Underwood, Ron

Heart and Souls

Robert Downey Jr. has never been more charming than in this comedy about a yuppie who is revisited in adulthood by the spirits of four people who had been his friends as a child. The ghosts (Kyra Sedgwick, Charles Grodin, Alfre Woodard, Tom Sizemore) all have unfinished business in this world before they can move on to the next, and Downey's character agrees to let them inhabit his body while they sort it all out. The appealing cast alone strongly recommends this movie, but Downey's remarkable facility for physical comedy--manifesting the personalities of his supernatural pals as they possess him--is a riot. Elisabeth Shue makes the best of her part as the hero's girlfriend; Leaving Las Vegas was still ahead of her, but one can see her talent straining to get out here. The DVD release has a widescreen presentation, production notes, theatrical trailer, biographies of the cast, closed captioning, an optional French soundtrack and Spanish subtitles, and Dolby sound. --Tom Keogh

City Slickers (Collector's Edition)

Comic genius Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally) stars in this hilarious film about cowboys careers and mid-life crises. Co-starring Daniel Stern Bruno Kirby and Jack Palance in an Academy Award®-winning* role City Slickers is "the rowdiest western jokefest since Blazing Saddles" (Rolling Stone). It'll rope you in... and keep you laughing from first frame to last! New Yorker Mitch Robbins (Crystal) is 39 and miserable. He's tired of his job and bored with his life. And his two best friends Ed (Kirby) and Phil (Stern) aren't doing much better. So when they all decide to chase their troubles away with a fantasy vacation Mitch and his pals trade their briefcases for saddle bags and set out to find freedom and adventure herding cattle under the wide New Mexico sky. But what they discover instead is scorching sun sore backsides... and more insight into themselves and each other than they ever thought possible!System Requirements:Running Time: 112 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/COMING OF AGE Rating: PG-13 UPC: 883904107828 Manufacturer No: M110782

Santa Baby

Jenny McCarthy and George Wendt star in this heartwarming comedy about Santa Claus' daughter. When Santa Claus (George Wendt) gets too sick to run the toy shop his workaholic daughter Mary (Jenny McCarthy) leaves behind her high-powered job in the city and heads north. Will Mary's new ideas and her relentless drive for efficiency save Christmas or will Christmas need to save her first? System Requirements:Run time: 89 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/FAMILY GATHERINGS Rating: PG UPC: 031398220015 Manufacturer No: 22001

Tremors

Who would have guessed that this clever, fast-paced creature feature from 1990 would become a beloved miniclassic worthy of its own Collector's Edition DVD? Tremors didn't actually break any new ground (even though its tunneling worm monsters certainly did), but it revved up the classic monster-movie formulas of the 1950s with such energetic enthusiasm and humor that it made everything old seem new again. It's also got a cast full of enjoyable actors who clearly had a lot of fun making the film, and director Ron Underwood strikes just the right balance of comedy and terror as a band of small-town rednecks battles a lot of really nasty-looking giant worms. The special effects are great, the one-liners fly fast and furious between heroes Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward (and yes, that's country star Reba McEntire packin' awesome firepower), and it's all done with the kind of flair one rarely associates with goofy monster flicks like this. Followed by a direct-to-video sequel (Tremors: Aftershocks), this horror thriller was given the deluxe treatment for its DVD release. Bonus features include an original "making-of" documentary, previously unseen video showing the creation of the worm-creatures, outtakes from the film, the original ending not shown in theaters, theatrical trailers, and a gallery of production photographs. If you're a fan, consider this a must-have disc! --Jeff Shannon

Mighty Joe Young

Charlize Theron is the latest stunning blonde to be hanging around some big ape in a Hollywood movie, this one a remake of the 1949 semi-classic with echoes of the superior King Kong. Theron plays the daugher of an American researcher killed by poachers in Africa. The baby gorilla left in her care grows up to become a hugely tall and broad specimen named Joe, living in the mountains as a mostly unseen legend among people who live there. Along comes an eco-minded emissary (Bill Paxton) from a California sanctuary, who talks the jungle girl into providing safe haven for Joe at the L.A. facility. The transition is not without discomfort, but everything is aggravated via a conspiracy of poachers to get Joe into their own greedy hands. Director Ron Underwood (City Slickers) uses a combination of special-effects techniques to give Joe life and personality, and he succeeds quite effectively. The requisite giant-ape-goes-amok scenes are all in place--a couple of them pretty intense--as is a conclusion that finds the simian hero performing a stunning feat of escalation. Underwood attempts to give a little modern spin to some classic Hollywood conventions regarding wild hearts lost in civilization, and the results are pretty agreeable family fare. --Tom Keogh

City Slickers

Three middle-age buddies (Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby) facing personal crises decide to sign up for a two-week cattle run for a change of pace. The trail proves a tougher place than anyone thought, and the boss (Jack Palance) is a grizzled taskmaster who doesn't cotton to tenderfoot urbanites. Popular in theaters, the film is both funny and moving, with Crystal giving one of his most complete performances and Palance (who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) a lot of colorful fun. Director Ron Underwood (Heart and Souls) subtly shifts the tone of the film from broad comedy to poignancy over its running time, and he makes the story's end a bittersweet victory that feels like life as most people know it. --Tom Keogh

Comic genius Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally) stars in this hilarious film about cowboys, careers and mid-life crises. Co-starring Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby and Jack Palance in an Academy AwardÂ(r)-winning* role, City Slickers is "the rowdiest western jokefest since Blazing Saddles" (Rolling Stone). It'll rope you in...and keep you laughing from first frameto last! New Yorker Mitch Robbins (Crystal) is 39 and miserable. He's tired of his job andbored with his life. And his two best friends Ed, (Kirby) and Phil (Stern), aren't doing much better. So when they all decide to chase their troubles away with a fantasy vacation, Mitch and his pals trade their briefcases for saddlebags and set out to find freedom and adventure herding cattle underthe wide New Mexico sky. But what they discover instead is scorching sun, sore backsides...and moreinsight into themselvesand each otherthan they ever thought possible! *1991: Supporting Actor

Speechless

Picture James Carville and Mary Matalin dropped into a screwball comedy. Michael Keaton and Geena Davis are political speechwriters with bad cases of insomnia who meet cute, fall in love, and then discover that they are working for opposing candidates. The subsequent short-lived war of dirty tricks and one-upmanship is one of those contrivances that is soon (and thankfully) discarded in light of their instant rapport and mutual respect. In a world where candidates are for sale and campaigns are fought like poker games, these idealists are made for each other--they just don't know it yet. Director Ron Underwood (City Slickers) has a light touch with comedy and a nice feel for romantic fun, but it's the charm of Keaton and Davis that puts the bounce in an otherwise limp political satire. --Sean Axmaker

Michael Keaton and Geena Davis are a winning ticket (Joel Siegel, Good Morning America ) in this captivating romantic comedy which proves conclusively that opposites do attract and then some. 'smart, sexy and side-splittingly funny (Mike McKay, WBTV-CBS), Speechless is the word for great entertainment. It was a match made in heaven... almost. Two witty, intelligent insomniacs, Kevin (Keaton) and Julia (Davis), meet over the last box of sleeping pills at an all-night convenience store and are immediately attracted. They share an evening of passion and romance and discover that they have a lot in common... maybe too much. When they learn that they're both speech writers but for opposing political campaigns the sweethearts quickly move from speechless to ruthless and drop the pillow talk for serious verbal jabbing. But the more they stab each other in the back and insult each other directly, the more they realize that true love doesn't always follow along party lines.

Monk - The Premiere Episode

The Year Without a Santa Claus

Based on the classic 1976 animated Rankin and Bass Christmas special The Year Without a Santa Claus, this 2006 live-action, modernized version of the story features John Goodman as Santa Claus, Delta Burke as Mrs. Claus, Eddie Griffin as Jangle, Ethan Suplee as Jingle, and Chris Kattan as Sparky. In both productions, Santa is disgusted with the commercialization of Christmas and feels overworked and underappreciated. Add in a bad cold and Santa declares that he is canceling Christmas this year and it falls to two elves, Jingle and Jangle, to restore Santa's faith by finding a child who understands the true spirit of Christmas. The most striking differences in this new production are the cynical, almost satiric portrayal of the extreme commercialization of Christmas at Santa Company (complete with punk rocker dolls, violent video games, and a crazed employee named Sparky who dreams of taking Santa's place as action-hero-inspired "Extreme Santa"), a makeover of the elf Jangle as a television-junkie obsessed with talk shows, a less prominent role for Mrs. Claus, and a twist on the young boy and town Mayor story line that focuses less on encouraging the boy (who just happens to be the Mayor's son in this version) to believe in Santa Claus and more on inspiring the Mayor's realization that his relationship with his son is much more important than his political ambitions. While neither version has the warmth of the more optimistic Rankin and Bass animated specials like Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Frosty the Snowman, this latest live-action version of The Year Without a Santa Claus is full of modern day references that will date it in future years, is somewhat crass, and at times downright unlikable. (Ages 9 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

When his devious head elf, Sparky (Kattan), tells him that he must "keep up with the times" no matter how materialistic Santa Claus (Goodman) resists, fearing that the holiday has become far too commercial. Convinced that no one believes in him anymore and that people have forgotten the real meaning of Christmas, Santa decides to take the year off and not deliver any gifts, much to the dismay of his two closest elves, Jingle (Suplee) and Jangle (Griffin). When Santa tells them that he doesn't think there are any children left who still care about the true spirit of Christmas, the two elves decide to prove him wrong. But their efforts are complicated by Heatmiser and Snowmiser, the two feuding sons of Mother Nature (Kane), whose help Jingle and Jangle will need if they want to save Christmas.

The Adventures of Pluto Nash

The Adventures of Pluto Nash was shelved for nearly two years, and when it was finally released, hardly anyone noticed. In the interim, Eddie Murphy made the marginally better Showtime and started fishing for a career revival that wasn't a sequel to his previous hits. In the satirical, lunar-colony hash of Pluto Nash, Murphy's a variant of Casablanca's Rick Blaine in the year 2087, happily running the moon's hottest nightclub, refusing a buyout offer from a greedy gambler, and suffering the consequences with his sidekick robot (Randy Quaid in yet another thankless role) and newest employee (Rosario Dawson, before doing similar time in Men in Black II). A visual hybrid of Total Recall and A.I., this nearly laughless comedy would be a total write-off if it weren't for Murphy's stalwart attempt to jump-start the flagging humor. He's got the chops of a superstar, but only when his collaborators are on the same page. --Jeff Shannon

Set on the moon in the year 2087, the action/adventure comedy "Pluto Nash" stars Eddie Murphy as the title character, an audacious nightclub owner who finds himself in hot water when he refuses to sell his club to the local mob.