This 1970 concert documentary captures Elvis Presley midway through a fateful transition, seeking to reclaim his musical primacy after a decade of self-imposed exile from concert stages. Sidelined by his big-screen career, eclipsed by rock's mid-'60s transformations, the King had begun his return two years earlier with the relatively lean attack of his fabled network television appearance, '68 Comeback Special. Now the Memphis legend was poised to reposition his performing profile by pursuing the top rungs of headliner status in Las Vegas, a career choice that seems even more ephemeral in hindsight than it already did at the time. Elvis: That's the Way It Is follows the show's genesis from rehearsal to stage, with the performance footage that provides its inevitable climax shot over six nights. The rehearsal footage, expanded for this special edition, offers further proof that Presley's band was simply superb: stripped of the orchestrations and lush choral arrangements that would be grafted onto the stage show, the sextet sounds both tough and nimble. In performance, we're treated to a mostly riveting glimpse of Presley in top vocal form, poised at the brink of bombast. This is Elvis before the onset of portentous Richard Strauss overtures, karate kicks, and tossed scarves, kicking off the show with the classic "That's All Right. " If he risks undercutting the punch of his early songs with self-deprecating clowning, he attacks two Ray Charles classics with gusto. The special edition also boasts digitally remastered visuals, crisply remixed Dolby audio, alternate versions that replace the original performances of several tracks (including the extended vamp of "Suspicious Minds"), a theatrical trailer, and a new documentary on the restoration of the film. -Sam Sutherland.

A strong candidate for the designation of most thrilling action movie ever made (the turbo-charged exhilaration of its full-throttle highway chases has never been equaled), the second part of George Miller's post-apocalyptic trilogy is also a magnificently imagined movie myth. Like the Star Wars trilogy (by that other George) the Mad Max films draw their inspiration from the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell. In the 1979 original, Max (Mel Gibson) is a policeman, the last guardian of civilization and order in a devastated world reduced to chaos. But when a leather-clad gang of sadomasochistic speed demons mows down Max's family, his remaining connections to humanity are also permanently severed. After brutally exacting his revenge, Max wanders off into the wasteland alone, "a burned out shell of a man" who (to paraphrase The Searchers) is destined to wander forever between the winds. In The Road Warrior, Max rediscovers a sliver of his shattered humanity, and a spark of redemption, when he helps an embattled colony of pioneers fight off the savages who are after that most precious of all commodities: "guzzline. " Max is transformed into a legendary hero, just as Mel Gibson was catapulted to international movie stardom. With its final stirring images, The Road Warrior transcends its genre (whatever that may be-science fiction? Western? action adventure?) and becomes something timeless. It's a great movie. -Jim Emerson A strong candidate for the designation of most thrilling action movie ever made (the turbo-charged exhilaration of its full-throttle highway chases has never been equaled), the second part of George Miller's post-apocalyptic trilogy is also a magnificently imagined movie myth. [+]

Set mainly in the Ireland the tourist board didn't tell you about, Into the West is the story of a "traveling" family who have given up their traditional life of roaming, and find themselves trying to make it in the gritty, violent projects of Dublin. Gabriel Byrne is excellent as Papa Reilly, a once-proud father and leader whose grief over his wife's death has turned him into a booze-sodden has-been. His two sons, Tito (Ruaidhri Conroy) and Ossie (Ciaran Fitzgerald), escape the projects on an apparently magical white horse, Tir Na Nog, which leads them back to the West. After being forced to steal the horse back from a wealthy and ruthless horse dealer, they are pursued across the increasingly beautiful landscape by virtually all the policemen in Ireland. The much-loved actor David Kelly (Waking Ned Devine) does a nice turn as the grandfather, and Ellen Barkin is a surprising but believable choice as an old "traveling" friend of Papa Reilly. For better or for worse-mainly better-this is not the story Disney would have told: redemptive and uplifting at the end, it's realistic to the point of ugliness on the way there, with a style of cinematography that the Magic Kingdom has never been able to stomach. The younger brother, Ossie, is supposed to be 7, but the story itself is perhaps more appropriate for somewhat older children. Entertainment Weekly's best family video for 1994. -Richard Farr.

1995 had already seen the box-office success of sword-wielding heroes in Rob Roy and Braveheart when along came this glossy revision of the Arthurian legend, in which Lady Guinevere (Julia Ormond) is torn between her love for the noble King Arthur (Sean Connery) and the passionate knight Sir Lancelot (Richard Gere). As the story opens, Guinevere's lands are under attack by the evil knight Malagant (Ben Cross), and she must choose between marriage to Arthur and the security of Camelot, or encouraging the affections of Lancelot, who has heroically rescued her from a potentially lethal attack. Anyone looking for meticulous medieval authenticity won't find it here, but director Jerry Zucker (Ghost) keeps the action moving with exuberant spirit and glorious production values. Even if you don't completely believe Richard Gere as a somewhat too-contemporary Lancelot, the performances of Ormond and especially Connery are effortlessly appealing. -Jeff Shannon.

Bruce Lee kicked around Hollywood for years looking in vain for an American break when Hong Kong came calling. As Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet he had become an Asian star (the series was renamed for his character when it crossed the Pacific) and ripe for his own vehicle. This raw, low-budget effort, called The Big Boss in its native Hong Kong, is a generic revenge drama enlivened by Lee's intense screen presence and martial arts prowess. He's a country boy who takes a job at a Thailand ice-packing plant and discovers it's a cover for heroin smuggling. Lee is held back through the first half of the film by a promise he made his sweet, gray-haired mom not to brawl (which means you have to wait to see him in action), but his indignation turns to fury as friends and coworkers disappear and the boss sends thugs to take care of the brooding, intense country boy. The final half of the film is a series of violent confrontations, culminating in a marvelously choreographed showdown at the ice plant. Lean, mean Lee, with a physique that looked sculpted in bronze, became an overnight sensation with this film, breaking all Asian box-office records and starting an international kung fu craze, but none of the pretenders ever touched Lee's cool cinematic charisma or his martial arts grace. Lee returned the next year in The Chinese Connection. -Sean Axmaker.

Disney's 1986 Flight of the Navigator combines a strong ensemble cast and classic '80s soundtrack with dazzling special effects for a high-flying sci-fi adventure. While searching for his little brother in the woods, 12-year-old David Freeman (Joey Cramer) falls down a ravine and is knocked unconscious. After what seems like minutes, he returns home, only to discover that eight years have passed since he was declared missing and presumed dead. Even more mystifying is that David hasn't aged, nor can he account for the time lapse. Meanwhile, NASA officials stumble upon a futuristic spacecraft and are determined to assess what David knows about it by locking him in a top-secret lab for scanning and testing. His only chance of escape is in the spacecraft manned by Max, a wisecracking robot. Cramer gives an earnest performance, which overcomes an imperfect script, while enough one-liners and imaginative animation will keep families engaged. Watch for Sarah Jessica Parker in one of her first film appearances. Rated PG for language. (Ages 6 and older) -Lynn Gibson.

Martin Scorsese does not sound like the logical choice to direct an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about manners and morals in New York society in the 1870s. But these are mean streets, too, and the psychological violence inflicted between characters is at least as damaging as the physical violence perpetrated by Scorsese's usual gangsters. At the center of the tale is Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), a somewhat diffident young man engaged to marry the very respectable May Welland (Winona Ryder). But Archer is distracted by May's cousin, the Countess Olenska (a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer), recently returned from Europe. As a married woman seeking a divorce, the countess is an embarrassment to all of New York society. But Archer is fascinated by her quick intelligence and worldly ways. Scorsese closely observes the tiny details of this world and this impossible situation; this is a movie in which the shift of someone's eyes can be as significant as the firing of a gun. The director's sense of color has never been keener, and his work with the actors is subtle. That's Joanne Woodward narrating, telling us only as much as we need to know-which is one reason why the climax comes as such a surprise. -Robert Horton.

The original cowriter and director of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was Alex Cox, whose earlier film Sid and Nancy suggests that Cox could have been a perfect match in filming Hunter S. Thompson's psychotropic masterpiece of "gonzo" journalism. Unfortunately Cox departed due to the usual "creative differences," and this ill-fated adaptation was thrust upon Terry Gilliam, whose formidable gifts as a visionary filmmaker were squandered on the seemingly unfilmable elements of Thompson's ether-fogged narrative. The result is a one-joke movie without the joke-an endless series of repetitive scenes involving rampant substance abuse and the hallucinogenic fallout of a road trip that's run crazily out of control. Johnny Depp plays Thompson's alter ego, "gonzo" journalist Raoul Duke, and Benicio Del Toro is his sidekick and so-called lawyer Dr. Gonzo. During the course of a trip to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, they ingest a veritable chemistry set of drugs, and Gilliam does his best to show us the hallucinatory state of their zonked-out minds. This allows for some dazzling imagery and the rampant humor of stumbling buffoons, and the mumbling performances of Depp and Del Toro wholeheartedly embrace the tripped-out, paranoid lunacy of Thompson's celebrated book. But over two hours of this insanity tends to grate on the nerves-like being the only sober guest at a party full of drunken idiots. So while Gilliam's film may achieve some modest cult status over the years, it's only because Fear and Loathing is best enjoyed by those who are just as stoned as the characters in the movie. [+]