Kotcheff, Ted

Rambo Trilogy (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection) (3-Disc Collector Set) - (First Blood/Rambo: First Blood Part II/Rambo III)

Three films featuring Rambo, an angry Vietnam veteran.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-AUG-2007
Media Type: DVD

Folks!

Jon Aldrich an all around nice guy inadvertently becomes the target of an FBI sting. But compared to everything else in his life that doesn't seem so bad.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 013131376692 Manufacturer No: DV13766

Weekend at Bernie's

Brace yourself for "a hectic and fun Weekend" (Los Angeles Times) filled with mayhem misadventure and murder! Hilarious performances from Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman make this fatally funny comedy a "good old knockdown slapstick with just the right dose of cruelty thrown in" (The Hollywood Reporter)!It sounded like a great weekend away at their boss Bernie's beachside pleasure palace. But when working stiffs Larry and Richard (McCarthy and Silverman) arrive to find a real stiff their murdered boss they're forced to concoct a crazy scheme to avoid being implicated and/or dead themselves! With Bernie propped up and his death effectively covered up Richard and Larry's weekend getaway becomes exactly that as they dodge curious babes a curtain of bullets and one confused hit man!System Requirements: Running Time 98 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 027616925671 Manufacturer No: 1008557

Weekend at Bernie's starts when two lowly clerks at an insurance agency uncover a $2 million fraud and report it to their boss, Bernie (Terry Kiser). Unfortunately for them, Bernie is the one behind the fraud, and he invites them to his island beach house for the weekend, where he intends to have them killed by his mob contacts. Unfortunately for Bernie, the mob decides to rub him out instead--and thus begin the necrotic hijinks. The clerks, Richard (Jonathan Silverman) and Larry (Andrew McCarthy), arrive and discover Bernie's body. At first they panic and start to call the police, but when a party of islanders sweeps in, Richard and Larry also discover that the local residents are so self-absorbed they don't notice that Bernie is dead. So if our heroes can just convince everyone that Bernie is still alive for they weekend, they can have a splendid time. Unfortunately, they also convince the mob hitman, who keeps trying to take Bernie out. Weekend at Bernie's was made at the height of 1980s fashion and features many amusing outfits and hairstyles--often the styles are funnier than the dialogue, and the characters are tissue-paper thin. Still, there's no denying that the movie chugs along from bit to bit and never takes itself more seriously than it should. A cheerful, disposable piece of fluff. --Bret Fetzer

Uncommon Valor

Based on a true story, this action film set in the post-Vietnam era casts Gene Hackman as a retired military man who gets tired of government inaction in tracking down the whereabouts of his son, who has been listed as missing in action in Vietnam. So he gathers and trains a rough group of Vietnam vets to launch his own mission into Laos, where his intelligence tells him the son is being held. Hackman brings sorrowful power to the role of determined father, and has a rugged supporting cast (including Patrick Swayze, Fred Ward, and Randall "Tex" Cobb) to keep the story moving forward, even when the machinations become formulaic. --Marshall Fine

First Blood

It's easy to forget that this Spartan, violent film, which begat the Rambo series, was such a big hit in 1982 because it was a good movie. Green Beret vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) wanders into the wrong small town to find a fellow 'Nam buddy and gets the living heck kicked out of him by the local law enforcement (led by Brian Dennehy). The vet strikes back the only way he knows how, leading to a visceral, if unrealistic, flight and fight through the local mountains. Based on the 1972 novel by David Morrell, this film saved Stallone's then-foundering career and the Rambo character became the inspiration for countless political cartoons. But this film is Deliverance without the moral ambiguity. --Keith Simanton

He Never Fought A Battle He Couldn't WinAcademy Award®-nominee Sylvester Stallone stars as war hero ex-Green Beret John Rambo in the one that started it all! First Blood is an explosive action-thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final powerful frame.System Requirements:Starring: Sylvester Stallone Richard Crenna and Brian Dennehy. Directed By: Ted Kotcheff. Running Time: 96 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2004 Lions Gate Entertainment.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 012236163565 Manufacturer No: 20204

First Blood (Special Edition)

It's easy to forget that this Spartan, violent film, which begat the Rambo series, was such a big hit in 1982 because it was a good movie. Green Beret vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) wanders into the wrong small town to find a fellow 'Nam buddy and gets the living heck kicked out of him by the local law enforcement (led by Brian Dennehy). The vet strikes back the only way he knows how, leading to a visceral, if unrealistic, flight and fight through the local mountains. Based on the 1972 novel by David Morrell, this film saved Stallone's then-foundering career and the Rambo character became the inspiration for countless political cartoons. But this film is Deliverance without the moral ambiguity. --Keith Simanton

North Dallas Forty

A very savvy, 1978 film directed by Ted Kotcheff (First Blood) dealing with the seamier side of professional football. Phillip Elliott and Maxwell (Nick Nolte and Mac Davis, respectively) are players for a Texas football team loosely based on the championship Dallas Cowboys. Though at the peak of his football career, Elliott is a personal and physical mess, needing all manner of drugs prescribed by the team physician to play and even to move around. The indifference of the team management and the hypocritical stance toward recreational drug use versus the drug abuse practiced by the players leads to a crisis of conscience for Nolte. The combination of Nolte's volatile presence and Davis's understated performance as the quarterback who thinks he's seen it all helps make North Dallas Forty one of the best sports films around. --Robert Lane

Nolte stars in the story about one man's rebellion against the bureaucratic, manipulative world of professional football.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 13-AUG-2002
Media Type: DVD

Red Shoe Diaries - The Game

Law & Order - Special Victims Unit - The Premiere Episode

Originally called Sex Crimes, executive producer Dick Wolf wisely opted for something less lurid when the second in the inexhaustible Law & Order franchise hit the air in 1999. Still, as the opening voiceover makes clear, the "sexually based offenses" investigated by New York's Special Victims Unit can be "especially heinous." Wolf penned series premier "Payback," which sets the scene, but not the tone. It's a lively, if uneasy mix between horror (rape) and comedy (risqué banter). As the first season progressed, humor would be written out altogether (leaving Richard Belzer's Homicide-derived John Munch with increasingly less to do), and less emphasis would be placed on the home lives of this "elite squad of dedicated detectives." Mostly, "Payback" introduces us to the unit, centering around partners Olivia Benton (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). For two people with so little in common, they make a terrific team--arguably one of TV's best. Stabler is married with four children; Benton is single and her closest relationship is with her mother (Elizabeth Ashley). While Stabler can get a little rough with suspects, Benton tends to over-empathize with the victims. They report to the no-nonsense Captain Cragen (Law & Order vet Dann Florek). Like the parent program's Lenny Briscoe, he's a recovering alcoholic. Dean Winters and Michelle Hurd round out the rock-solid cast. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

The Winter People

Starring Kurt Russell (Breakdown) and Kelly McGillis (Top Gun) as forbidden lovers willing to risk everything to be together, Winter People is an entrancing (The Hollywood Reporter) film that shows how beautiful and powerful love can be in the face of devastating odds. When a lonely widower, Wayland Jackson (Russell), becomes stranded in a remote mountain village, he's taken in by a local single mother, Collie Wright (McGillis). Before long, Wayland and Collie fall deeply in love. But their idyllic situation is brutally and violently disrupted when Cole Campbellthe drunkard father of Collie's sonshows up to reclaim his place in his son's life. To make matters worse, Cole is murdered, igniting an age-old family rivalry between the Wrights and the Campbells. The Campbell clan demands a life for a life. And the Wrights are ready to honor the request with Wayland's! And Collie is forced to make an impossible decision that will change both families forever!