHITE CHICKS - two brothers just keepin' it real. Sort of.DVD FeatuesWayans Brothers Audio CommentaryHow'd They Do That? featurette - A look behind the scenes at the make-up special effects used in the filmA Wayans Comedy featurette - The idea process & humor of creating a comedySTARZ! Encore featurette: On the Set - Behind-the-scenes making-of special.FilmographiesPreviewsAudio: Dolby Digital 5.1 (English French)English French SubtitlesClosed CaptioningAnamorphic Widescreen PresentationSystem Requirements:Running Time 108 MinsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396025202 Manufacturer No: 02520

Extremities

In a "riveting performance" (The Hollywood Reporter) that stunned critics and audiences alike, Farrah Fawcett is the heart and soul of this "edge-of-your-seat suspense drama" (The Film Journal) about a woman who turns the tables on a would-be rapist. Nominated* for a Golden Globe, Fawcett "is genuine, pathetic and heroic here" (Los Angeles Times) and her "unadorned artistry singes" (Time)! After narrowly escaping an attempted rape, Marjorie (Fawcett) is haunted by the fact that her attacker (James Russo) knows where she lives. But when he appears on her doorstep and subjects her to a non-stop barrage of physical and mental assaults, Marjorie manages to disarm and capture him. Filled with fear and hostility, she conspires with her roommates (Diana Scarwid and Alfre Woodard) to take the law into their own hands. But as her rage consumes her, Marjorie shocks her friends with a proposal that challenges the perilously thin line between justice and vengeance. *1986: Actress in a Leading Role

Black Dawn

Ex-CIA agent Jonathan Cold helps a terrorist group obtain a nuclear weapon leaving the CIA to wonder if Cold has become a traitor.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 3-APR-2007
Media Type: DVD

Most Wanted

Comic actor Keenen Ivory Wayans made a creditable effort to expand his career horizons by writing the script for this action thriller, in which he also stars. Wayans plays U.S. Marine Sgt. James Dunn, a military hero who refuses an order to shoot a young shepherd during the Gulf War. His insubordination leads to a lethal struggle with a superior officer and a subsequent murder conviction against Dunn.

Plucked from his death sentence by a covert unit of Marines, however, Dunn soon finds himself in a shadowy world of undercover wars under the command of one Lt. Col. Grant Casey (Jon Voight). Offered freedom in exchange for aiding a mission against a corrupt industrialist (Robert Culp), Dunn agrees and then discovers he's actually been set up to take the fall for an assassination. Suddenly, he's the most wanted man in the world, with police, the military, the Secret Service, and legions of reward seekers chasing him around Los Angeles. Jill Hennessy stars as an eyewitness who happened to catch the killing on videotape and can clear Dunn if she would only cooperate with him--a problem, since he has kidnapped her.

Directed by David Glenn Hogan, Most Wanted works just fine as a well-oiled action piece with a capable star and competent action sequences. The story ideas (especially Dunn's Rambo-esque flight through the city and his reliance on esoteric survival skills) feel overly familiar, but that only makes Most Wanted all the more enjoyable as a potboiler instead of a serious original. --Tom Keogh

Drug Wars - The Camarena Story

Following the success of Traffic, this similar 1990 miniseries is being released in movie form. Based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of a DEA agent named Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, Drug Wars: The Camarena Story depicts how Camarena's success burning down a huge field of marijuana in the Mexican desert led to his disappearance--which in turn set off an escalating series of confrontations between drug traffickers, the DEA, and the corrupt Mexican police. Despite low production values, a melodramatic script, and clumsy direction, Drug Wars does paint a complex picture of the political posturing and power struggles among agencies in the U.S., as well as the intricate web of corruption in Mexico, that have turned the drug war into a disastrous mess. Featuring Benicio Del Toro (as a Mexican drug lord), Steven Bauer, Craig T. Nelson, Mel Ferrer, Treat Williams, and Elizabeth Peña. --Bret Fetzer

Repo Man

A volatile, toxic potion of satire and nihilism, road movie and science fiction, violence and comedy, the unclassifiable sensibility of Alex Cox's Repo Man is the model and inspiration for a potent strain of post-punk American comedy that includes not only Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), but also early Coen brothers (Raising Arizona, in particular), Men in Black, and even (in a weird way) The X-Files. Otto, a baby-face punk played by Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a coke-snorting, veteran repo-man-of-honor prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens of every stripe. It may seem chaotic at first glance, but there's a "latticework of coincidence" (as Tracey Walter puts it) underlying everything. Repo Man is a key American movie of the 1980s--just as Taxi Driver, Nashville, and Chinatown are key American movies of the '70s. With a scorching soundtrack that features Iggy Pop, Fear, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies. --Jim Emerson

The Hunted (Full Screen Edition)

A special forces assassin goes on a killing spree and the only man who can stop him is the man who taught him to kill.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 30-JAN-2007
Media Type: DVD

William Friedkin's taut direction highlights The Hunted, a bloodsport thriller that works best without dialogue. It's a prime vehicle for costars Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, whose rugged screen personas are perfectly matched in a manhunt between a military assassin and the man who trained him to kill. Traumatized by atrocities in Kosovo four years earlier (the site of an action-packed prologue), Hallam (Del Toro) is seemingly psychotic and now killing in the forests of Oregon; Bonham (Jones) is lured out of retirement by a tenacious FBI agent (Connie Nielsen) to end Hallam's murder spree. The hackneyed plot is derivative to a fault (no surprise from the screenwriters of Collateral Damage), and the whole movie's a foregone conclusion, but Friedkin inspires fine work from his well-trained stars while exploring the ambiguity of Hallam's character. Lushly photographed by Caleb Deschanel, The Hunted is a survivalist's dream, militarily authentic and most effective when its primal instincts are cinematically expressed. --Jeff Shannon