Production notes

Batman

Thanks to the ambitious vision of director Tim Burton, the blockbuster hit of 1989 delivers the goods despite an occasionally spotty script, giving the caped crusader a thorough overhaul in keeping with the crime fighter's evolution in DC Comics. Michael Keaton strikes just the right mood as the brooding "Dark Knight" of Gotham City; Kim Basinger plays Gotham's intrepid reporter Vicki Vale; and Jack Nicholson goes wild as the maniacal and scene-stealing Joker, who plots a takeover of the city with his lethal Smilex gas.

All The President's Men

In the Watergate Building, lights go on and four burglars are caught in the act. That night triggered revelations that drove a U.S. President from office. Washington reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) grabbed the story and stayed with it through doubts, denials, discouragement. All The President's Men is their story. Directed by Alan J. Pakula and based on the Woodward/Bernstein book, the film won four 1976 Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor/Jason Robards, Adaptation Screenplay, Art Direction and Sound.

1776

1776 is a delightful musical celebration of the founding of the United States of America based on the award-winning Broadway production.

10

One of the best comedies of the 1970s, Blake Edwards's ode to midlife crisis and the hazards of infidelity now plays like a valentine to that self-indulgent decade, and it's still as funny as it ever was. In the signature role of his career (along with "Arthur"), Dudley Moore plays a songwriter with a severe case of marital restlessness, and all it takes is a chance encounter with Bo Derek (in her screen debut) to jump-start his libido.

Foyle's War: Sets 1-2

Combining uncompromising historical accuracy with compelling mysteries, Michael Kitchen (Out of Africa) stars as DCS Christopher Foyle, investigating wartime crimes in an English coastal town. With the end of World War II slowly but inevitably approaching, Foyle and his fellow citizens learn the price of victory and face a peace that will transform their lives in unexpected ways.

Foyle's War: Sets 3-4

Combining uncompromising historical accuracy with compelling mysteries, Michael Kitchen (Out of Africa) stars as DCS Christopher Foyle, investigating wartime crimes in an English coastal town. With the end of World War II slowly but inevitably approaching, Foyle and his fellow citizens learn the price of victory and face a peace that will transform their lives in unexpected ways.

Father Ted: The Holy Trilogy

Father Ted is one of those rare sitcoms that defies categorization--it owes as much to Flann O'Brien and Samuel Beckett as it does to Monty Python--and its blend of satire, character comedy, and anarchic surrealism has made it a cult favorite around the world. Exiled to remote Craggy Island, Father Ted Crilley shares a house with the breathtakingly stupid Father Dougal and the constantly inebriated Father Jack, who has a small vocabulary and a taste for furniture polish. Their housekeeper, Mrs.

24: Season 1

Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes places over 24 hours, midnight to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, 45-minute episodes if you subtract the commercials). Everything takes place in real time, which means no flashbacks, no flash-forwards, no handy time-dissolves. Every strand of the plot has to be dovetailed and interlocked so things happen just when they should, in the right amount of time. Not that easy.

The Sopranos: The Complete First Season

The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home: Like 1999's other screen touchstone, American Beauty, the HBO series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own, nouveau riche brood.

Alias: Season 1

Golden Globe Award-winning actress Jennifer Garner is Sydney Bristow. Syd's not exactly your average grad student. Her life might appear normal, but she's hiding a secret life working as a spy for the CIA. Sydney's world is turned upside down when she learns she may work for the very enemy she thought she was fighting. Now she's entangled in a covert lifestyle where she is forced to question the allegiances of everyone, including those closest to her.

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