Hughes, Bronwen

Harriet the Spy (Widescreen Collection)

This feature production from Nickelodeon is based on a popular kids' book from the 1960s by Louise Fitzhugh, and stars Michelle Trachtenberg as an 11-year-old wannabe journalist who writes all her observations about friends in a diary. When the book is stolen and read by her peers, she's ostracized. The film is hard to watch for all its sensory overload (rapid cuts, kooky camera angles), but its theme of finding a balance between a commitment to one's voice and one's obligations to others is fairly wise stuff. With Rosie O'Donnell and Eartha Kitt. --Tom Keogh

Forces of Nature

Plane crashes, pickpockets, hurricanes--heaven and hell is moving to prevent our able hero Ben (Ben Affleck) from marrying his sweetie (Maura Tierney) in Savannah. At every turn he runs into someone else despairing about the woes of married life. And of course, temptation proves overwhelming in the face of traveling companion Sarah (Sandra Bullock), the wild woman whom he can't seem--or doesn't want--to lose.

After a wayward bird flies into the engine of his airplane, Ben is forced to find another way to his wedding. He finds himself stuck with Sarah, whom he carried from the plane after she was whacked in the noggin by his laptop. The heat between them is unmistakable, and the drama in the film comes from the "will he or won't he," both in terms of sleeping with Sarah and meeting up with his bride. Forces of Nature is a fun and sentimental road-trip film, but Ben is such a strait-laced noodge, you can't help but want him to fall flat on his face just a little. Bullock is the life of this film, although her free-spirited ways get a bit tired (responsibility is not all bad). The highlight of this movie, though, is definitely the cinematography. The beautiful rain shots and the colors of the scenes lend to the unsettling mood. While the jokes are not rip-roaring, Forces is to be reckoned with for those times when a lighthearted film is what you need. --Jenny Brown

Stander

Deeply affected by the indiscriminate killing he witnesses as white police officer in South Africa Andres Stander (played by Tom Jane) makes a decision to defy the very system has has spent a lifetime enforcing. Turning his back on the law he masterminds a series of audacious bank robberies and befriending outlaws Allan Heyl and Lee McCall goes on a cross-country robbing spree. Known only as the "Stander Gang" the three commit dozens of bank robberies - heists that grow increasingly bolder over time. In the eyes of the public the gang's disrespect for authority makes them near-lengendary folk heroes. To the South African government however the former police officer is a cause of embarressment and the Stander gang quickly becomes the most wanted men in the country.System Requirements:Running Time: 116 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 043396087903 Manufacturer No: 08790

Stander is the compelling, true story of Andre Stander (superbly played by Tom--formerly Thomas--Jane), an Apartheid-era, South African police captain whose disgust over official repression of the nation's black majority--and his own, lethal participation in those policies--leads to his career as a bank robber. Captured, imprisoned, and on the run after a successful escape, Stander joins two partners (Dexter Fletcher, David Patrick O'Hara) in a long string of bank heists across the country, uncertain of his destiny but yearning for his estranged wife (Deborah Unger). Co-screenwriter and director Bronwen Hughes (Forces of Nature) can't quite overcome the built-in redundancy of the film's latter half (lots of robberies, lots of disguises). But despite all the gunplay, Stander is most interesting for its understated fascination with the enigma of its anti-hero, who wreaks havoc yet is peculiarly committed to atoning--at great pain--for those actions he considers most unethical. --Tom Keogh

Harriet the Spy [Region 2]

This feature production from Nickelodeon is based on a popular kids' book from the 1960s by Louise Fitzhugh, and stars Michelle Trachtenberg as an 11-year-old wannabe journalist who writes all her observations about friends in a diary. When the book is stolen and read by her peers, she's ostracized. The film is hard to watch for all its sensory overload (rapid cuts, kooky camera angles), but its theme of finding a balance between a commitment to one's voice and one's obligations to others is fairly wise stuff. With Rosie O'Donnell and Eartha Kitt. --Tom Keogh

Win a Date With Tad Hamilton/Forces of Nature (Widescreen)

Forces of Nature [Region 2]

Plane crashes, pickpockets, hurricanes--heaven and hell is moving to prevent our able hero Ben (Ben Affleck) from marrying his sweetie (Maura Tierney) in Savannah. At every turn he runs into someone else despairing about the woes of married life. And of course, temptation proves overwhelming in the face of traveling companion Sarah (Sandra Bullock), the wild woman whom he can't seem--or doesn't want--to lose.

After a wayward bird flies into the engine of his airplane, Ben is forced to find another way to his wedding. He finds himself stuck with Sarah, whom he carried from the plane after she was whacked in the noggin by his laptop. The heat between them is unmistakable, and the drama in the film comes from the "will he or won't he," both in terms of sleeping with Sarah and meeting up with his bride. Forces of Nature is a fun and sentimental road-trip film, but Ben is such a strait-laced noodge, you can't help but want him to fall flat on his face just a little. Bullock is the life of this film, although her free-spirited ways get a bit tired (responsibility is not all bad). The highlight of this movie, though, is definitely the cinematography. The beautiful rain shots and the colors of the scenes lend to the unsettling mood. While the jokes are not rip-roaring, Forces is to be reckoned with for those times when a lighthearted film is what you need. --Jenny Brown

Forces of Nature [Region 2]

Plane crashes, pickpockets, hurricanes--heaven and hell is moving to prevent our able hero Ben (Ben Affleck) from marrying his sweetie (Maura Tierney) in Savannah. At every turn he runs into someone else despairing about the woes of married life. And of course, temptation proves overwhelming in the face of traveling companion Sarah (Sandra Bullock), the wild woman whom he can't seem--or doesn't want--to lose.

After a wayward bird flies into the engine of his airplane, Ben is forced to find another way to his wedding. He finds himself stuck with Sarah, whom he carried from the plane after she was whacked in the noggin by his laptop. The heat between them is unmistakable, and the drama in the film comes from the "will he or won't he," both in terms of sleeping with Sarah and meeting up with his bride. Forces of Nature is a fun and sentimental road-trip film, but Ben is such a strait-laced noodge, you can't help but want him to fall flat on his face just a little. Bullock is the life of this film, although her free-spirited ways get a bit tired (responsibility is not all bad). The highlight of this movie, though, is definitely the cinematography. The beautiful rain shots and the colors of the scenes lend to the unsettling mood. While the jokes are not rip-roaring, Forces is to be reckoned with for those times when a lighthearted film is what you need. --Jenny Brown