Arkush, Allan

Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2

Glamorous Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) is an ex-model with a problem--her accountant just ran off with her money. Granted, he did leave her with a few broken-down businesses. One happens to be a detective agency run by charming loudmouth David Addison (Bruce Willis). Her attempt to shutter the agency fails when they stumble across a crime and David convinces Maddie to help him solve it. And with that, one of television's most popular partnerships was born. Moonlighting made a star out of newcomer Willis and turned Shepherd (Taxi Driver), who had already found fame through fashion and film, into a bona fide TV star.

Created for ABC by Glenn Gordon Caron (Remington Steele), the romantic comedy/detective drama was a mid-season replacement that quickly became a hit. There were only six episodes in the first season, including the two-part pilot, but 18 were produced for the second. Rhyming receptionist Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) was a regular from the start, while Herbert Viola (Ray's Curtis Armstrong) wouldn't hit the scene until the third season (as with Paul Sorvino and Mark Harmon). The first two seasons attracted an eclectic array of guest stars, including Tim Robbins ("Gunfight at the So-So Corral"), Beasley's husband Vincent Schiavelli ("Next Stop Murder"), Dana Delany ("Knowing Her"), Richard Belzer ("Twas the Episode Before Christmas"), and Whoopi Goldberg ("Camille"), who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance. The most notable guest was surely Orson Welles, who introduces the black and white noir spoof "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice." It would be his final TV appearance. Moonlighting ran for three more years. While the Emmy-winning Willis would abandon TV for the big screen, Shepherd found subsequent small screen success with Cybill. Caron, meanwhile, would launch another mid-season replacement series which became a surprise hit: NBC's Medium with Patricia Arquette. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepard), a wealthy former model, discovers one morning that her business manager has stolen all the money she has in the bank. However, it turns out that she still owns some non-liquid assets -- money-losing companies which were maintained as tax write-offs -- one of which is a detective agency run by David Addison (Bruce Willis). Maddie meets with him to inform him that the company is to be shut down, but he persuades her to keep it open by convincing her that the detective agency can make money. Maddie becomes David's new boss and accompanies him on adventure after adventure. While their personalities clash, a sexual tension arises in the time they spend together. But the question always remains... will they or won't they?

The Temptations

Follows the career of the African American singing sensation of the 60s, The Temptations.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: BROOKS/PAYTON
Title: TEMPTATIONS
Street Release Date: 12/21/2004
Domestic
Genre: DRAMA

Conceived as a television miniseries, this portrait of the epochal Motown vocal group scores as one of the most detailed re-creations of the '60s pop milieu ever filmed. Told largely through the eyes of founding member Otis Williams (Charles Malik Whitfield), The Temptations portrays its protagonists as soul Everymen whose early triumphs closely followed, and helped expand, Motown Records' emergence as "the Sound of Young America," providing an inspirational fable for black Americans.

Inevitably, of course, the story is also a cautionary tale about the price of success for both the Temps and their mentor, Motown founder Berry Gordy (Obba Babatunde). With hit records and tours, Williams and his partners grapple with drugs, alcohol, depression, jealousy, and delusions of grandeur. In particular, the galvanic lead singer David Ruffin (Leon) serves as both a focal strength and potential destroyer for the group, as his ego combines with a mounting cocaine habit to create a monster. At the same time, Gordy's eventual decision to leave his and the label's home, Detroit, for Los Angeles marks a loss of innocence for the group and their label-mates. The film provides ample insider detail about how the former Ford assembly-line worker created and controlled his unique hit factory.

Based on the biography coauthored by Williams and former manager Shelly Berger, the project gets a vital boost from behind the camera, thanks to executive producer Suzanne DePasse, herself a former Motown exec, and director Allan Arkush (Rock 'n' Roll High School). That lineage probably pulls some punches in terms of individual characters and Gordy's machinations, but it also affords The Temptations its convincing detail, as does the generous running time--a mixed blessing, due to the original two-part broadcast, which might have benefited from tightening for this video version. Giving the show its greatest kick are the group's original hits, performed and choreographed convincingly in lip-synched sequences. --Sam Sutherland

Dawson's Creek - The Series Finale (Extended Cut)

Part One It s five years later and Dawson Joey Pacey Jen and Jack are reunited in Capeside for Dawson s mom s wedding. But the celebratory mood comes to an end when they receive some heartbreaking news.Part Two As the gang faces a future more uncertain than ever before Joey struggles to come to terms with her true feelings for Dawson Pacey and her current boyfriend. When she finally does she surprises everyone with her decision.System Requirements:Starring: James Van Der Beek Katie Holmes Michelle Williams Joshua Jacskson Oliver Hudson Running Time: 108 Min. Copyright Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 043396018563 Manufacturer No: 01856

With its series-finale episode, Dawson's Creek summed up its six-year run on the WB Network with a sweet and sad tale of reunion and farewell for old friends, soul mates, and lovers. The friends are now 25 and living new lives: Dawson (James Van Der Beek) is in Hollywood executive-producing The Creek, obviously based on his own life and considered "the new hit teen soap at the WB"; Joey (Katie Holmes) is a book editor in New York with a serious beau; Jen (Michelle Williams) is a single mother; Pacey (Joshua Jackson) is the relatively respectable owner of the reborn Icehouse Restaurant; and Jack (Kerr Smith) is teaching at the high school and struggling with his relationship. A wedding brings everyone together in Capeside, but tragedy strikes, and the remaining friends are left to consider their lives and what they want to do with them. Whether or not you agree with the final choices, of course, probably depends on who you've been rooting for.

The extended cut of the finale runs 104 minutes, about 16 longer than when it was broadcast in May 2003. Unlike deleted scenes on movie DVDs, each addition seems like a useful part of the story, and the DVD borrows a helpful feature from the Lord of the Rings extended editions by designating on the chapter menu which scenes are new or extended. Some differences are minor, but there are significant new scenes with Joey at work, Joey and her boyfriend (Jeremy Sisto of Six Feet Under), Joey and Dawson's reunion in Capeside, and Pacey's conversation with old flame Andie (Meredith Monroe).

As they did for two episodes of Dawson's Creek: The Complete First Season, creator Kevin Williamson (who co-wrote the finale) and executive producer Paul Stubin provide a commentary track in which they discuss the new scenes and which characters were originally intended to end up together. There are also four scenes that were filmed for the original pilot presentation (not the finished pilot shown in season one) then reshot. There's a small but important difference in the last scene, Pacey meets Tamara Jacobs in a different video store, and Dawson's dad is played by a different actor before the role was recast with John Wesley Shipp. --David Horiuchi

Moonlighting - Season Five - The Final Season

Maddie Hayes, a wealthy former model, discovers one morning that her business manager has stolen all the money she has in the bank. However, it turns out that she still owns some non-liquid assets -- money-losing companies which were maintained as tax write-offs -- one of which is a detective agency run by David Addison. Maddie meets with him to inform him that the company is to be shut down, but he persuades her to keep it open by convincing her that the detective agency can make money. Maddie becomes David's new boss and accompanies him on adventure after adventure. While their personalities clash, a sexual tension arises in the time they spend together. But the question always remains... will they or won't they?

Moonlighting: Season 4

Maddie Hayes a wealthy former model discovers one morning that her business manager has stolen all the money she has in the bank. However it turns out that she still owns some nonliquid assets -- money-losing companies which were maintained as tax write-offs -- one of which is a detective agency run by David Addison. Maddie meets with him to inform him that the company is to be shut down but he persuades her to keep it open by convincing her that the detective agency can make money. Maddie becomes David's new boss and accompanies him on adventure after adventure. While their personalities clash a sexual tension arises in the time they spend together. But the question always remains...will they or won't they?System Requirements:Running Time: 600 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 031398201144 Manufacturer No: 20115

Rock 'N' Roll High School

"Do your parents know you're Ramones?" With those withering words, Miss Togar (Mary Woronov), the uptight neofascist principal of Vince Lombardi High School, addresses the four mop-haired, leather-jacketed members of America's first and most famous punk band. And you know it won't be long before the Ramones's jackhammer riffs are blaring through the public address system at maximum volume, the kids are running--not walking--wild in the hallways (without passes!), and Miss Togar's gulag is re-christened "Rock 'n' Roll High School." Then, in keeping with the outrageously nihilistic animus of punk, the high school students and the Ramones just blow the place to smithereens. It's a crowd- pleasing, fantasy-fulfillment climax that combines the apocalyptic finale of Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point with the explosive conclusion of Alice Cooper's "School's Out." Rock 'n' Roll High School is a blast, a goofy and liberating salute to the rebel spirit behind the teen rock & roll movies of the 1950s, which always pitted the kids' insatiable appetite for fun against the adults' fear-based authoritarianism. The film is emblematic of the disarmingly silly, tongue-in-cheek humor of the youth-oriented B-pictures cranked out in the '50s and '60s by renowned low-budget exploitation mogul Roger Corman (who gave many a hungry young filmmaker, including the creators of this film, their start in the biz), and of the noisy, anarchic energy of '70s punk rock, as personified by the inimitable Ramones. In the words of the maestros' beach-blanket-buzz-saw title anthem, this movie is "Fun, fun, oh baby, fun, fun..." --Jim Emerson

Caddyshack 2

Jackie Mason is the best thing going in this otherwise negligible sequel to the already-dubious pleasures of Caddyshack. Between the decadent and often senseless jokes, Mason plays a millionaire whose daughter wants to be part of an upper-crust society he has no use for. Directed by Allan Arkush (Rock 'n' Roll High School), there is some snap to the production; but the concept and script run out of juice early on. --Tom Keogh

A comedy about a construction tycoon who tries to join a snobby country club that doesn't want him as a member. The tycoon's solution is to buy the club where his fate boils down to a climactic golf match.

Ally McBeal - Ally on Sex and the Single Life

When Ally McBeal premiered on the Fox network in 1997, the series was already riding high on critical praise, with its upscale mix of savvy humor and hot-topic legal drama. Created, produced, and written entirely by the amazingly prolific David E. Kelley, the show immediately found an appreciative audience of women drawn to the title character's frank perspectives on dating, sex, and career objectives, and men lured by a cast full of attractive, outspoken women with vibrant personalities and flattering wardrobes. (If you think that's a sexist observation, you haven't tuned in to the show's brilliant balance of male chauvinism, feminist attitude, and hilariously turbulent office politics.)

This two-disc compilation of episodes from the show's first season is aptly titled, because Ally McBeal--a Boston lawyer played by Calista Flockhart--is defined by her seemingly perpetual singlehood, her sexual and emotional yearnings, her professional passions, and--by one of Kelley's creative masterstrokes--her flights of imagination (often visualized via amusing computer-generated effects) that give the series a constant, unpredictable edge of humor and emotional depth.

These well-chosen episodes offer a comprehensive summary of the first season's major developments, including the emotional history shared by Ally and her now-married colleague Billy (Gil Bellows); the notorious "dancing baby" (in "Cro-Magnon") symbolizing the insistent ticking of Ally's biological clock; the amiable quirks of John "the Biscuit" Cage (Peter MacNicol); and the dubious pearls of wisdom known as "Fishisms." Here we witness the sublime chemistry of the ensemble cast, and each member is given ample time in the spotlight. Regular guest star Dyan Cannon is strongly featured in "Silver Bells," prior to the second-season addition of Nelle (Portia DeRossi) and Ling (Lucy Liu). That leaves plenty of room to establish Ally McBeal as the lively focus of the series--confused, opinionated, sexy, neurotic, frustrated, ecstatic, intelligent, emotional... and never, ever boring. --Jeff Shannon

THEME OF LIFE-Ally agrees to see Dr. Tracy Clark(Tracey Ullman), John Cages therapist. Not only does Dr. Clark tell Ally to go ahead with her scheduled kickboxing match with Georgia, but she tells her to get a theme song, "something with bounce." Will this help relieve Ally's stress over a "real" case, defending an attractive doctor from a malpractice suit? Or is it just another chance to fantasize? THE PLAYING FIELD-Dr. Tracy Clark (Tracey Ullman) tells Ally, "You can't stand being liked for your sex appeal and you can't stand not being liked for it." Then she tells Ally to get rid of the dancing baby. Unfortunately, Ally kicks a 'little person' by mistake thinking it's her dancing baby.

Deathsport

After the success of the wicked little sci-fi satire Death Race 2000, producer Roger Corman quickly recast David Carradine, this time as a rebel warrior in the year 3000 paired with B-movie vixen Claudia Jennings. The resulting mix of barbarians and bikers lacks the inspired humor and satirical twist of its inspiration, but it works just fine as a drive-in action picture about gladiators on motorcycles and bug-eyed mutant cannibals in second-rate makeup. Carradine gets to go all kung-fu and Jennings bares all in completely gratuitous (and frankly bewildering) torture scenes, and for all their New-Agey philosophy mumbo jumbo, they rise to the occasion in the gladiator ring (the deathsport of the title), where they pack in enough cycle stunts and fiery crashes to please an exploitation junkie. --Sean Axmaker

Prince Charming

On the day of his marriage to Princess Gwendolyn, Prince John finds himself in a compromising situation with a damsel in distress. As punishment, he and his squire, Rodney (Martin Short), are subjected to a "frogging," transforming them into frogs for all eternity, or until the prince can convince a maiden not only to kiss him but also marry him. After centuries on the pond, John and Rodney are accidentally transported to New York's Central Park and an amazing new world full of taxis, skyscrapers, graffiti and-of course-damsels. In no time at all, the prince gets his kiss and he and Rodney return to human form. But staying that way won't be easy. It's streetwise Kate (Christina Applegate) who has captured John's heart, but, unfortunately, she's not the woman he kissed. In order to break the curse forever, he must convince Margo (Bernadette Peters), a Broadway diva, to marry him.