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Sex and the City - The Complete First Season

This hilarious look at dating mating and relating in New York is "a thinking person's sitcom brutally honest and hilariously funny." - The San Francisco Examiner. Can women have sex like men? What's it like to date someone younger? And what is "The Rabbit"? Find out in "Sex And The City."System Requirements:Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker Kim Cattrall Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon. Directed By: John David Coles Allen Coulter. Running Time: 300 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Standard" format. Copyright 2000 Warner Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating:  UPC: 026359930027 Manufacturer No: 99300

Now you can achieve multiple viewings of the best Sex on TV. Winner of Golden Globes for Best TV Series and Best Actress, Sex and the City is based on Candace Bushnell's provocative bestselling book. Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Carrie Bradshaw, a self-described "sexual anthropologist," who writes "Sex and the City," a newspaper column that chronicles the state of sexual affairs of Manhattanites in this "age of un-innocence." Her "posse," including nice girl Charlotte (Kristin Davis), hard-edged Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and party girl Samantha (Kim Cattrall)--not to mention her own tumultuous love life--gives Carrie plenty of column fodder. Over the course of the first season's 12 episodes, the most prominent dramatic arc concerns Carrie, who goes from turning the tables on "toxic bachelors" by having "sex like a man" to wanting to join the ranks of "the monogamists" with the elusive Mr. Big (Chris Noth). Meanwhile, Miranda, Cynthia, and Samantha have their own dating woes, few of which can be described on a family Web site. Seinfeld has nothing on Sex and the City when it comes to shallow, self-absorbed characters or coining catch phrases. Episode 2, for example, introduces the term "modelizer": a guy who is obsessed with and will only date models. Some may accuse this series of male bashing. But women, after years of enduring shows with "men behaving badly," will relish the equal time. Some may blanch at the ladies' graphic language and ribald humor, or dismiss some of the situations as unrealistic (Carrie doesn't bat an eye when she discovers that an artist friend surreptitiously videotapes his sexual conquests). Still others will view Sex and the City as documentary. Regardless of your view, this groundbreaking series will have you longing for more. --Donald Liebenson

Get Smart - Season 1

Sex and the City - The Complete Fifth Season

A thirty-something sex columnist and her three single friends examine relationships and sexual roles in New York City.
Genre: Television: HBO
Rating: NR
Release Date: 30-DEC-2003
Media Type: DVD

It was a short but sweet fifth season for Sex and the City, as HBO's resident comediennes found themselves affected by forces beyond their control--the pregnancies of both Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie) and Cynthia Nixon (Miranda). A truncated shooting schedule to accommodate the actresses forced this season to be reduced to a mere eight episodes, and indeed, you can tell both actresses are expecting. (Carrie's wardrobe became more outlandish and more concealing than usual.) Still, the actresses and creators forged ahead, creating a handful of episodes that if short in content were long on emotion and laughs. Whereas the fourth season found all four grappling with various relationships, the fifth season focused on the perils of being single, with a new intensity lacking in the previous sexcapades. Carrie and Miranda wrestled with their solitary lifestyles, albeit with new attachments--Miranda had new baby Brady and single motherhood, while Carrie found herself in the world of publishing as the author of a real-life book of her columns. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) wondered if she'd ever find another man, while Samantha (Kim Cattrall) finally got rid of the one that had been vexing her far too much, hotelier Richard (James Remar). If the season as a whole felt less than the sum of its parts, those parts were some of the best comedy in the show's history, from Samantha's anointment as the "Michiko Kakutani of vibrators" to Carrie's stressful, one-degree-from-fiasco book launch party. (And fear not, Chris Noth's Mr. Big does pop up now and again.) The season's climactic episode, "I Love a Charade," found all four at the straight wedding of a seemingly gay pal (Nathan Lane) and contemplating their future with a wry, bemused tone. It was one of the series' best episodes ever, equally touching and funny, and grounded the show in an emotional maturity that announced that after all their wild travails, these women had truly grown up. --Mark Englehart

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Complete Series

One Tree Hill - The Complete Fifth Season

Rambo (Widescreen Edition)

The next chapter finds Rambo recruited by missionaries to protect them during a humanitarian aid effort on behalf of the persecuted Karen people of Burma. After the missionaries are taken prisoner by Burmese soldiers Rambo gets a second impossible job: rescue the missionaries in the midst of a civil war.System Requirements:Running Time: 93 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/HEROES Rating: R UPC: 031398232957 Manufacturer No: 23295

If you've been wondering what ever happened to ex-Green Beret superwarrior John Rambo since he singlehandedly shot up a Pacific Northwest town (First Blood, 1982), returned to the jungles of 'Nam to free U.S. POWs held long after war's end (Rambo: First Blood Part II, 1985), and interrupted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan long enough to blow lots of stuff up and rescue his old commandant from the Reds (Rambo III, 1988), then Rambo (2008) is for you. Without so much as a IV to dilute the brand name, Rambo--which is what most of us called the second, most iconic film in the series--may aspire to open a new era for a pop legend. But it's a thoroughly mechanical attempt to reanimate a franchise that, absent the anger, frustration, and self-loathing of the post-Vietnam years, has no meaning or purpose. For some time now Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) has been putt-putting along the Thai-Burmese border in a longboat, catching exotic snakes to sell. As for the 60-year civil war in Burma between the brutal government and the Karen independence movement, he ignores it. Enter a party of American missionaries whose dewy blond spokeswoman (Dexter's Julie Benz) asks Rambo to haul them upriver so that they can bring medical aid to the insurgents. After the requisite number of monosyllabic refusals, he does. Soon afterward the do-gooders are in a world of hurt, and he's summoned to lead a squad of mercenaries on a rescue mission.

As storytelling, the latest Rambo is the most bare-bones of the bunch. Rambo has little to say, so it's especially galling that Stallone, as director and co-writer, obliges him to have essentially the same conversation at three different points (the final distillation: "Live for nothing or die for something"). The Burmese army goons seem in competition to commit the most hideous atrocity (e.g., child skull-crushing underfoot), the better to justify the eventual, lovingly protracted spectacle of them being eviscerated by high-powered weaponry. Although shot in Thailand, the movie has mostly been photographed in brown, reducing any particular sense of place but, perhaps, perversely increasing our gratitude for the splashes of purple whenever hot metal tatters flesh. --Richard T. Jameson

Beyond Rambo

Complete list of Rambo movies on DVD and Blu-ray

Soundtrack

Rambo: The Complete Collector's Set

Stills from Rambo (click for larger image)

Mary Poppins (40th Anniversary Edition)

There is only one word that comes close to accurately describing the enchanting Mary Poppins, and that term was coined by the movie itself: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Even at 2 hours and 20 minutes, Disney's pioneering mixture of live action and animation (based on the books by P.L. Travers) still holds kids spellbound. Julie Andrews won an Oscar as the world's most magically idealized nanny ("practically perfect in every way," and complete with lighter-than-air umbrella), and Dick Van Dyke is her clownishly charming beau, Bert the chimney sweep. The songs are also terrific, ranging from bright and cheery ("A Spoonful of Sugar") to dark and cheery (the Oscar-winning "Chim Chim Cher-ee") to touchingly melancholy ("Feed the Birds"). Many consider Mary Poppins to be the crowning achievement of Walt Disney's career--and it was the only one of his features to be nominated for a best picture Academy Award until Beauty and the Beast in 1991. --Jim Emerson

Experience the extraordinary animation, dazzling special effects, and award-winning music of Walt Disney's MARY POPPINS in this fully restored and remastered 2-Disc 40th Anniversary Edition! Join the "practically perfect" Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) for a "Jolly Holiday" as she magically turns every chore into a game and every day into a whimsical adventure. Along the way you'll be enchanted by unforgettable characters such as the multitalented chimney sweep Bert (Dick Van Dyke). Unpack Mary's magical carpetbag full of bonus features, including an all-new animated short, games, and a never-before-heard deleted song. You won't need "A Spoonful Of Sugar" to love every moment of this timeless Disney classic!

Hawaii Five-O - The Fourth Season

Filmed entirely on location in Hawaii the show followed Jack Lord as he played Steve McGarrett head of an elite state police unit investigating "organized crime murder assassination attempts foreign agents felonies of every type." James MacArthur played his second-in-command Danny ("Danno") Williams with local actors playing members of the Five-O team.System Requirements:Running Time: 1215 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 097368920743 Manufacturer No: 892074

Could it be that with Hawaii Five-O's fourth season, a third of the way into its remarkable '60s-'70s run, the show has gotten... well, cool? Actually, there are signs throughout this six-disc set of 24 digitally-remastered episodes that point to yes. Let's not get carried away here; Five-O is still basically as square as Tiananmen and Trafalgar, and as long as Steve McGarrett (portrayed, as ever, by Jack Lord) is in charge, its groove factor will never rival that of, say, CSI: Miami, or any other glossy new millennium cop drama. Indeed, the show's corniness and utter lack of irony remain integral to its charm. But there are a few interesting developments in this '71-'72 season. There's a good complement of snappy dialogue (one particularly large perp is "so big he could go bear-hunting with chopsticks"). And although the pacing can be pretty stodgy, the editing is a bit more deft; many scenes flow more naturally, and in at least one instance ("I Want Some Candy, and a Gun that Shoots," wherein a sniper is picking off cops on a coastal highway), the entire episode is more exciting than the Five-0 norm. The direction and lighting are also more stylish, while the music (not just Morton Stevens' classic theme song but the incidental sounds as well) and location scenery, two elements that have always been among the series' strong suits, are as good as ever; in fact, the islands look so lush and inviting that one wonders why the bad guys can even get motivated to commit their dirty deeds.

But they do, of course, and McGarrett and his faithful team (James MacArthur as Danno, Kam Fong as Chin Ho, and, in what remains one of the great TV credits ever, "Zulu as Kono") are there to stop 'em. This time around they're dealing with everything from a big money travelers check scam ("3,000 Crooked Miles to Honolulu," with Jed Clampett... er, Buddy Ebsen as a guest villain), eco-terrorism ("Is This Any Way to Run a Paradise"), political assassination ("Rest in Peace, Somebody"), and racism-rape ("Skinhead"), along with the usual murders and encounters with Red Chinese nemesis Wo Fat (Khigh Dhiegh). McGarrett is for the most part still as stiff as his hair, but Lord occasionally displays considerable passion, as when he breaks down in tears upon being informed that a nasty car accident did not leave him paralyzed (in "The 90-Second War," a two-parter). As always, bonus material is limited to brief, previous-week promos for each episode. --Sam Graham

The Andromeda Strain Miniseries

Based on the best-selling novel by Michael Crichton, the A&E mini-series event The Andromeda Strain arrives on DVD in this special 2-disc collection! Two-time Academy Award nominee Mikael Salomon (Band of Brothers) directs a powerhouse cast, including Benjamin Bratt (Law & Order), Christa Miller (Scrubs), Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Ricky Schroder (NYPD Blue), Andre Braugher (City of Angels), Viola Davis (Disturbia), and Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) in this thrilling sci-fi adventure. When a mysterious virus is brought to earth by a returning satellite, an elite and dedicated squad of scientists assembles to search for the truth and stop the mutating killer before it ends life on earth. Presented by three-time Academy Award nominee Ridley Scott (American Gangster) and Primetime Emmy Award winner Tony Scott (Numb3rs), The Andromeda Strain includes all 4 televised hours, contains exclusive bonus materials and features Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. Own the action-packed epic today!

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (Special Edition)

It's said that the original is the greatest, and there can be no more vivid proof than Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first and indisputably best of the initial three Indiana Jones adventures cooked up by the dream team of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Expectations were high for this 1981 collaboration between the two men, who essentially invented the box office blockbuster with `70s efforts like Jaws and Star Wars, and Spielberg (who directed) and Lucas (who co-wrote the story and executive produced) didn't disappoint. This wildly entertaining film has it all: non-stop action, exotic locations, grand spectacle, a hero for the ages, despicable villains, a beautiful love interest, humor, horror… not to mention lots of snakes. And along with all the bits that are so familiar by now--Indy (Harrison Ford) running from the giant boulder in a cave, using his pistol instead of his trusty whip to take out a scimitar-wielding bad guy, facing off with a hissing cobra, and on and on--there's real resonance in a potent storyline that brings together a profound religious-archaeological icon (the Ark of the Covenant, nothing less than "a radio for speaking to God") and the 20th century's most infamous criminals (the Nazis). Now that's entertainment. --Sam Graham

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is no ordinary archeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet (complete with an over-sized rolling boulder) to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French archeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman), who then prepares to kill our hero. In the first of many serial-like escapes, Indy eludes Belloq by hopping into a convenient plane. So, then: is Indiana Jones afraid of anything? Yes, snakes. The next time we see Jones, he's a soft-spoken, bespectacled professor. He is then summoned from his ivy-covered environs by Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis, it seems, are already searching for the Ark, which the mystical-minded Hitler hopes to use to make his stormtroopers invincible. But to find the Ark, Indy must first secure a medallion kept under the protection of Indy's old friend Abner Ravenwood, whose daughter, Marion (Karen Allen), evidently has a "history" with Jones. Whatever their personal differences, Indy and Marion become partners in one action-packed adventure after another, ranging from wandering the snake pits of the Well of Souls to surviving the pyrotechnic unearthing of the sacred Ark. A joint project of Hollywood prodigies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, among others, Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so much a movie as a 115-minute thrill ride. Costing 22 million dollars (nearly three times the original estimate), Raiders of the Lost Ark reaped 200 million dollars during its first run. It was followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as well as a short-lived TV-series "prequel."