DVD Rental Movies: November 2007

Resident Evil [2002]

Given that Resident Evil is a Paul Anderson movie based on a computer game which was itself highly derivative (especially of George A Romero and James Cameron films), it's probably unfair to complain that it hasn't got an original idea or moment in its entire running time. In the early 1980s, Italian schlock films such as Zombie Flesh Eaters and Zombie Creeping Flesh tried to cram in as many moments restaged from American originals as possible, strung together by silly characters wandering between monster attacks. This is a much-improved, edited, photographed and directed version of the same gambit.

As amnesiac Milla Jovovich remembers amazing kung fu skills and anti-globalist Eric Mabius mutters about evil corporations, a gang of clichéd soldiers with nary a distinguishing feature between them (except for Michelle Rodriguez as a secondary tough chick) are trapped in an underground scientific compound at the mercy of a tyrannical computer--which manifests as a smug little-girl-o-gram--fending off flesh-eating zombies (though gore fans will be disappointed by the film's need to stay within the limits of the 15 certificate) and CGI mutants, not to mention the ever-popular zombie dogs. It's tolerably action-packed, but zips past its borrowings (Aliens, Cube, Deep Blue Sea) without adding anything that future schlock pictures will want to imitate.

DVD Rental Available.

Hostel 1 & 2 Box Set[2005]

With only one film under his belt and the endorsement of Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth became a virtual horror brand with Hostel, a yarn about a group of thrill-seeking American college dudes backpacking through Europe, only to be seduced into a Slovakian money-for-torture ring where they became the prey.

The sequel begins right where that film left off, filling us in on the whereabouts of lone survivor Paxton (Jay Hernandez). But before long, we see that gender roles are reversed and we are travelling with sensible Beth (Lauren German), hedonistic Whitney (Bijou Phillips), and virginal Lorna (Heather Matarazzo). After tussling with a gaggle of shifty men on a train, they meet Axelle (Vera Jordanova), a gorgeous woman who persuades them to follow her to a rejuvenating spa in Slovakia. As the trio checks into the same infamous hostel, Roth shows us the inner workings of the previously mysterious torture club. Once the girls are put up on the auction block, online bidding begins among the club's members---who are revealed to be prominent international business-people.

After Beth and Whitney are won by type-A American corporate jerk Todd (Richard Burgi), who believes that killing someone will give him power, and his reluctant associate, Stuart (Roger Bart), the film shifts to the preparations for their inaugural slayings within the bloody walls of the warehouse. For those who embraced Hostel's abrupt tonal shifts and very realistic gore, Roth serves up amplified doses of both in his follow-up. Astute horror fans will find a few amusing in-jokes among the carnage, but beware---things get incredibly strong, and Roth's charnel house chic intends to offend.

DVD Rental Available.

28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later [2003]

Features the film 28 DAYS LATER and its sequel 28 WEEKS LATER. A deadly virus escapes from a research centre and within twenty eight days the entire country is infected with the exception of a few survivors. Together they try to build a future for themselves. 28 WEEKS LATER is set after the blood-thirsty fiends of 28 DAYS LATER are thought to have died out. The American military are slowly bringing British citizens back to London, where a heavily guarded community is picking up the pieces and trying to return to normal life. However, chaos soon returns, with the sadistic military and the forlorn survivors battling both each other and ‘the infected.’

DVD Rental Available.

Severance [2007]

Seven colleagues from Palisade Defence embark on a team-building weekend away in Hungary only to find their holiday being sabotaged by a mysterious enemy. A motley group of employees from the company find themselves abandoned in a spooky forest when their coach driver refuses to continue to their destination. The group includes sycophantic manager Richard (Tim McInnerny, Darling in BLACKADDER), driven supervisor Maggie (Laura Harris, 24), and drug-taking joker Steve (Danny Dyer, THE BUSINESS). The septet quickly get lost. After taking some Mexican magic mushrooms, Steve swears that a balaclava-clad man crept up on him. Maggie dismisses Steve's alarm as a side-effect of the hallucinogenic drugs. The group come across an unwelcoming concrete building and decide to set up base there. When one of the group discovers a room filled with files in Russian and stamped with a logo similar to Palisade's, a number of conspiracy theories are suggested. When members of the group start being tracked down by an enemy intent on violence, the group realise that one of the theories may not be so ludicrous. The first half of SEVERANCE is played as a straight comedy, making an initial impression that the film is trying to be a holiday special of THE OFFICE, albeit with broader characterisation. Much like HOSTEL, the film switches half way through and becomes a bloody and gory horror film. Christopher Smith--who made the terrifying CREEP--has made a film that is not only packed full of humour but also features some inventively nasty scenes of bloodshed.

DVD Rental Available.

Doctor Who - Planet Of Evil [1975]

Zeta Minor is the gateway to another universe...

Doctor Who - Planet of Evil features the Tom Baker Years 1974-1981 and is classic Doctor Who viewing.

The Tardis picks up a distress call and the Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet Zeta Minor. There they discover that a Morestran geological expedition has fallen prey to an unseen killer and only the leader, Professor Sorenson, remains alive.

DVD Rental Available.

Hannibal Rising [2007]

Long before a certain cannibal sipped his first Chianti or dined on his first human liver, a young boy named Hannibal Lecter received a stark lesson in mortality as war raged around him. But of all the horrors he witnessed growing up in Lithuania, none could have prepared him for the brutal murder of his family at the hands of the Nazis. Somehow, he manages to survive this horrific ordeal and ends up years later in France, where he studies medicine and forensics. But despite all his academic achievements, Lecter is haunted by memories of the abuse he faced as a child, and sets out to exact revenge on the predators who robbed him of his innocence. The film raises some interesting questions about the nature of evil; is a person born evil or do they gradually become evil as a result of their environment? While offering no conclusive answer, director Peter Webber does appear to subscribe to the latter theory. In the same way that MONSTER turned serial-killing prostitute Aileen Wuornos into a sympathetic figure, HANNIBAL RISING tries to humanise Lecter by putting his later actions into context of this tragic upbringing. Despite the notable absence of Anthony Hopkins, rising star Gaspard Ulliel (A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT) delivers a credible performance as the young Hannibal Lecter with just the right balance of charm and menace. Based on Thomas Harris’ book of the same name, Webber’s dark and intense prequel offers a valuable insight into the background and psyche of a character that has fascinated and terrified audiences ever since they were introduced to him in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

DVD Rental Available.

Black Christmas [2006]

Though it was only a mild success upon its release in 1974, the original BLACK CHRISTMAS (directed by Bob Clark, who would go on to direct A CHRISTMAS STORY in 1984) has become a cult favourite among horror buffs since the dawn of the home-video era. An early example of the 'body count' genre, the film also predates WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (1979) in its use of a killer making threatening phone calls that originate within his potential victims’ own house. In this remake, writer/director Glen Morgan takes the basics of Roy Moore's screenplay for the original to create an elaborate and almost comically disturbing back story for Billy, the killer who previously remained a mystery. A handful of sorority girls remain at their house on campus after the school shuts down for Christmas break. An ominous snowstorm blows in, isolating them. At the same time, a killer--who in this version escapes from a mental institution to return to his former family home--breaks into the attic and begins making terrifying phone calls to the girls.
Stylistically, Moore’s remake avoids casting the film in the ironic post-SCREAM or streamlined, gore-free Japanese-horror-inspired fright films of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Instead he makes BLACK CHRISTMAS in the style of a 1980s slasher film. The plentiful blood and guts will please fans of that era, as will tributes to the HALLOWEEN films. This, along with a soundtrack that eschews holiday standards in favour of modern pop music, plus a dim lighting scheme that relies heavily on coloured Christmas bulbs, combine to create an atmosphere of holiday dread in this fun update of what has become a horror classic.

DVD Rental Available.

Scream Trilogy Box Set [1996]

When Randy the video geek rattles off the rules of surviving a horror movie in Wes Craven's Scream, he speaks for a generation of filmgoers who are all too aware of slasher-movie clichés. Playfully scripted by Kevin Williamson with a self-aware wink and more than a few nods to its grandfathers (from Psycho to Halloween to the Friday the 13th dynasty), Scream skewers teen horror conventions with loving reverence while re-creating them in a modern, movie-savvy context. And so goes the series, which continues the satirical spoofing by tackling (what else?) sequels while sustaining its own self-contained mythology. Catty reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) turns grisly murders into lurid best-sellers, a cult of killer wannabes continues to hunt spunky psycho-survivor Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) for their 15 minutes of fame, and a cheesy movie series (Stab) develops within the movie series.Scream remains the high point of the series--a fresh take on a genre long since collapsed into routine, but Scream 2 spoofs itself wittily ("Why would anyone want to do that? Sequels suck!" opines college film student Randy), and delights with more elaborate set-pieces and all-new rules for surviving a horror movie sequel. The endangered veterans of the original film reunite one last time for Scream 3, which plays out on the movie set of Stab 3 (it's a trilogy within a trilogy!). With Williamson gone, replacement screenwriter Ehran Kruger tries to mine the formula one more time. It's a little tired by now, and pale imitations (Urban Legend, I Know What You Did Last Summer) have further drained the zeitgeist, but the film bubbles with bright humour and director Craven is stylistically at the top of his game. As a trilogy, it remains both the most consistently entertaining and self-aware horror series ever made.

DVD Rental Available.

Stephen King's It [1990]

A small town group of youngsters are terrorized by a malignant force that kills. Some thirty years later, they learn of another string of child murders back in their home town, and this time team up to fight back. Based on the novel by Stephen King.

DVD Rental Available.

Poltergeist (25th Anniversary Edition) [1982]

Suburbanites Steve (Nelson) and Diane (Williams) suddenly experience paranormal activity in their home. What begins as minor excitement quickly turns into nasty ghostly encounters. The disappearance of their daughter Carol Anne (O’Rourke) forces the Freelings to bring in parapsychologists and a professional exorcist to exorcise their home.

DVD Rental Available.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (2 Disc Special Edition) [1975]

If a musical sci-fi satire about an alien transvestite named Frank-n-Furter, who is building the perfect man while playing sexual games with his virginal visitors, sounds like an intriguing premise for a movie, then you're in for a treat. Not only is The Rocky Horror Picture Show all this and more, but it stars the surprising cast of Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick (as the demure Janet and uptight Brad, who get lost in a storm and find themselves stranded at Frank-n-Furter's mansion), Meat Loaf (as the rebel Eddie), Charles Gray (as our criminologist and narrator) and, of course, the inimitable Tim Curry as our "sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania". Upon its release in 1975, the film was an astounding flop. But a few devotees persuaded a New York cinema to show it at midnight, and thus was born one of the ultimate cult films of all time. The songs are addictive (just try getting "The Time Warp" or "Toucha Toucha Touch Me" out of your head), the raunchiness amusing and the plot line utterly ridiculous--in other words, this film is simply tremendous good fun. The downfall, however, is that much of the amusement is found in the audience participation that is obviously missing from a video version (viewers in cinemas shout lines at the screen and use props--such as holding up newspapers and shooting water guns during the storm and throwing rice during a wedding scene). Watched alone as a straight movie, Rocky Horror loses a tremendous amount of its charm. Yet, for those who wish to perfect their lip-synching techniques for movie cinema performances or for those who want to gather a crowd around the TV at home for some good, old-fashioned, rowdy fun, this film can't be beat. --Jenny Brown

DVD Rental Available.

Nosferatu (Definitive Fully-restored version with original score) [Masters of Cinema] [1921]

F.W. Murnau's silent classic is the original, and some say scariest, DRACULA adaptation, taking Bram Stoker's novel and turning it into a haunting, shadowy dream of German Expressionist horror and dread. Count Orlok, the rodentlike vampire frighteningly portrayed by Max Schreck, is perhaps the most animalistic screen portrayal of a vampire ever filmed. The design was copied by Werner Herzog in his 1979 remake and by Tobe Hooper for his telefilm of Stephen King's SALEM'S LOT that same year. Names had to be changed from the novel when Stoker's wife charged his novel was being filmed without proper permission. Charged with now-legendary cinematic imagery, NOSFERATU is a landmark of the horror genre that should not be missed.

DVD Rental Available.

Sleepy Hollow [1999]

In Tim Burton's stylish, creepy retelling of the classic Washington Irving story, SLEEPY HOLLOW, Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is a squeamish, bookish 18th century New York City investigator sent to a small town in lower Westchester county to look into three mysterious decapitations. When the always rational Crane arrives at the little Dutch village, he finds that most of the townsfolk believe the culprit to be the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a monstrous Hessian soldier (Christopher Walken), who seems to be mysteriously tied in to one of the town's most prominent families. Burton's natural instincts for campy humor, combined with the hauntingly gorgeous technical work (Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography and Danny Elfman's score included), collide to create a work of exhilarating entertainment and poetic storytelling. Miranda Richardson, Casper Van Dien and Christina Ricci help make up an ensemble cast that, combined with the historically accurate village sets and dreamlike magic of the haunted Western Woods--created on the largest sound stage in film history--makes SLEEPY HOLLOW a visually stunning, gripping, and, at times, chilling film.

DVD Rental Available.

Supernatural : Complete Season 1 (6 Disc Box Set) [2006]

Bound by tragedy and blood to a dangerous, other-worldly mission, two brothers crisscross the lonely and mysterious back roads of America, encountering creatures that most people believe only exist in folklore, superstition and nightmares.

DVD Rental Available.

Quentin Tarantino Presents : Hostel Part II - Unseen Edition [2007]

With only one film under his belt and the endorsement of Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth became a virtual horror brand with HOSTEL (2005), a yarn about a group of thrill-seeking American college dudes backpacking through Europe, only to be seduced into a Slovakian money-for-torture ring where they became the prey. The sequel begins right where that film left off, filling us in on the whereabouts of lone survivor Paxton (Jay Hernandez)---but before long, we see that gender roles are reversed and we are traveling with sensible Beth (Lauren German), hedonistic Whitney (Bijou Phillips), and virginal Lorna (Heather Matarazzo). After tussling with a gaggle of shifty men on a train, they meet Axelle (Vera Jordanova), a gorgeous woman who persuades them to follow her to a rejuvenating spa in Slovakia. As the trio checks into the same infamous hostel, Roth shows us the inner workings of the previously mysterious torture club. Once the girls are put up on the auction block, online bidding begins among the clubs members---who are revealed to be prominent international businesspeople. After Beth and Whitney are won by type-A American corporate jerk Todd (Richard Burgi), who believes that killing someone will give him power, and his reluctant associate, Stuart (Roger Bart), the film shifts to the preparations for their inaugural slayings within the bloody walls of the warehouse. For those who embraced HOSTEL's abrupt tonal shifts and very realistic gore, Roth serves up amplified doses of both in his follow-up. Astute horror fans will find a few amusing in-jokes among the carnage, but beware---things get incredibly strong, and Roth's charnel house chic intends to offend.

DVD Rental Available.

Little Shop Of Horrors [1987]

The off-Broadway comedy-horror-musical hit that ran for years makes a successful transfer to film with a bevy of big-name cameos and two perfectly cast leads. Rick Moranis is the nebbish Seymour, who pines for flower-girl Audrey (Ellen Greene) while living in the basement of florist Mr Mushnik (Vincent Gardenia). Things start turning around for Seymour, though, after he buys a little plant during a solar eclipse, christens it Audrey II, and discovers that it likes to drink blood. Soon enough, though, Seymour finds out that Audrey II, now grown to epic proportions, is in actuality a "mean green mother from outer space" that is hell-bent on world domination. Based on the 1960 Roger Corman cheapie that featured a young Jack Nicholson, Little Shop boasts a hilarious, amazing score by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who would go on to revitalise Disney's animation arm with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Greene, the lone holdover from the original cast, is a ravishing, goofy Audrey, whose awkward demeanour belies a voice that could knock Ethel Merman off her feet. She's ably matched by Moranis, whose lack of a singing voice is perfectly in sync with Seymour's nerdiness. And Levi Stubbs Jr of the Four Tops provides the low-down, nasty-minded voice of Audrey II; his rendition of the Oscar-nominated "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" is a showstopper. As for those celebrity cameos, Steve Martin's sadistic dentist is a masterful creation, as is Bill Murray's masochistic patient; John Candy, James Belushi, and Christopher Guest also pop up. And there was never a lovelier and funkier Greek chorus than the three Motown-fuelled girls (Tichina Arnold, Michelle Weeks and Tisha Campbell) who appear throughout the film. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

DVD Rental Available.

28 Weeks Later [2007]

Danny Boyle's 2003 hit 28 DAYS LATER receives the sequel treatment in 28 WEEKS LATER. Few elements from the first film remain--actor Cillian Murphy doesn't return, and Boyle and screenwriter/novelist Alex Garland take producer credits this time out. In their places step director/co-writer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (INTACTO) and actor Robert Carlyle (TRAINSPOTTING), who bring the original story to its next logical step. The zombies (again referred to as ‘the infected’) from the first film have died out and England is ready for repopulation. The American military are slowly bringing British citizens back to London, where a heavily guarded community is picking up the pieces and trying to return to normal life. Carlyle plays Don, a man who has lost his wife but is reunited with his children, Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and Tammy (Imogen Poots), near the start of Fresnadillo's film. The two kids soon escape from the heavily guarded community, go off searching for their childhood home, and discover that mum might not be quite as dead as they originally thought. Chaos follows, with the sadistic military and the forlorn survivors battling both each other and ‘the infected.’
Fresnadillo apes much of Boyle's style from the original film, shooting in rapidly edited sequences that cause plenty of blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments. A pounding soundtrack helps enliven the scenes with ‘the infected’, and an abundance of swooping aerial shots highlight the desolate London landscape. A few minor sub-plots emerge, Fresnadillo offers sly commentary on the military's trigger-happy tendencies, and the film ends up somewhere in between zombie fare such as George A. Romero's LAND OF THE DEAD and dystopian visions of the future such as Alfonso Cuaron's CHILDREN OF MEN.

DVD Rental Available.

Saw 3 (Extreme Edition) [2006]

In 2004, a low-budget horror film about a man who put people with moral failings into grisly, murderous situations became a huge hit. In 2005, the sequel scored again, upping the body count and the terror. In 2006, the franchise continued, with plenty of gore as well as an emotional story line that delved into the psychological makeup of the main characters. As SAW II concluded, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) was dying. But that doesn't mean his penchant for playing games of torture and violence is ending. In SAW 3, the murders start occurring again, and Kerry (Dina Meyer) is back on the case, although she thinks this time it might be the work of a copycat. She's only partly right: Amanda (Shawnee Smith), the only victim to have survived both movies, has joined Jigsaw as his apprentice, leading the way through a terrifying game involving Lynn (Bahar Soomekh), a doctor in an unhappy marriage, and Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), a distraught man who is having trouble getting over the loss of his son (Stefan Georgiou) at the hands of a drunk driver. Amanda has captured Lynn and placed her in a neck brace that is linked to Jigsaw's heart monitor; she must keep Jigsaw alive or else the brace will explode. Meanwhile, Jeff is sent on a dangerous journey on which he faces all the people involved in the light penalty his boy's killer received--and it is up to him whether he will seek vengeance or offer forgiveness. Helmed by SAW II director Darren Lynn Bousman and written by original SAW screenwriter and star Leigh Whannell (with a story by Whannell and SAW director James Wan), SAW 3 is an intricately designed, gruesome thriller with a hard-driving soundtrack featuring songs by Slayer, Helmet, and All that Remains.

DVD Rental Available.

Pan's Labyrinth [2006]

Accompanied by her parents, Ofelia moves from a large Spanish city to a more rural area in the North of the country. Faced with the upheaval of moving home, an abusive stepfather and the general unpleasantness surrounding Franco's victory in 1944, Ofelia enters an imaginary world of creatures and demons, in a bid to escape. From Guillermo del Torro, the visionary director of THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE and CRONOS comes this frightening, yet fantastical film.

DVD Rental Available.

Smallville: Complete Season 1

The venerable Superman mythos gets a 21st-century updating in the imaginative and engaging TV series Smallville. The premise of the show--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 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 grounds 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 it takes a turn towards more comic-book territory, as evidenced by the parade of shape-shifting killers and other outlandish antagonists (many generated, in one of the series' most ingenious notions, by the same devastating meteor shower that brought the infant Clark to Earth) that Clark must harness his powers to face and defeat. Gough and Millar, along with their capable cast (which includes Michael Rosenbaum as a young and already bald-pated Lex Luthor, and Annette O'Toole and John Schneider as the Kents) manage to pull off the precarious high-wire act of combining science fiction with coming-of-age drama to create this highly watchable programme. --Paul Gaita

DVD Rental Available.

Braveheart [1995]

A stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel Gibson. He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who unites the various clans against a cruel English King, Edward the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). The scenes of hand-to-hand combat are brutally violent, but they never glorify the bloodshed. There is such enormous scope to this story that it works on a smaller, more personal scale as well, essaying love and loss, patriotism and passion. Extremely moving, it reveals Gibson as a multitalented performer and remarkable director with an eye for detail and an understanding of human emotion. (His first directorial effort was 1993's Man Without a Face.) The film is nearly three hours long and includes several plot tangents, yet is never dull. This movie resonates long after you have seen it, both for its visual beauty and for its powerful story. --Rochelle O'Gorman

DVD Rental Available.

The Bourne Supremacy [2004]

Matt Damon returns as amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne in this fast-paced follow-up to 2002's THE BOURNE IDENTITY. Forced out of hiding as the result of an attempt on his life, Bourne fulfills his earlier promise to wreak vengeance on his former CIA employers, some of whom may be in league with murderous Russians. Brian Cox and Joan Allen are both great as warring agency chiefs convinced Bourne orchestrated the murder of two of their own in a deal gone bad. Thanks to tense, gritty direction by Paul Greengrass (BLOODY SUNDAY), the plot stays tight, the characters believable, and suspense and thrills flow steady. Moody photography enhances the urban European locations, which--combined with handheld camerawork and fast editing--keeps the action realistic and CGI-free. Vividly capturing the fatalist flavor of Robert Ludlum's original novel, this is globalism noir at its finest. Franka Potente and Julia Stiles are back from the original, and the always dependable Marton Csokas shows up as one of Bourne's deadly fellow operatives. A rousing car chase through Moscow may outdo the ones in RONIN and THE FRENCH CONNECTION for visceral speed and length. As the icing on the cake, John Powell provides a menacing, ambient percussive score.

DVD Rental Available.

Sin City [2005]

Brutal and breathtaking, Sin City is Robert Rodriguez's stunningly realized vision of Frank Miller's pulpy comic books. In the first of three separate but loosely related stories, Marv (Mickey Rourke in heavy makeup) tries to track down the killers of a woman who ended up dead in his bed. In the second story, Dwight's (Clive Owen) attempt to defend a woman from a brutal abuser goes horribly wrong, and threatens to destroy the uneasy truce among the police, the mob, and the women of Old Town. Finally, an aging cop on his last day on the job (Bruce Willis) rescues a young girl from a kidnapper, but is himself thrown in jail. Years later, he has a chance to save her again. Based on three of Miller's immensely popular and immensely gritty books (The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard), Sin City is unquestionably the most faithful comic-book-based movie ever made. Each shot looks like a panel from its source material, and director Rodriguez (who refers to it as a "translation" rather than an adaptation) resigned from the Directors Guild so that Miller could share a directing credit. Like the books, it's almost entirely in stark black and white with some occasional bursts of color (a woman's red lips, a villain's yellow face). The backgrounds are entirely digitally generated, yet not self-consciously so, and perfectly capture Miller's gritty cityscape. And though most of Miller's copious nudity is absent, the violence is unrelentingly present. That may be the biggest obstacle to viewers who aren't already fans of the books and who may have been turned off by Kill Bill (whose director, Quentin Tarantino, helmed one scene of Sin City). In addition, it's a bleak, desperate world in which the heroes are killers, corruption rules, and the women are almost all prostitutes or strippers. But Miller's stories are riveting, and the huge cast--which also includes Jessica Alba, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, Devin Aoki, Carla Gugino, and Josh Hartnett--is just about perfect. (Only Bruce Willis and Michael Madsen, while very well-suited to their roles, seem hard to separate from their established screen personas.) In what Rodriguez hopes is the first of a series, Sin City is a spectacular achievement. --David Horiuchi, Amazon.com

DVD Rental Available.

Pirates Of The Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest [2006]

Shiver me timbers, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp - CHARLIE & THE CHOLOLATE FACTORY, ED WOOD) returns in this rip-roaring, sea-faring sequel to the colossal hit, CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL. Reunited with Will Turner (Orlando Bloom - KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, TROY) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley - PRIDE & PREJUDICE, DOMINO), Sparrow must face his greatest adversary yet – the nautically naughty Davey Jones (Bill Nighy – LOVE ACTUALLY, THE GIRL IN THE CAFE). Directed by Gore Verbinski (THE RING, MOUSE HUNT), DEAD MAN'S CHEST is every bit as exiting as it's predecessor and sets the scene for part three in the trilogy, AT WORLDS END.

DVD Rental Available.

Die Hard 4.0 [Blu-ray] [2007]

Twelve years after Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third and previous film in the Die Hard franchise, Die Hard 4.0 finds John McClane (Bruce Willis) a few years older, not any happier, and just as kick-ass as ever. Right after he has a fight with his college-age daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a call comes in to pick up a hacker (Justin Long, Dodgeball) who might help the FBI learn something about a brief security blip in their systems. Now any Die Hard fan knows that this is when the assassins with foreign accents and high-powered weaponry show up, telling McClane that once again he's stumbled into an assignment that's anything but routine. Once that wreckage has cleared, it is revealed that the hacker is only one of many hackers who are being targeted for extermination after they helped set up a "fire sale," a three-pronged cyberattack designed to bring down the entire country by crippling its transportation, finances, and utilities. That plan is now being put into action by a mysterious team (Timothy Olyphant, Deadwood, and Maggie Q, Mission: Impossible 3) that seems to be operating under the government's noses. Die Hard 4.0 uses some of the cat-and-mouse elements of Die Hard with a Vengeance along with some of the pick-'em-off-one-by-one elements of the now-classic original movie. And it's the most consistently enjoyable installment of the franchise since the original, with eye-popping stunts (directed by Len Wiseman of the Underworld franchise), good humour, and Willis's ability to toss off a quip while barely alive. Yippee-ki-ay! --David Horiuchi

DVD Rental Available.

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