Barbarians at the Gate
by Glenn Jordan
from Hbo Home Video
This HBO original comedy, adapted by Larry Gelbart (Tootsie) from the book by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, concerns one of the most compelling tales of corporate buyout madness in the go-go 1980s. James Garner plays F. Ross Johnson, CEO of RJR Nabisco. Following failed and expensive efforts to sell a smokeless cigarette to the public, Johnson decides that he's had enough of navigating around the wrath of the company's stockholders. Drawing up plans to buy RJR Nabisco outright, he soon finds himself outmatched (though still determined) in a race for the prize with takeover king Henry Kravis (Jonathan Pryce). The ensuing battle is both bitterly funny and full of acid-tinged insights into the '80s greed that changed corporate America forever. Besides Gelbart's great script and Glenn Jordan's competent direction, the star of this exciting film is Garner, who is absolutely wonderful as the gracious Johnson. --Tom Keogh
The 80's... It was a time when everybody was doing the big bucks but f. Ross Johnson CEO of R.J. R. Nabisco has every intention of making a fortune. When Johnson (James Garner) decides to buy out the Nabisco shareholders and take over his company no one is prepared for what hits the fan. Johnson is introduced to the master of the leveraged buyout Henry Kravis (Johnathon Pryce) but afraid of losing the company to this sharp dealer he decides to make his move with Peter Cohen (Peter Riegert). Kravis however is not to be outdone and begins an aggressive campaign of his own. What follows is a down-to-the-wire battle to see who's really king of the Wall Street jungle. They may look like polite well-dressed businessmen but listen hard and you can hear the pounding of BARBARIANS AT THE GATE.Running Time: 107 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 026359083525 Manufacturer No: 90835
To Dance With the White Dog
by Glenn Jordan
from Hallmark
Sarah, Plain & Tall Collection
by Joseph Sargent
from Hallmark
The third and final episode of the Sarah, Plain and Tall series is a 1999 production reuniting stars Glenn Close and Christopher Walken with original director Glenn Jordan. Taking the story eight years beyond the original tale, Winter's End is set in a harsh Kansas winter of 1918, with the specter of death everywhere: soldiers are dying overseas during World War I, influenza is at epidemic proportions in the U.S., and an old man has returned to the Witting farm with an uncertain reception. He's John Witting (Jack Palance), father of Jacob (Walken), and the two men have not seen each other since John abandoned his son years ago. Reconciliation comes hard, punctuated by cliffhanger disasters (Jacob breaks his leg and burns with a fever, Sarah almost dies in a heavy snowstorm), but this most brutal of trial periods for the Wittings still invites a viewer to yearn for a more innocent--perhaps mythical--time in America. A worthy and rewarding finish to a trilogy fit for families yet sophisticated enough for all ages, Winter's End may be one of the last network television classics in an era of audience relocation to multichannel cable. --Tom Keogh
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Glenn Jordan
from Mpi Home Video
O Pioneers!
by Glenn Jordan
from Hallmark
Academy Award (r)-winning actress Jessica Lange heads an extraordinary cast in this breathtaking adaptation of Willa Cather's turn-of-the-century epic saga of settlers carving a home from the wilderness and finding the dreams of a lifetime.
Alexandra Bergson is still a young woman when she inherits the family farm and struggles to carve a home and a fortune from the the windswept prairie. Because of her responsibility to the land and her younger brothers, she must give up her one chance for love - though she's never forgotten the teenager who stirred her heart, then left to find his future elsewhere. He returns fifteen years later and rekindles within Alexandra a long-buried dream and a new-found desire in this timeless masterpiece of life and love, tragedy and triumph as sweeping as the land and the settlers it portrays.
Eccentricities of a Nightingale (Broadway Theatre Archive)
by Glenn Jordan
from Kultur Video
Blythe Danner gives a luminous performance in this Tennessee Williams classic. Eccentricities of a Nightingale has an interesting history: it is actually a rethinking of Williams's own play Summer and Smoke (viewers familiar with that work will notice that the setting and character names are the same). Williams preferred Nightingale, and it is easy to see why--the play is at once gentler and more direct than the other. Danner plays Alma, a typical Tennessee Williams heroine, too delicate for this world. Alma is shy and mannered, with an artistic temperament that her joyless father does his best to suppress. She is in love with the boy across the street, the dashing John, but of course in Williams's plays these things are never easy. Danner does a brilliant job of being true to Alma's fragility while still keeping her likable, and Frank Langella endows John with such a warm heart that it's hard to blame him for anything that happens. This excellent production is a pleasure to watch, and Williams's grace of language gives it a crystalline beauty in spite of its shocking ending. --Ali Davis
Neil Simon's Jake's Women
by Glenn Jordan
from Platinum Disc
The Displaced Person
by Glenn Jordan
from Monterey Video
Legalese
by Glenn Jordan
from New Line Home Video
The best film satires are not necessarily to be found in the theaters, where only independent filmmakers have the courage to risk alienating the ticket-buying audience. Cable TV has proven to be fertile ground for many a sharp-tongued script and Legalese is as smart and acerbic as they come. James Garner is deliciously conniving as a high-profile criminal lawyer who secretly presides over a high-profile murder trial like he's the Wizard of Oz, whispering directions into the ear of his fresh-faced assistant (Edward Kerr) while monitoring the surrounding media circus from his multimedia eye-in-the-sky office. Gina Gershon is the Hollywood starlet and Apple industry poster girl whose scandalous murder charge sends the tabloid media (led by the predatory talk-show titan Kathleen Turner) into a headline frenzy ("Rotten to the Core" proclaims one muckraking TV show). Mary-Louise Parker is at her best as Garner's ambitious assistant, a savvy, sexy, self-assured junior partner developing her feral instincts when Kerr awakens her slumbering idealism. The sharp, cutting screenplay skewers their relationship with tawdry media sensationalism and camera-hogging legal tactics, but loses the conviction of its cynicism in a satisfying if too cozy happy ending. Until then, it's a nasty little poisoned pastry of a film, served up thick and juicy and oh-so tart. --Sean Axmaker
An actress accused of the murder of her brother-in-law and possible lover is defended by a naive attorney whose strings are being pulled by a slick celebrity lawyer.Running Time: 92 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 794043770029
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