Yagher, Jeff

Shag

It's not too surprising that Shag flopped on its 1989 release but found a devoted cult following on cable TV and home video. This featherweight comedy looked like a waste of space on the big screen, but it plays very cozily on the tube, where it lends itself to popcorn breaks and pajama parties. (The lousy title must have had something to do with the movie's initial failure, a problem worsened by the film being marketed as Shag: The Movie, a truly dumb idea.) Shag is in the tradition of Spring Break pictures, a thoroughly formulaic stroll through the conventions of the minigenre: beachside romance, a wild party, one tender deflowering, and lots of rock & roll. The time is 1963, as three gal friends trick their soon-to-be-married pal (Phoebe Cates) into one final all-girl fling in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Cates is engaged to a local well-bred stick (Tyrone Power Jr.), but soon she's tempted by a beach boy (Robert Rusler) bound for Yale (mm-hmm). The so-so material is buoyed by lovely Annabeth Gish, as the supposedly pudgy one in the group, and Bridget Fonda, as a prematurely sophisticated sexpot. After a while it's easy enough to relax and enjoy the girls' breezy adventures, which are served up without the soap opera melodrama of the similarly tooled Where the Boys Are. Oh, and Austin Powers notwithstanding, the title refers to the dance, not something else. --Robert Horton

What do you get when you mix T-Birds, Bermuda shorts, bubble-flip dos and incredible dancing? You get Shag, The Movie a comic free-for-all (The New York Times) that Variety calls fun and breezy and you'll call a blast! Carson (Phoebe Cates, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) is all set to marry respectable but boring Harley (Tyrone Power, Jr., Cocoon) until her best friends Melaina (Bridget Fonda, Single White Female), Pudge (Annabeth Gish, MysticPizza), and Luanne (Page Hannah, TV's Fame ) whisk her off for a last-fling beach party where all the girls have the time of their lives! A charming bad boy throws Carson's marriage plans intothe spin cycle. His nerdy sidekick whirls Pudge through some dazzling dance steps. Sultry Melaina learns some sexy moves from an Elvis-like teen idol. And even straight-laced Luanne whips off her horn-rimmed glasses and tosses her innocence to the wind!

My Fellow Americans

Call this "The Odd Couple Goes to the White House." Jack Lemmon and James Garner play ex-presidents in this lousy comedy, each of them having served only one term as chief executive and each the other's lifelong enemy. The best jokes in the film are front-loaded into the first five minutes. We meet both men living life after the White House, one (Lemmon) making speeches for whoever will front his large fee, while the other (Garner) writes relevant books no one reads. Any time they show up at the same function, they insult each other like snarling schoolboys. It is pretty funny, but after a brief introduction My Fellow Americans goes downhill rapidly, becoming yet another stupid road movie traveled by characters who hate each other. (How many of these is Lemmon going to make?) The jokes get dumber and cruder, the actors embarrass themselves, and the whole enterprise becomes tedious. The DVD release contains production notes, theatrical trailer, bloopers, optional Spanish and French soundtracks, optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, and Dolby audio. --Tom Keogh

Mother of the Bride

A Wing and a Prayer

Lower Level

Hillary stayed late at the office--that was her first mistake. Young architect Hillary White descends the elevator of her self-designed office tower, tracked on the building security monitors by an unseen presence. As she reaches the parking garage, she climbs into her car and heads for the main exit, only to be intercepted by Craig Fulson, her longtime boyfriend and the other half of a failing relationship. Craig breaks their date for the evening in favor of a business meeting. They begin a lovers' quarrel, unaware that someone is closing the building down with them inside. They are trapped in a nightmarish game of cat and mouse, pitting their mutual desperation and sophisticated knowledge of the hi-tech building against one another to gain a final upper hand.

Pandora Project

Big Bad Mama II

The Pandora Project

Pandora: a top secret experimental U.S. military peacekeeping device with the capacity to destroy organic matter while leaving inorganic matter unharmed. When Pandora is stolen by renegade commando Bill Stenwick (Richard Tyson), John Lacy (Daniel Baldwin) is sent to recapture it. Lacy is the smartest, toughest agent from Secret Operations, and he also happens to be Stenwick's former mentor. When these two adversaries face off against each other, the fate of the world hinges on the outcome. DVD includes additional footage. Daniel Baldwin, Erika Eleniak, Richard Tyson

The Pandora Project [Region 2]

Caddyshack II/My Fellow Americans

One sweet cost and twice the laughter with "Caddyshack 2" and "My Fellow Americans"!