June 2005 DVD & Blu-rays

From visionary writer/director Guillermo Del Toro ("Blade II", "The Devil's Backbone") comes "Hellboy", a supernatural action adventure based on Mike Mignola's popular Dark Horse Comics series of the same name. Born in the flames of hell, and brought to our world in a pagan ritual, the fierce red hero, Hellboy (Ron Perlman), was saved by his friend and mentor, the benevolent Dr. Broom (John Hurt). Raised in Broom's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Hellboy joins the likes of the "Mer-Man" Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), the woman he loves who can psychically control fire, and Myers, the FBI agent who is his rival for Liz's affections. Together, our heroes must come to terms with fantastic powers that prove to be both a blessing and a curse. In the process they discover that their abilities serve to benefit mankind but may also keep them forever isolated from the society that only they can protect.

John Travolta is back as Chili Palmer in "Be Cool", a sequel to the comedy smash "Get Shorty". This time, Chili becomes a different kind of "hit" man—he abandons the movie industry to bring his wiseguy skills and negotiation tactics to the music business. When a friend is offed while they're at lunch, Chili takes the opportunity to visit the guy's wife, Edie (Uma Thurman), and pitch himself as her new business partner at an independent record label. With a promising young pop-star-in-training as his protégé (Christina Milian), Chili has to juggle her faux-urban manager (Vince Vaughn), his gay, wannabe-actor bodyguard (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), Russian mobsters, and an eloquent gangsta music producer (Cedric the Entertainer,) to save the label and land a hit—and keep from getting popped himself.

For Bobby Darin, performing was his life. It kept his heart beating. He came alive onstage, even when he was near collapse offstage. From the age of seven, Walden Robert Cassotto—Little Bobby knows the odds are stacked against him. Rheumatic fever has permanently damaged his heart, and he's not expected to make it to age fifteen. Bobby's family pour all their energies into caring for him. Bobby's frail heart may be one truth, but his mother Polly, a former singer, introduces her boy to another wonderful truth: music. Music becomes Bobby's bargaining chip against time; he's not only singing, but also playing piano, drums and guitar before he even hits his teens. Music takes him into a world beyond the Bronx, and beyond sickness. It's a world of effortlessly swinging songs, and couples dancing to the lilt of Bobby's voice. Bobby has a plan, and no heart ailment will stop him.

Starring Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Emile Hirsch, and Michelle Williams, "Imaginary Heroes" is a funny and poignant coming of age story in which the façade of an ordinary American family is peeled back to reveal that nothing is as it seems. Tim Travis (Hirsch) is walking through his life like it's a bad dream. His mother Sandy (Weaver) is the master of the Travis house - with a healthy drug habit, a decade long grudge, and a secret that is literally tearing her apart. His father Ben (Daniels) is a shell of the man he once was, crippled by circumstance and blind to the mistakes of his past. But in typical American style, the Travises aren't depressed - they're living their lives in a forlorn haze. As painful revelations are made that threaten to divide the family, moments of laughter and truth provide the salve that ultimately bring them closer together.

Trevor Reznik, a machinist, has lost the ability to sleep. But this is no ordinary insomnia. Trevor has not slept in a year. Fatigue has led to a shocking deterioration of his physical and mental health. Suspicious of his appearance, Trevor's co-workers first shy away from him, then turn against him after he's involved in a shop accident that costs a man his arm. They blame Trevor for the accident. He has become a liability to himself and others, and now they want him out. Plagued with guilt, Trevor's shame becomes suspicion, then paranoia, when it appears his workmates are conspiring to have him fired –- or worse. First he finds cryptic notes left in his apartment. Next he's told that a mysterious co-worker involved in the accident doesn't exist. Are these mysteries part of a plot to drive Trevor mad? Or is it fatigue that's robbing him of his reason? Determined to find an answer, Trevor investigates the strange occurrences that are turning his world into a sleepless nightmare. Yet the more he learns, the less he wants to know.

Recruited by the U.S government for their unique ability to lie, cheat and fight, Amy, Max, Janet and Dominique join an underground academy of secret agents known only as D.E.B.S. These crime fighting hotties set out to save the world and keep their lipstick perfectly applied while doing so. Now the girls must combine their skills for their most important mission - to capture vexing vixen Lucy Diamond, the deadliest criminal the world has ever known. When D.E.B.S. star player, Amy, falls for Lucy, chaos erupts and the D.E.B.S. loyalty is put to the test.

The story of Haitian national hero Jean Dominique, "The Agronomist" represents a labor of love for the director Jonathan Demme, who first met and filmed the late journalist and freedom fighter in 1987. As owner and operator of his nation's only free radio station, Radio Haiti Inter, Dominique was frequently at odds with his country's various repressive governments and spent much of the 90's in exile in New York, where Demme continued to film him over the years. Following the successful reinstatement of Haiti's democratically elected government, Demee also filmed Dominique's triumphant return to Port Au Prince. But, it was Dominique's still-unsolved assassination in April of 2000, that gave the director the impetus to assemble more than a decade's worth of original and archival material into a celebration of the man and his legacy.

A gripping psychological thriller with Hitchcockian twists. Waking from a coma after a car crash, Ben (Colin Firth) learns that his wife, Elisa (Naomie Harris), was killed in the accident, and his world collapses. He attempts to rebuild his life by getting a new job and a new apartment, but his mind starts playing tricks on him. He begins seeing his dead wife everywhere. His attractive neighbor, Charlotte (Mena Suvari), takes him to see a psychic (Brenda Fricker), who tells him that she senses his wife might still be alive. Meanwhile, someone is moving things around in his apartment and destroying cherished possessions. Then the police pay him a visit: he's being investigated for murder.

Will Smith plays a "date doctor" who claims to be able to find customers their perfect romantic match in three dates or less. Eva Mendes may star as a skeptical reporter who, while investigating Smith's dubious claim, finds herself falling for him. After a chance meeting with Hitch, Sara (Eva Mendes), a gossip reporter for a daily tabloid, finds her professional life and personal life on a collision course. She makes Hitch re-evaluate his game and teaches him that love is not a feeling, it's an action.

Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in. Michael is stunned to discover that fast talking Rory, who can move only his right hand, can understand his almost unintelligible speech. Rory's dynamic and rebellious nature soon sparks a flame in Michael, introducing him to a whole new world outside of Carrigmore.

Story of German New Wave rock star Klaus Nomi, one of the most profoundly bizarre characters to rise to fame in the 80s. In his short but eventful life, fame, friendship, betrayal, opera, performance and, tragically, death converge.

When the owner of a Baltimore working class convenience store, Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman), suffers a concussion, the injury causes a drastic change in her sexual drive, turning her into a sex addict with crazy, wild and urgent desires and compulsions, much to the joy and then frustration of her husband (Chris Isaak) who has trouble keeping up with her, as her new personality threatens to tear apart the remnants of what wasn't an entirely perfect family to begin with.

After being found in an intimate, sexual encounter with another young man, Perry is thrown out of his house by his family and forced to survive on his own. As he struggles to hold on by working in a homeless shelter and trying to maintain a college scholarship, he is haunted by his homosexuality and becomes increasingly withdrawn due to his family's rejection of him and their condemnation of his desires. As his friend Marcus is performing his new poetry for him, an elderly man, Bruce, appears seemingly out of nowhere and begins reciting verse to them. He disappears just as quickly and elusively as he arrived, before they get a chance to talk to him. In his library research for a class project, Perry finds a book about the Harlem Renaissance and recognizes a poem ("Smoke, Lilies and Jade" by Bruce Nugent) as the same one that the elderly man was reciting. They encounter each other again at the homeless shelter where Perry works. He confronts Bruce about who he is and begins to ask him about the Harlem Renaissance. They go on a literal and metaphorical journey to the house that was known as "Niggeratti Manor" which was the creative center for the younger, rebellious generation of the Harlem Renaissance as they created their revolutionary literary journal, "Fire!". Although the house is now dilapidated, we are transported through the landscape of Bruce's memories of the glory days of the Harlem Renaissance. Perry learns about the lives and personalities of Wallace Thurman, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Aaron Douglas and sees how they became a surrogate family for Bruce. Perry begins to recognize this era as his history. He sees the pride that Bruce exuded in those times in terms of being Black, gay and unashamed. His pride and self-esteem begin to have an empowering effect on Perry as he gains a stronger sense of his identity. As the story progresses, we witness the transformative power that they have on each other's lives through their shared passion for art and storytelling.

This adaptation of the Marvel Comics character tells the story of Man-Thing, a creature dwelling in the swamps of the Florida Everglades that's part vegetable matter and part human. Though he no longer has a brain, Man-Thing can sense emotions, and when he senses fear, his skin secrets an acidic fluid.

Inspired by true-life story of controversial high-school basketball coach Ken Carter, who received both high praise and staunch criticism when he made national news in 1999 for benching his entire undefeated basketball team for poor academic performance.

An innovative masterpiece that literally gives wings to one man's singular vision of an imaginary world. Henry Darger lived a reclusive life and died alone in a Catholic mission in 1973. For more than 60 years, he created a massive literary and graphic body of work, including The Realms of the Unreal, an epic, fifteen-thousand-page novel with hundreds of paintings that recounts the wars between nations on an enormous unnamed planet. Darger's keen sense of composition and vivid colors allowed him to create incredibly intense and beautiful illustrations which are often disturbingly violent. Consciously excluding art experts and psychologists, Yu presents impressions of Darger's work only from the people who knew him, letting the audience make up their own minds about the man. The film cleverly parallels his real life with his fantasies, making the oddness of his fantasy world more accessible.

The story catches up with FBI agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) shortly after she successfully disarmed a threat against the Miss United States Pageant while working undercover as a contestant in Miss Congeniality. Having become a media celebrity following her heroic pageant exploits, Gracie has been spending more time lately at the salon than the shooting range, working the talk show circuit and promoting her book. When her friends, pageant winner Cheryl and emcee Stan, are kidnapped in Las Vegas, Gracie's all-out efforts to jump back into action to save them puts her at loggerheads with the FBI top brass who don't want to risk losing their mascot and fear she might not be up to the job anymore.

It is a moonlit night in Los Angeles, when something lurking in the shadows causes their car to suddenly swerve off the road, a teenaged brother and his career-driven sister emerge relatively unscathed, but forever changed by the accident. Suddenly, the siblings find themselves blessed with increased physical strength, heightened sensibilities and undeniable allure to everyone around them. But, what if what happened to them that night wasn't just an accident and what seemed like fate was really something more? It is only a matter of time before Ellie (Christina Ricci) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) can no longer control these impulses because their newfound power comes with a price that they never expected to pay and a mystery that only they can solve.

Bruce Willis stars as an LAPD hostage negotiator, who withdraws to the countryside to become chief of a two-man police department after a bloody standoff. Instead of achieving a sense of peace in the small town, he finds himself embroiled in negotiations to save his wife and daughter. Messner will play an FBI operative who comes onto the crime scene to work with Willis' character and retrieve computer disks.

A successful community theatre company is turned upside down when the director of an upcoming production of "Cyrano" casts an inexperienced young man with no apparent talent in the lead. The young man, Peter Rooker (Marcus Thomas), soon becomes caught up in the various intrigues of the "theater people," including the charming but mercurial Michael (John Corbett), the beautiful leading lady Grace (Amy Smart), and a colorful cast of eccentric players (including Sean Astin, Patty Duke and Alan Corduner). Peter soon discovers that in the world of theater the normal rules do not apply–but in the end there is a role for everyone.

Vin Diesel redefines what it means to be an action hero in the heartwarming family action-comedy "The Pacifier". Diesel stars as Navy SEAL Shane Wolfe who, as an elite member of the world's fiercest and most highly trained force thought he was prepared to take on any duty no matter how perilous or impossible... until he tried baby-sitting. Assigned to protect the five out-of-control children of an assassinated scientist working on vital government secrets, Shane is suddenly faced with the juggling two outrageously incompatible jobs: fighting the bad guys while keeping house. Replacing his usual arsenal of wetsuits and weapons with diapers and juice boxes, Shane not only must battle a deceptive enemy but wrangle teen rebel Zoe (Brittany Snow), sullen 14 year-old Seth (Max Theriot), 8 year-old Ninja-wanna-be Lulu (Morgan York), as well as 3 year-old Peter and baby Tyler - not to mention their off-beat Romanian Nanny (Carol Kane). But while drop zones, demolitions and destroying enemy targets come naturally to Shane, he has no idea what tough really is until he pits his courage against diapering, den-mothering and driver's education. He's truly a SEAL out of water, and now it's up to this one-time lone warrior to take on the most important mission of his life: keeping a family together.

Izzy is an 11-year-old boy living in New York City who spends his time breaking into people's apartments to "mess with them," creating his own private world that is more controlled and stable than the reality of his family's lives, as his mother (Mary-Louise Parker) struggles with the hardship of her husband's recent stroke while also dealing with the difficulties of raising three children.

"Gunner Palace" reveals the complex realities of the situation in Iraq not seen on the nightly news. Told first-hand by our troops, "Gunner Palace" presents a thought provoking portrait of a dangerous and chaotic war that is personal, highly emotional, sometimes disturbing, surprisingly amusing ... and thoroughly fascinating. Filmmaker Michael Tucker, who lived with 2/3 Field Artillery, a.k.a. "The Gunners" for two months, captures the lives and humanity of these soldiers whose barracks are the bombed-out pleasure palace of Uday Hussein (nicknamed Gunner Palace), situated in the heart of the most volatile section of Baghdad. With total access to all operations and activities, Tucker's insider footage provides a rare look at the day-to-day lives of these soldiers on the ground—whether swimming in Uday's pool and playing golf on his putting green or executing raids on suspected terrorists, enduring roadside bombs, mortar attacks, RPGs and snipers.

The story focuses on Helen McCarter (Kimberly Elise), who has seemingly had the perfect life with husband Charles McCarter (Steve Harris). Over the years, Helen has been a faithful and loving wife, while Charles built a successful and lucrative career as a prominent Atlanta attorney. They wear the latest fashions, drive the nicest cars, have all the possessions they need, and they live on an expansive estate complete with an extravagant mansion, swimming pool, tennis court and all the trappings of wealth—a little piece of paradise away from the city. However, on the eve of their 18th wedding anniversary, Helen's paradise begins to crumble as Charles announces that he wants a divorce. He abruptly and literally tosses Helen out of the mansion to make room for the other woman. With all of her possessions packed in a moving van, Helen starts on her journey to put the pieces of her life back together. Through the assistance of her friends, family, faith, and a twist of fate, Helen finds the strength and empowerment she needs to get control of her circumstances. She also finds that the tragic events of her life soon become comic, especially with the guidance and help—mostly unsolicited, by the way—of her pot-smoking, gun-toting, and much beloved, grandmother figure Madea (Tyler Perry).

When a thief (Wesley Snipes) accidentally steals a Van Gogh, gangsters who have been pursuing the valuable painting take his friend hostage.

The film examines the relationship of a physically handicapped boy with his parents as they struggle to carve out a normal life for the their son.