Library

Languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese

Subtitles: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Summary: The penguins steal the show. In the sprightly "Madagascar", a mid-life crisis inspires Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) to escape from his lifelong home, a New York zoo. His equally pampered friends--Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer)--then escape to bring him back. Unfortunately, their attempt at damage control persuades zoo officials that the animals are unhappy, so all four get shipped to an animal preserve in Kenya...only a squad of maniacal penguins change the destination to Antarctica. The quartet end up on an island where, in addition to meeting some hedonistic lemurs, they learn about the food chain--and that Alex is a different link on the chain from the other three. "Madagascar" doesn't achieve the snappy perfection of a Pixar movie, but it tops most other computer-animated efforts; the collision of friendship and predator instincts makes for an unusually gripping conflict. The vocal performances of the central characters is serviceable, but Sacha Baron Cohen ("Da Ali G Show") provides topnotch lunacy as the lemur king, and the penguins--voiced mostly by the animators themselves--are the best thing in the movie. "--Bret Fetzer"

Languages: English

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: Revenge is a meal best served cold

Summary: A wave of kidnappings has swept through Mexico, feeding a growing sense of panic among its wealthier citizens, especially parents. In one six-day period, there were twenty-four abductions, leading many to hire bodyguards for their children. Into this world enters John Creasy, a burned-out ex-CIA operative/assassin, who has given up on life. Creasy's friend Rayburn brings him to Mexico City to be a bodyguard to nine-year-old Pita Ramos, daughter of industrialist Samuel Ramos and his wife Lisa. Creasy is not interested in being a bodyguard, especially to a youngster, but for lack of something better to do, he accepts the assignment. Creasy barely tolerates the precocious child and her pestering questions about him and his life. But slowly, she chips away at his seemingly impenetrable exterior, his defenses drop, and he opens up to her. Creasy's new-found purpose in life is shattered when Pita is kidnapped. Despite being seriously wounded during the kidnapping, he vows to kill anyone involved in or profiting from the kidnapping. And no one can stop him.

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Summary: In the capable hands of director Peter Weir, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" is a seafaring adventure like no other, impeccably authentic, dynamically cast, and thrilling enough to give any classic swashbuckler a run for its money. In adapting two of Patrick O'Brian's enormously popular novels about British naval hero Capt. Jack Aubrey, Weir and cowriter John Collee have changed the timeframe from the British/American war of 1812 to the British/French opposition of 1805, where the "HMS Surprise", under Aubrey's confident command, is patrolling the South Atlantic in pursuit of the "Acheron", a French warship with the strategic advantage of greater size, speed, and artillery. Russell Crowe is outstanding as Aubrey, firm and fiercely loyal, focused on his prey even if it means locking horns with his friend and ship's surgeon, played by Crowe's "A Beautiful Mind" costar Paul Bettany. Employing a seamless combination of carefully matched ocean footage, detailed models, full-scale ships, and CGI enhancements, Weir pays exacting attention to every nautical detail, while maintaining a very human story of honor, warfare, and survival under wretched conditions. Raging storms and hull-shattering battles provide pulse-pounding action, and a visit to the Galapagos Islands lends a note of otherworldly wonder, adding yet another layer of historical perspective to this splendidly epic adventure. "--Jeff Shannon"

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Subtitles: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Korean, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Comments: The Other Side of Safety.

Summary: Columbia Pictures Maximum Risk (Blu-ray) Prepare for Maximum VanDammage when action superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme is joined by sexy newcomer Natasha Henstridge ("Species") in their most explosive roles yet! Alain Moreau's (Van Damme) investigation into the death of his identical twin brother leads him from thebeauty of the south of France to the mean streetsof New York City and into the arms of his brother's beautiful girlfriend (Henstridge). Pursued by ruthless Russian mobsters and renegade FBI agents, the duo race against time to solve his brother's murder and expose an international conspiracy. Sparked by the erotic chemistry between Van Damme and Henstridge, spectacular stunts, and globe-hopping adventure, "Maximum Risk" is "vintage Van Damme" -Bob Ross (Tampa Tribune).

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: Arabic, Cantonese, Dutch, English, French, Korean, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Comments: Protecting the earth from the scum of the universe

Summary: This imaginative summer comedy from director Barry Sonnenfeld ("Get Shorty") is a lot of fun, largely on the strength of Will Smith's engaging performance as the rookie partner of a secret agent (Tommy Lee Jones) assigned to keep tabs on Earth-dwelling extraterrestrials. There's lots of comedy to spare in this bright film, some of the funniest stuff found in the margins of the major action. (A scene with Smith's character being trounced in the distance by a huge alien while Jones questions a witness is a riot.) The inventiveness never lets up, and the cast--including Vincent D'Onofrio doing frighteningly convincing work as an alien occupying a decaying human--hold up their end splendidly. "--Tom Keogh"

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Summary: Bearing absolutely no resemblance to the 1980s TV series that helped to propel Michael Mann into big-time filmmaking, "Miami Vice" is the kind of serious, and seriously stylish, crime drama that Mann does better than anyone else. As written by Mann himself, this undercover sting thriller doesn't reach the peak intensity of Mann's 1995 classic "Heat", and it lacks the tight, nail-biting suspense of "Collateral", but that doesn't mean it doesn't occasionally pack a wallop. As Miami detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs (respectively), Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx don't have to do much but mumble their plot-thickening dialogue and look ultra-cool in the casual cop attire, and their partnership is rather lifeless on screen (perhaps owing to the fact that this was a troubled production, with an actual shooting that occurred during filming, and Foxx's refusal to risk his life on dangerous locations in South America). But once Mann shifts into high gear with a plot to foil a powerful drug kingpin (Luis Tosar) and his ruthless middle-man (John Ortiz), Vice pays off with the kind of smart, realistic action that Mann's fans have come to expect. With Chinese superstar Gong Li as Crockett's love interest on the wrong side of the law, "Miami Vice" covers territory that's a little too familiar, and one suspects Mann's screenplay might've been punched up with a polish or two. Still, this is an above-average crime thriller that demands and rewards close attention, with a climactic shoot-out that's pure Mann, worthy of the brooding drama that precedes it. "--Jeff Shannon"

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Summary: George Clooney's performance drives this tense corporate thriller from "Bourne" trilogy screenwriter James Gilroy, who makes his directorial debut here. Clooney is the eponymous "hero," a burnt-out lawyer who cleans up legal messes created by the clients of a large law firm. When a crisis materializes in the form of the firm's top shark (Tom Wilkinson) suffering an apparent meltdown while defending a shady chemical company from lawsuits, Clayton discovers not only a cover-up to deny payments to farmers injured by the company's products, but a chance to find some purpose in the face of his life's downward. Clooney (who also co-produced the film) brings soul and quiet determination to his beleaguered character, and there's excellent support from Wilkinson, Sydney Pollack (also a co-producer), and Michael O'Keefe; Gilroy's script also does a solid job of stacking the deck against Clayton as he attempts to ferret out the truth behind the cover-up. Unfortunately, the film settles for a pat conclusion that, while emotionally satisfying, feels forced and delivers an overly simplistic message (corporations can be bad; morally questionable work can make one feel dirty). And Tilda Swinton is wasted in a thankless role as the chemical company's nerve-wracked and unsympathetic legal counsel. Still, Clooney fans will appreciate this fine addition to his growing roster of flawed heroes. "-- Paul Gaita"

Languages: English, French

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Comments: Beyond his silence, there is a past. Beyond her dreams, there is a feeling. Beyond hope, there is a memory. Beyond their journey, there is a love.

Summary: Clint Eastwood's 25th film as a director, "Million Dollar Baby" stands proudly with "Unforgiven" and "Mystic River" as the masterwork of a great American filmmaker. In an age of bloated spectacle and computer-generated effects extravaganzas, Eastwood turns an elegant screenplay by Paul Haggis (adapted from the book "Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner" by F.X. Toole, a pseudonym for veteran boxing manager Jerry Boyd) into a simple, humanitarian example of classical filmmaking, as deeply felt in its heart-wrenching emotions as it is streamlined in its character-driven storytelling. In the course of developing powerful bonds between "white-trash" Missouri waitress and aspiring boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), her grizzled, reluctant trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), and Frankie's best friend and training-gym partner Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris (Morgan Freeman), 74-year-old Eastwood mines gold from each and every character, resulting in stellar work from his well-chosen cast. Containing deep reserves of love, loss, and the universal desire for something better in hard-scrabble lives, "Million Dollar Baby" emerged, quietly and gracefully, as one of the most acclaimed films of 2004, released just in time to earn an abundance of year-end accolades, all of them well-deserved. "--Jeff Shannon"

Languages: English, French

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: Expect the impossible again

Summary: Paramount Mission: Impossible 2 (Blu-Ray)
How do you prevent terrorists from unleashing mayhem on the entire world? This is a job for IMF agent Ethan Hunt. The world's greatest spy returns in the movie event of the year, "M:I-2." Top action director John Woo brings his own brand of excitement to the mission that finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) partnering up with the beautiful Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton) tostop renegade agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) from releasing a new kind of terror on an unsuspecting world. But before the mission is complete, they'll traverse the globe and have to choose between everything they love and everything they believein.

Languages: English, French

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French

Sound: AC-3

Comments: Expect the impossible

Summary: A flashy, splashy summer-movie blockbuster that's fun and exciting without being mindless? That's the impossible mission accomplished by director Brian De Palma, star-coproducer Tom Cruise, and the crack team of "Mission: Impossible". Based on the '60s TV show and an almost impenetrably complex (but nonetheless thrilling) original story by David Koepp ("Jurassic Park") and Steven Zaillian ("Schindler's List"), with a screenplay by Koepp and Robert Towne ("Chinatown", "Shampoo"), "Mission: Impossible" begins with veteran agent Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) and his expert crew embarking on a mission that goes horribly, horribly wrong. But nothing is what it seems. The nail-biting set piece--always a signature of director De Palma ("Carrie", "The Untouchables")--in which Cruise is lowered from the ceiling to retrieve information from a computer in a high-security vault--is an instant classic. But perhaps even more impressive, at least in retrospect, is a flashback sequence in which two characters attempt to reconstruct a series of events from multiple points of view. It's pretty daring and sophisticated stuff for a big-budget spy movie, but brains were always what put the "Mission: Impossible" team ahead of the competition, anyway, no? "--Jim Emerson"

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Summary: Writer-director Frank Darabont, who showcased the softer side of Stephen King in his film adaptations of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile", turns to darker material for "The Mist", his latest King adaptation about a group of ordinary townspeople trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious fogbank. Thomas Jane is top-billed as a Maine illustrator who attempts to calm the frightened shoppers, but his job is cut out for him from the get-go, first by the discovery of malevolent creatures lurking in the mist, and then by the mad mutterings of Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a local eccentric who calls for Old Testament-style sacrifices to appease the supernatural forces. Darabont delivers monster movie thrills and understated social commentary with equal skill, and he's well supported by his cast (which includes Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler and Jeffrey DeMunn) and the vivid special effects by KNB EFX, which effectively mix CGI with models and stop-motion animation (the terrific monsters were designed by legendary comic book artist Bernie Wrightson). And for those curious about how the novella's downbeat ending has translated to film, suffice it to say that Darabont's conclusion is at once different and more unsettling than King's. "--Paul Gaita"

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Summary: Released amidst rumors of romance between costars Angelina Jolie and soon-to-be-divorced Brad Pitt, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" offers automatic weapons and high explosives as the cure for marital boredom. The premise of this exhausting action-comedy (no relation to the 1941 Alfred Hitchcock comedy starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery) is that the unhappily married Smiths (Pitt and Jolie) will improve their relationship once they discover their mutually-hidden identities as world-class assassins, but things get complicated when their secret-agency bosses order them to rub each other out. There's plenty of amusing banter in the otherwise disposable screenplay by Simon Kinberg ("xXx: State of the Union", "Fantastic Four"), and director Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity") gives Pitt and Jolie a slick, glossy superstar showcase that's innocuous but certainly never boring. It could've been better, but as an action-packed summer confection, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" kills two hours in high style. "--Jeff Shannon"

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Comments: She will rock your world.

Summary: This huge 1993 hit for Robin Williams and director Chris Columbus ("Home Alone"), based on a novel called "Alias Madame Doubtfire" by Anne Fine, stars Williams as a loving but flaky father estranged from his frustrated wife (Sally Field). Devastated by a court order limiting his time with the children, Williams's character disguises himself as a warm, old British nanny who becomes the kids' best friend. As with Dustin Hoffman's performance in "Tootsie", Williams's drag act--buried under layers of latex and padding--is the show, and everything and everyone else on screen serves his sometimes frantic role. Since that's the case, it's fortunate that Williams is Williams, and his performance is terribly funny at times and exceptionally believable in those scenes where his character misses his children. Playing Williams's brother, a professional makeup artist, Harvey Fierstein has a good support role in a bright sequence where he tries a number of feminine looks on Williams before settling on Mrs. Doubtfire's visage. "--Tom Keogh"

Languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Comments: The sands will rise. The heavens will part. The power will be unleashed.

Summary: If you're expecting bandaged-wrapped corpses and a lurching Boris Karloff-type villain, then you've come to the wrong movie. But if outrageous effects, a hunky hero, and some hearty laughs are what you're looking for, the 1999 version of "The Mummy" is spectacularly good fun. Yes, the critics called it "hokey," "cheesy," and "pallid." Well, the critics are unjust. Granted, the plot tends to stray, the acting is a bit of a stretch, and the characters occasionally slip into cliché, but who cares? When that action gets going, hold tight--those two hours just fly by.

The premise of the movie isn't that far off from the original. Egyptologist and general mess Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) discovers a map to the lost city of Hamunaptra, and so she hires rogue Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) to lead her there. Once there, Evelyn accidentally unlocks the tomb of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), a man who had been buried alive a couple of millennia ago with flesh-eating bugs as punishment for sleeping with the pharaoh's girlfriend. The ancient mummy is revived, and he is determined to bring his old love back to life, which of course means much mayhem (including the unleashing of the 10 plagues) and human sacrifice. Despite the rather gory premise, this movie is fairly tame in terms of violence; most of the magic and surprise come from the special effects, which are glorious to watch, although Imhotep, before being fully reconstituted, is, as one explorer puts it, rather "juicy." Keep in mind this film is as much comedy as it is adventure--those looking for a straightforward horror pic will be disappointed. But for those who want good old-fashioned eye-candy kind of fun, "The Mummy" ranks as one of choicest flicks of 1999. --"Jenny Brown"

Languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: AC-3

Comments: The most powerful force on earth is about to be unleashed by the two people who should know better.

Summary: Proving that bigger is rarely better, "The Mummy Returns" serves up so much action and so many computer-generated effects that it quickly grows exhausting. In his zeal to establish a lucrative franchise, writer-director Stephen Sommers dispenses with such trivial matters as character development and plot logic, and charges headlong into an almost random buffet of minimum story and maximum mayhem, beginning with a prologue establishing the ominous fate of the Scorpion King (played by World Wrestling Federation star the Rock, in a cameo teaser for his later starring role in--you guessed it--"The Scorpion King"). Dormant for 5,000 years, under control of the Egyptian god Anubis, the Scorpion King will rise again in 1933, which is where we find "The Mummy's" returning heroes Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, now married and scouring Egyptian ruins with their 8-year-old son, Alex (Freddie Boath). John Hannah (as Weisz's brother) and Oded Fehr (as mystical warrior Ardeth Bay) also return from "The Mummy", and trouble begins when Alex dons the Scorpion King's ancient bracelet, coveted by the evil mummy Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), who's been revived by... oh, but does any of this matter? With a plot so disposable that it's impossible to care about anything that happens, "The Mummy Returns" is best enjoyed as an intermittently amusing and physically impressive monument of Hollywood machinery, with gorgeous sets that scream for a better showcase, and digital trickery that tops its predecessor in ambition, if not in payoff. By the time our heroes encounter a hoard of ravenous pygmy mummies, you'll probably enjoy this movie in spite of itself. --"Jeff Shannon"