Young, Damian

Snow Day

When a snow day cancels school Hal Webber intends to use the free time to make an impression on Claire, while his sister Natalie is determined to prolong the time off from school by stopping Snowplowman from clearing the roads.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 20-DEC-2005
Media Type: DVD

Anything can happen on a snow day. So it's too bad the winter's been unseasonably warm, and there's nothing that Chevy Chase--weatherman and father of three--can do about it. But what if it miraculously snowed enough to close the school? Perhaps the oldest son would have a chance to date the most popular girl in school, his sister might have more time to play with him, their mother would act more like a mom and less like a workaholic, and Chase might even be given the chance to be a respected meteorologist who didn't have to wear stupid costumes on the TV news. When the snow does fall, these dreams slowly transform into reality, of course. There are no big surprises in Snow Day, and children will enjoy its genial jokes and good-natured slapstick. Adults may get a kick out of Iggy Pop's portrayal of an ice rink manager who plays nothing but wonderfully unpopular Al Martino songs. Chris Elliott (Get a Life) also has a small role as "the creepy guy with a plow" who, because he plows the streets, is the enemy of snow day lovers everywhere. Ultimately, Snow Day is predicable family fluff. --Andy Spletzer

G.

G. is an engrossing update of The Great Gatsby, set in the Hamptons and starring Richard T. Jones as Summer G., a self-made, millionaire head of a hip-hop label. Having risen from obscurity to make his fortune, Summer pines for just one thing: Sky (Chenoa Maxwell), the woman who dumped him back in college to marry the brutal, philandering Chip (Blair Underwood). Sky's feckless cousin, Tre (Andre Royer), a pop journalist, sets her up in an assignation with Summer, leading to predictable conflicts but with unexpected consequences. Co-written and directed by Christopher Scott Cherot, G. is also an interesting portrait of American wealth, particularly the collision of old and new money in the form of a biracial aristocracy coming to terms with a hip-hop elite. Strong performances alone are enough to recommend this feature. --Tom Keogh

Richard T. Jones (Guess Who TV's 'The Wire') Blair Underwood (Madea's Family Reunion TV's 'Fatherhood') Chenoa Maxwell (Doing Hard Time Hav Plenty) Andre Royo (Shaft TV's 'The Wire') Andrew Lauren (Conspiracy Theory) Laz Alonzo (Jarhead The Tenants) star in G a tragedy-filled story of a young Great Gatsby-ish Hip-Hopper named Summer G who falls for a middle- to upper-class sistah while in college. After she rejects him for a fellow social climber Summer G spends ten years building a Hip-Hop empire and then moves to the Hamptons where he finds the object of his affections. Cinematic urban tastemaker movie which highlights an African-American aristocratic lifestyle.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 043396143951 Manufacturer No: 14395

Simple Men

Simple Men opens with small-time hood Bill (Robert Burke from RoboCop 3) asking a bound and blindfolded security guard if he can have the guard's Virgin Mary medallion. "Be good to her and she'll be good to you," says the guard. Immediately after, Bill is double-crossed by his girlfriend and his partner. From there, the plot goes off in a completely different direction: Bill and his younger brother Dennis (William Sage, High Art), a philosophy student, go off in search of their father, a former star shortstop who may have committed a bombing many years ago. Their only clue is a phone number on Long Island; they end up at a cafe run by Kate (Karen Sillas, Female Perversions), which is also the hangout for Elina Löwensohn (Nadja) and Martin Donovan (Hollow Reed, The Opposite of Sex). But plot is never the point in Hal Hartley movies (Trust, Amateur, Henry Fool); it's just a clothesline on which to hang odd, quirky scenes--moments like Donovan and Sage trying to imitate Löwensohn's dance movements to a Sonic Youth song, or a half-drunken conversation about pop music and self-exploitation. Hartley's deliberately stilted dialogue and stylized performances actually play better on video; the movie feels more intimate, making the humor more relaxed and fluid. Hartley is the kind of idiosyncratic filmmaker who provokes love-him-or-hate-him responses, but there's a deep sincerity to his artifice that goes beyond mere posing. Against all commercial wisdom, he's struggling to find his own cinematic poetry. Such an uncommon aspiration is worth checking out. --Bret Fetzer

What do you do if your father, a former all-star shortstop and mad bomber anarchist, breaks out of jail? Go after him, of course! Two brothers trek through the deep, dark wilds of Long Island, only to discover that sometimes even the oddest things really are just what they seem. Directed by independent film favorite Hal Hartley (The UnbelievableTruth, Amateur, Trust) Starring Robert John Burke (Tombstone, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), Bill Sage (American Psycho, Boiler Room), Karen Sillas (The Sopranos, CSI Miami), Elina Lowensohn (Schindler's List, Nadja), and Martin Donovan (Insomnia, The Opposite of Sex).

Amateur

Filmmaker Hal Hartley is something of an acquired taste. But if you can get on his oddball, deadpan wavelength, you can't help but enjoy his films--and this is one of his best. Isabelle Huppert plays a former nun who now works as a pornographer. She connects with Martin Donovan, playing a fellow who's lost his memory, but whose past may contain particularly nasty stuff. As they look for a way to get away from that past (which includes a couple of hit men who look like stockbrokers), the two discuss the meaning of their lives in hilariously vague ways. Hartley's dialogue is tart and concise, filled with acidic but low-key humor. And Donovan, who also starred in the director's equally good Trust, has just the right downbeat affect to give the film an unusual spin. --Marshall Fine

A crackpot ex-nun who writes pornographic short stories crosses paths with an amnesiac wandering the streets of New York City. When they set out to uncover his identity, they come face to face with his unsavory past - including a vengeful porno actress and ruthless corporate assassins hot on their trail.

The Darkroom

Speed of Life

Second Best

Elliot Kelman (JOE PANTOLIANO) is a failed publishing executive who can't get back into business. He supports himself selling suits at the local mall and relies on hand-outs from his mother, ex-wife, and son. He also self-publishes a weekly newsletter on the perils of self-delusion. Afraid his writings will be rejected, he hires a high school kid to post them on supermarket bulletin boards and stuff them under windshields in his New Jersey hometown.

After he meets the sexy Carole (JENNIFER TILLY) and his newsletter begins to find an audience, things start looking up for Elliot. However, the return home of his oldest friend Richard (BOYD GAINES), a prominent movie producer, and the only one of his friends to have found success, brings Elliot's feeling of inadequacy and squandered potential back to the surface. With Richard in town, the competitive tensions rise, and once Carole takes an interest in his friend, Elliot must confront his envy of Richard's success and his disenchantment with his own failure.

Second Best is a dark comedy that offers insight into men's expectations of success, financially, sexually and otherwise, and provides a glimpse into what men actually talk about when women aren't around. This is a film that explores how a generation of men who were expected to achieve their dreams can ultimately overcome the reality of falling short of them.

Kill the Poor

IN THEATERS JANUARY 6 2006 (LIMITED) Set in 1982 KILL THE POOR finds Joe Peltz (David Krumholtz) and his pregnant wife Annabelle (Clara Bellar) moving into a Lower East Side tenement building. But as the daily life of the building takes over their lives--with endless mind-numbing meetings about responsibilities and actions driving Joe and Annabelle crazy--the film builds to an explosive climax. A fascinating glimpse of how New York City used to be KILL THE POOR is full of all the weird and wonderful characters who made the Lower East Side such a diverse and interesting community to live in.System Requirements:Running Time: 86 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 796019795463 Manufacturer No: 79546

Snow Day [Region 2]

Anything can happen on a snow day. So it's too bad the winter's been unseasonably warm, and there's nothing that Chevy Chase--weatherman and father of three--can do about it. But what if it miraculously snowed enough to close the school? Perhaps the oldest son would have a chance to date the most popular girl in school, his sister might have more time to play with him, their mother would act more like a mom and less like a workaholic, and Chase might even be given the chance to be a respected meteorologist who didn't have to wear stupid costumes on the TV news. When the snow does fall, these dreams slowly transform into reality, of course. There are no big surprises in Snow Day, and children will enjoy its genial jokes and good-natured slapstick. Adults may get a kick out of Iggy Pop's portrayal of an ice rink manager who plays nothing but wonderfully unpopular Al Martino songs. Chris Elliott (Get a Life) also has a small role as "the creepy guy with a plow" who, because he plows the streets, is the enemy of snow day lovers everywhere. Ultimately, Snow Day is predicable family fluff. --Andy Spletzer

Snow Day [Region 2]

Anything can happen on a snow day. So it's too bad the winter's been unseasonably warm, and there's nothing that Chevy Chase--weatherman and father of three--can do about it. But what if it miraculously snowed enough to close the school? Perhaps the oldest son would have a chance to date the most popular girl in school, his sister might have more time to play with him, their mother would act more like a mom and less like a workaholic, and Chase might even be given the chance to be a respected meteorologist who didn't have to wear stupid costumes on the TV news. When the snow does fall, these dreams slowly transform into reality, of course. There are no big surprises in Snow Day, and children will enjoy its genial jokes and good-natured slapstick. Adults may get a kick out of Iggy Pop's portrayal of an ice rink manager who plays nothing but wonderfully unpopular Al Martino songs. Chris Elliott (Get a Life) also has a small role as "the creepy guy with a plow" who, because he plows the streets, is the enemy of snow day lovers everywhere. Ultimately, Snow Day is predicable family fluff. --Andy Spletzer