October 2003 DVD & Blu-rays

A band of thieves, led by Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg), pulls off the ultimate heist by rigging the stoplights of the city of Los Angeles so that they can drive right out of the city with a carful of gold (in a safe that they're stealing back after Croker's double-crossing ex-partner, played by Edward Norton, stole it from Croker first), with nothing but greenlights, while everyone else gets redlights, thus keeping the roads plugged with the largest traffic jam in L.A. history, and the police from pursuing them. Aiding their escape is the fact that the bandits are driving BMW Mini Coopers (tiny cars), so they're able to use sidewalks and the subway system in addition to L.A.'s streets and highways. That, of course, is how it's *supposed* to work...

Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor are the toast of the town in the most stylish romantic comedy of the year! From the producers of "American Beauty" and the director of "Bring It On" comes a teasing, tantalizing battle of the sexes that is "pure enchantment" ("Daily News"). When best-selling feminist author Barbara Novak (Zellweger) becomes the target of dashing playboy Catcher Block (McGregor), these sparring, would-be lovers generate enough sparks to fly you to the moon and back. In other words, the ultimate catch has just met his match!

A social misfit, Willard (Crispin Glover) is constantly humiliated in front of his co-workers and squeezed out of the family business by his boss (R. Lee Ermey). His only friends are Cathryn (Laura Elena Haring), a new temp in the office, and a couple of rats he raises at home, Ben and Socrates (and their increasing number of friends). But when one of the rats is killed at work, Willard unleashes his rage - and his army of rats - on his tormentors.

Combines the worlds of law enforcement and the music industry. It pairs a young cop and older cop, both of whom moonlight in other jobs -- acting and real estate -- who get themselves involved in a crime within the music business. Washington will play Sartain, a feared rap impresario who in the past has arranged the murder of several rappers who wanted out of their contract. He also is working in tandem with a former LAPD officer who is now the head of security for Sartain's music company.

Liam's mom, Jean, is in prison but is due to be released in time for his 16th birthday. This time Liam is determined that things will be different. He dreams of a family life he's never had, which means creating a safe haven beyond the reach of wasters like Jean's boyfriend Stan and his own mean-spirited grandfather. But first he's got to raise the cash - no mean feat for a skinny teenager. It's not long before Liam and his pals' crazy schemes lead them into all sorts of trouble. Finding himself dangerously out of his depth, Liam knows he should walk away. Only this time, he just can't let go.

Set during the final days of the war between Iran and Iraq, this is the story of an elderly Iranian Kurd musician who ventures off with his two sons, also musicians, into the dangerous territory of Kurdish Iraq in search of his wife, Hanareh, a singer with an amazing voice, who they fear may be in danger there, after she ran away with the old man's best friend.

Set in a contemporary South untouched by time, "The Undertow" is a dramatic thriller about two brothers who run away from home to guard a secret following the death of their father and the arrival of their greedy, troubled uncle.

At the beginning of the film, a man (Markku Peltola) who has traveled to Helsinki in search of work gets mugged and loses his memory, forcing him to start completely anew. He soon discovers love (Kati Outinen), and a new set of values. A small story about people who still know how to be gentle.

When sex and greed mix with cops and criminals, things get messy in this Guy Pearce crime comedy, directed by Scott Roberts.

Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and the rest of their crew continue to battle the machines that have enslaved the human race in the Matrix. Now, more humans are waking up out of the matrix and attempting to live in the real world. As their numbers grow, the battle moves to Zion, the last real-world city and center of human resistance.

An indescribable nightmare begins when a group of young friends is stranded on an isolated road deep in the Appalachian hills of West Virginia, with no hope of rescue. Desperate and fearing for their lives, the horror surges as they find themselves relentlessly pursued by a force of evil beyond their imagination! Featuring a hip ensemble of up-and-coming young stars, this blood-curdling epic is a shock-a-minute horror rush that will leave you screaming for more!

The aftermath of a high school shooting leaves Deanna (Erika Christensen), seriously wounded and nine others dead. Det. Van Zandt (Victor Garber), is assigned the task of finding someone to hold responsible. His attention settles on Alicia (Busy Philipps), a troubled outsider considered both the key witness and a possible suspect. Worlds collide when the high school principal compels Alicia to pay a reluctant visit on the still-hospitalized Deanna. United by their traumatic experience, the two young women form an unlikely friendship -- one tested by depression, despair, and the growing weight of the police investigation.

Polite, mild-mannered Dan Mahowny is an assistant bank manager with a head for numbers, a knack for making decisions, and a devastating appetite for gambling. Dan Mahowny is the unlikely hero who takes on two of the financial institutions everyone loves to hate, the bank and the casino, and, for a brief while, he wins.

The film takes us into the teenage psyche of Meg, a gifted but emotionally scarred 18-year-old. Haunted by her father's abandonment of the family, she is neglected by her overworked mother and left to her own devices in dealing with her emotionally disturbed younger sister. Meg finds solace in writing poetry. Mr. Auster, her English teacher, recognizes her talent and steps into the role of mentor and father figure, encouraging her to enter a national poetry contest for which he is a judge. As tension at home escalates and Meg struggles to find a way to get to the poetry finals in Florida, Auster's role in her life becomes increasingly complex.

Through a chronological history of the liberation struggle in South Africa, the documentary cites examples of the way music was used in the fight for freedom. Songs united those being oppressed and gave those fighting a way to express their plight. The music consoled the incarcerated and created an effective underground form of communication inside the prisons.

A blind girl gets a cornea transplant so that she would be able to see again. However, she got more than what she bargained for when she realised she could even see ghosts. And some of these ghosts are down right unfriendly. So she embarks on a journey to find the origins of her cornea and to reveal the history of the previous dead owner.

The Grombergs are a highly successful New York family - except when it comes to communicating with each other. Three generations of a family, each in their own way, live separate lives but find a couple moments in time to come together through laughter and tears and remind themselves that they are attached by blood. Mitchell Gromberg (Michael Douglas), the patriarch, is having difficulty coming to grips with his mortality. His son, Alex (Kirk Douglas), has spent his life trying not to duplicate his father's mistakes, while Alex's eldest son, Asher (Cameron Douglas), a rebellious college student, tries to cope with live, love, sex and rock 'n' roll in today's confused society. They all struggle to get from one end of life to the other - the younger Grombergs try to figure out where they are going while the older Grombergs try to figure out how in the hell they got where they are.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is a sequel to the blockbuster action-adventure-comedy hit released by Columbia Pictures and inspired by the popular television series. The sequel reunites Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu as the indomitable crime-fighting heriones. In the Angels' new adventure, the captivating trio once again demonstrates their expertise as espionage and martial arts, and disguise.

A virus that locks those infected into a permanent state of killing rage, is accidentally released from a British research facility. Carried by animals and humans, the virus is impossible to contain, and spreads across the entire planet. Twenty-eight days later, a small group of survivors are trapped in London, caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. As they attempt to salvage a future from the apocalypse, they find that their most deadly enemy is not the virus, but other survivors.

Jimmy Cremming (Matt Dillon) finds himself in Bangkok after fleeing the investigation of an insurance scam in the United States. Having discovered that his partner and mentor Marvin (James Caan) has surfaced in Cambodia, Jimmy sets off to get his promised cut of the action. What he finds, however, is a bizarre, ominous environment where cleverness is bait. The further Jimmy searches for Marvin, the deeper he plunges into torment - and the farther he gets from getting out alive.

One young girl dared to confront the past, change the present and determine the future. On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people - or Whangara iwi - believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs - always the first-born, always male - have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.

Winner of the Jury Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and the Official Russian Selection for Academy Award® Best Foreign Language Film, "House of Fools" (Dom Durakov) is a satirical look at war seen through the eyes of a beautiful woman who is literally madly in love. Based on a true story, "House of Fools" tells the tale of a young Chechen woman, Janna, who is one of several inmates living in a psychiatric hospital on the Russian border of Chechnya. Insulated from the world, the inmates are oblivious to the war that rages around them. In her dream world, Janna finds comfort when her imaginary fiancé (Bryan Adams, played by himself) sings her love songs.

This documentary presents 90 minutes of interview footage (edited down from more than ten hours) with Traudl Junge (1920-2002), who from 1942 to 1945 was one of three personal secretaries of Adolf Hitler, whom she describes as a "pleasant boss and fatherly friend". Ms. Junge describes first-hand experiences of what life was like within the most inner circles of the Third Reich, including those chilling last days for Hitler, Goebbels and Eva Braun in the bunker, where she transcribed Hitler's last will and testament before he and the others committed suicide.

Genya Tachibana is a director and the president of a small production company. One day, he is contacted by the famous Gin Ei studios, that ask him to direct a documentary commemorating their 70 years of existence. Genya chooses as a subject the legendary actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, a superstar actress who 30 years earlier chose to end her career and disappear from public life. Chiyoko Fujiwara is a cinematographic enigma that nobody ever seemed to shed light on. Genya is obsessed by this fallen star, wanting to unravel the truth behind her secret. Accompanied by a young cameraman, Genya finds his way to Chiyoko, who has transformed into an elderly hermit living alone in an isolated house. At their first meeting, Genya sees that Chiyoko, although touched by the hand of time, has not lost any of her charm or energy. To gain her confidence, he brings her an ancient key that holds sentimental value, that rapidly allows Chiyoko to begin recounting her memories. The interview takes course, and our 3 protagonists are plunged into the past, visiting each fragment of what has been long gone, where the past and present meld together. The actress' recollections soon metamorphosize into a great adventure where cinema confronts her history and an incredible love is unveiled, that conflicted with her rather uncommon lifestyle...

Claire (Ayanna), a goal-oriented Columbia University graduate student, meets Jack (Brody). At once unimpressed and intrigued by his bad-boy persona, Claire eventually agrees to meet him. Attraction quickly turns into infatuation and love. Jack runs a regular scam conning foreign businessmen with his partner Charlie (Seda) and two struggling actresses. Though charmed by Claire's acute intellect, he pushes her away, just like he has with previous partners. Abandoned and traumatized, Claire begins to neglect her studies and throws herself into a self-destructive downward spiral. As Detective Linda Fox's (Grier) efforts to expose Jack and Charlie's scam intensifies, the once self-assured Jack finds his world crumbling.