Vernon, John

Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts

Louis L'Amour's easy voice with its gentle rhythm sets the tone and pace of the film in a spoken introduction to this loping, rambling three-hour-plus TV-movie adaptation of his novels The Daybreakers and Sackett. Sam Elliot stars as the elder Sackett, a nomad hunting and trapping in the mountains who happens upon an ancient treasure. Tom Selleck and Jeff Osterhage are his younger siblings, forced to leave home to avoid a Hatfield and McCoy situation. As the Sackett brothers wind their way across the Midwest prairies and mountains we join them on cattle drives and gold hunts, in gunfights and fistfights, and in a climactic showdown as they find their place in the world. This 1979 film rambles and meanders like a lazy river winding through a beautiful landscape of peaks and plains and forests, punctuated by the occasional gunfight and enlivened by a story that celebrates both the open range and the taming of the towns. Elliot looks almost young but flashes his savage eyes behind a thick black beard, while Selleck's easygoing manner is backed up with a stony-faced determination. The excellent cast includes a veritable who's who of Western character actors: Glenn Ford, Ben Johnson, Gilbert Roland, Gene Evans, Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, Mercedes McCambridge, and Pat Buttram. Followed in 1982 by The Shadow Riders, which reunited the three stars and even a few members of the supporting cast in a tale of three different brothers. --Sean Axmaker

Louis L'Amour's epic Western saga of brothers who blazed a name across the untamed post-Civil War New Mexico frontier.Running Time: 198 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. UPC: 012569721807 Manufacturer No: 72180

The Outlaw Josey Wales

Clint Eastwood fired the original director, Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff), and took over the reins of this project himself. He may have had a point: this brutal, thoughtful western, a near-tragedy about a Civil War veteran whose past comes looking for him, is probably Eastwood's most mature frontier drama prior to the Oscar winning Unforgiven. Hoping to build a quiet life in a cooperative community of settlers, Eastwood's Wales blames himself when his enemies attack the homestead, and he has to revert to his warrior instincts to help fend off the threat. The jittery intensity of Sondra Locke (who would be Mrs. Eastwood, at least for a while), and the screen-filling charisma of the late Chief Dan George harmonize beautifully with Eastwood, who had finally figured out how to add depth and texture to his stock-in-trade Man of Steel persona. This one may be too short on action to satisfy fans of Eastwood's Dirty Harry films, or of the Italian westerns he made with Sergio Leone, but it's an honorable effort. --David Chute

Josey Wales is a farmer turned fugitive in the post-civil war south who is chased by the law after he avenges the murder of his family and friends.

DVD Features:
Introduction:Introduction by Clint Eastwood
Other:"Hell Hath No Fury" - 30:25 "Eastwood in Action" - 7:45

Batman - Mystery of the Batwoman (Keepcase)

Fans of the stylized Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, and their subsequent feature-length releases (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm) will be pleased to note that the same creative team responsible for those efforts have reunited for this action-filled adventure, which pits the Dark Knight against a fetching vigilante in Bat-gear. Kyra Sedgwick voices Batwoman, whose struggle to bring down the Penguin's illegal arms trade gets her in hot water with his hired muscle, Bane (Hector Elizondo), and prompts Batman (Kevin Conroy) to swing into action. Curt Geda's fast-paced, noir-influenced direction, a solid script by Michael Reaves that stays true to the comic book mythos, and a talented voice cast (which includes Kelly Ripa and David Ogden Stiers) help make Batwoman a welcome addition to the Batman DVD library. The Warner DVD's 45 minutes of extras include an original short ("Chase Me"), nine character bios, behind-the-scenes footage, an interview with Geda, and other audience-pleasing supplements. --Paul Gaita

The Dark Knight is back in this all-new feature-length thriller featuring the voices of Kelly Ripa (Live! With Regis and Kelly) Kyra Sedgwick (Born on the Fourth of July) and Hector Elizondo (The Princess Diaries). The Penguin and Rupert Thorn are criminal cohorts with a scheme to sell illegal weapons. But there's a new super hero in Gotham City who has other plans for the evil entrepreneurs - Batwoman! With high-tech gadgets and powerful punches Batwoman proves to be a formidable crimefighter - the only problem is that the Dark Knight has no clue who she is! And when Batwoman crosses the criminal line Batman must identify whether or not this new player is really an ally! Join the world's greatest detective in this exciting new adventure that will keep you guessing until the mask is pulled off! The DVD includes an exclusive Batman animated short "Chase Me" from the Emmy(R) Award winning writers Alan Burnett and Paul Dini.Running Time: 75 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY UPC: 012569717244

Heavy Metal (Collector's Edition)

Based on the fantastical illustrated magazine Heavy Metal producer Ivan Reitman enlists the world s greatest comic book artists to create the otherworldly tale of a glowing green orb from outer space that spreads destruction throughout the galaxy. Only when encountered by its one true enemy - to whom it is inexplicably drawn - will goodness prevail throughout the universe. Lavishly drawn vignettes of the orb s dark victories include the character voices of John Candy and Harold Ramis plus a pounding soundtrack by Black Sabbath Blue Oyster Cult Cheap Trick Devo Donald Fagen Don Felder Grand Funk Railroad Sammy Hagar Journey Nazareth Stevie Nicks Riggs and Trust. Highly imaginative and full of surprising special effects Heavy Metal set the standard for alternative contemporary animation. An intoxicating experience not to be missed.System Requirements:Voices By: John Candy and Harold Ramis. Directed By: Gerald Potterton. Running Time: 90 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 1999 Columbia TriStar Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating:  UPC: 043396039292 Manufacturer No: 03929

As long as there is a need for adolescent male sexual fantasy, there will be an audience for Heavy Metal. Released in 1981 and based on stories from the graphic magazine of the same name (possibly the greatest publication to simultaneously provoke imagination and masturbation), the film has since become the most popular single title in Columbia/TriStar's entire film library. That's an amazing fact considering just how silly and senseless the movie really is--an aimless, juvenile amalgam of disjointed stories and clashing visual styles, employing hundreds of animators from around the world with a near-total absence of creative cohesion. It remains, for better and worse, a midnight-movie favorite for the stoner crowd--a movie best enjoyed by randy adolescents or near-adults in an altered state of consciousness.

With a framing story about a glowing green orb claiming to be the embodiment of all evil, the film shuttles through eight episodic tales of sci-fi adventure, each fueled by some of the most wretched rock music to emerge from the 1980s. The most consistent trademark is an abundance of blood-splattering violence and wet-dream sex, the latter involving a succession of huge-breasted babes who shed their clothes at the drop of a G-string. It's all quite fun in its rampantly brainless desire to fuel the young male libido, and for all its incoherence Heavy Metal remains impressive for the ambitious artistry of its individual segments. Courtesy of producer Ivan Reitman (who'd just scored a hit with Stripes), voice talents include several Canadian veterans of Second City comedy, including John Candy, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy, and Joe Flaherty. --Jeff Shannon

National Lampoon's Animal House (Widescreen Double Secret Probation Edition)

This is one of those movies that works for all the wrong reasons--disgusting, lowbrow, base humor that we are all far too sophisticated to find amusing. So, just don't tell anyone you still think it's a riot to watch John Belushi as the brutish Bluto slurp Jell-O or terrorize his less-aggressive fellow students. This crude parody of college life in the '60s spawned many imitations, but none could match the fresh-faced talent or bad taste of this huge box office success. (Remember all those toga parties in the '80s?) The first of the National Lampoon movies, this was originally released as National Lampoon's Animal House. Keep an eye out for a very young Kevin Bacon in his first credited screen appearance. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Finally the truth about clowns is out! Beneath their smirky sinister grins and wildly patterned clothes are clever killers from out of this world. The "juxtaposition of their toy-store arsenal and malevolent intent proves to be a tasty combination" (Los Angeles Times) in this killer entertainment that will leave you fearing these big-top creatures for good.A spaceship looking like a circus tent lands in a field near a small town signaling the attack of deviant red-nosed balloon-twisting psychos from another world who plan to annihilate mankind by turning people into cotton candy! Luckily the town's teen citizenry decides to fight back and teach the cosmic bozos a lesson. But these klowns are no klutzes turning popcorn peanuts and caramel corn into playful but deadly weapons of madcap destruction and mayhem!System Requirements:Running Time: 86 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 027616865618 Manufacturer No: 1002350

What's completely and utterly baffling about Killer Klowns is not the plot--that's rather tidily summed up by the title--but the fact that it got made at all. According to the filmmakers, (the Chiodo brothers: Charles, Edward, and Stephen) all it took to convince the studio was a one-page treatment and a picture of a clown holding a gun. It boggles the mind. Anyway, some killer Klowns descend from outer space and start wrapping their hapless victims in cotton candy for later consumption. Debbie and Mike suspect something's amiss, but who will believe them? The movie's greatest asset is its willingness to play on the inherent creepiness of clowns. The Klowns are grotesque parodies of their big-top cousins, hiding hideous malformed teeth behind terrifying circus makeup. It's impossible to tell if Killer Klowns is truly meant to be scary, but it is compelling in its thoroughness: popcorn, balloon animals, and really big shoes are all used to their fullest effect. The only cast member you'll recognize immediately is veteran character actor John Vernon as Officer Mooney, but keep an eye out for Christopher Titus in a small role as Bob McReed. Then just sit back and stare open-mouthed in bewildered joy. --Ali Davis

Airplane II: The Sequel

The 1982 sequel to Airplane! is basically more of the same class-clown ironies but with a more forced feeling to the jokes. In the first film, veterans such as Peter Graves, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges were feeling their way through self-parody, and the air of experimentation was part of the fun. By this film, however, everybody knows what's up, and the assuredness of new cast members Raymond Burr, William Shatner, and Chuck Connors is almost counterproductive. Still, there's lots to laugh about. --Tom Keogh

National Lampoon's Animal House (Full Screen Double Secret Probation Edition)

This is one of those movies that works for all the wrong reasons--disgusting, lowbrow, base humor that we are all far too sophisticated to find amusing. So, just don't tell anyone you still think it's a riot to watch John Belushi as the brutish Bluto slurp Jell-O or terrorize his less-aggressive fellow students. This crude parody of college life in the '60s spawned many imitations, but none could match the fresh-faced talent or bad taste of this huge box office success. (Remember all those toga parties in the '80s?) The first of the National Lampoon movies, this was originally released as National Lampoon's Animal House. Keep an eye out for a very young Kevin Bacon in his first credited screen appearance. --Rochelle O'Gorman

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka

From Keenan Ivory Wayans, the man who brought us Jim Carrey (initially just one of the bunch on Wayans's television comedy-sketch show, In Living Color), comes I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), a comedy spoof on the blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Wayans plays Jack Spade, an army private just returning from the service. He comes home to find his younger brother June Bug dead of a overdose of gold chains (an "O.G.") He vows revenge, and with the help of some of the neighborhood's old school heroes including Flyguy (Antonio Fargas), Kung Fu Joe (Steve James), Hammer (Isaac Hayes), Slammer (football star Jim Brown), and John Slade (Bernie Casey), Spade wages a war against Mr. Big, the neighborhood crime lord.

In the tradition of Airplane! and Naked Gun, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka pokes fun through satire and offensive comedy. The film also features some of the players that would end up on In Living Color and has appearances from such varied actors as Clarence Williams III, Eve Plumb (better known to most as Jan Brady), and Chris Rock as a rib-joint customer. --Shannon Gee

A hilarious Soul Cinema send-up, this ultra-slick, urban action comedy blows 70's blaxploitation movies right out of the 'hood! Featuring the very funny Wayans family (Keenen, Damon and Kim), Bernie Casey, Antonio Fargas, Isaac Hayes, Jim Brown, Ja'net DuBois, David Alan Grier, Kadeem Hardison and Chris Rock, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is a perfect "mixture of nostalgia, silliness and genuinely unpredictable humor" (The New York Times). Jack Spade, a goody-goody war hero with medals for short-hand, returns to the ghetto to discover that his brother, Junebug, has OG'd (Over-Golded on jewelry). Jack swears revenge against the local gang boss, Mr. Big, and sets off to enlist an army of Shaft, Superfly and Black Caesarlook-a-likes, that is. They don't come easy, cheap or youngbut they do have nice clothes and enough firepower left in them to practically destroy Mr. Big's Big Brim Bar where the bad guys wearyou guessed itbig hats!

Point Blank

Walker (Lee Marvin) strides through Los Angeles with the steel-eyed stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting or return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (remade by Brian Helgeland as Payback), set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed, and assisted by Angie Dickinson, as he desperately searches for someone, anyone, who can just give him his money. But if Walker is an extreme incarnation of the revenge-driven noir antihero, the modern syndicate has been transformed into a world of paper jungles and corporate businessmen, an alienating concept to the two-fisted, gun-wielding gangster. Boorman creates a hard, austere look for the film and fragments the story with flashes of painful memory, grafting the New Wave onto old genres with confidence and style. Haunting and brutal, Point Blank remains one of the most distinctive crime thrillers ever made. --Sean Axmaker

They double-crossed Walker took his $93000 cut of the heist and left him for dead but they didn't finish the job. Big mistake. He - someday somehow - is going to finish them. Lee Marvin is in full antihero mode as remorseless Walker talking the talk and walking the walk in John Boorman's (Deliverance) edgy neo-noir classic filled with imaginative New Wave style blunt dialogue and Walker's relentless quest that one by one smashes into the corporate pecking order of a crime group called the Organization. Angie Dickinson plays the accomplice who uses her seductive wiles to ensnare one of Walker's prey. "I want my 93 grand" Walker growls at him. Throughout the payoff to that demand is action that "hits like a fat slug from the .38 Lee Marvin uses as an extension of his fist" (Newsweek).Running Time: 92 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569674141