Featurettes/Behind-The-Scenes/Documentaries

Unlawful Entry

Jonathan Kaplan (The Accused) directed this creepy thriller about an outwardly friendly cop (Ray Liotta) who attaches himself to a married couple (Kurt Russell, Madeleine Stowe) whom he helps during a crisis. In short order, he's revealed to be a psychopath who wants Russell's wife, but the film is about more than Liotta's mental state. A bold script and Kaplan's astute direction peel away the layers of masculine identity in the male leads and underscore the painful conflicts good men feel when faced with classic territorial challenges.

Up In Smoke

Cheech & Chong's first cannabis comedy is also their best, a souvenir from the more carefree days before "Just Say No," when people did not feel so defensive about inhaling.

Tootsie

One of the touchstone movies of the 1980s, Tootsie stars Dustin Hoffman as an out-of-work actor who disguises himself as a dowdy, middle-aged woman to get a part on a hit soap opera. The scheme works, but while he/she keeps up the charade, Hoffman's character comes to see life through the eyes of the opposite sex. The script by Larry Gelbart (with Murray Schisgal) is a winner, and director Sydney Pollack brings taut proficiency to the comedy and sensitivity to the relationship nuances that emerge from Hoffman's drag act.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver is the definitive cinematic portrait of loneliness and alienation manifested as violence. It is as if director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader had tapped into precisely the same source of psychological inspiration ("I just knew I had to make this film," Scorsese would later say), combined with a perfectly timed post-Watergate expression of personal, political, and societal anxiety.

This Is Spinal Tap

Director Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) solemnly alerts us to the glory that was Spinal Tap in his introduction to this "rockumentary" about the legendary British heavy-metal group, featuring lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and a succession of drummers whose careers were cut short by spontaneously combusting on their stool, drowning in somebody else's vomit, or otherwise perishing in untimely fashion.

There's Something About Mary

There's Something About Mary is one of the funniest movies in years, recalling the days of the Zucker-Abraham-Zucker movies, in which (often tasteless) gags were piled on at a fierce rate. The difference is that cowriters and codirectors Bobby and Peter Farrelly have also crafted a credible story line and even tossed in some genuine emotional content. With Mary, the Farrelly brothers have created a consistently hilarious romantic comedy, made all the funnier by the fact that you know that they know that some of their gags go way over the line.

Swiss Family Robinson

With a shipwreck, the Robinson family becomes castaways on a lush tropical island. While the mother (Dorothy McGuire) isn't too happy about this fact, the father (John Mills) and the sons (James MacArthur, Tommy Kirk, Kevin Corcoran) are thrilled at the prospect of carving out a new life for themselves. In short order, the industrious Robinsons have constructed a treehouse with all the creature comforts and "utilities" of their home in Switzerland.

Three O'Clock High

When a 17 year old, High-School Student named Jerry Mitchell (Casey Siemaszko), is an average young man, who has the worst day of his life, when he accidently touched a Bully named Buddy Revell (Richard Tyson), who doesn't liked to be touched, now he has to deal with Buddy, who wants to fight Jerry at three o'clock, Jerry will do anything to get himself out of the situation.

Taps

In this compelling drama, a cadet major (Timothy Hutton) leads his fellow military students in an armed revolt to prevent authorities from turning their school into a condominium complex. His surrogate father, who is also the academy's commander (George C. Scott), vows to fight the closing as well. But when an unexpected accident leads to the school's demise, military discipline goes haywire and tragedy results. Sean Penn, Tom Cruise and Ronny Cox co-star in this thought-provoking film that questions the values and morals of today's society.

Traffic

A high-ranking judge with a vendetta against drugs learns his own daughter is a cocaine addict - a San Diego housewife must suddenly take over her husband's drug dealing business when he is arrested - a Mexican police officer struggles to do the right thing in the midst of corruption. Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Benicio Del Toro star in Steven Soderbergh's amazing intertwined stories of the failing war on drugs.

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