Chicken Run
from Dreamworks Animated
There were a lot of disappointments in the 2000 summer movie season, but Chicken Run wasn't one of them. Made by Aardman Animations, which produced the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit shorts, this is a dazzling stop-motion animation film that is both deftly funny and surprisingly touching. The concept is simple: The Great Escape--with chickens. But directors Peter Lord and Nick Park take it much further than that (and remember: there's a whole generation out there that has no idea who Steve McQueen is). Julia Sawalha voices Ginger, a plucky English hen who has been trying to escape from Tweedy's chicken farm, where the vicious Mrs. Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) fries up any chicken who doesn't produce enough eggs. When egg profits slump, Mrs. Tweedy decides to turn her farm into a chicken-pie factory, giving new urgency to Ginger's plan. Enter Rocky the Flying Rooster (Mel Gibson), a brash American who has escaped from a circus and promises to teach the chickens to fly to safety. The film is filled with innumerable visual touches and the animation has a tactile quality that makes you want to reach out and touch these funny fowl. Above all, it's played with intelligence, wit, and heart--a rare combination in any film. While Chicken Run is being marketed to a youth audience, it truly is a family film that operates on both a child and an adult level. It would be a shame if grownups skipped it because they thought it was strictly for kids. --Marshall Fine
Chickens try to escape an egg farm but they can't fly. A circus chicken comes along and the ladies have great hopes he can help them fly the coop.
Genre: Feature Film Family
Rating: G
Release Date: 2-AUG-2007
Media Type: DVD
Behind Enemy Lines
by John Moore
from 20th Century Fox
Smart casting and sensible plotting make Behind Enemy Lines an above-average military thriller. Perfectly timed to bolster patriotism, the film is partly set (during a hypothetical "day after tomorrow") on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson, which was on alert status in the Persian Gulf when this film was released. Proving his versatility as an unconventional movie star, Owen Wilson plays a navy navigator who is shot down over Bosnia during a reconnaissance mission. Pursued by rebel Serbian forces, Wilson must fight for survival while his commanding officer (Gene Hackman) plots a daredevil rescue. After a successful career in TV commercials, Irish director John Moore makes a promising feature debut on Slovakian locations, borrowing a few techniques from Saving Private Ryan while adding impressive flourishes of his own. The gung-ho ending's a foregone conclusion, but it works like a charm after the movie's exciting game of cat and mouse. --Jeff Shannon
Fighter navigator Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) wants out of the Navy: he was looking for something more than boring recon missions he's been flying. He finds himself the lone Christmas day mission over war-torn Bosnia. But, when he talks pilot Stackhouse into flying slightly off-course to check out an interesting target, the two get shot down. Burnett is soon alone, trying to outrun a pursuing army, while commanding officer Reigert (Gene Hackman) finds his rescue operation hamstrung by politics, forcing Burnett to run far out of his way.
Escape From Alcatraz
by Don Siegel
from Paramount
Filmed on location on Alcatraz Island, this is an account of the only three men ever to escape from this maximum security prison.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG
Release Date: 28-MAR-2006
Media Type: DVD
One of Clint Eastwood's two most important filmmaking mentors was Don Siegel (the other was Sergio Leone), who directed Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sara, and this enigmatic, 1979 drama based on a true story about an escape from the island prison of Alcatraz. Eastwood plays a new convict who enters into a kind of mind game with the chilly warden (Patrick McGoohan) and organizes a break leading into the treacherous waters off San Francisco. As jailbird movies go, this isn't just a grotty, unpleasant experience but a character-driven work with some haunting twists. --Tom Keogh
Escape From L.A.
by John Carpenter
from Paramount
Snake Plissken is sent to post-earthquake-devastated Los Angeles to retrieve a doomsday device in the hear 2013.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: RUSSELL/KEACH/BUSCEMI
Title: ESCAPE FROM L.A.
Street Release Date: 12/15/1998
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE
Kurt Russell reprises his role as Snake Plissken, of the near-future thriller Escape from New York, in this reworking of that film's basic premise. Instead of New York being a maximum-security prison, this time it's L.A., which through the agency of earthquakes has become an island of the damned. This penal colony is where the film's future rulers, something very like the Moral Majority, send those deemed guilty of "moral crimes." But something has gone wrong in this new moral order, because the President's daughter has absconded to L.A. with a detonation device, and Snake is commandeered to retrieve it. The film's dark dystopia, with its satrical elements taking aim at our dwindling freedoms, and the eclipsing of democracy by narrow interests, are more the subject this time. As a result the action suffers, and the plot devices are sometimes weak and predictable. But just below the surface there is a coiled Snake ready to strike. Steve Buscemi's performance as a weasely hawker of L.A. tour maps is a standout, and the presence of Peter Fonda and Pam Grier adds to the fun. In fact, just the sight of Fonda surfing down the flooded corridor of Sunset Boulevard is reason enough to check this movie out. --Jim Gay
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Josée Dayan
from Koch Lorber Films
Acclaimed actor Gérard Depardieu stars in the adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' classic tale of love, intrigue and revenge.
The Count of Monte Cristo tells the dramatic story of Edmond Dantès, a young French sailor who is falsely denounced as a traitor and unjustly imprisoned for eighteen years without a trial. After a daring escape, Dantès secures a treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo bequeathed to him by a dying inmate. Using these riches, he assumes a new identity and devises a plan to seek vengeance against all those who betrayed him.
Runaway Train
by Andrei Konchalovsky
from MGM (Video & DVD)
Manny (Jon Voight) is the toughest convict in a remote Alaskan prison who along with fellow inmate Buck (Eric Roberts) makes a daring breakout. Hopping a freight train they head full-steam for freedom but when the engineer dies of a heart attack they find themselves trapped alone and speeding toward certain disaster. Until that is they discover a third passenger a beautiful railroad worker (Rebecca DeMornay) who is just as desperate--and just as determined to survive--as they are!Starring: Jon Voight Eric Roberts and Rebecca DeMornayDirector: Andrei KonchalovskyProduced by Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus; written by Djordje Milicevic Paul Zindel; Running time of 112 minutes; Closed Captioned. Copyright: 1985 MGM Home EntertainmentSystem Requirements:Trivia and Production Notes Original Theatrical Trailer Scene Access Screen Formats: Widescreen--Theatrical release format; Standard--Modified to fit your screen Dolby Digital Stereo Surround Languages: English & French Subtitles: English French & Spanish Interactive Menus Interactive Film Trivia Video Format: Widescreen (no AR specified) Standard 1.33:1 (4.3) English: Dolby Digital Surround French: Dolby Digital Surround Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 027616701824
No Escape
by Martin Campbell
from Hbo Home Video
From the director of Goldeneye. The year is 2022 . A former marine captain has been sentenced to life on a remote island prison where the most violent and feared criminals have been secured. There is no escape ... or is there?
Ghosts of Mars (Special Edition)
from Sony Pictures
Ghosts of Mars may not be one of John Carpenter's finer efforts, but you can't knock the veteran director for staying true to his roots--it's clearly a Carpenter film, reveling in its B-movie blood lust, and fueled by the director's rock & roll rebellion as well as the sex appeal of star Natasha Henstridge. This rickety sci-fi/horror hybrid recalls Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, with various connections from throughout the director's career--for better and worse. It's the year 2176, and human colonists on Mars are controlled by a political "matronage," with women (for reasons unexplained) holding court in the capitol city of Chryse. Mars Police Force Lt. Ballard (Henstridge) has been sent to retrieve James "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube), the planet's most notorious criminal, from a remote mining-colony prison. With her ill-fated crew, Ballard discovers that the colonists have nearly all been possessed by ancient Martian spirits bent on reclaiming the planet, turning them into an army of self-mutilating freaks suggesting an unholy union of Marilyn Manson and the sadomasochistic Cenobites from the Hellraiser films. None of this makes much sense, and the shaky alliance between cops and criminals is a predictable excuse for rampant battle scenes between surviving humans and the ghost-possessed maniacs. Exotic weaponry abounds (along with cheap special effects and some laughable dialogue), resulting in the gruesome dispatch of expendable costars Pam Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Robert Carradine, and Clea Duvall. Driven by Carpenter's synth-metal score, this violent free-for-all has a few brief highlights, but it's suspenseless and ultimately absurd. It's not much, but for loyal fans it's probably enough. --Jeff Shannon
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