In this fast-paced, sci-fi/horror shoot-'em-up based on the Dark Horse comic book, Jamie Lee Curtis plays the navigator of an ocean-going tug. When a typhoon cripples their boat, the crew sails into the eye of the storm, where they discover a high-tech Russian communications and research vessel adrift. Only one Russian crewmember is still alive, raving about "intelligent lightning. " They soon discover that an alien life form has taken over the ship's computers and is churning out biomechanical warriors. With their own boat destroyed, the crew must battle the creature as the ship reenters the storm. If the basic story and characters all sound familiar, it may not surprise you that producer Gale Anne Hurd's other films include The Terminator and Aliens. This movie and its derivative screenplay aren't nearly as good as those were, and director John Bruno (who won an Oscar for best visual effects for The Abyss) seems more skilled at action choreography and special effects than character and story. Curtis plays another variation on her "scream queen" persona, while Donald Sutherland gives a deliciously hammy performance as the tug captain (in his words, "the dominant life form") who smells salvage money if he can claim the Russian ship for his own. For all the picture's flaws, the effects are good (and gory) and it moves at top speed for a brisk 100 minutes. A trivia factoid: at one point on this troubled production, film footage was seized at the airport because the shipping box was prominently marked with the film's title! -Geof Miller.

NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to Earth from a distance of 205,500 miles. Using state-of-the-art special effects and ingenious filmmaking techniques, Howard and his stellar cast and crew build nail-biting tension while maintaining close fidelity to the facts. The result is a fitting tribute to the Apollo 13 mission and one of the biggest box-office hits of 1995. -Jeff Shannon Relying primarily on actual footage shot by NASA and by news organizations, this video documents the drama of the aborted Apollo 13 mission, in which three astronauts came close to losing their lives in space. The actual recording of commander Jim Lovell telling Houston about the "problem" made famous in the Hollywood version of Apollo 13 is presented, and the scenes showing distressed engineers in the actual control room in Houston are in some ways much more dramatic than anything seen on the big screen. This is, after all, reality, with real people scrambling under intense pressure to save real lives. Besides the footage inside mission control, the video also showcases invaluable flight footage shot by the astronauts aboard the crippled spaceship. This video takes an essentially chronological approach, but the technique of using the crew's postflight news conference to serve as narration, while it is at first confusing, serves a useful purpose. [+]

When global warming triggers the onset of a new Ice Age, tornadoes flatten Los Angeles, a tidal wave engulfs New York City and the entire Northern Hemisphere begins to freeze solid. Now, climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) and a small band of survivors must ride out the growing superstorm and stay alive in the face of an enemy more powerful and relentless than any they've ever encountered: Mother Nature! Supreme silliness doesn't stop The Day After Tomorrow from being lots of fun for connoisseurs of epic-scale disaster flicks. After the blockbuster profits of Independence Day and Godzilla, you can't blame director Roland Emmerich for using global warming as a politically correct excuse for destroying most of the northern hemisphere. Like most of Emmerich's films, this one emphasizes special effects over such lesser priorities as well-drawn characters and plausible plotting, and his dialogue (cowritten by Jeffrey Nachmanoff) is so laughably trite that it could be entirely eliminated without harming the movie. It's the spectacle that's important here, not the lame, recycled plot about father and son (Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal) who endure an end-of-the-world scenario caused by the effects of global warming. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the awesome visions of tornado-ravaged Los Angeles, blizzards in New Delhi, Japan pummeled by grapefruit-sized hailstones, and Manhattan flooded by swelling oceans and then frozen by the onset of a modern ice age. It's all wildly impressive, and Emmerich obviously doesn't care if the science is flimsy, so why should you? -Jeff Shannon.

James Bond's fourth adventure takes him to the Bahamas, where a NATO warplane with a nuclear payload has disappeared into the sea. Bond (Sean Connery) travels from a tony health spa (where he tangles with a mechanized masseuse run amuck) to the casinos of Nassau and soon picks up the trail of SPECTRE's number-two man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), and his beautiful mistress, Domino (Claudine Auger), whom Bond soon seduces to his side. Equipped with more gadgets than ever, courtesy of the resourceful "Q" (Desmond Llewelyn), agent 007 escapes an ambush with a personal-size jet pack and takes to the water as he searches for the undersea plane, battles Largo's pet sharks, and finally leads the battle against Largo's scuba-equipped henchmen in a spectacular underwater climax. This thrilling Bond entry became Connery's most successful outing in the series and was remade in 1983 as Never Say Never Again, with Connery returning to the role after a 12-year hiatus. Tom Jones belts out the bold theme song to another classic Maurice Binder title sequence. -Sean Axmaker.

A family saga set in the second half of the 19th century after the failure of the January 1863 Uprising. Unique portrait of an oppressed society, exile, and the confiscation of property through the loves and struggles of the Niechcic family. Full screen letterbox format. Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Film 1977.

A historical drama that depicts the life of Poland's only king to be dubbed "the Great", for his contribution to the building of the Polish state in the Middle Ages. ENGLISH SUBTITLES. On 2 cassettes. Cast: Krzysztof Chamiec, Wladyslaw Hancza. 1977, Color. 148 mins.

Lauren Bacall plays the title role (which is actually a supporting role) in this smart and snappy children's film adapted from the newberry Award-winning book. As Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, she's a very wealthy individual auctioning off a statue that may or may not have been sculpted by Michelangelo. The story quickly shifts over to Claudia (Jean Marie Barnwell), the middle child of the family. Of the three kids, she's the only girl, a straight-A student, and the one their mom relies on to help her with the chores. Claudia feels both taken for granted and neglected, so she devises a plan for her and her younger brother (who's got some money because he cheats at cards) to run away and have adventures. Her plan includes camping out in the Metropolitan Museum, which happens to be the same museum that bought the enigmatic sculpture. While the family searches for the missing kids, Claudia becomes obsessed with solving the secret of the statue. Is it or isn't it a genuine Michelangelo? Like Claudia herself, the script is smart, and it never condescends. [+]

One of those rare films that grabs you by the gut and never lets go, Men of Honor was inspired by the life of Carl Brasher (Cuba Gooding Jr. ), an African American who dared to dream of becoming a U. S. Navy Master Diver. Despite a bigoted training officer (Robert DeNiro) and a tragic shipboard accident, Carl never gives up and achieves the impossible in an incredible finish that will leave you cheering. Men of Honor presents a great role model for younger viewers, yet it's rated R due to abundant use of the F word. With appropriate discretion, parents should allow their preteen and teenaged children to see this rousing if altogether conventional biopic inspired by the life of Carl Brashear. Played with gravity and gumption by Cuba Gooding Jr. , Brashear was the first African American to become a master diver in the U. S. [+]

- WILD GIRL aka La Chica del Molino Rojo Directed by Eugene Martin and stars Marisol (Carlos Saura's Blood Wedding), Mel Ferrer, Renaud Verley, Sylvia Trent. An Ultra Rare A Bit of Seventies Sexploitation as a multimillionaire playboy spends his time finding the world's mose sexually desirable women. He finds Maria ((Marisol) working in a sleazy bar frequeted by ladies who sell their favors. After a fight breaks out he bails Maria out of jail and moves her into his mansion where she is trained to become every man's sensual dream girl. she discovers that her financier is setting her up as a love puppet for a man he wants to destroy. R Rated, Out of Print Super Video in lithographed clamshell.

Fans of Jet Li should check out The Master, an early movie by the Hong Kong action star. Li is the anti-Stallone, all sinew and smile. His boyish grace makes him seem almost weightless as he whips through his fight scenes in peak physical form. Though the story isn't as strong as the Once upon a Time in China series or Fist of Legend-the plot, about a student of kung fu (Li) from China who comes to Los Angeles to help his former master, is serviceable but generic-the action scenes are dynamic and give ample room for Li's sprightly charisma. Everything about The Master is a little cliché, but at the same time it's all much more enjoyable than you'd expect. The editing is brisk, the actors are enjoying themselves, and the direction (by dependable Hong Kong auteur Tsui Hark) keeps things hopping. -Bret Fetzer.

Footnotes in movie books are likely to reduce this swashbuckling adventure down to a simple description: it was the first movie to star Leonardo DiCaprio after the phenomenal success of Titanic. As such it automatically attracted a box-office stampede of Leo's young female fans, but critical reaction was deservedly mixed. Having earned his directorial debut after writing the Oscar-winning script for Mel Gibson's Braveheart, Randall Wallace wrote and directed this ambitious version of the often-filmed classic novel by Alexandre Dumas. DiCaprio plays dual roles as the despotic King Louis XIV, who rules France with an iron fist, and the king's twin brother, Philippe, who languishes in prison under an iron mask, his identity concealed to prevent an overthrow of Louis' throne. But Louis' abuse of power ultimately enrages Athos (John Malkovich), one of the original Four Musketeers, who recruits his former partners (Gabriel Byrne, Gérard Depardieu, and Jeremy Irons) in a plot to liberate Philippe and install him as the king's identical replacement. Once this plot is set in motion and the Musketeers are each given moments in the spotlight, the film kicks into gear and offers plenty of entertainment in the grand style of vintage swashbucklers. But it's also sidetracked by excessive length and disposable subplots, and for all his post-Titanic star power, the boyish DiCaprio just isn't yet "man" enough to be fully convincing in his title role. Still, this is an entertaining movie, no less enjoyable for falling short of the greatness to which it aspired. -Jeff Shannon.

Fighter navigator Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) wants out of the Navy: he was looking for something more than boring recon missions he's been flying. He finds himself the lone Christmas day mission over war-torn Bosnia. But, when he talks pilot Stackhouse into flying slightly off-course to check out an interesting target, the two get shot down. Burnett is soon alone, trying to outrun a pursuing army, while commanding officer Reigert (Gene Hackman) finds his rescue operation hamstrung by politics, forcing Burnett to run far out of his way. Smart casting and sensible plotting make Behind Enemy Lines an above-average military thriller. Perfectly timed to bolster patriotism, the film is partly set (during a hypothetical "day after tomorrow") on the aircraft carrier U. S. S. Carl Vinson, which was on alert status in the Persian Gulf when this film was released. Proving his versatility as an unconventional movie star, Owen Wilson plays a navy navigator who is shot down over Bosnia during a reconnaissance mission. [+]