Fantasy - Page 27

Manufacturer: Paramount Brand: PARAMOUNT - UNI DIST CORP Model: 28443920

Archaeologist Jones and his tweedy father race the Nazis to the Holy Grail.

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: Warner Brothers Model: 4976991

Smallville: The Complete First Season (DVD)Clark Kent takes on a whole new dimension in this precursor to the Superman legend. You know how the story ends; now watch the journey begin. The idyllic town of Smallville, Kansas, never seemed the same after the meteor shower that rained down 12 years ago. That was the day Clark Kent arrived on Earth-and the day strange things started happening in Smallville. Now, Clark is a teenager, and his growing pains are amplified by the burden of his emerging superpowers. He longs for Lana Lang, the beautiful girl next door, but the meteor fragment she wears around her neck complicates his quest for her heart. When the charismatic Lex Luthor arrives in town, he befriends Clark. With no inkling of how their destinies will ultimately collide, Lex becomes the older brother Clark never had.]]> The venerable Superman mythos gets a 21st-century updating in this imaginative and engaging television series from the WB Network, and series fans can celebrate the ratings success of Smallville with a six-disc set that compiles its entire first season. The deluxe package offers a chance to revisit the origins of the characters and their numerous plotlines, as well as view deleted scenes and other bonus features. The premise of Smallville--Superman as a teenager--takes up just a few pages in Superman's very first comic book appearance (in Action Comics back in 1938), but series producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar flesh out that period by portraying young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) not as the noble Superman-in-waiting, but as an average teen with some not-so-ordinary supernatural powers, including incredible strength and heat vision (Clark hasn't lifted up, up, and away as of yet). Clark's desire to fit in with his peers and make sense of his extraordinary abilities ground him in very realistic and identifiable terms for the series' primarily under-25 audience, as does his appealing and tentative romance with Kristen Kreuk as Clark's dreamgirl Lana Lang. But Smallville also strikes gold when...

Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Brand: Sony

From the director of The Cell comes a visually stunning epic fantasy about a bedridden man who entertains a curious little girl by telling her a fantastical story of exotic heroes and far off places which reflects his state of mind. The central story takes place in a remote 1920's hospital where a small girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) is recovering from a severe looking shoulder injury incurred in a fall while trying to pick oranges. One day she happens to meet Roy (Lee Pace) - a stunt or "gag" man for the "flickers" or moving pictures- who seems to have injured himself out of a future in a particularly reckless stunt, even for those times. He is a clearly unhappy man who- through his own carelessness- unwittingly leads Alexandria to believe that he intends to entertain her with a lavish, epic story of exotic heroes and far off places. As the stuntman's health reaches to the point of peril - so does the story he is telling her...with potentially fatal consequences. Roger Ebert proclaimed it "one of the most extraordinary films I've ever seen," and there's no denying the avalanche of wild images in The Fall: grand castles, desert vistas, elephants swimming in the open ocean. Commercial and music-video director Tarsem has piled these visions into an elaborate remake of an obscure Bulgarian film, Yo Ho Ho, which is anchored in (but by no means limited to) a quiet hospital during the silent-movie era. A stunt man (Lee Pace) is laid up with leg injuries, and an eye-popping black-and-white prologue (utterly mystifying while we're watching it) tells us how he got here. Depressed over his disability and a recent lost love, he plans suicide, but is temporarily derailed by the inquisitive friendship of a little girl (Catinca Untaru), to whom he tells wild stories of adventurers and princesses. We see these stories, which is where the dizzying visuals come in. This movie probably won't inspire many lukewarm responses: either you'll fall madly for this paean to storytelling magic, or you'll be suspicious about the par...

Manufacturer: Warner Brand: Warner Manufacturing Model: 5458832

Smallville: The Complete Eighth Season (DVD)This reinterpretation of the enduring Superman mythology and its classic characters blends realism and adventure into an exciting action series. Years ago, a meteor shower burst from the heavens, raining destruction on the unsuspecting citizens of Smallville, Kansas. From the ashes of tragedy grew Clark Kent, whose transition from boyhood to manhood was particularly difficult as he came to grips with his emerging superpowers. This season, Clark will be at a crossroads -- and closer than ever to becoming the superhero of legend. He will face his ultimate challenge with the emergence of a legendary, unstoppable destroyer -- and this won't be the only nemesis to appear. With realistic portrayals and award-winning, state-of-the-art special effects, SMALLVILLE reworks the Superman lore from its roots.]]> Who would have predicted that the departure of series creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough would have given Smallville a surge of super-strength in its eighth season? Give a good part of the credit to saying out with the old--series veterans Michael Rosenbaum (Lex) and Kristin Kreuk (Lana), whose dreary romantic coupling dragged down previous seasons--and in with the new. The new include entirely fresh faces Cassidy Freeman as LutherCorp heir apparent Tess Mercer and Sam Witwer as paramedic Davis Bloome, and experienced players getting increased face time, such as Justin Hartley's Green Arrow joining the opening credits and Erica Durance receiving much more exposure than in season 7. In particular, with Lana having said goodbye, Lois (Durance) and Clark (Tom Welling) are given ample time to start building the relationship we know is inevitable, and their clumsy fumblings are the highlight of the season (their fake engagement is particularly funny). Chloe (Allison Mack) and Jimmy (Aaron Ashmore) grow closer, but the brooding danger of Davis reveals something much worse than a mere lovers' triangle. Clark starts to embrace his destiny by protecting Metropolis at invisible su...

Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Brand: Sony Color: color

Based on the fantastical illustrated magazine Heavy Metal, producer Ivan Reitman enlists the help of some of Hollywood's animation masters to create the otherworldly tale of a glowing green orb from outer space that spreads destruction throughout the galaxy. Only when encountered by its one true enemy, to whom it is inexplicably drawn, will goodness prevail throughout the universe. Richly and lavishly drawn, the vignettes of the orb's dark victories include the character voices of John Candy, Harold Ramis and a pounding soundtrack by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Devo, Donald Fagen, Don Felder, Grand Funk Railroad, Sammy Hagar, Journey, Nazareth, Stevie Nicks, Riggs, and Trust. Highly imaginative and full of surprising special effects, Heavy Metal set the standard for the alternative contemporary animation. An intoxicating experience not to be missed! As long as there is a need for adolescent male sexual fantasy, there will be an audience for Heavy Metal. Released in 1981 and based on stories from the graphic magazine of the same name (possibly the greatest publication to simultaneously provoke imagination and masturbation), the film has since become the most popular single title in Columbia/TriStar's entire film library. That's an amazing fact considering just how silly and senseless the movie really is--an aimless, juvenile amalgam of disjointed stories and clashing visual styles, employing hundreds of animators from around the world with a near-total absence of creative cohesion. It remains, for better and worse, a midnight-movie favorite for the stoner crowd--a movie best enjoyed by randy adolescents or near-adults in an altered state of consciousness. With a framing story about a glowing green orb claiming to be the embodiment of all evil, the film shuttles through eight episodic tales of sci-fi adventure, each fueled by some of the most wretched rock music to emerge from the 1980s. The most consistent trademark is an abundance of blood-splattering violence and wet-dream sex, the latter invo...

Manufacturer: ABC Studios Brand: Buena Vista Home Video Model: 5215954

The epic story of Lost twists, turns and time-shifts in its outstanding fifth season. Packed with bonus material, including a revealing interview with the cast and an exclusive behind-the-scenes feature, Lost is better than ever on DVD.When destiny calls, the Oceanic 6 find their way back to the island. Discover what forced them to return, and find out the fate of all those who were left behind.The answers to some of Losts most pressing questions are revealed in this spectacular 5-disc collection, complete with deleted scenes and an incredible vault of exclusive bonus features. The show that revolutionized primetime proves once again why its is television's most addictive and creative series. You'd be crazy not to watch, proclaims Matt Roush of TV Guide Since Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as...