Alex Proyas
Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Mystery Clock Cinema
R
John Murdoch awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he has lost his memory and is wanted for a series of brutal and bizarre murders. While trying to piece together his past, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of beings known as The Strangers who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants. Now Murdoch must find a way to stop them before they take control of his mind and destroy him.

Pedro Almodóvar
Comedy, Drama, Romance
El Deseo S.A.

Pablo and Tina have complicated sexual lives. Pablo writes and directs plays and films; he's gay and deeply in love with Juan, a young man who won't reply to Pablo's affection or letters. Pablo's sibling Tina is a transsexual, angry at men, raising Ada, and trying to make it as an actress. Pablo takes up with Antonio, a youth who becomes jealous of Pablo's love for Juan. Antonio seeks out Juan, and violence leads to Pablo's grief and a temporary loss of memory. When memory returns, he learns that Antonio has taken up with Tina. In horror, he hurries to Tina's rescue and must face Antonio and his desire.

Chris Eyre
Crime, Drama, Mystery
Carlton International Media

Faced with the murder of three medicine men, Navajo police must find the culprit. That the murders appear to be the work of a Skinwalker, or bad medicine man, complicate and illuminate the detective's work.

Rob Epstein
Documentary, Biography, History
Black Sand Productions

Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978. Milk's life leading up to his election, his successful efforts to politically represent San Francisco's gay community, and the city's reaction to the assassinations are documented with extensive news film and personal recollections.

Penny Marshall
Drama
Columbia Pictures Corporation

A new doctor finds himself with a ward full of comatose patients. He is disturbed by them and the fact that they have been comatose for decades with no hope of any cure. When he finds a possible chemical cure he gets permission to try it on one of them. When the first patient awakes, he is now an adult having gone into a coma in his early teens. The film then delights in the new awareness of the patients and then on the reactions of their relatives to the changes in the newly awakened.

David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Chris Carter, Cliff Bole, Kim Manners
Drama
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

With the original conspiracy plot arc having fallen into a muddle of loose ends, once-hungry lead actors on the verge of big-screen careers and making demands for more time off or shots at writing and directing, and the initial wish list of monsters-of-the-week long exhausted, it's a miracle that by its seventh season "The X-Files" was still making its airdates, let alone managing something pretty good every other show and something outstanding at least once every four episodes. The season opens with a dreary two-parter ("Sixth Extinction" and "Amor Fati") and winds up with the traditional incomprehensible cliffhanger ("Requiem"), but along the way includes a clutch of episodes that may not match the originality of earlier seasons but still effortlessly equal any other fantasy-horror sci-fi on television.
The highlights: "Hungry," a brain-eating mutant story told from the point of view of a monster who tries to control his appetite by going to eating disorder self-help groups; "The Goldberg Variation," a crime comedy about a weasely little man who has the gift of incredible good luck, which means Wile E. Coyote-style doom for anyone who crosses him; "The Amazing Maleeni," guest-starring Ricky Jay in a rare nonfantastic crime story about a feud between stage magicians that turns out to be a cover for a heist; "X-Cops," a brilliant skit on the TV docusoap "Cops" with Mulder and Scully caught on camera as they track an apparent werewolf in Los Angeles (season-best acting from David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson); "Theef," a complex revenge drama with gaunt Billy Drago as a hillbilly medicine man stalking a slick doctor; "Brand X," a horror-comic tale of corruption in the tobacco industry; "Hollywood AD" (written and directed by Duchovny), in which Tea Leoni (Duchovny's wife) and Garry Shandling are cast as Scully and Mulder in a crass movie version of a real-life X-file; and "Je Souhaite," a deadpan comedy about a wry, cynical genie at the mercy of trailer-trash masters who haven't an idea what to wish for. "--Kim Newman"

Perry Henzell
Action & Adventure
Xenon
R
Director-producer Perry Henzel's all-Jamaican-made 1973 classic, one of the most beloved and longest-running of all international cult favorites, fiercely expresses the live-wire Jamaican spirit--an impoverished Africa tuned to American radio. The film also incorporates an archetypal passion for "outlaw" justice common to American Westerns, which were a staple of the Caribbean theater circuit at the time. Released just 12 years after Jamaica achieved independence, "The Harder They Come" also reflects the disenchantment that soon followed a massive post-independence exodus from the island's country hamlets to the tropical ghettos of Kingston, where a more grinding urban poverty awaited. Brilliantly shot, directed, written, and acted, especially by singer Jimmy Cliff in the leading role and Carl Bradshaw as his archenemy, the film tells an anthemic Jamaican story to seductive rhythms of a soundtrack that became a reggae bestseller. Ivan, a country boy who dreams of fame as a singer, rides into Kingston on a rickety country bus in the opening scenes, only to meet with disaster heaped on disaster, always at the hands of those masked as friends. In a breathless defining climax, Ivan finally breaks from his passivity and begins to wreak his revenge. Soon Kingston's music Mafia and the equally corrupt authorities are after him, but like the real-life people's hero (a man named Rhygin) on whom this character is partially based, Ivan leads them on a maddening chase--much to the delight of the people--eluding capture until the movie's shocking final moments. "--Elena Oumano"

Steve Olpin
Drama
A&E HOME VIDEO
NR
Jane Austen's classic novel of 1813, "Pride and Prejudice", still wins the hearts of countless schoolgirls with its romantic story of Elizabeth Bennet and her Mr. Darcy. Now, the 1996 BBC miniseries is winning over adults, with its faithful adaptation, gorgeous scenery, and superb acting.
The essence of the story is the antagonism between Mr. Darcy, a wealthy single man who believes Elizabeth to be beneath him, and Elizabeth, who upon being insulted at a dance by the aloof Darcy refuses to associate with him in any manner. Austen evokes incredible tension with the wit and flirtation of the two characters, and director Simon Langton (who also directed "Upstairs Downstairs") successfully translates the repartee and conflict in this six-hour miniseries. Dialogue, for the most part, is painstakingly replicated, except when fleshing out and smoothing for modern sensibilities was necessary. Darcy, for instance, is drawn out, giving his personality significantly more depth. The acting sweeps you away to Regency England: Jennifer Ehle (of "Wilde") is convincing as the obstinate Elizabeth, who, despite her mother's attempts to marry her off, spurs the attentions of Darcy. And Colin Firth (of "The English Patient") will have women everywhere longing for a Mr. Darcy of their own.
For those who have been on an Austen binge--enjoying such excellent adaptations as "Sense and Sensibility" and "Persuasion"--this miniseries will round out the ultimate Austen video library. For those new to these romantic period pieces, this version of "Pride and Prejudice" will have you hooked and longing for more. One caveat, however: plan to watch it in an entire day, because very few have the self-control to not watch all six hours in a single sitting. "--Jenny Brown"

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Stills from "Pride and Prejudice" (click for larger image)

Jason Southwell
Drama
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Following the "X-Files" feature film in the summer of 1998, "The Beginning" quickly crowbars an attempt at fitting the film into the TV chronology before it picks up plot points left dangling from the fifth-season finale, "The End" (note the guard asleep at the nuclear power plant console is named Homer!). Between arc threads are several pleasing excursions: time travel to a Bermuda Triangle boatload of Nazis ("Triangle"), further temporal escapades akin to "Groundhog Day" ("Monday"), a demonic baby case featuring genre stalwart Bruce Campbell ("Terms of Endearment"), and Duchovny being able to play someone else via personality switching ("The Dreamland, Parts 1 and 2"). Back in the real scheme of things, Mulder chases "S.R. 819," a Senate resolution tying conspiracies together. "Two Fathers" and "One Son" indicate that the abductee experiments are intended to cure the black oil disease. The year finishes with "BioGenesis," in which we're asked to ponder, are we from Mars? A beach-buried UFO leaves Scully wondering. "--Paul Tonks"

Rajnesh Domalpalli
Art House & International
Vanaja The Film, LLC
Unrated
Lovers of foreign cinema will not want to miss this simple,yet moving story of a young girl from an inferior class who wants to make something of herself through dance. Music, dance, color all add to the splendor of this film, but what really makes it work is the strong performance of the lead character - a young girl who challenges her position in society by seeking out a great teacher of Indian classical dance. After some difficulty, she persuades the teacher to give her private lessons at no charge.



Problems occur when she disobeys her teacher, and when she attracts the sexual interest of the teacher's son. Everything about this film feels authentic. It is neither a scathing comment on the plight of the poor or the caste system, nor an overly sentimentalized version of a person overcoming her social disabilities. Recommended.