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Gilmore Girls - The Complete Seventh Season

All good things must end, but not all good things end well. Gilmore Girls is one of the most original and entertaining television programs ever to grace the CW. Lorelai and Rory Gilmore (Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel) star as the quick-witted and heavily caffeinated mother-daughter duo at the heart of this quirky drama. Normally smarter than the average show, the seventh season represents a slump in an otherwise brilliant run. The seventh season is the first without series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, and her absence is evident. Smart characters make dumb decisions and dumb characters spend too much time on screen. The normally fluid plot slumbers along as Rory's father Christopher returns as Lorelai's love interest, Rory gets even more serious with Logan, while Luke and Lorelai try to repair their damaged relationship. But it's not all bleak. Highpoints of the season include the birth of Lane's twins, plus the long-awaited cameo by Christiane Amanpour, which sends Rory into a tizzy: "I can't meet Christiane Amanpour in my pajamas!" The counterbalance of the quirky Stars Hollowians, which is half the fun of Gilmore Girls in previous seasons, is gone or, worse, awkwardly shoehorned in. Still, for fans of the series the final season is a must-own, if only to find out what happens to the characters they loved and laughed with for so many years. --Megan Chaffee

After 20-plus years of single motherhood, after a series of Mr. Not- Quite-Rights, after buying that perfect wedding dress and watching it hang in the closet, Lorelai finally gets married. Yes, but to whom? The answer is just one of the deliciously intriguing what's-gonna-happens in these 22 episodes about a mother, a daughter, a town and a world that devoted Gilmore groupies have taken as their own. Sharpen your wits for the famed, fast-paced Gilmore dialogue -- but let your heart do its thing. From Stars Hollow to New York City to Paris... from Lorelai's wedding to Lane's baby shower to Rory's graduation... from beginning to middle to end... here's Season 7.

Garfield: Holiday Celebrations (Garfield's Halloween Adventure / Garfield's Thanksgiving / A Garfield Christmas)

Adventures of Garfield the cat, Odie the dog, and Jon their hapless owner.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: NR
Release Date: 26-OCT-2004
Media Type: DVD

No one loves the cold months better than acerbic fat cat Garfield, who thrives on a bounty of junk food and traditional meals in the delightful collection of musical-comedy TV specials Garfield Holiday Celebrations. "Garfield's Halloween Adventure" finds the portly hero and airhead-sidekick Odie the dog scrounging through owner Jon's attic to find perfect costumes, then encountering ghosts and ghoulies that seem a tad authentic. "Garfield's Thanksgiving" is a screwball special in which Jon harasses veterinarian Liz into being his Turkey Day guest. Trouble is, Jon is clueless about how to cook a big bird; fortunately, starving Garfield has the good sense to call in Jon's spirited grandmother for a culinary rescue. Grandma shows up, too, in "A Garfield Christmas," about a family get-together that covers all the nice holiday stuff and, of course, lots of bickering, pouting, and jealousy. As long as Garfield gets his Yuletide lasagna, however, all is right with the world. --Tom Keogh

Goodbye Mr Chips

Robert Donat won an Oscar for his portrayal of the humble British don in the 1939 film Goodbye, Mr. Chips--and Peter O'Toole was nominated for his version of the role in this lackluster musical (he, along with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight of Midnight Cowboy, lost to John Wayne in True Grit). O'Toole is affecting as the shy English schoolteacher at a private boys' school who is brought out of his shell by the love of a good woman, then goes on to become a teaching legend after her tragic death. But the idea of turning this touching tale into a musical (with totally forgettable songs by John Williams and Leslie Bricusse) was almost as wrong-headed as having O'Toole do his own singing--or as casting singer Petula Clark as his wife. --Marshall Fine

Get Smart - Season 1 (The Original TV Series)

The feature film may have missed it by that much, but Get Smart, the TV series, still hits the target with deadly funny accuracy. The right show at the right time, Get Smart brilliantly spoofed the spy genre that was all the rage in 1965, with James Bond on the big screen, and such series as Danger Man, The Avengers, The Saint, < I>The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and I Spy more or less playing it straight on the small screen. Get Smart, on the other hand, had a license to kill…with laughter. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry created one of TV's all-time greatest characters, Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 of CONTROL, the super-secret agency vigilantly on alert against the forces of KAOS. Smart (Don Adams in his iconic, Emmy-winning role), an American Clouseau, was not stupid. Though all evidence to the contrary, he was, in his own mind, a suave and sophisticated spy, albeit one who would inadvertently lean against a freshly painted wall while shadowing an enemy agent. Get Smart hilariously deglamorized the business of espionage. Agents punch a time clock and dispute vacation time. Cool spy gadgets, such as the infamous Cone of Silence, are prone to malfunction. One running joke throughout the first season finds Agent 44 (Victor French) perched in a variety of unlikely and uncomfortable hiding places, among them a grandfather clock. Although the series would only get smarter and funnier in subsequent seasons (Bernie Kopell's KAOS mastermind Siegfried would be introduced in season two), the first season contains several essential episodes, including the Emmy-winning two-parter, "Ship of Spies," "Aboard the Orient Express," featuring a cameo by Johnny Carson as an unflappable conductor, "Diplomat's Daughter" with the arch --and decidedly non-PC-- villain, the Craw, and "Back to the Drawing Board," featuring Dick Gautier as Hymie the robot. From "Sorry about that" to "Would you believe," no show before Get Smart introduced so many catchphrases into the national language, while Smart and his partner, Agent 99 (the ravishing Barbara Feldon), were perhaps TV's first "will they or won't they" couple. Brooks and Henry contribute separate commentaries for the black and white pilot episode, while Feldon provides commentary for another, and purrs introductions to each episode (beware plot spoilers). With Get Smart, you will be witness to some of TV's funniest moments, sharpest writing, and expertly-executed physical comedy. And… loving it. --Donald Liebenson

Gilmore Girls - The Complete Sixth Season

Can it be the Gilmore Girls if the Gilmore girls aren't together? At the end of Season 5 Rory dropped out of Yale and moved into Emily and Richard's poolhouse -- decisions that broke Lorelai's heart. That's handy because one half of that heart can be deliriously happy with the big new step in her love affair with Luke. Meanwhile the other half grieves and it seems everyone in town wants mother and daughter to reunite. But it may take an unexpected out-of-towner to make it happen. Of course there's much more: Lane gets a surprise that leaves her reeling with joy. Luke gets a surprise that may send the Luke-and-Lorelai relationship reeling. What's no surprise is the snappy wish-I'd-said-that Gilmore dialogue knowing humor and insightful storytelling fans adore. Season 6 starts now!Running Time: 945 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 012569762473 Manufacturer No: 76247

The rapid-paced banter between the mother-daughter team of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) is the calling card for Gilmore Girls. The show's sixth year--which aired during the 2005-2006 TV season--remains witty, charming, and touching. The previous season left Yale undergrad Rory in trouble with the law after a night of very un-Gilmore-like behavior with her rich, handsome boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry). This season opens with Rory potentially facing jail time, undecided about returning to college, and--most disturbingly of all--fighting with her mother. This isn't a fight over who gets to eat the last egg roll, but rather a battle of wills. It will take a few episodes before the two are talking to each other again and the viewer can breathe a sigh of relief that all is well in Stars Hollow. In the meantime, Rory moves into her busybody grandparents' pool house. One evening, they invite their minister over to dinner. His job? To encourage Rory to remain chaste. Not one to be told how to live her life, Rory is nonplussed. After telling him he's a little too late to offer that advice, she asks, "Have you seen The 40 Year Old Virgin"?

After many years of playing verbal footsy, Lorelai and Luke (Scott Patterson) finally get serious and engaged. But just when things are going smoothly, Luke learns of a daughter he never knew he had. The introduction of the little girl doesn't do much for the plot--other than to slow it down and cause more fights between Luke and Lorelai. When Luke warns Lorelai, "I don't like ultimatums," she snaps back, "I don't like Mondays, but unfortunately they come around eventually." This 5-disc 22-episode set includes an eclectic and impressive range of guest stars (Skid Row's Sebastian Bach, Paul Anka, Sonic Youth, and Madeline Albright, who appears in a dream sequence as Rory's mom). But it's cast regular Kelly Bishop as Lorelai's mother Emily who is one of the show's true gems. Prim, proper, and judgmental, she's also fiercely protective of her brood. When she learns that Logan's mother said unfavorable things about Rory, Emily confronts the woman and puts her in her place. Politely, of course. By the end of the season, one of the main characters will get married, another will have an affair, and a third will have a dalliance with an ex-boyfriend. But the relationship between Lorelai and Rory remains strong. And that's what keeps viewers watching. --Jae-Ha Kim

The Godfather DVD Collection (The Godfather/ The Godfather - Part II/ The Godfather - Part III)

The complete saga of the Mafia Corleone family, from Don Corleone's childhood in Sicily, his son Michael Corleone's rise to power and finally the struggle to succeed him. Contains, as originally released, the 3 Godfather films.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 2-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVD

Throughout his long, wandering, often distinguished career Francis Ford Coppola has made many films that are good and fine, many more that are flawed but undeniably interesting, and a handful of duds that are worth viewing if only because his personality is so flagrantly absent. Yet he is and always shall be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga. The films are our very own Shakespearean cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business. The first film remains a towering achievement, brilliantly cast and conceived. The entry of Michael Corleone into the family business, the transition of power from his father, the ruthless dispatch of his enemies--all this is told with an assurance that is breathtaking to behold. And it turned out to be merely prologue; two years later The Godfather, Part II balanced Michael's ever-greater acquisition of power and influence during the fall of Cuba with the story of his father's own youthful rise from immigrant slums. The stakes were higher, the story's construction more elaborate, and the isolated despair at the end wholly earned. (Has there ever been a cinematic performance greater than Al Pacino's Michael, so smart and ambitious, marching through the years into what he knows is his own doom with eyes open and hungry?) The Godfather, Part III was mostly written off as an attempted cash-in, but it is a wholly worthy conclusion, less slow than autumnally patient and almost merciless in the way it brings Michael's past sins crashing down around him even as he tries to redeem himself. --Bruce Reid

Good Will Hunting (Miramax Collector's Series)

Will Hunting is a headstrong, working-class genius who's failing the lessons of life. After one too many run-ins with the law, Will's last chance is a pyschology professor, who might be the only man who can reach him.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 4-MAR-2003
Media Type: DVD

Robin Williams won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck nabbed one for Best Original Screenplay, but the feel-good hit Good Will Hunting triumphs because of its gifted director, Gus Van Sant. The unconventional director (My Own Private Idaho, Drugstore Cowboy) saves a script marred by vanity and clunky character development by yanking soulful, touching performances out of his entire cast (amazingly, even one by Williams that's relatively schtick-free). Van Sant pulls off the equivalent of what George Cukor accomplished for women's melodrama in the '30s and '40s: He's crafted an intelligent, unabashedly emotional male weepie about men trying to find inner-wisdom.

Matt Damon stars as Will Hunting, a closet math genius who ignores his gift in favor of nightly boozing and fighting with South Boston buddies (co-writer Ben Affleck among them). While working as a university janitor, he solves an impossible calculus problem scribbled on a hallway blackboard and reluctantly becomes the prodigy of an arrogant MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgård). Damon only avoids prison by agreeing to see psychiatrists, all of whom he mocks or psychologically destroys until he meets his match in the professor's former childhood friend, played by Williams. Both doctor and patient are haunted by the past, and as mutual respect develops, the healing process begins. The film's beauty lies not with grand climaxes, but with small, quiet moments. Scenes such as Affleck's clumsy pep talk to Damon while they drink beer after work, or any number of therapy session between Williams and Damon offer poignant looks at the awkward ways men show affection and feeling for one another. --Dave McCoy

Gilmore Girls - The Complete Fifth Season

Gilmore rising: Lorelai. The Dragonfly Inn is a huge success. And Lorelai's romance with Luke (the just-gotta-be relationship fans have waited for!) steams up Stars Hollow. Gilmore going down: Rory. College boys and career plans crash and burn leaving the once-confident golden girl reeling. Fasten your seat belt for a fabulously funny and heartbreakingly dramatic Season 5.The wit charm and eccentricity that have created legions of Gilmore Girls devotees are on glorious display in all 22 episodes of the hit series' fifth year. Adding more sparkle is the brilliant array of totally off-kilter totally engaging supporting characters: Sookie Paris Lane Kirk Michel the imperious Gilmore pere et mere and a townful more. See you in Stars Hollow!Running Time: 957 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 012569706866

Perennially one of the WB's highest-rated series, Gilmore Girls hit its creative high point to date with its stellar fifth season, which started out with young Rory (Alexis Bledel) feeling the fallout of doing something terribly non-Rory-like: sleeping with Dean (Jared Padalecki), her married ex-boyfriend. Rory's indulgence in adultery put, for the first time, a serious, sharp wedge in her relationship with her mother, Lorelai (Lauren Graham), who was both shocked by her daughter's behavior and worried Rory would repeat the mistakes Lorelai made at her age. But while Rory jetted off to Europe with her grandmother (Kelly Bishop) for the summer, Lorelai finally got her relationship with diner owner Luke (Scott Patterson) into a serious groove, starting with an official (and incredibly sweet) first date and others that involved, if you can believe it, a Swedish Pippi Longstocking movie. And as Lorelai navigated romantic terrain in Stars Hollow (terrain that of course did not run smooth), Rory found life more complex in her second year at Yale, as her relationship with Dean became increasingly strained. Not only that, she found her attention turned towards preppy Logan (Matt Czurchy), a spoiled rich kid who represented everything Rory couldn't stand--and was of course immediately attracted to. Little did Rory know that Logan's entrance into her life, and her interaction with his family, would be the catalyst for one of the most momentous decisions she would ever make.

With this season of Gilmore Girls, creative forces Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino finally found a way to make the Stars Hollow-Yale dichotomy work perfectly, as each location still stood alone but had decided repercussions on the other. Gone were freshman-year anxieties for Rory and in their place were more adult romantic concerns as well as a class consciousness that, for the first serious time, found Rory on the side of the haves and not the have-nots. While the Rory-Dean drama played itself out nicely and succinctly, it was the devilish Logan who lit a fire underneath this Gilmore girl; the episode "You Jump, I Jump, Jack" was a lovely twist on the '30s romantic comedies that found rich folk at play with words and deeds. Bledel started to fully blossom as Rory grew from ingénue to leading lady, and she was matched peerlessly by Graham, whose passion, anger, stubbornness, and ravishing beauty all came to a head in "Wedding Bell Blues," which featured her two greatest nemeses: her mother and Rory's dad, Christopher (David Sutcliffe). The show's trademark eccentricities were all in place--including a Pulp Fiction party and an elementary school production of Fiddler on the Roof, among other things--but it mined the best drama of its run with the season's last four episodes, which found Rory's confidence shaken to the core. To give any of the proceedings away would spoil the drama, but suffice it to say you will be glued to the TV for this season's final four hours; it's Gilmore Girls at its phenomenal best. --Mark Englehart

Gettysburg (Widescreen Edition)

Depicts the famous Civil War battle which was the turning point of the war.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: BERENGER/DANIELS/SHEEN
Title: GETTYSBURG
Street Release Date: 06/21/2005
Domestic
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE

Three days in the summer of 1863, at a place called Gettysburg. Although it received a theatrical release, this four-hour depiction of the bloody Civil War battle was shot as a made-for-television film. But no taint of cheapness or shortcuts should stick to this magnificent picture (well, except maybe for those phony-looking mustaches). Based on Michael Shaara's book The Killer Angels, this film takes a refreshingly slow, thorough approach to the intricacies of battle. In ordinary circumstances, those intricacies might seem of importance only to fans of military strategy or Civil War enthusiasts, yet in Gettysburg they come across as the very stuff of life, death, and unexpected heroism. If the film has a problem, it's that it climaxes too early: the first long segment, detailing the struggle of a "civilian soldier," Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), to hold his ground against long odds, is an enthralling piece of moviemaking. Daniels, in a heartbreaking performance, does his best film work. Other cast members include Tom Berenger, Sam Elliott, and Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee. Richard Jordan, in his final role, gives a powerhouse performance as Confederate general Lewis A. Armistead. Oh, and you can also try to spot Ted Turner, whose company produced the film, as a Confederate soldier. Writer-director Ronald F. Maxwell seems inspired by the gravity of the battle; long as it is, every moment of Gettysburg is informed by a nobility of purpose. --Robert Horton

Gilmore Girls - The Complete Fourth Season

Boola boola! Rory starts her first year at Yale. Moola moola! Lorelai finally opens the Dragonfly Inn although it takes her last dime (and a loan from Luke). The Gilmore girls return for another scintillating snappy-patter year of Gilmore Girls. Welcome Gilmore groupies to the fourth season of the series acclaimed for its agile balance of life and laughter. Oh yes and love. Lorelai has a romantic fling with her father's new younger partner but ends the year with the guy every fan has known was right for her all along. For Rory Cupid seems to be on sabbatical -- then Dean and Jess re-enter her life. Sookie gets a Davey Lane gets a life Kirk gets a girlfriend(!) and you get a 22-episode vacation in Stars Hollow plus DVD Extras and a mint on the pillow.Running Time: 959 min.System Requirements: Running Time 959 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 012569594364

The sum of its parts was definitely greater than the season whole as Gilmore Girls kicked off its fourth year by separating its high-powered mother-daughter duo. After years of toil at snooty private school Chilton, Rory (Alexis Bledel) was finally off to the greener pastures of college as she began her first year at Yale. The not-so-long distance put a crimp in her relationship with her mother, Lorelai (Lauren Graham), as the two were forced to continue their chatty conversations via phone--not exactly the same as trading barbs face-to-face. While Rory adjusted to college life with cranky roommate Paris (Liza Weil) in tow, Lorelai found herself without a daughter, but gained a boyfriend in the form of Jason "Digger" Stiles (Chris Eigeman), a childhood friend and now her father's business partner. But the lure of Stars Hollow, the Gilmores' cherished country town, would prove too hard to resist, as Lorelai finally made plans to open her own inn, and the two ladies found themselves attracted to town residents--for Lorelai, an intensifying of her friendship with diner owner Luke (Scott Patterson), and for Rory, a return to old boyfriend Dean (Jared Padalecki), which put a decided tension into a show that sorely needed it. Nevermind that both men were married to other women!

The first half of the fourth season definitely foundered, as the show's usually topnotch creative team struggled to find a way to keep the Gilmore chemistry afloat despite separating their main characters. There wasn't much drama to be found for Rory in starting college, and though it got off to a great start, Lorelai's relationship with Jason never fully gelled. However, once the show got its girls into the arms of their Stars Hollow men, it turned around almost immediately, surging towards a creative revival that put its ratings higher than they'd ever been before. Along the way to its surprising and complex season finale, there were great episodes to be had: "Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin' the Twist," which found Rory and Paris on spring break; "The Reigning Lorelai," centering on an unexpected funeral; "The Festival of Living Art," which had Stars Hollow resident re-creating classic works; and "Luke Can See Her Face," which finally brought the Luke-Lorelai romance to the forefront. The season may have started out rough, but this fourth year ended with a bang, and the promise of more fireworks to come. --Mark Englehart