POTOMAC VIDEO WEEKLY e-NEWSLETTER

New Releases for Tuesday 7/10/01

Down to Earth - DVD and VHS
(USA, 20001
Rated PG-13
Directed By Patrick Lussier
Staring
Chris Rock
Regina King
Mark Addy

    Comedian Chris Rock updates 1978's HEAVEN CAN WAIT with a decidedly modern flair in this romantic comedy. Lance Barton (Rock) is a struggling comedian whose dream is to perform at New York City's legendary Apollo Theater before it closes its doors forever. One night, while riding his bike, Lance is crushed by an enormous truck. Before he can come to terms with what has happened, he is strolling through Heaven, talking to the smooth Mr. King (Chazz Palminteri) and the bumbling Keyes (Eugene Levy), the angel who prematurely snatched Lance away from Earth. Mr. King agrees to make up for this mistake by returning Lance to New York, only instead of being a black bike messenger, Lance is now Mr. Wellington, a powerful white businessman who just so happens to be the enemy of Sontee (Regina King), the woman he has become infatuated with. Wooing Sontee with a new commitment to using Mr. Wellington's money philanthropically, Lance embarks on a mission to perform at the Apollo, even if he doesn’t seem to fit the mold. But just when everything begins to fall into place, Mr. King returns to throw another glitch into Lance's plans. Coasting along on the charm of Rock and King, DOWN TO EARTH is a charming story about the power of fate, set to a bouncing hip-hop soundtrack.

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Malena - DVD and VHS
(Italy,  2000)
Rated R
Directed By Guiseppe Tornatore
Staring
Monica Bellucci
Giuseppe Sulfaro


     With MALÉNA, Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore spins a romantic coming-of-age yarn about love, loss, and courage. Set in 1941 in a tiny village in Sicily, the film focuses on a group of 13-year-old boys who fall madly in love with Maléna (Monica Bellucci), the wife of a local soldier. One of the boys, Renato Amoroso (Giuseppe Sulfaro), a dreamer who yearns for freedom from his war-bound village, revels in the exquisite beauty of the enchanting newcomer. He becomes her shadow, following her through the cobble stone streets and spying on her most intimate moments, overwhelmed with romantic longing for the first time. Maléna has a magical spellbinding effect on the male villagers; her presence inspires fantasy and escape from their daily lives. But the women of the village, hardened by war, are quick to judge the nubile outsider. Maléna becomes the focus of desire and seething jealousy in the town and she is eventually forced to face the female villagers in a bittersweet climax. Reminiscent of Federico Fellini's nostalgic masterpiece AMARCORD, native Sicilian Tornatore revisits the dusty village streets of his childhood where adolescent boys learn about sex, desire, and ultimately, love. Like Tornatore's critically acclaimed CINEMA PARADISO, he bathes the film in the sun-drenched light of his homeland, giving it a dreamy, earthy sensuality and a poetic spirit. Monica Bellucci is a delicious revelation, the camera lingers seductively on her bewitching beauty. Inspired by the story MA L'AMORE NO... by Luciano Vincenzoni.

Monkey Bone - DVD and VHS
(USA, 2001)
Rated PG-13
Directed By Henry Sleick
Staring
Brendan Fraser
Bridget Fonda
Chris Kattan

    MONKEYBONE, directed by Henry Selick (JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS), is a fantasy adventure that combines live action, stop motion, claymation miniatures, puppets, and computer imaging. Monkeybone is a cartoon character created by a successful comic book illustrator named Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser). (He wears a coat with the tag S. Miley, which is a good hint at the film's brand of pun-filled humor.) On the night that Stu is going to propose marriage to his girlfriend, Julie (Bridget Fonda), a freak accident throws him into a coma. Though he appears unconscious, lying in a hospital bed, he is actually having the strangest experience of his lifetime inside his own head. Trapped in a bizarre amusement park called Downtown, the land where nightmares are stored, Stu comes face to face with a living version of the small, mischievous Monkeybone (a stop-action paraffin sculpture voiced by John Turturro). The other inhabitants of Downtown are either part-humans like the seductive cat woman, Kitty (Rose McGowan) and the mysterious face of Death (Whoopi Goldberg), or beasts--Cyclops, Minotaurs, and Centaurs. While dodging obstacles from his own nightmares, Stu strives to break out of his coma and return to his true love. Little does he know, Monkeybone has plans of his own.

Thirteen Days -  VHS and DVD
(USA, 2001)
Rated PG-13
Directed By Roger Donaldson
Staring
Kevin Costner
Bruce Greenwood
Steven Culp

    A series of beautiful but devastating atomic explosions provides a vision of gorgeous, appalling destruction that hangs ominously over the political drama of THIRTEEN DAYS. It's October 16, 1962 and, it is not just another day at the office for Kenneth O'Donnell (Kevin Costner), the Special Assistant to President John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood). O'Donnell soon discovers the President has just been handed a series of photographs taken from a U-2 spy plane over Cuba. They show deployed Soviet missile launchers capable of firing medium-range ballistic missiles that could hit all major US cities--except Seattle--within minutes.

THIRTEEN DAYS is a vivid dramatization of what happened in the Kennedy White House during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Seen through the eyes of O'Donnell, it is a close-up view of President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (Steven Culp), as they try to negotiate through a crisis which has many of their closest advisors ready to wage what all feared might have been the ultimate war. The script, by David Self, is based on interviews, CIA documents, and White House tapes. Director Roger Donaldson captures the extraordinary tension in the White House as he brings to life every heart-stopping moment.

Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her - DVD and VHS
(USA, 2000)
Rated PG-13
Directed By Rodrigo Garcia
Staring
Glenn Close
Cameron Diaz
Calista Flockhart

    THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER is a wonderfully intelligent and deeply poignant series of interconnected vignettes that focus on the lives of strong, independent single women. In "This Is Dr. Keener," Glenn Close stars as a divorced doctor taking care of her elderly mother. A visit by a tarot card reader forces Keener to come to grips with her loneliness. In the marvelously perceptive "Fantasies About Rebecca," Holly Hunter is a bank manager on the verge of turning 40 who meets a disturbed homeless woman determined to share some harsh insights into Rebecca's life. Kathy Baker stars as Rose, a divorced mother raising a teenage son in "Someone for Rose"; when a little person moves into the house across the street, long-subdued sexual yearnings awaken in Rose. In "Good Night, Lilly, Good Night, Christine," Calista Flockhart is Christine, who is taking care of her dying girlfriend, reminiscing about their pasts, and worrying about the future. Finally, in "Love Waits for Kathy," Amy Brenneman plays a lonely single detective living with her blind sister, who begins reevaluating her life after finding a former classmate of hers dead from an apparent suicide. A terrific cast (which also includes Cameron Diaz, Valeria Golino, and Gregory Hines), a soft, evocative score, and a sharp, penetrating script help make García's directorial debut a shining success.

*  Not all titles available at all locations

Potomac Video’s Top Ten Renting Titles for the Week of 7/2 -  7/10

1.    Traffic (Action, Rated R)
2.    O Brother, Where Art Thou?  (Comedy, Rated PG-13)
3.    Snatch (Action, Rated R)
4.    Best in Show (Comedy, Rated PG-13)  
5.    Castaway (Drama, Rated R)
6.    Wedding Planner (Comedy, Rated PG-13)
7.    You Can Count of Me (Drama, Rated R)
8.    Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Foreign, Rated PG-13)
9.    State and Main (Comedy, Rated R)
10.  Unbreakable (Mystery, Rated PG-13)

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