Surviving on Harlem’s grimy streets is the battle of a lifetime for L, forced to become a “street soldier” after his father dies. When L becomes homeless, he is drawn to the hustler lifestyle and gets a job with the wealthy, charismatic Zee. Pulled deeper and deeper into a life of crime, L struggles to resist… but for how long?

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essential video
Michael Jordan, the greatest player in the history of team sports, gets an appropriate showcase with Ultimate Jordan, a two-disc set that’s the most feature-packed sports DVD to date. It includes five programs previously available on VHS–some of the most spectacular footage is on Come Fly with Me (1989), which covers Jordan’s youth, college years, and early NBA career. Michael Jordan’s Playground (1991) is, as the title suggests, more fanciful, combining hig (more…)

Flex Alexander’s affecting performance in the lead role lifts Man in the Mirror, an account of the troubled, turbulent adult life of Michael Jackson. And a grim, melodramatic, and sometimes way over-the-top tale it is, as the film chronicles the litany of catastrophes visited on Jackson since Thriller turned him into the self-proclaimed King of Pop. It’s all here: the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ horrified reaction to the supposedly blasphemous “Thriller” video (a disclaimer was added at t (more…)

From the Back Cover
Think of “Keeping Up Appearances’” social climber extraordinaire Hyacinth Bucket (Patricia Routledge), and how about that chocolate-guzzling vicar, Geraldine Grainger (Dawn French) of “The Vicar of Dibley.” And who can forget Sybil Fawlty (Prunella Scales), whose cry of “BASIL!” still inspires fear and laughter after nearly thirty years? Join them and their talented, funny colleagues for this celebration of their careers and contributions. Combining new interview (more…)

Family Guy lives! That’s great news for the devoted fans who watched in record numbers the reruns on Cartoon Network and made the Family Guy DVDs bestsellers. It’s bad news for Mel Gibson, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon, Rob Schneider, Skeet Ulrich, Corey Haim, My Two Dads, and other pop-culture detritus this show’s writers take infinite delight in kicking when they’re down (or up, for that matter). The long, long, awaited fourth season begins with a bravado broad (more…)

Like a roller coaster ready to fly off its rails, Van Helsing rockets to maximum velocity and never slows down. Having earned blockbuster clout with The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, writer-director Stephen Sommers once again plunders Universal’s monster vault and pulls out all the stops for this mammoth $148-million action-adventure-horror-comedy, which opens (sans credits) with a terrific black-and-white prologue that pays homage to the Universal horror classics that inspired it. (more…)

A modern re-telling of the legend of La llorona. A beautiful woman commits suicide after killing her children because of her cheating husband. Her curse is spreading and has possessed young mothers in a small suburban community. Now it is up to an investigator with psychic abilities to exorcise the spirit.

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Both epic and intimate, A Very Long Engagement reunites Audrey Tautou and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the star and director of the hugely popular Amelie. A young woman named Mathilde (Tautou, Happenstance)separated from her lover by World War I refuses to believe he’s been killed and launches an investigation into his fate–an investigation that spins in all directions, creating dozens of miniature stories (including that of an Italian prostitute avenging the death of her own lover by elab (more…)

An uncommonly moving feature about characters in desperate circumstances, SCHIZO offers both a unique coming-of-age story and a sterling feature debut by director Guka Omarova. The film concerns Mustafa, or “Schizo,” a boy not quite 15 years old, who becomes caught up in sordid adult dealings, and must struggle to maintain his sense of beauty and right as he develops the expertise and thick skin of a true player. Growing up in the destitute early ’90s Kazakhstan, and nic (more…)

Jan (Daniel Brühl, Ladies in Lavender) and Peter are the best friends behind the radical and mysterious group The Edukators, united by their passion to change the world, in “The funniest, most original movie I’ve seen all year.” (David Edwards, The Daily Mirror). When the rich go on vacation, The Edukators break into their homes. They don’t steal, but simply rearrange everything, leaving the message “Your days of plenty are numbered.” When Peter’s girlfriend Jule (Julia Jentsch (more…)