January 2005 DVD & Blu-rays

Steven's birthday promises to be a particularly happy day, because he has finally gotten his much-sought-after promotion. Steven sets off on his homeward journey bearing the good news. He drives out to the suburb where he lives, looking forward to the party Alexandra, his wife, is sure to have organized for him. However, when he gets home, the house is strangely quiet. After searching the darkened rooms in vain for party guests, Steven finally comes across a video tape with the words play me written on it. It's a tape of Alexandra with a gun pointed at her head. Steve grabs the phone in panic, but the line is dead. He tries to leave for help, but now his keys no longer fit the lock and the security system has locked him indoors. Now alone, and a prisoner in his own house, he has no choice other than to watch the tape to the end.

At Dominquez High School in Compton, California, basketball is valued above all else. The end of the year is marked by a traditional cycle of proms, riots and graduation. And there hasn't been a play at the school in over twenty years. In an effort to make a change, English teacher Catherine Borek attempts to mount a theatrical production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town,"the classic American play about the classic American town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. In the process she takes her fledgling students on a journey of self discovery. With no budget and no stage, Ms. Borek chooses "Our Town" for its universal and timeless themes of community, family, love and loss, life and death, with the hope that her students might see themselves reflected in the roles they play.

Throughout time, men have waged war. Some for power, some for glory, some for honor — and some for love. In ancient Greece, the passion of two of history's most legendary lovers, Paris, Prince of Troy (Orlando Bloom) and Helen (Diane Kruger), Queen of Sparta, ignites a war that will devastate a civilization. When Paris steals Helen away from her husband, King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), it is an insult that cannot be suffered. Familial pride dictates that an affront to Menelaus is an affront to his brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox), powerful King of the Myceneans, who soon unites all the massive tribes of Greece to steal Helen back from Troy in defense of his brother's honor. In truth, Agamemnon's pursuit of honor is corrupted by his overwhelming greed — he needs control of Troy to ensure the supremacy of his already vast empire. The walled city, under the leadership of King Prium (Peter O'Toole) and defended by mighty Prince Hector (Eric Bana), is a citadel that no army has been able to breach. One man alone stands as the key to victory or defeat over Troy — Achilles (Brad Pitt), believed to be the greatest warrior alive. Arrogant, rebellious and seemingly invincible, Achilles has no allegiance to anyone or anything, save his own glory. It is his insatiable hunger for eternal renown that leads him to attack the gates of Troy under Agamemnon's banner — but it will be love that ultimately decides his fate. Two worlds will go to war for honor and power. Thousands will fall in pursuit of glory. And for love, a nation will burn to the ground.

Two likeable underdogs, Harold and Kumar, set out on a Friday night quest to satisfy their craving for White Castle hamburgers and end up on an epic journey of deep thoughts, deeper inhaling and a wild road trip as un-PC as it gets.

The adventure continues with a new generation of talking toddlers. This time, the baby geniuses find themselves at the center of a nefarious scheme led by powerful media mogul Bill Biscane (Jon Voight). Joining the babies in their battle against evil is a legendary baby named Kahuna (Leo, Myles and Gerry Fitzgerald). Part ultra-cool spy, part superhero, Kahuna joins babies Archie (Michael and Max Iles), Finkleman (Jordan and Jared Scheideman), Alex (Joshua and Maxwell Lockhart) and Rosita (Keana and Maia Bastidas) in a race against time to stop the villainous Biscane from using his state-of-the-art satellite system to control the minds of the world's population.

When her boyfriend leaves town on a trip, television producer Stacy raids his Palm Pilot and interviews all of his past girlfriends. The prying leads to public humiliation, though, when Stacy's friend puts all the prying on live television.

" Riding Giants" takes us along surfing's timeline from it's early Polynesian roots, to its rebirth in the early 20th Century, to the development of a fledgling surf culture along the coast of Southern California in the 1940s highlighting the group of extraordinary adventurers that emerged: surfers who, not satisfied with the mere recreational and social aspects of the sport, began searching for bigger and bigger waves, pushing the boundaries of performance to explore the "unridden realm." Riding Giants is the story of these big wave riders, of where and how their quest began, of the classic characters who throughout the eras chased their dreams out into the blue water, and of the surfers who still do today, riding 50, 60 and even 70 foot waves in a manner once considered the realm of fantasy.

The paparazzi are the chroniclers of Hollywood glitz and glamour, and key players in the public's insatiable appetite for information and photos about their favorite stars. They are as much part of gala premiers as bright lights and red carpets. Their photos can make or break careers. For rising action star Bo Laramie, a quartet of paparazzi is at first an annoyance, then an ever-disturbing presence. One night they trap Bo and his family into a high speed chase that ends in a terrible accident, sending his wife Abby into intensive care and son Zach into a coma. Veteran Los Angeles detective Burton believes Bo's version of the accident, but when Burton can't make the case against the photographers, Bo seeks vengeance on his own. And the paparazzi start falling one by one.

Set in 1897, the tale of an isolated village confronting an astonishing truth that lies just outside its borders. At first glance, this village seems picture perfect, but this close-knit community lives with the frightening knowledge that creatures reside in surrounding woods. The evil and foreboding force is so unnerving that none dare venture beyond the borders of the village and into the woods. But when curious, headstrong Lucius Hunt plans to step beyond the boundaries of the town and into the unknown, his bold move threatens to forever change the fate of the village.

A comic clash of cultures, values and sexuality, Touch of Pink is a romantic comedy featuring Alim (Jimi Mistry), a young South Asian-Canadian, now living in London, who is so caught up in the romance, style and dreams of the old movies that he thinks he's living with the spirit of Cary Grant (Kyle MacLachlan). But Alim's ideal life in London with lover Giles (Kristen Holden-Ried) begins to unravel when his mother Nuru (Suleka Mathew) shows up. She's come to London to find Alim a proper Ismaili-Muslim girlfriend and to convince him to come home to Canada and join the family for his cousin's spectacular wedding. Once in Toronto, Alim's different worlds begin to collide and he has to choose between his fantasy life with Cary and the earthier pleasures of real life.

Set against the backdrop of a mythic "New West," "Silver City" follows grammatically-challenged, "user-friendly" candidate Dicky Pilager (Chris Cooper), scapegrace scion of Colorado's venerable Senator Jud Pilager (Michael Murphy), during his gubernatorial campaign. When Pilager finds that he's reeled in a corpse during the taping of an environmental political ad, his ferocious campaign manager, Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss), hires former idealistic journalist turned rumpled private detective Danny O'Brien (Danny Huston) to investigate potential links between the corpse and the Pilager family's enemies. Danny's investigation pulls him deeper and deeper into a complex web of influence and corruption, involving high stakes lobbyists, media conglomerates, environmental plunderers, and undocumented migrant workers.

Three young guys go into the Oregon wilderness in search of a lost treasure. They take a canoe upriver, and everything that can go wrong does. Hunted by two backwoods dope farmers, they encounter death-defying rapids, tree-hugging hippie chicks and a crazy old mountain man.

A female porn star tries to find a balance between the demands of her job and the demands of taking care of her ailing father.

"Goldfish Memory" is a light-hearted look at the dangers and delights of dating in contemporary Dublin. When Clara sees her boyfriend Tom kissing Isolde, it sets off a chain reaction of romances and heartbreaks until the entire cycle has turned full circle, each character trying to solve the pressing question of what is the perfect relationship! Some favour marriage, others a week-at-a-time arrangement. The only thing they can all agree on is that love is the one thing we can't live without.

Patience Philips is a woman who can't seem to stop apologizing for her own existence. She works as a graphic designer for Hedare Beauty, a mammoth cosmetics company on the verge of releasing a revolutionary anti-aging product. When Patience inadvertently happens upon a dark secret her employer is hiding, she finds herself in the middle of a corporate conspiracy. What happens next changes Patience forever. In a mystical twist of fate, she is transformed into a woman with the strength, speed, agility and ultra-keen senses of a cat. With her newfound prowess and feline intuition, Patience becomes Catwoman, a sleek and stealthy creature balancing on the thin line between good and bad. Like any wildcat, she's dangerous, elusive and untamed. Her adventures are complicated by a burgeoning relationship with Tom Lone, a cop who has fallen for Patience but cannot shake his fascination with the mysterious Catwoman, who appears to be responsible for a string of crime sprees plaguing the city.

When Todd Anderson is chosen as the #1 NBA draft pick by the New Jersey Nets, he signs a contract for thirty million dollars that instantly changes his life. Whether he likes it or not his mom, Lady Em, is not going to let her son forget his roots. When Todd buys a new house and mistakenly invites family from the old neighborhood for a cookout on the same day he scheduled an endorsement interview, chaos erupts and Todd must choose between his down home roots and his newfound celebrity.

An adopted Ohio high school senior (Brandon Davis) discovers he is the inherited heir to a porn empire. Dropped into a bitter power struggle, his new flock of beautiful co-workers come to his aid.

From Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer and Imagine Entertainment and based on the best-selling book about high school football by H.G. Bissinger, "Friday Night Lights" chronicles the entire 1988 season of the Permian High Panthers of Odessa, Texas, with football players, coaches, mothers, fathers, pastors, boosters, fans and families struggling with ongoing personal conflicts while the team fights for a state championship. A town for sale, Odessa, Texas has seen better days--the financial bust evident in its boarded-up shops and broken lives. Yet one hope sustains the community where, once a week during the fall, the town and its dreams come alive beneath the dazzling and disorienting Friday night lights...when the Permian High Panthers take to the field. In a city where economic uncertainty has eroded the spirit of its inhabitants, nearly everyone seeks comfort in the religion of the Friday night ritual, where the unfulfilled dreams of an entire community are shifted onto the shoulder pads of a team of high-school athletes. "Friday Night Lights" captures the frenzy of a small town that reveres its school team and their weekly games.

A man receives a call on his cellular phone from a woman who says she's been kidnapped, and thinks she and her family are going to be killed soon. The catch? She doesn't know where she is... and his cell phone battery might go dead soon.

A dark ensemble comedy that follows a group of young men struggling through life at a drug rehab center in Los Angeles. The diverse group is comprised of a homeless ex-marine, a college graduate turned criminal, a guitar player, a rock star, and a rich kid obsessed with porn. The group of men struggle with recovery from various abusive behaviors as they manage the gritty rehab center.

When Samantha Mackenzie (Katie Holmes), the 18-year-old daughter of the president of the United States, demands that she be allowed to go to college without having to be followed by a fleet of secret service agents (with their suits, sunglasses, ear-pieces and very unhip attitudes), her dad agrees... while actually assigning one of the youngest Secret Service agents to follow her around on campus disguised as a student anyway. The president's plan goes smoothly until the young agent falls in love with this girl he has to spend all day following, and she falls in love with him too, until... she finds out whom he really is. Can their love outlive the deception that gave it fruit?

Set in Manhattan, a beautiful and clever woman devises a scheme to turn the tables on two men who made the mistake of taking her for granted.

Hollywood comedian/actor Pauly Shore loses everything: his house, nobody in Hollywood wants to represent him, he moves back home with his mom and is now parking cars at the Comedy Store. Then one night when he's up in his mom's loft, a dead famous comedian appears who tells Pauly to kill himself cause he'll go down as a comedic genius who died before his time. Pauly then fakes his own death, and the media goes crazy. Celebrities are talking about him on MTV and girls are fighting over him on Jerry Springer. It's everything that he wanted...his plan worked. A week or so later the LAPD is tipped off about his whereabouts and they break down the door of the seedy motel room that he's hiding out in and throw him in LA County's celebrity wing.

Three years in the making, this new film from acclaimed documentary filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky provides a fascinating, in-depth portrait of the most successful heavy metal band of all time, as they faced monumental personal and professional challenges while recording their first studio album of original songs in five years. In the tradition of such seminal music documentaries as "Don't Look Back" and "Gimme Shelter", "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" seeks to transcend the conventions of the "rock 'n' roll movie" genre, trading rock-star posing for truthful introspection, and revealing an intimate portrait of the individuals behind a legendary band and their unique creative journey.

A film noir centering around a hard-boiled, stylish kingpin drug dealer, called King David, who returns to his hometown seeking redemption—but ends up only finding violent death. King David's final moments are spent with Paul, an aspiring journalist who knew him for just a few minutes; yet King David would forever more have an impact on Paul's life. Half preacher, half Satan, and all street smarts, King David had recorded the story of his exploits on audiotape, leaving behind an often-poetic sermon on villainy and its consequences. The tapes reveal that the cycle of violence and retribution, which his actions have spawned, has come back to him, full circle, as he suspected they might all along.

When 18 year old Guy Malyon takes up a scholarship at Cambridge University his world is forever changed following a passionate affair with a stunning, aristocratic but hedonistic fellow student, Gilda Besse, which takes him across Europe from the killing fields of Spain's Civil War to occupied France... before a dangerous secret threatens to tear them apart.

Famous scientists around the world have mysteriously disappeared and Chronicle reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) along with ace aviator Sky Captain (Jude Law) are on the investigation. Risking their lives as they travel to exotic places around world, can the fearless duo stop Dr. Totenkopf, the evil mastermind behind a plot to destroy the earth? Aided by Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie), commander of an all-female amphibious squadron, and technical genius Dex (Giovanni Ribisi), Polly and Sky Captain may be our planet's only hope.

When the shy Sam confides in his protective older sibling, Rocky about the overweight bully in school named George, Rocky hatches a plot to exact their revenge on his brother's tormentor.

A billionaire finances an expedition to the Antarctic to uncover a pyramid long-since buried. However, when the team of scientists arrives, they come to realize that the frozen continent is the battle field for two alien races—and now they are caught in the middle. No matter who wins, we lose.

A family of nomadic shepherds in the Gobi Desert, South Mongolia, assist in the births of their camel herd. One of the camels has an excruciatingly difficult delivery but, with help from the family, out comes a rare white calf. Despite the efforts of the shepherds, the mother rejects the newborn, coldly refusing it the milk it needs to survive. In accordance with an ancient ritual, a musician is summoned from a distant village—the calf's last hope.