Wyle, Noah

ER - The Complete Eighth Season

Excitement. Suspense. Joy. Grief. All in a heartbeat. Twenty-two of the best, most compelling hours on television unfold in this powerful, series-changing Season 8 of ER. New hopefuls ? Army Reservist Michael Gallant and brash Gregory Pratt ? arrive to face the challenges of Trauma One life. A familiar face ? Dr. Susan Lewis ? returns. Benton weighs career and family. Malucci crosses the line once too often. Chen defies demotion. And Greene fights what could be his last battle, leaving a void at the group?s heart. His leadership may never be replaced. But someone must step into the breach. That someone is the doctor who?s now been in the ER the longest ? the former student who seemed to have the most to learn: Dr. John Carter.

Donnie Darko - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition)

This unclassifiable but stunningly original film obliterates the walls between teen comedy, science fiction, family drama, horror, and cultural satire--and remains wildly entertaining throughout. Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky) stars as Donnie, a borderline-schizophrenic adolescent for whom there is no difference between the signs and wonders of reality (a plane crash that decimates his house) and hallucination (a man-sized, reptilian rabbit who talks to him). Obsessed with the science of time travel and acutely aware of the world around him, Donnie is isolated by his powers of analysis and the apocalyptic visions that no one else seems to share. The debut feature of writer-director Richard Kelly, Donnie Darko is a shattering, hypnotic work that sets its own terms and gambles--rightfully so, as it turns out--that a viewer will stay aboard for the full ride. --Tom Keogh

During the presidential election of 1988, a teenager named Donnie Darko sleepwalks out of his house one night, and sees a giant, demonic-looking rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. He returns home the next morning to find that a jet engine has crashed through his bedroom. As he tries to figure out why he survived and tries to deal with people in his town, like the school bully, his conservative health teacher, and a self-help guru, Frank continues to turn up in Donnie's mind, causing him to commit acts of vandalism and worse. The new Director?s Cut includes a production diary of the film (with optional commentary by Director of Photography Steven Poster), a story-board to screen featurette, the Director?s cut theatrical trailer, They Made Me Do It Too ? The Cult of Donnie Darko and the #1 Fan: A Darkomentary.

A Few Good Men (Special Edition)

A U.S. soldier is dead, and military lawyers Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee and Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway want to know who killed him. "You want the truth?" snaps Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson). "You can't handle the truth!" Astonishingly, Jack Nicholson's legendary performance as a military tough guy in A Few Good Men really amounts to a glorified cameo: he's only in a few scenes. But they're killer scenes, and the film has much more to offer. Tom Cruise (Kaffee) shines as a lazy lawyer who rises to the occasion, and Demi Moore (Galloway) gives a command performance. Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, J.T. Walsh, and Cuba Gooding Jr. (of Jerry Maguire fame) round out the superb cast. Director Rob Reiner poses important questions about the rights of the powerful and the responsibilities of those just following orders in this classic courtroom drama. --Alan Smithee

A U.S. soldier is dead, and military lawyers Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee and Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway want to know who killed him. "You want the truth?" snaps Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson). "You can't handle the truth!" Astonishingly, Jack Nicholson's legendary performance as a military tough guy in A Few Good Men really amounts to a glorified cameo: he's only in a few scenes. But they're killer scenes, and the film has much more to offer. Tom Cruise (Kaffee) shines as a lazy lawyer who rises to the occasion, and Demi Moore (Galloway) gives a command performance. Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, J.T. Walsh, and Cuba Gooding Jr. (of Jerry Maguire fame) round out the superb cast. Director Rob Reiner poses important questions about the rights of the powerful and the responsibilities of those just following orders in this classic courtroom drama. --Alan Smithee

Swing Kids

This strange movie with a niche subject--jazz-loving, dance-loving German kids persecuted by Hitler's men--almost works, thanks to a good cast who seem devoted to the unusual story line. Director Thomas Carter doesn't bring the necessary stylistic oomph to the musical sequences, something that might have pushed the whole production to another, more interesting level of Hollywood dream. Kenneth Branagh makes a particularly effective, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing Nazi official. --Tom Keogh

In 1939, Nazi Germany declares war on freedom and demands conformity from its youth. But a group calling themselves Swing Kids rebel with their "swing music" from America. When two of them dare to stand up against the powerful forces around them -- traditions will be broken and loyalties must be crossed! Robert Sean Leonard (DEAD POETS SOCIETY) and Christian Bale (SHAFT, AMERICAN PSYCHO) deliver gripping performances as two friends who must choose between their individual freedom or loyalty to the murderous Third Reich. Also featuring screen favorite Barbara Hershey (BEACHES, TIN MEN), SWING KIDS is an inspirational and powerful story about friendship -- and finding the courage to fight for what you believe in!

Pirates of Silicon Valley

The revolution came when we weren't looking. It happened in a garage. In a dorm room. In countless hours of effort, imagining and intrigue. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were changing the way the world works, lives and communicates.

The event-packed saga of the quirky visionaries who jump-started the future unfolds with exhilarating, cutting-edge style in Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wyle (ER) portrays Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone) portrays Gates in this chronicle of the fierce and often humorous battle to rule the fledgling personal computer empire. "The story is almost Shakespearean... it's a tale of lust, greed, ambition, love and hate," writer/director Martyn Burke reflects. And it's a success story unlike any other.

Running Time: 97 min.

Format: DVD MOVIE

This dramatization of the tangled history of Apple Computer and Microsoft, based on a book by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, hits enough of the right notes to make its failures all the more frustrating. The script follows the entwined paths of Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates with a pointed sense of the cultural divide between the hip, self-absorbed Apple cofounder and the brilliant alpha geek behind Microsoft's eventual software empire, contrasting the Mac's countercultural underpinnings with the PC's more strait-laced origins. But Pirates of Silicon Valley seemingly can't decide whether it wants to be a serious-minded history of these key figures in the personal computer revolution or a trashy wallow in the more ignoble foibles of its principals. As a result, it falls short of exacting history while never achieving the guilty pleasure it might have.

If Gates has become synonymous with corporate conquest at its most striking, Pirates' interest lies more with Jobs, given a nervous energy and flashes of adolescent selfishness by Noah Wyle, who benefits from a reasonable physical resemblance to the Apple chief. Eyewear and a comb-over do nearly as well for Anthony Michael Hall, who also grafts some of Bill Gates's better-known mannerisms onto his performance and renders Gates as a smart if socially maladroit entrepreneur who, like Jobs, provides the ambition and business savvy to exploit his partner's computing talents. There are a few fanciful touches (Ballmer and Wozniak become Greek choruses, addressing the viewer as they comment on the principals), but the story plays out in straightforward fashion. It's tantalizing to consider how the Apple/PC melodrama might have fared with an edgier, more openly satirical script. --Sam Sutherland

The Librarian - Return to King Solomon's Mines

Only one film under his belt, and already Flynn Carsen (Noah Wylie) is talking like Indiana Jones. "Relax," he tells a companion before daringly retrieving an ancient artifact before it can be used for evil. "This kind of stuff happens to me all the time." A character of modest charms (much like this made-for-cable movie), Carsen is not your typical movie action hero. His brain serves him better than his brawn. Early on, his knowledge of vegetation plays a key role in a cliff-jumping escape from pursuing bad guys. Carsen, for those just tuning in, is a librarian at the Metropolitan Library, which secretly houses history's mythic artifacts, including the sword Excalibur, and the Shroud of Turin. The fate of the world is once again in Carsen's hands when a map to the legendary King Solomon's Mines is stolen. Carsen embarks on another fantastic global adventure, with stops in Casablanca (with inevitable references to the Humphrey Bogart classic) and Kenya. This time, he has new female companionship, Emily (Gabrielle Anwar), a beautiful archaeologist who can match the much-educated Carsen degree for degree. Reprising their roles from the first film are Olympia Dukakis as Flynn's meddling mother, who tries to fix him up with his third cousin ("You'll have plenty to talk about"), Jane Curtin as flinty library administrator, Charlene ("Save your receipts"), and Bob Newhart as his mentor, Judson. Savvy viewers will see plot twists and character revelations coming from a mile away, but that is all part of the fun, as are the hokey special effects and knowing humor ("There's always a secret passage," Carsen observes while navigating a catacomb). Who know if there will ever be another Indiana Jones movie. Until then, The Librarian is worth checking out, especially on DVD, where it can be enjoyed without intrusive commercial interruption. --Donald Liebenson

ER - The Complete Seventh Season

A busload of fume-sickened school kids...a gunman whose shooting spree claimed 19 victims...a guy in an opossum outfit who bit a man dressed as a kangaroo. They and so many others all converge at ER. The gurneys keep rolling in a superlative Season 7 that includes Abby's reunion with her mother, a turbulent woman who suffers from bipolar disorder. Also making the rounds in the 22 episodes: Carter returns from detox, Abby goes back to square one in med training, Benton struggles to emerge from Romano's doghouse, Kovac confronts a mugger, Weaver reveals her sexual orientation and Chen refuses to reveal the father of her child. Meanwhile, Greene and Corday marry...and live under the shadow of Greene's health crisis. Excitement, drama, suspense - the doctors are on call.

DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Gag Reel

The Librarian - Quest for the Spear

Broadcast to record ratings on the TNT cable network, this Raiders-esque adventure does not go by the book, staring with its atypical action hero and his decidedly uncool profession. Flynn Carsen (Noah Wylie from E.R.) is a thirtysomething perpetual student who still lives with his mother (Olympia Dukakis). When his exasperated professor finally ejects him into the real world, Carsen's Holmesian deductive acumen lands him a job as the librarian at the Metropolitan Library. This is not an ordinary library. It houses history's most mythic artifacts, including the Ark of the Covenant, Pandora's Box, and the sword Excalibur. The fate of the world is in Carsen's hands ("That's so sad," he observes) when the dread Serpent Brotherhood steals the library's Spear of Destiny, and Carsen must retrieve it. His reluctant, and antagonistic, partner is Nicole (Sonya Walger), who is as skilled in martial arts as Carsen is schooled in the Dewey Decimal System. Bob Newhart and Jane Curtin add welcome comic relief, with Newhart, of all people, getting into the action by film's end. The humble hero (who would rather be known as "Flynn, the rather pleasant at parties"), somewhat cheesy special effects, and corny comedy make The Librarian a fun guilty pleasure. As Carsen proclaims, "Being a librarian is actually a cool job." This looks like the beginning of a beautiful franchise. --Donald Liebenson

To be a librarian, you must master the Dewey Decimal System, ace internet research and, if you're new librarian Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle), save the world! Wyle (ER) heads a sterling cast in a fun, fantastical, special effects-laden adventure that soars around the world from the Metropolitan Library to the Amazon jungle to the Himalayas. Geeky Carsen lands a job as the Librarian, keeper of such top-secret Met treasures as Excalibur and Pandora's Box. Then the Serpent Brotherhood, seeking world domination, steals one of three parts of the magical Spear of Destiny from the library. Only Flynn, aided by a gorgeous bodyguard, has the knowhow to thwart their plan. But does he know how to be a hero? He will - even if he has to gouge, kick, punch, brave Mayan death traps and plunge off icy precipices every inch of the way!

DVD Features:
Additional Scenes:15 minutes of unaired bonus footage and special effects
Easter Eggs:Hidden interviews with cast
Featurette:Behind-the-scenes featurette including never-before-aired interviews with cast and crew Special effects featurette narrated by director Peter Winther
Introduction:Introduction by Noah Wyle
Photo gallery

ER - The Complete Sixth Season

ER's sixth season was one of transition, bidding farewell to an original character and welcoming several new ones. After watching Doug Ross (George Clooney) leave in the previous season, Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies) is left on her own, pregnant with twins. When Robert "Rocket" Romano (Paul McCrane) makes a bid to run the whole hospital, Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) and Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) make plans to take a stand against him. Weaver, however, double-crosses Greene and winds up getting to run the ER. Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle) is locked up in a battle over his deaf son, Jeanie Boulet (Gloria Reubens) hopes to adopt an HIV-positive child, and John Carter heats things up with his ex-cousin-in-law (Rebecca De Mornay). When Hathaway goes into labor on Thanksgiving, she's cared for by a perky OB nurse named Abby Lockhart (Maura Tierney). But Lockhart is also a third-year medical student, and she later turns up in the ER as part of her rotation. One of her first encounters is with new attending Luka Kovacs (Goran Visnjic), of whom she says, "Well, we never had doctors like that in OB... Is he single?" And on her memorable first day, she gets vomited on and bitten; she plays espionage on a scheming mother, and she misdiagnoses a patient. Former medical student Deb Chen, now known as Jing-Mei (Ming-Na), returns as a resident, Alan Alda arrives as new attending Gabe Lawrence, and "Dr. Dave" Malucci (Erik Palladino), Dr. Cleo Finch (Michael Michele), and desk clerk Frank (Troy Evans) also join the cast.

As usual, tensions ran high. Elizabeth Corday (Alex Kingston) crosses the line by coercing a confession out of a suspected rapist (Lawrence Monoson), which would haunt her all season. Then during one chaotic shift, it seems almost trivial that Lucy Knight (Kellie Martin) and Carter give a painful spinal tap to a patient named Paul Sobricki (David Krumholtz) whom they later find is schizophrenic. But at the end of the shift, while the staff is celebrating Valentine's Day, events unfold into the most harrowing scene in the history of the series, and one of the most gut-wrenching in the history of television drama. Guest stars include Broadway actor John Cullum as Green's father, Judy Parfitt as Corday's mother, Martha Plimpton as a pregnant waitress, The X-Files' Mitch Pileggi as a man with Huntington's disease, and Shia LeBeouf and Dakota Fanning as young patients with multiple sclerosis and leukemia, respectively. As with most ER DVDs, the sixth season has numerous deleted scenes, including one of Lucy's first encounter with Sobricki. --David Horiuchi

Created by best-selling author Michael Crichton, this series centers on the medical personnel in the emergency room of a Chicago county hospital. ER tracks the inner workings of County General Hospital, a Level One Trauma Center where heroic doctors and nurses are faced with life-and-death decisions on a daily basis. In its sixth season, ER received 9 Emmy? nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series. Own season 6, and watch as Carol gives birth to two baby girls, Lucy and Carter meet tragedy head on when a patient stabs them both, Elizabeth and Mark continue their romance and nurse Abbey Lockhart joins the staff.

Enough

Ridiculous, manipulative, and utterly irresistible, this push-button thriller instantly qualifies as a guilty pleasure, even when you know it's just a B-movie potboiler with moxie to spare. Taking a savvy clue from Ashley Judd's Double Jeopardy and any number of endangered-female melodramas from Hollywood's golden age, Jennifer Lopez stars as a blue-collar beauty who marries the really wrong guy (Billy Campbell). Eventually, of course, she discovers his philandering and spends the rest of the movie in nomadic flight from his hot-tempered brutality. Bankrolled by her estranged father (Fred Ward), she protects her young daughter, but knowing she must face the inevitable showdown with Campbell, she buffs up with Krav Maga self-defense courses and... well, we won't spoil the "surprise." With Campbell doing everything but twirl his mustache, this shameless provocation is beneath the talents of director Michael Apted, but with J. Lo in charge, it's a revenge fantasy that's guaranteed to please. --Jeff Shannon