Fred Williamson

M*A*S*H (Widescreen Edition)

It's set during the Korean War, in a mobile army surgical hospital. But no one seeing M*A*S*H in 1970 confused the film for anything but a caustic comment on the Vietnam War; this is one of the counterculture movies that exploded into the mainstream at the end of the '60s. Director Robert Altman had labored for years in television and sporadic feature work when this smash-hit comedy made his name (and allowed him to create an astonishing string of offbeat pictures, culminating in the masterpiece Nashville). Altman's style of cruel humor, overlapping dialogue, and densely textured visuals brought the material to life in an all-new kind of war movie (or, more precisely, antiwar movie). Audiences had never seen anything like it: vaudeville routines played against spurting blood, fueled with open ridicule of authority. The cast is led by Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, as the outrageous surgeons Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre, with Robert Duvall as the uptight Major Burns and Sally Kellerman in an Oscar-nominated role as nurse "Hot Lips" Houlihan. The film's huge success spawned the long-running TV series, a considerably softer take on the material; of the film's cast, only Gary Burghoff repeated his role on the small screen, as the slightly clairvoyant Radar O'Reilly. --Robert Horton

One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, MASH focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifes

Starsky & Hutch (Widescreen Edition)

In Starsky & Hutch the origins of the charismatic crime-fighting duo David Starsky and Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson are explored when these undercover Bay City detectives are partnered for their very first assignment. Ben Stiller plays the tightly wound Detective David Starsky who is thrown together with Owen Wilson's easygoing Detective Ken Hutchinson on a high-stakes case. Platinum-selling rapper and actor Snoop Dogg plays their savvy street informant Huggy Bear. Vince Vaughn also joins the cast as Reese Feldman a smooth-talking entrepreneur with an eye towards the future.Running Time: 100 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 085392840328 Manufacturer No: 28403

Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson--dark, wiry, and tense meets blond, lanky, and loose--make a solid comic team (and previously appeared together in Zoolander), but the funniest man in Starsky and Hutch is Vince Vaughn. Vaughn dives into his role as a sleazy drug dealer (who nonetheless buys a pony for his daughter's bat mitzvah) with the offhand zest that he brings to almost every role (from Swingers to Old School) and effortlessly steals every scene he's in. Vaughn has concocted a new and undetectable kind of cocaine, and only two cops who aren't afraid to break the rules--our titular pair--can catch him. But the plot isn't the point; mocking-yet-loving jabs at the '70s, including the homoerotic overtones of Starsky and Hutch's partnership, are what this movie is about. The satire is surprisingly mild but entertaining nonetheless, particularly when Vaughn or Snoop Dogg (as informant Huggy Bear) hold the screen. --Bret Fetzer

Black Caesar

Shot on the streets of New York, writer-director Larry Cohen captures the bustle and color of the city in this violent, low-budget crime film. Ambitious Tommy Gibbs (a swaggering, self-confident Fred Williamson) has risen from shoeshine boy to Harlem crime lord, but he wants a bigger piece of the pot. With a racist, high-ranking cop (Art Lund) in his pocket, he begins his expansion with a bloody takeover bid but finds himself betrayed from within and the target of both the cops and the mob. Cohen invests this fast-paced tale (partially inspired by the 1930 gangster classic Little Caesar with a touch of Scarface) with colorful characters (notably a hustling religious leader played by D'Urville Martin), high energy, and a scruffy style. Black Caesar is one of the most entertaining movies to come from the 1970s explosion of low-budget black cast genre pictures, more commonly known as "blaxploitation" films. --Sean Axmaker

Fred Williamson is imposing tough and unflappable (The New York Times) as a street kid who muscles his way into the big-time mob racket in this super-slick crime drama which became the smash hit of its genre and spawned a successful sequel (Hell Up In Harlem). Tommy Gibbs (Williamson) has always had it tough. Growing up on the streets without a father and trying to make his mother proud Tommy resorts to running errands for The Man. But when a crooked cop beats him up Tommy realizes there s a better way to live: by making The Man deliver for him! Infiltrating -- and then destroying -- the infamous Cardoza family Tommy takes over Manhattan as the first black Godfather and puts the squeeze on anyone who dares to get in his way -- including the crooked cop! But as he tightens his grip on others he loses his hold on the most important things in his own life making him the vulnerable target of every cutthroat gangster who ever dreamt of ruling an empire!System Requirements: Running Time 94 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 027616857811 Manufacturer No: 1001461

Hell Up In Harlem

Fred Williamson returns as Tommy Gibbs, the self-styled Godfather of Harlem in Larry Cohen's quickly made sequel to the low-budget Black Caesar. The film opens with a different perspective on the finale from the earlier film, this time with Gibbs surviving an assassination attempt with the help of his estranged father (Julius Harris), who becomes Tommy's new chief lieutenant in his rebuilt organization. Tommy takes his revenge on those who set him up but faces a new threat from within as the corrupt DA partners with an ambitious gang member to take Tommy down. It's not going to be as easy as they think. Shooting on NYC streets and locations, Cohen punches up the slim rise-and-fall/revenge story line with gritty action, a driving pace, and edgy, always-on-the-move, hand-held camera work. The production feels rushed at times and the performances don't have the energy of the previous film, but Cohen doesn't give you much time to think about it with his speeding plot and machine-gun editing, moved along nicely with help from Edwin Starr's funky score. --Sean Axmaker

Tougher than Shaft and smoother than Superfly, this high-voltage sequel to Black Caesar explodes with enough action to incinerate New York City. Packed with machine-gun mayhem and riveting adventure, Hell up in Harlem is nothing less than a modern-day tribute to the classic 30s gangster film. Fred Williamson (Original Gangstas) is Tommy Gibbs, a fearless, bulletproof tough guy who blasts his way from the gutter to become the ultimate soul brother boss. When he steals a ledger with the name of every crooked cop and official on the mob's payroll, he becomes the most hunted man in the city. Enlisting the aid of his father and an army of Harlem hoods, Gibbs goes from defense to offense, launching a deadly attack on his enemies that sets off a violent chain reaction from Harlem all the way to the Caribbean, climaxing in one of the hottest turf-war shoot-outs in Hollywood history.

From Dusk Till Dawn

From a match made in heaven comes a movie spawned in hell! Young hotshot director Robert Rodriquez (El Mariachi, Desperado) teamed up with Pulp Fiction auteur Quentin Tarantino (offering his services as writer and co-star) to make this outrageous, no-holds-barred hybrid of high-octane crime and gruesome horror. QT plays Richard Gecko, a borderline psychopath who breaks his career-criminal brother, Seth (George Clooney), out of prison, after which they rob a bank and leave a trail of dead and wounded in their bloody wake. Then they hijack a mobile home driven by a former Baptist minister (Harvey Keitel) who quit the church after his wife's death and hit the road with his two children (played by Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu). Heading to Mexico with their hostages, the infamous Gecko brothers arrive at the Titty Twister bar to rendezvous for a money drop, but they don't realize that they've just entered the nocturnal lair of a bloodthirsty gang of vampires! With not-so-subtle aplomb, Rodriguez and Tarantino shift into high gear with a nonstop parade of gore, gunfire, and pointy-fanged mayhem featuring Salma Hayek as a snake-charming dancer whose bite is much worse than her bark. If you're a fan of Tarantino's lyrical dialogue and pop-cultural wit, you'll have fun with the road-movie half of this supernatural horror-comedy, but if your taste runs more to exploding heads and eyeballs, sloppy entrails and morphing monsters, the second half provides a connoisseur's feast of gross-out excess. Bon appétit! --Jeff Shannon

Starsky & Hutch (Full Screen Edition)

In Starsky & Hutch the origins of the charismatic crime-fighting duo David Starsky and Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson are explored when these undercover Bay City detectives are partnered for their very first assignment. Ben Stiller plays the tightly wound Detective David Starsky who is thrown together with Owen Wilson's easygoing Detective Ken Hutchinson on a high-stakes case. Platinum-selling rapper and actor Snoop Dogg plays their savvy street informant Huggy Bear. Vince Vaughn also joins the cast as Reese Feldman a smooth-talking entrepreneur with an eye towards the future.Running Time: 100 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 085392840229 Manufacturer No: 28402

Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson--dark, wiry, and tense meets blond, lanky, and loose--make a solid comic team (and previously appeared together in Zoolander), but the funniest man in Starsky and Hutch is Vince Vaughn. Vaughn dives into his role as a sleazy drug dealer (who nonetheless buys a pony for his daughter's bat mitzvah) with the offhand zest that he brings to almost every role (from Swingers to Old School) and effortlessly steals every scene he's in. Vaughn has concocted a new and undetectable kind of cocaine, and only two cops who aren't afraid to break the rules--our titular pair--can catch him. But the plot isn't the point; mocking-yet-loving jabs at the '70s, including the homoerotic overtones of Starsky and Hutch's partnership, are what this movie is about. The satire is surprisingly mild but entertaining nonetheless, particularly when Vaughn or Snoop Dogg (as informant Huggy Bear) hold the screen. --Bret Fetzer

Hammer

Grab a ringside seat and get ready to rumble with an action-filled foray into the world of jive-talkin' scammers and schemers! Soul Cinema heavyweight Fred Williamson (Starsky & Hutch) "hammers his way to the top" (LA Herald-Examiner) in this super-fly fight film that's the real deal!After spending his life trying to get off the streets of LA ex-Golden Gloves champ B.J. Hammer (Williamson) has finally earned his shot at boxing's big time. But the mob delivers Hammer a heavy blow when they kidnap his girlfriend and order him to throw the main event. Now facing the biggest baddest bout of his career B.J. must give up his dream of becoming a legit player or risk losing the only person who's ever truly been in his corner!System Requirements:Running Time: 91 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 027616901545 Manufacturer No: 1005925

That Man Bolt (Soul Showcase)

Blackjack

The director and action-magician John Woo (Face Off) can always be counted on to create spectacular violent set pieces, with bodies and broken glass gracefully airborne in slow motion. But everything else in this feature-length TV pilot is grindingly conventional. Woo managed to rise above Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target, but there's not much he can do with Dolph Lundgren's Jack Devlin, a kick-boxing former U.S. Marshall turned bodyguard, assigned to guard the body of a drug-addicted supermodel (Kam Heskin, from TV's Sunset Beach). Between shootouts, the elements of the future series are wheeled creakingly into place: a spacious Ikea deluxe apartment with a built-in armory, a caustic eye-patched sidekick (Saul Rubinek), and even a precocious freckle-faced girl (Padraigin Murphy) who becomes Devlin's stepdaughter, when his best buddy is rubbed out. The gorgeous showdown scene between Devlin and the psycho-stalker bad guy (Phillip MacKenzie) takes place in a milk-bottling plant, with the white stuff splashing all over---but this is TV fare, so there's no red stuff mixed in. Action addicts are advised to stick with the world-class gunplay films of Woo's Hong Kong period, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled. --David Chute

Adios Amigos

Adios Amigo costars Williamson with Richard Pryor. Playing a couple of inept western outlaws Williamson and Pryor mastermind several failed crimes ranging from a real estate scam to a stagecoach holdup.System Requirements:Running Time - 90 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG UPC: 692865157335 Manufacturer No: T-1573