Ventimiglia, John

Mickey Blue Eyes

Mickey Blue Eyes was crafted as a vehicle for the stammering British charm of Hugh Grant (star of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Nine Months), so whether or not you like the movie will depend heavily on your affection for Grant. He plays an art auctioneer who falls in love with schoolteacher Jeanne Tripplehorn (Basic Instinct, Very Bad Things), who just happens to be the daughter of mobster James Caan (The Godfather, Misery). To protect Grant, Tripplehorn tries to fend off his proposal of marriage, but some miscommunications lead to Grant being embraced by the "family." After the mob decides to launder money through Grant's auction house, an accidental killing results in Grant pretending to be Mickey Blue Eyes out of Kansas City (the sight and sound of Grant trying to say "fuggedaboudit" was undoubtedly what sold the movie in the first place). The plot isn't as well executed as it could be, but the leads are all well cast and there are some excellent supporting performances, particularly Burt Young (Rocky) as a myopic mob boss and Scott Thompson (from the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall) as a sprightly FBI agent. --Bret Fetzer

The Funeral

Angela

This eerily beautiful film stars Miranda Stuart Rhyne as Angela, a young girl trying to cope with her family's falling apart. Her mother (Anna Thomson) has drastic mood shifts that bring her from manic happiness to utter misery. Her father (John Ventimiglia) tries to hold everyone together, but Mae's vacillations are becoming more than he can manage. Adrift, Angela and her little sister concoct magical rituals and have visions of fallen angels and the Virgin Mary; reading signs in the way a towel falls off a chair or a tool falls off a truck, they set off to find their way to heaven. Angela succeeds because of writer-director Rebecca Miller's keen understanding of childhood, when imagination and reality are fluid and fantasies can exert a potent influence over a child's life. An unsettling and affecting movie, with an excellent performance by Rhyne. --Bret Fetzer

From award winning director Rebecca Miller comes this poignant coming-of-age story about a young girl caught between the harsh realities of a difficult family life and the fantasy world she escapes to inside her head. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sun

Jesus' Son

Fans of the short stories in Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son will wonder how anyone could film a book so beautifully, radiantly, defiantly strange. The good news is that Alison Maclean's film version is more than just faithful to the book's spirit: It's the closest thing to a visual equivalent of Johnson's visionary prose. As a series of vignettes in the life of an unnamed Midwestern junkie-slash-holy fool, the stories are linked more through imagery than through anything so linear as a plot. Maclean preserves this episodic structure but adds just enough narrative glue to make the whole thing hang together as a film. (And wisely so; if she hadn't, there'd have been no role at all for Samantha Morton, brilliant here as Michelle, the narrator's girlfriend.) With a hero called Fuckhead, you know this isn't going to be entertainment for the whole family, and some of the scenes of drug use and associated gore are grim indeed. But the movie looks just right, and some of its images are so beautiful it hurts: old movies playing in an empty drive-in, snow swirling all around; a naked woman parasailing through the sky with her long red hair streaming behind.

Maclean also coaxes wonderful performances from a dream-indie cast, including Morton, the magnetic Billy Crudup as Fuckhead, Dennis Hopper, Holly Hunter, an uncharacteristically understated Denis Leary, and even, in a gruesome cameo, Denis Johnson himself. (Hint: Look for the knife. Then look away quickly.) Once again, Jack Black hijacks every frame in which he appears, and his turn as a pill-popping orderly gives new meaning to the phrase "I save lives." Things drag a little during the last half-hour, but squirm not: Following Fuckhead through rehab and beyond, the book's closing scenes are genuinely redemptive without hitting the audience over the head with a "lesson" of any kind. Jesus' Son is Maclean's first feature film since 1992's Crush; let's hope she won't make us wait as long before the next fix. --Mary Park

Trees Lounge

Steve Buscemi, an icon of the independent film world for years, took the opportunity to write, direct, and star in this wistful low-budget gem. He plays Tommy, a Long Island loser who gets tossed from his job as a mechanic for questionable financial antics. He spends his days at a local bar, drinking his life away even as he denies that he's doing any such thing. And when he finally works up the gumption to get a job, he winds up driving an ice-cream truck in his old neighborhood--and getting involved in an inappropriate relationship with his teeny-bopper assistant (Chloe Sevigny), earning the violent enmity of her father (Daniel Baldwin). Low-key in its approach, the film has a sad humor that is both knowing and forgiving, as well as offering one of Buscemi's best performances. --Marshall Fine

Personal Velocity

(Quote): Searing action. Nonstop powerful A superbly realized film. The Hollywood ReporterWilliam L. Petersen (Manhunter CSI ) and Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man) face off in a deadly game of cat and mouse in this riveting (The New York Times) action-thriller from the Oscar®-winning* director of The French Connection. Full of flash style and grit (Boxoffice) this raw tale of corruption and revenge features one of the most harrowing car chases ever caught on film and a shockingly explosive ending.Federal Agent Richard Chance (Petersen) has a score to settle and he s through playing by the rules. Whether that means blackmailing a beautiful parolee disobeying direct orders or hurtling the wrong way down a crowded freeway he vows to take down a murderous counterfeiter (Dafoe) by any means necessary. But as the stakes grow higher will Chance s obsession with vengeance ultimately destroy him?Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 027616883599 Manufacturer No: 1004258

Personal Velocity is actually three short digital films, a trio of superb character portraits: Delia (Kyra Sedgwick, Something to Talk About, Singles), a former bad girl who musters the will to leave her abusive husband; Greta (Parker Posey, Party Girl, Best in Show), a book editor who finds that success in her career leaves her dissatisfied with her unambitious husband; and Paula (Fairuza Balk, The Craft, Gas Food Lodging), a young woman whose narrow escape from a car accident makes her question her life. With small, deft touches, writer-director Rebecca Miller (Angela) reveals a lot of about who these women are and how they live. Miller's gift for compression turns these short stories into rich examinations of contemporary culture, finding humor as well as pathos in the choices these women face. All three actresses turn in outstanding performances, clearly delighted to embody such well-drawn characters. --Bret Fetzer

The War Within

A Pakistani suicide bomber travels to New York City to join his cell with plans to begin the ground war in the United States. What unfolds is a profound human and political drama as we explore his motives as he struggles to carry out his mission.System Requirements:Features: Deleted Scenes Audio commentary Interview(s) Running Time: 93 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 876964000031 Manufacturer No: 10003

Party Girl

"Queen of the Indies" Parker Posey (Dazed and Confused, Waiting for Guffman, The Daytrippers) shines in this lightweight comedy about a romance between a floundering downtown party girl and a falafel vendor set in Manhattan's trendy loft and club scene. Posey is utterly charming as Mary, the 23-year-old whose talents are pretty much limited to "partying, flirting, making stuff up." Her penchant for partying gets her evicted from her apartment, whereupon--unable to pay her fine or decide what she wants to do with her life--she receives financial and career help from her godmother, who gets her a job in the New York Public Library system. Does the Dewey decimal system hold the key to Mary's future? Director Daisy von Scherler Mayer went on to direct Madeline (1998). --Jim Emerson

Row Your Boat

Taking its title from a children's song and its story of crime and redemption from countless American indie dramas, Row Your Boat is a sweet and not altogether predictable tale of recently released convict Jamey Meadows (Jon Bon Jovi) trying to get it right the second time around. Refusing help from his brother and former partner in crime (William Forsythe), he gets a job as a census taker to save enough cash for an apartment. On his rounds he meets pretty Chinese immigrant Chun Hua (Bai Ling), the unhappy trophy wife of a 60-year-old businessman, and spends his off hours teaching her English just for her company. True love? Maybe not, but she could be Jamey's second chance if he can stay clear of his brother, whose debts to a local loan shark push him to ever more desperate schemes. Writer-director Sollace Mitchell never quite avoids the clichés of the smalltime urban crime drama, but his refreshingly matter-of-fact direction balances the dangerous with the mundane. There's nothing glamorous in these minor heists or in Jamey's efforts to keep his self-respect and hope alive while living out of homeless shelters and killing time on the streets. Perhaps that's why this modest film got lost in the shuffle: it avoids the easy drama of violent showdowns to explore the real struggle of surviving the streets. --Sean Axmaker

No Looking Back

The third film in writer-director-actor Edward Burns's "Long Island Trilogy" is in some ways the slightest of the three, and that's a blessing and a curse. By keeping things spare, Burns is able to focus on the simple, honest humanity of his story, which centers on the emotional dilemma of Claudia (Lauren Holly), a small-town waitress whose engagement to blue-collar Michael (Jon Bon Jovi) is challenged when old flame Charlie (Burns) returns after an extended absence. Their shared history includes an abortion that left Claudia feeling abandoned and resentful, and for good reason, given Charlie's reputation for self-involved aloofness.

As in his previous films, Burns demonstrates a subtle hand with actors and a keen awareness of life's authentic rhythm; this movie will strongly affect anyone who can relate to Claudia's need to find herself, independent of her tenuous relationships. The performances are uniformly superb: Holly expresses the confusion and seeking quality of her character; Burns makes Charlie both charming and bluntly self-serving; and Bon Jovi shows strong potential beyond his rock-star handsomeness. Indeed, the film's only weakness is that it's stretched too thin to be truly substantial, and Burns relies far too heavily on a soundtrack (with heavy doses of Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow) that too often substitutes for dialogue. It's as if Burns didn't trust his own material; he needn't have been so insecure. --Jeff Shannon