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Us Weekly, 2001 Home Video & DVD Reviews: 2001 (N through S) (See A-E, F-M, T-Z) By Bruce Kluger New York: Given recent events, documentarist Ric Burns’ seven-tape homage to the Big Apple is especially poignant, chronicling the checkered history of Gotham from its 1609 birth as Dutch trading post to its modern-day rep as the city that never sleeps. Best segment: on Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, whose undying love for NYC resounds anew. NR; 14 hours (PBS and Warner) Nine Hundred Nights: Rare footage and insightful commentary grace this vibrant chronicle of seminal psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company— starring Janis Joplin—from its Haight Ashbury heydey to the band’s blowout gig at the ’67 Monterey Pop Fest. Included: Joplin’s wailing Ball and Chain, and the Cheap Thrills recording session of Summertime. Rip Torn narrates. NR (Pioneer) Nuremberg: Alec Baldwin headlines this original TNT flick based on Joseph E. Persico’s book about the 1948 world tribunal charging 21 Nazis officers with war crimes. Powerful and compelling, it features dialogue straight from the actual courtroom transcripts. (History and movie buffs can also rewind Stanley Kramer’s 1961 masterpiece, Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland). NR; 179 minutes (Warner) Nurse Betty: Renée Zellweger earns every sparkle on her Golden Globe as the perky but bonkers coffee shop waitress who suddenly believes she’s a character from her favorite soap. Though occasionally violent, it’s still a sassy send-up of the love in the afternoon crowd, with great turns by Morgan Freeman as a courteous hit man and Greg Kinnear as the soap’s arrogant star. R; 108 minutes (USA) O Brother, Where Art Thou?: The Coen Brothers bring their signature quirkiness to this Depression-era reconstruction of Homer’s The Odyssey, in which escaped con George Clooney and two chain-gang cronies rumble through rural Mississipi in search of hidden treasure. Comic oddballs abound (notably Wayne Duvall as a boisterous Klan dragon) in this deliciously twisted road picture. PG-13; 102 minutes (Touchstone) Oliver Stone Collection: 10-disk box set of Stone films; special director cuts of Any Given Sunday and JFK; Bonus Oliver Stone’s America documentary. R (Warner) One Night at McCool’s: In this Rashomonesque flashback, girlfriend-from-hell Liv Tyler systematically destroys the lives of a happy-go-lucky bartender (Matt Dillon), a lovestruck detective (John Goodman) and a sleazy suburbanite (Paul Reiser). Dark laughs and snazzy visuals add a kick to the comedic cocktail, and Tyler’s horny harlot’s a hoot. Michael Douglas also stars. R; 93 minutes (USA) Our Favorite Things: Pop meets opera as Tony Bennett, Placido Domingo, Vanessa Williams and Charlotte Church knock out 20 tinsel-hanging hits—from “The First Noel” to “Silent Night”—-live on stage in Vienna. (Sony Classical) Pay It Forward: Scarred schoolteacher Kevin Spacey implores his charges (among them Haley Joel Osment) to build a pyramid scheme of goodness—doing charitable deeds for others, who must then do the same. Director Mimi Leder pulls a few too many heart-strings in this well-meaning but syrupy valentine to the kindness of strangers. Helen Hunt co-stars. PG-13; 122 minutes (Warner) Pearl Harbor (documentary): Just in time for this summer’s big-budget, big-screen recreation of America’s day of infamy, this comprehensive three-tape documentary from the History Channel zeros in on the real events that led up to U.S. entry into WWII, with archival footage, eyewitness accounts, declassified documents and commentary by historians. Masterful. NR; 150 minutes (A&E) Pearl Harbor (feature film): The attack is magnificently shot. Otherwise, Michael Bay’s overlong, under-thought reenactment of 12/7/41 is a battleship of buffoonery, sunk by a soggy love story, preposterously rewritten history, and a pair of lock- jawed leading men (Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin) dogfighting for the Purple Heart in scenery-chewing. Bombs away. PG-13; 183 minutes (Touchstone) Planet of the Apes: The two-disk edition of Tim Burton’s slickly renovated spin on the 1968 thriller—about an astronaut (Mark Wahlberg) trapped among gun-toting knuckle-walkers in a reverse-evolution civilization—includes inside peeks at the film's ape choreography, monkey makeup and tree-swinging stunts, as well as multi- angle features and five extended scenes. You’ll go bananas. PG-13 (Fox) Pollock: Director-star Ed Harris’ low-profile, high-octane biopic of 20th Century painter Jackson Pollock earned a new following for the volatile artist, as well as an Oscar for Marcia Gay Harden, who whips off a masterpiece as Pollock’s long- suffering muse, Lee Krasner. Amy Madigan and Val Kilmer co-star. R; 122 minutes (Columbia TriStar) Pootie Tang: Recreating his popular sketch character from Chris Rock’s HBO show, Lance Crouther is the womanizing, crime-fighting mack daddy with the smooth gait and indecipherable patois, here protecting urban youth from exploitation by a corporate creep (Robert Vaughn). As a film, it’s hip-hopelessly incoherent; as a satire on black pop culture, it’s dope. PG-13; 81 minutes (Paramount) The Powerpuff Girls: The diminutive do-gooders return in two new tapes: Boogie Frights, in which the high-flying threesome saves Townsville from a disco villain; and Twisted Sister, a hair-raiser that finds the girls creating a fourth Puffster with disastrous results. Both tapes include additional episodes, some of them never- before-seen. NR; 70 minutes each (Cartoon Network/Warner) Prancer Returns: When an eight-year old finds a baby reindeer in the woods, he emails Santa, believing the little guy is a wayward sleigh-dragger. Jack Palance stars in this family bon-bon, which aired on the USA Network earlier this month. (USA) The Princess Bride (1987): The DVD edition of Rob Reiner’s fractured fable about a kidnapped princess (Robin Wright, pre-Penn) and her dashing savior (then newcomer Cary Elwes) includes the 45-minute making-of featurette, “As You Wish,” new cast-and-crew interviews and Elwes’ home movies from the set. Billy Crystal, Mandy Patinkin and the late André the Giant co-star. PG (MGM) The Prisoner: Jackie Chan stars. Commentary by martial arts expert Phillip Rhee, motion menus, motion images. R (Columbia TriStar) Proof of Life: Russell Crowe scowls and sweats as an international hostage negotiator, combing the South American jungles for a kidnapped engineer, with help from the captured man’s wife (Meg Ryan). Despite the stars’ reported off- screen chemistry during filming, you’ll find no sparks here—just an overwrought script and heavy-handed direction from Taylor Hackford. R; 135 minutes (Warner) Quills: Oscar-nominee Geoffrey Rush notches a tour-de-force as the caged Marquis de Sade, who smuggles his 19th Century literary porn to a ravenous French public via madhouse laundress Kate Winslet. Director Philip Kaufman masterfully blends the historic with the erotic, with help from Joaquin Phoenix as the asylum priest and Michael Caine as the black-cloaked punishment dispenser. Magnificent. R; 124 minutes (Fox Searchlight) Rat Pack’s Las Vegas: Rare footage and exclusive interviews highlight this swinging documentary about the quintessential quintet of the showroom—Frank, Dino, Sammy, Joey and Peter—whose legendary on-and-offstage antics knocked Vegas on its ear. Program includes scenes from the Pack’s crime caper flick, Ocean’ s Eleven, now being remade by Steven Soderbergh. NR; 50 minutes (White Star) Rated X: Sibs Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez (who also directed) turn on the slime as real life porn industry princes Jim and Artie Mitchell, who brought smut into the mainstream (Behind the Green Door) before sinking into a miasma of drugs and mayhem. It’s manic and edgy, with great chemistry between the boys. (DVD includes scenes not shown on TV.) NR; 115 minutes (Showtime) Rear Window (1954): Alfred Hitchcock’s voyeuristic masterpiece—about a convalescing photographer-turned-Peeping Tom (Jimmy Stewart) who’s convinced his neighbor is a murderer—gets the full treatment on disc, with behind-the-scenes footage, production photos, the theatrical trailer (narrated by Stewart) and a 15- minute documentary, “The Restoration of a Classic.” Co-star Grace Kelly remains drop-dead gorgeous. NR (Universal) The Remains of the Day: Deleted scenes, new cast and crew commentary and rich costume and production designs grace the disk edition of James Ivory’s marvelously acted 1993 domestic drama, about an emotionally repressed butler (Anthony Hopkins) of a British Lord, and the spunky housekeeper (Emma Thompson) who manages to de-starch him. Christopher Reeve co-stars. PG (Columbia TriStar) Remember the Titans: After the 1971 court-ordered integration of Virginia high schools, one campus’s popular white football coach is replaced by a black man, who must then discipline his boys—on and off the gridiron. Denzel Washington’s hard-hitting performance gains extra yardage, lifting the film above your standard- issue sports flick. PG (Disney) Requiem For a Dream: Call it Traffic without the laughs. Darren Aronofsky’s brilliant, hallucinogenic handbook to drug abuse follows the disintegrating life of Coney Island heroine addict Jared Leto, whose widowed mother (Oscar-nominee Ellen Burstyn) suffers her own dependency on diet pills. Burstyn soars—as does Jennifer Connelly, as Leto’s needle-toting girlfriend who’d do anything for a fix. R; 102 minutes (Artisan) The Road Home: An audience favorite at Sundance 2001, Zhang Yimou’s breathtaking parable follows a young engineer in northern China who, upon his father’s death, honors tradition by carrying the body back home. Along the way he unravels the story of his parents’ rich romance in this gentle, exquisitely shot portrait of a family’s love. G; 89 minutes (Columbia TriStar) Rodgers and Hammerstein Musicals: Who needs carolers when you can have the von Trapps? The Sound of Music highlights this vid boxed seat to a half-dozen of R&H’s greatest tuners on film, among them Oklahoma!, South Pacific and The King and I. (Fox) Rugrats in Paris: The Movie: Vive les petite monsters. Parents will sigh, Rat-o- philes will delight at this feature-length French twist on the hit Nick series, in which the tiny tornadoes storm the City of Lights—scarfing chocolat, scaling the Eiffel, etc. Susan Sarandon and John Lithgow lend their voices. G; 78 minutes (Paramount) Rush Hour 2: Flying jackknife Jackie Chan and loudmouth Chris Tucker reunite as the sweet-and-sour detective duo, here bounding from Hong Kong to Vegas in search of an embassy bomber. This time out, Tucker’s gassy tirades tire quickly, though Chan’s martial artistry is good to the last chop. Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) appears as a villainous TNT queen. PG-13; 91 minutes (New Line) Save the Last Dance: Small-town teen ballerina Julia Stiles transfers to an inner- city Chicago high school where she falls for the local hip-hop king (Sean Patrick Thomas). Predictable racial tensions ensue, though the story rises above cliché, thanks mainly to Stiles and Thomas’ thoughtful depiction of young dancers in love. Thomas Carter (Metro) directs. PG-13; 112 minutes (Paramount) The Score: In this crafty crime caper, master safecracker Robert DeNiro shelves retirement plans when sleazy fence man Marlon Brando and cunning con artist Ed Norton enlist him to pinch a jeweled scepter from the Montreal Customs House. Bob and Ed crackle as the reluctant partners in crime, and Brando is tremendous. Literally. R; 124 minutes (Paramount) Sex and the City: The Complete Second Season: The girls are back in town. This love basket of 18 episodes from HBO’s white-hot sex series (starring Sarah Jessica Parker) finds America’s favorite potty-mouths dating and mating with New York’s most eligible (though questionable) prospects. This critic’s fave: “The Awful Truth,” in which Miranda learns to talk dirty. NR; 9 hours minutes (HBO) Shadow of the Vampire: In this imaginative back story to the making of the horror classic Nosferatu, Willem Dafoe defines creepy as Max Schreck, the film’s long- nailed, bald-headed leading ghoul whose vivid vampiring may have been the real deal. John Malkovich plays cinema pioneer F.W. Murnau, who dared Schreck to sink his teeth into the role. R; 93 minutes (Universal) Shania Twain: The Specials: Country’s dynamic diva twangs in the holidays with this 90-minute collage of her 1999 TV specials, which includes rousing renditions of her hits, and drop-ins by Elton John, the Back Street Boys and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. (Mercury Nashville) Shrek: Mike Myers lends Scottish sass to this brilliantly computer-animated tale of a cranky but sensitive ogre who, with the aid of his smart-ass donkey sidekick (Eddie Murphy), rescues a kickboxing damsel in distress (Cameron Diaz). Easily the year’s most engaging film, it’s also the reigning b.o. champ, with a quarter-of-a-bil haul to date. PG; 93 minutes (DreamWorks) Snatch: Director Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) serves up another knotty London mob story, this one swirling around diamond heists, boxing fixes and ravenous pigs. Cast includes Benicio Del Toro and perennial thug Dennis Farina; but Brad Pitt steals the show as a gypsy pugilist with the indecipherable accent. R; 105 minutes (Columbia TriStar) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Disney does Diva? In addition to the studio's usual DVD extras—“guided tours” of the animation process, art galleries, colorful commentary—this two-volume valentine to Walt’s 1937 girl-meets-seven- short-guys classic includes a new rendition of “Someday My Prince Will Come,” especially recorded by Barbra Streisand. Call it buttuh on disk. G (Disney) Some Like It Hot (1959): The special edition release of Billy Wilder’s signature caper about two on-the-run musicians who don drag and join an all-girl band features a virtual “Hall of Memories” scrapbook that includes never-before-seen photos of stars Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. Also: behind-the- scenes peeks and a new interview with Curtis, conducted by film critic Leonard Maltin. NR (MGM) Someone Like You: The bad news: the story line (successful TV show booker searches for Mr. Right) is standard-issue sitcom. The good news? Ashley Judd makes it work. With a bullseye delivery and her trademark country-girl charm, AJ may become the new queen of the romantic comedy. Watch your back, Meg. Hugh Jackman and Marisa Tomei co-star. PG-13; 97 minutes (Fox) The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season: Fun for the whole famiglia. From HBO’s hit hitmen series, this four-DVD replay of the show’s sophomore season includes director commentary, cast-crew interviews and probing interrogations of critics, shrinks and former Feds. Fa-la-la-la-la…ba-da-bing! (HBO) South Park: Winter Wonderland: Comedy Central’s rotten little revelers pay their usual seasonal tidings in four off-color adventures, including a visit to Jesus’ house and A Very Crappy Christmas, starring Mr. Hanky, the talking poo. You were expecting The Bible? (Warner) Space Cowboys: Thank goodness for the four behind-the-scenes documentaries and the featurettes on NASA, film editing and special effects. Why? The movie itself—starring Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner as geezer sky-jockeys on a rescue mission to boost a falling space station— never makes it off the launch pad. The wrong stuff. PG-13; $26.98 (Warner) Spy Kids: In last spring’s $110M box office brute, two suburban kids head off on a special-effects-laden adventure to rescue their kidnapped secret-spy parents. The story’s a hoot, as are the sets (e.g., the labyrinthine castle of the villain Floop) and wild gadgets—notably the guppy submarine pod and tracking-device bubble gum. Antonio Banderas stars. PG; 88 minutes (Dimension) Stanley Kubrick Collection: Seven of the late director’s masterpieces—from Lolita and 2001 to Clockwork Orange and The Shining—are joined here by a landmark 140-minute documentary, first shown at the Berlin Film Fest, that sheds new light on the filmmaker’s eccentric personality and obsessive artistry. Also included: the unedited director’s cut of Kubrick’s sexed-up swan song, Eyes Wide Shut. (Warner) Star War: Episode I: The Phantom Menace: The DVD version of George Lucas’ first Star Wars prequel boasts a galaxy of bonus material, including full-length running director commentary (a first for Lucas), seven deleted scenes (notably the extended Podrace sequences) and a 60-minute featurette culled from 600 hours of behind-the-camera footage. Thank God for the editor. PG (Lucasfilm/Fox) Startup.com: Maalox City. Documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus (The War Room) follow the rollercoasting journey of a pair of childhood buddies (and unrepentant smartypants) whose slickly packaged IPO takes the Internet by storm—only to hit the inevitable brick wall. An intimate and compelling nailbiter, it’s a must-see for wannabe dot-commers. R; 103 minutes (Artisan) State and Main: Writer-director David Mamet’s smirking satire of Hollywood depravity finds a strapped movie crew descending upon a quiet New Hampshire town for a chaotic location shoot. William H. Macy is letter-perfect as the movie's shmoozing, say-anything director, as is Sarah Jessica Parker, as the neurotic leading lady, freaking out about her nude scene. Cool music, too. R; 106 minutes (New Line) Superman: The Movie: The Man of Steel flies again in this superheroic edition of the 1978 blockbuster that launched the career of Christopher Reeve. On-disk goodies include feature-length audio commentary from director Richard Donner, a documentary on the movie’s then landmark flying F/X, and screen-tests from those who did—and didn’t—land their roles. Margot Kidder and Marlon Brando co-star. PG (Warner) Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol: Oscar-winning documentarist Chuck Workman charts the trajectory of the awkward Pittsburgh school boy whose eccentric tastes and arsenal of paint cans landed him a 20-year reign as the crowned prince of pop culture. The usual suspects (Minelli, Hockney, et al), check in, and the soundtrack—including Blondie, Dylan and Donna Summer—is flashback city. NR; 87 minutes (Winstar) Survivor Season One: The Greatest and Most Outrageous Moments: This best- of condensation of 2000’s runaway hit reality-show follows 16 hand-plucked castaways as they fight it out for supremacy on a remote South China Sea island. An ideal primer for the unenlightened, it also includes previously unseen footage— e.g. you see more of Richard here than you did on CBS. You’ve been warned. NR; 150 minutes (Paramount) Sweet November: Love Story meets Body Heat as self-absorbed ad exec Keanu Reeves finds his life upended by bed-hopping bohemian Charlize Theron—only to discover she has an incurable disease. Despite the stars’ real chemistry, the sparks are promptly doused by soppy dialogue and TV-movie trappings. Rest in peace. PG-13; 120 minutes (Warner) Swordfish: In this taut actioner from producer Joel Silver (Matrix), computer hacker extraordinaire Hugh Jackman is enlisted by warped genius John Travolta to help him cyber-siphon billions from a government slush fund. Worth noting: 1) it’s rife with scenes of urban terrorism, and 2) Halle Berry appears topless. You make the call. R; 99 minutes (Warner) (See Bruce Kluger's 2001 Us Weekly video/DVD reviews, A-E, F-M, T-Z) |