Horatio Hornblower(1998)

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: Warner Brothers

Roots: The Next Generations (DVD)Could there be a worthy follow-up to the most-watched miniseries ever? "We felt the other did so well," Alex Haley said, "that we should just let it hang there." But Haley began carrying around a tape recorder, dictating more of his family's tales as they came to his memory. Those remembrances filled a 1,000-page transcript: raw material for Roots: The Next Generations. Winner of the Emmy for Best Limited Series, this landmark continuation of a landmark event - with 53 stars and 235 speaking parts - "is in many respects a superior achievement," Newsweek said in comparing this to Roots. Twenty-five years later, it has lost none of its dramatic and emotional power to make us confront history and examine ourselves. One man's family remains everyone's!]]> Roots rocked the cultural landscape in the late '70s, creating a new wave of awareness of black history. That wave opened the door for its sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, even more of a star-studded event than the original, with stars like Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, and James Earl Jones eager to partake in the tale. The sequel follows the rest of the saga of the family of author Alex Haley, from where Roots ended at the Civil War, up to the 1970s when Haley was researching and writing his earth-shattering family story. While nothing can rival the power of the original Roots' unflinching look at the slave trade and slave life in the early years of this country, the seq...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: Warner Home Video

Up Periscope (DVD)James Garner, in one his earliest starring roles, is Lt. J.G. Kenneth M. Braden, and elite U.S. solder during World War II. After being reluctantly pulled away from a week-long romance, Braden is given the dangerous mission of infiltrating a Japanese-held island. He must scuba ashore, and alone behind enemy lines, capture a top secret radio code before escaping to an awaiting U.S. submarine.]]> Anyone with a fondness for the conventions of the submarine picture will be content with the modest pleasures of Up Periscope, a World War II melodrama starring James Garner in one of his early Maverick-era roles. Pulled away from a week-long romance, Garner tags along with the sub to a Japanese-held island, where he will SCUBA ashore and copy a secret radio code. On top of the reliable suspense of a man alone behind enemy lines, the film also offers captain Edmond O'Brien, whose previous mission has his crew suspecting him of cowardice. Will he cut and run before Garner returns to the submarine? Director Gordon Douglas made a batch of entertaining pictures over the years (a bunch of Sinatra titles, the giant-bug classic Them!, In Like Flint) and he coolly finds some effective ways to photograph men in the close quarters of a sub. The main draw is James Garner in his youthful prime; even if the movie doesn't exploit his comic talent, it shows how effortlessly he connects with an audience. The supporting cast consists of the kind of actors who inevitably seem to people...

Manufacturer: Acorn Media Brand: KITCHEN,MICHAEL

The time is the early 1940s; the place is England's southern coast. As WWII rages around him, duty calls Christopher Foyle. Much to his frustration, however, the stalwart detective's responsibilities are on the home front, not the battlefront. Michael Kitchen (Reckless) stars with Edward Fox (The Strauss Dynasty) and Robert Hardy (All Things Great and Small) in a fast-paced four-part drama heavy on suspense and somber atmospherics. 6 hours 52 min. on 4 DVDs. Foyle's War is the rare mystery series that does more than plop a good detective into the middle of a decorative and bygone era. Created by writer Anthony Horowitz, Foyle's War makes profoundly resonant use of British society in 1940, a terrifying time in which the threat of an Axis assault on England disrupted ordinary life in often horrible ways, from the resettlement of city children (into the care of rural strangers) to a spike in xenophobia to a loss of personal freedoms. Against this heady backdrop is the near-solitary figure of Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen), a London investigator who would rather be fighting Hitler abroad but is stuck solving domestic homicides--generally sparked by wartime fervor--with the help of a plucky driver (Honeysuckle Weeks) and a steadfast assistant (Anthony Howell). Kitchen's magnificently measured performance and Horowitz's masterful grasp of the moral and dramatic issues of his battle-scarred milieu make Foyle's War a must. --Tom Keogh

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Brand: MORE,KENNETH

A British captain and his Wren aide lead the 1941 pursuit of the sinister German battleship.

Manufacturer: A&E Home Video Brand: LionsGate

Ioan Gruffudd, Robert Lindsay, Jamie Bamber. The adventures of C.S. Forester's seafaring hero fighting for the British flag against the armies of Napoleon come to life in two all-new, full-length features, Loyalty and Duty . 2 DVDs. 2003/color/3 hrs., 20 min/NR/widescreen. Dashing Ioan Gruffud stars as dashing Horatio Hornblower, unparalleled British naval hero, in two more delightful episodes from the A&E series. In Loyalty, a peace with France has left Hornblower decommissioned and short on funds. Only the help of his landlady's daughter Maria (heartbreaking Julie Sawalha, Absolutely Fabulous) keeps him from being kicked out into the street. Fortunately for our hero, Napoleon's armies are afoot, and Hornblower soon finds himself sailing to France in command of the Hotspur, grappling with Irish traitors and French skullduggery. Duty picks up where Loyalty leaves off; Hornblower marries Maria with some ambivalence, but the day after his wedding sails for the coast of France to find a missing ship. After rescuing a supposedly Swiss man and his American wife in a storm, Hornblower finds himself caught between an old foe in France and diplomats in England. Though the derring-do is sometimes melodramatic, Horatio Hornblower swiftly becomes engrossing and suspenseful. Credit is due to smart scripts, efficient direction, Gruffud's heroically curly hair, and a superb supporting cast, including Robert Lindsay and Paul McGann (Withnail and I). --Bret Fetzer

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: Warner Brothers Model: 44980785

Mrs. Miniver (DVD)Greer Garson delivers an Academy Award-winning performance as a British wife and mother whose courage and grace hold her family together through the terror of the World War II German Blitz--Mrs. Miniver. In this film lauded by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, which eloquently captures the hopes of England and America at a time defeat by Nazi Germany seems imminent, Mrs. Kay Miniver (Garson) refuses to allow the war to destroy her family even as she huddles with her children through bombing raids, faces enemy paratroopers and fears for her husband's life as he fights in a string of crushing defeats.]]> A movie doesn't win seven Oscars for nothing. A glowing Greer Garson (Best Actress) commands the screen as Mrs. Miniver, a middle-class British housewife whose strength holds her family together as World War II literally hits their home. Walter Pidgeon as her architect husband seems to be the prototype for future TV dads in this affecting portrait of love--familial and romantic--during war. But the relationship between Mrs. Miniver's college-age son (Richard Ney) and the upper-crust Carol (Best Supporting Actress Teresa Wright) is filled with inherent drama--as the war speeds up their young love, it also has the potential to doom it. The 1942 film, which also won for Best Picture and Best Director, is filled with colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and sensational plot twists. Although you spend much of the movie dreading that one of the Minivers will become...

Manufacturer: HBO Studios Brand: HBO HOME VIDEO

By Dawn's Early Light (DVD)Nuclear war-- a nightmare that may become grim reality for the world in this riveting thriller. When a fanatical group opposed to friendly U.S./Soviet relations explodes a nuclear missile over a Russian city, it begins a chain reaction of accusations and actions that begin the groundwork for WWIII. As the clock ticks toward total nuclear annihilation, the American presidentand the Soviet president race toward a solution, fighting with their own camps as well as with each other. Two air force pilots involved romantically as well as professionally, Cassidy (Powers Boothe) and Moreau (Rebecca de Mornay), are ordered to take their B-52 bomber into the air and await further instruction from the president (Martin Landau). But when it is reported that a bomb has killed the President, pilots Cassidy and Moreau are ordered to perform the "grand tour", the systematic bombing of th ebunkers of all Russian leaders. Can these two follow through on a command that will mark the beginning of the end?]]>

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: Warner Brothers Model: 7065685

V: The Complete Series (DVD)V, the sensational, highly rated miniseries continues as an action-packed, hour-long series with Marc Singer, Jane Badler and Faye Grant reprising their roles in this science-fiction thriller ablaze with special effects. Slimy, carnivorous reptiles disguised as humans and with a taste for human flesh arrive from outer space, claiming to offer solutions of all mankind's problems. But they really plan to enslave the earth's population and use it for food. Now, a television cameraman named Mike Donovan (Singer) leads a group of resistance fighters ... the last, best hope for the survival of humanity!]]>

Manufacturer: Showtime Ent. Brand: PARAMOUNT - UNI DIST CORP

Based on the popular novel by Jane Yolen, a typical American teenager gets transported back in time and experiences firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust and discovers the meaning of her family’s heritage.