Bring It On: Fight to the Finish

• Condition: New
• Format: DVD
• AC-3; Color; Dolby; Dubbed; DVD; Subtitled; Widescreen; NTSC

BRING IT ON - DVD MovieSunny, happy Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) is the new leader of the Toros, the cheerleading squad of Rancho Carne, an affluent San Diego high school that has lousy football players but one hell of a cheerleading team. National champions, they're the ones who bring in the bodies to the football games with their award-winning moves and sassy grace, and they're poised to take their sixth national cheer title. Torrance's new reign as cheer queen, though, is cut short when she discovers that her snotty, duplicitous forerunner was regularly stealing routines from the East Compton Clovers, the hip-hop influenced cheerleaders of a poor inner city school, and passing them off as the original work of the Toros. Scrambling to come up with a new routine for the Toros--and do the righ! t thing by giving the Clovers their due--Torrance butts heads with the proud and understandably wary Isis (Gabrielle Union), the leader of the Clovers, who wants nothing to do with a rich blond white girl, but does want to get her squad to the championships. Problem is, only one team can take home the national title. Who's it gonna be?

An unexpected box-office hit in the late summer of 2000, Bring It On is a smart, snappy teen comedy that bristles with good cheer (literally) and lively, down-to-earth characters. The story may be fairly predictable (who's going to win the big championship?), but director Peyton Reed and screenwriter Jessica Bendinger have fleshed out their characters with formidable strength and provided them with sharp dialogue. Dunst is a radiant comedian, projecting warmth, determination, sincerity, and a sublime airheadedness, and Union is an impressive dancer and counterpart to Dunst, matching her admirably despite her limited onscreen time.! An excellent young supporting cast rounds out the film, most ! notably Eliza Dushku (Faith of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Jesse Bradford (Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill) as siblings new to Rancho Carne, who become Torrance's best friend and potential new boyfriend, respectively. All in all, a pleasantly surprising and intelligent teen movie. Don't miss the opening sequence, a hilarious send-up of all those high school cheerleading routines you had to sit through at boring pep rallies. --Mark EnglehartBring on the spirit, spunk and sass with everyone's favorite cheerleading series in the Bring It On
Collection! All four high-energy, fun Bring It On movies are here: Bring It On, starring Kirsten Dunst; the hilarious sequel Bring It On Again; the elecChristina Milian stars as sassy cheer captain Lina Cruz, whose world is turned upside-down when her family moves from the urban streets of East Los Angeles to the sunny beach town of Malibu. At her new school, Lina clashes with Avery, the ultra-competitive all-star chee! r captain, while also falling for Avery’s super-cute brother, Evan. Lina’s always been able to rise to a challenge, but can she create a new all-star squad, beat Avery at the Spirit Championships, and still keep her romance with Evan? Hot music, fierce competition and high-flyin’ fun continue in this all-new movie!Like its predecessors in the Bring It On franchise, Bring It On: Fight to the Finish focuses on a perky cheerleader who's taken out of her comfort zone and ends up excelling in her new environment. This time around, the focus is on Lina Cruz (singer Christina Milian), whose family moves from East Los Angeles to Malibu. The streetwise teen makes an instant frenemy of alpha female Avery (Rachele Brooke Smith)--also a cheerleader--at her new school. Never mind that the two girls don't get along. There's more drama when Lina and Avery's brother Evan (Cody Longo) fall for each other. Though Lina describes her new classmates as living "lifestyles! of the rich and annoying" and Avery refers to Lina and her La! tina fri ends as "illegal cheermigrants," the two really aren't that different. Both live for cheerleading and are super driven when it comes to their sport of choice. The viewer gets the impression that if both girls shared the same ethnicity (or at least a similar bank account), they'd be besties at school. The Bring It On franchise was spawned by Kirsten Dunst's hit film from 2000, which clearly had better writing and acting, as well as a larger budget to work with. While films like Bring It On: Fight to the Finish aren't going to win any awards, they do have an appeal to teenage girls and/or cheerleading fans. The plot really doesn't matter so much as the cheerleading choreography and the driving music behind it. And there's plenty of both in this production. --Jae-Ha Kim

Stills from Bring it On: Fight to the Finish (Click for larger image)

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Girl With a Pearl Earring

• Actors: Colin Firth, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson, Judy Parfitt, Cillian Murphy.
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC.
• Language: English. Subtitles: Spanish.
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
• Rated PG-13. Run Time: 100 minutes.

Delft Holland 1665. seventeen-year-old Griet must work to support her family and becomes a maid in the house of Johannes Vermeer where she gradually attracts the master painter s attention. Johannes and Griet must hide their inspiration of each other from his volatile wife Catharine. The wealthy and troublemaking Master van Ruijven senses the intimacy between the artist and his maid and contrives a paintings ever created but at what cost?System Requirements: Running Time 100 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG-13 UPC: 012236155225 Manufacturer No: 15522You wouldn't think a movie could look like ! a Vermeer painting, but Girl with a Pearl Earring is filmed with an amazing range of luminous glows that evoke the Dutch artist's masterworks. Of course, it helps that much of the movie centers on Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, Ghost World), whose creamy skin and full lips have a luminosity of their own. Johansson plays Griet, a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth, Bridget Jones' Diary, Fever Pitch), who finds herself in a web of jealousy, artistic inspiration, and social machinations. Though the pace is slow, Girl with a Pearl Earring genuinely conveys some sense of an artist's process, as well as offering many chaste yet sensual moments between Firth and Johansson. Also featuring Essie Davis as Vermeer's bitter wife and Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom) as a wealthy patron with eyes for Griet. --Bret Fetzer

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Beverly Hills Chihuahua

• Get ready for a hilarious fun-filled adventure starring Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore), a diamond-clad ultra-pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua who gets lost while on vacation in Mexico. Papi (voiced by George Lopez), an amusing Chihuahua who's crazy about Chloe, springs into action and heads south of the border to rescue her, while Chloe gets help from Delgado (voiced by Andy Garcia), her newfoun

Get ready for a hilarious fun-filled adventure starring Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore), a diamond-clad ultra-pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua who gets lost while on vacation in Mexico. Papi (voiced by George Lopez), an amusing Chihuahua who's crazy about Chloe, springs into action and heads south of the border to rescue her, while Chloe gets help from Delgado (voiced by Andy Garcia), her newfound friend and self-appointed protector. Beverly Hills Chihuahua from Walt Disney Pictures is a h! eartwarming and outrageously funny tale proving once again that good things do come in small packages. It's a real treat for the whole family. This DVD has fullscreen or widescreen capabilities.

Bonus Features:
*Deleted scenes with introductsion by director Raja Gosnell
*Blooper scooper
*Legend of the chihuahua
*Feature audio commentary by director Raja Gosness (Widescreen version only)
Beverly Hills Chihuahua finds director Raja Gosnell back on the talking-dog beat (following his live-action Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleased), this time in an ambitious, tongue-in-cheek comedy with a fun cast of onscreen and vocal actors. Piper Perabo plays Rachel, niece of a Beverly Hills eccentric (Jamie Lee Curtis) who spends much of her fortune pampering Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore), a spoiled Chihuahua used to pacing through this world with booties on her paws. Chloe gets dog-napped while ! Rachel takes a vacation in Mexico, and finds protection from a! misfit German Shepherd named Delgado (Andy Garcia), who has a painful secret in his past. The two get into and out of a lot of scrapes, trying to stay ahead of a vicious dog (Edward James Olmos) working for the head of an illegal dogfight gambling syndicate. Computer effects turn the film's many four-legged characters into talking critters capable of leaping onto train boxcars and leading the heroine into the Indiana Jones-like ancestral home of the chihuahua breed. The comedy is crisp and kid-friendly, the story of Chloe rise out of silliness into canine authenticity, plus the film's surprising ambitiousness, are all very winning. --Tom Keogh


Stills from Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Click for larger image)

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The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

• Based on the novel by the mysterious and controversial JT LeRoy, Asia Argento's THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS is a penetrating look at the emotional and physical bonds between mother and son. Argento, the daughter of Italian horror king Dario Argento (SUSPIRIA), directed and stars in the film, playing Sarah, a young woman addicted to sex, drugs, and danger. The movie opens as she ree

Featuring a series of loosely connected autobiographical stories, they describe the disturbing relationship between a mother and her adolescent son as she moves from lover to lover, dressing him as a girl and forcing him to shoplift. These are shocking stories of abusive love and dysfunctional sexuality, of heartbreak and of innocence lost. Once again, LeRoy's fantastical imagination and lyricism twists his haunted past into something utterly strange and magical.A series of loosely connected autobiograp! hical stories, they describe the disturbing relationship between a mother and her adolescent son as she moves from lover to lover, dressing him as a girl and forcing him to shoplift. These are shocking stories of abusive love and dysfunctional sexuality, of heartbreak and of innocence lost. Once again, LeRoy's fantastical imagination and lyricism twists his haunted past into something utterly strange and magical.A series of loosely connected autobiographical stories, they describe the disturbing relationship between a mother and her adolescent son as she moves from lover to lover, dressing him as a girl and forcing him to shoplift. These are shocking stories of abusive love and dysfunctional sexuality, of heartbreak and of innocence lost. Once again, LeRoy's fantastical imagination and lyricism twists his haunted past into something utterly strange and magical.Seven-year-old Jeremiah lived a calm, comfortable life in the care of a loving foster home until the day his young ! mother Sarah (Argento) came to take him against his will into ! her rec kless life of turmoil and depravity, between desolate truck-stops, flea bag motels, strip joints, drug den and deadbeat surrogate dads until he finds himself in the custody of his ultra-religious grandparents. Having adapted to his new life as a Christian fundamentalist, Sarah returns to claim her son. Bound by a love only a mother and son could have for each other, Sarah pulls Jeremiah further and further into her dementia. When Sarah is finally and wholly consumed by drugs, prostitution and violence, Jeremiah is forced into a desperate struggle to survive the madness of his surroundings.Asia Argento's adaptation of JT Leroy's short story collection, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, still has the heartbreaking urgency of a tale about child abuse, regardless of Leroy's proven fraudulent identity. Weaving plots together from Leroy's two books, Sarah, and The Heart Is Deceitful, Argento relays the history of orphaned Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett/Cole S! prouse), whose mother Sarah (Asia Argento) abandons him as a baby to work as a truck-stop lot lizard for her methamphetamine habit. Sarah tears Jeremiah away from a stable foster home to pathetically attempt mothering her seven-year old son. Jeremiah instantly grows up in strip clubs, drug dealers' homes, big rigs, and in the hot rod that he and his mother call home. His sadomasochistic sexual psychology also develops prematurely, informed by men who rape and beat him, and a mother whose work as a hooker requires Jeremiah's dressing up as a girl to pass as her younger sister. Enter a born again, psychotically zealous Grandfather (Peter Fonda) who takes temporary custody of Jeremiah, and the viewer begins to understand Sarah's severe rebelliousness, sensing that the punk, 23-year old prostitute may be a better parent for Jeremiah, simply because she loves him. Shot by Eric Alan Edwards (Kids, My Own Private Idaho), and with a soundtrack including Sonic Youth, Subhuman! s, Billy Corgan, and Hasil Adkins, the film has a raunchy, Sou! thern ap peal similar to that of Leroy's books. Cameos appearances by Winona Ryder and Marilyn Manson add rock star power. Argento keeps it sexy, as this is as much a story of the mother-child bond as it is about the malformation of a boy's sexual identity. True or not, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is a sincere yet stylized rendition of a terribly sad story. --Trinie Dalton

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Head In The Clouds : Widescreen Edition

• Widescreen

A mystery centering around a respectable judge, his wife, her ex-lover, their neighbor and a dead body that complicates all of their lives.A mystery centering around a respectable judge, his wife, her ex-lover, their neighbor and a dead body that complicates all of their lives.Movie Description It's a case of too many men--one of whom mysteriously winds up dead--for a recovering addict whose vacation with her husband at a secluded resort is interrupted by the appearance of an ex-lover and a hot-pants handyman. Credits Producer: Guy East, Helen Pollak, Jim Wilson, Tristan Whalley Cast: Billy Zane, Craig Sheffer Notes An InterMedia Films presentation. Additional credits: Tristan Whalley (executive producer); Maria M. Machado and Lynne Whiteford (associate producers). Based on the screenplay by Geir Eriksen and Eirik Ildahl. In SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound)., DVD Features: Region 1 Keep CaseNetherlands released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), English ( Dolby Surround ), Dutch ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: A woman finds out how the dead body of your old boyfriend can ruin your whole day in this black comedy. Nathalie (Cameron Diaz) is a lovely young woman with a history of substance abuse problems who is married to George (Harvey Keitel), a circuit court judge who first met her when she was brought before him on a misdemeanor charge (he gave her a break, and they fell in love). Nathalie and George are vacationing at her family's summer cottage in Maine, with Nathalie's longtime friend (and former significant other) Lance (Craig Sheffer) tagging along. One day, while George and Lance are out fishing, Nathalie receives an uninvited and unwelcome visitor, her! former boyfriend Kent (Billy Zane). Nathalie regards Kent as a symbol of the past that she's been trying to put behind her, and while he's eager to resume at least the physical side of their relationship, she wants no part of him. After a heated argument, Kent stumbles off to another part of the cottage, and just as George and Lance are about to return, Nathalie discovers that Kent is in her bedroom, naked and very dead. Correctly assuming that the presence of the nude body of her former lover in her bed would cast a bad reflection on her fidelity, Nathalie quickly tries to hide the corpse, with disastrous results. George discovers Kent's body, but since the judge would prefer not to have this sordid affair become a matter of public record, he hatches a plan of his own to get rid of the stiff, which also fails miserably. ...Head Above Water (1996)Norway released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view! it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: Norwegian ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ),! Norwegi an ( Dolby DTS 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), Norwegian ( Subtitles ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (1.85:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, SYNOPSIS: This Norwegian film offers an often grisly mixture of horror and black comedy. On an island near the Norwegian coast, a young couple, Einar and Lene are vacationing for the summer. One day, after Einar and friend Bjorn go fishing, Lene is visited by her former lover, Gaute. Gaute ends up getting drunk and naked in her home and then falls asleep. He never awakens and Lene is left to dispose of the body. Frightened, she hauls him to a potato cellar. In the process she accidently breaks the corpse's neck. As the story heats up, accusations of murder coupled with further attempts are everywhere as the characters try to determine what happened to Gaute. ...Head Above Water ( Hodet over vannet ) ( Huvudet över vattnet )dvd

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Home Alone 3 (Widescreen Edition)

• Features include: -MPAA Rating: PG -Format: DVD-Runtime: 102 minutes

A band of international crooks has hidden a military computer chip inside a toy car, but an airport mix-up lands it in the hands of whiz-kid Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz) who's home alone with the chicken pox in a quiet Chicago suburb. When the criminals zero in on Alex's house with their high-tech gadgetry, madness and mayhem kick into high gear as the pint-sized hero defends himself against the bumbling bad guys -armed with an outrageous array of ambushes and booby traps!Here's a perfect movie for kids, who never seem to tire of John Hughes's sure-fire slapstick formula. Working yet another variation on his mammoth 1990 hit, writer-producer Hughes (regarded by many as Hollywood's antichrist) strands a youngster in his own home with the chicken pox in this 1997 retelling. While his parents go to work, he sees a team of burgla! rs invading the neighborhood houses; in fact, they're spies, looking for a toy containing a stolen microchip. The inevitability of the finale--one kid holding off four professionals with toys and garden tools--will do nothing to lessen the amusement of youngsters, who love to see the bad guys get creamed. Adults may pause at the sadistic nature of some of Hughes's pranks, but kids will eat up the image of one of their own outwitting all the adults. --Marshall Fine

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Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

• Actors: Kane Hodder, Adrienne Frantz, Michael Berryman, Priscilla Barnes, Shawn Hoffman.
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC.
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0), English (Dolby Digital 5.1 EX). Subtitles: Spanish.
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
• Rated R. Run Time: 90 minutes.

The truth behind the twisted crimes that inspired the films Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs...

From "America's principal chronicler of its greatest psychopathic killers" (The Boston Book Review) comes the definitive account of Ed Gein, a mild-mannered Wisconsin farmhand who stunned an unsuspecting nation -- and redefined the meaning of the word "psycho." The year was 1957. The place was an ordinary farmhouse in America's heartland, filled with extraordinary evidence o! f unthinkable depravity. The man behind the massacre was a slight, unassuming Midwesterner with a strange smile -- and even stranger attachment to his domineering mother. After her death and a failed attempt to dig up his mother's body from the local cemetery, Gein turned to other grave robberies and, ultimately, multiple murders. Driven to commit gruesome and bizarre acts beyond all imagining, Ed Gein remains one of the most deranged minds in the annals of American homicide. This is his story -- recounted in fascinating and chilling detail by Harold Schechter, one of the most acclaimed true-crime storytellers of our time.Harold Schechter is a historian: he takes old files and yellowed newspaper clippings, and brings their stories to life. Deviant is about everyone's favorite ghoul, Ed Gein--whose crimes inspired the writers of Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. Schechter deftly evokes the small-town 1950s Wiscons! in setting--not pretty farms and cheese factories, but infert! ile soil and a bleak, hardscrabble existence. The details of Gein's "death house" are perhaps well known by now, but the murderer's quietly crazy, almost gentle personality comes forth in this book as never before. As Gary Kadet wrote, in The Boston Book Review, "Schechter is a dogged researcher [who backs up] every bizarre detail and curious twist in this and his other books ... More importantly, he nimbly avoids miring his writing and our reading with minutiae or researched overstatement, which means that although he can occasionally be dry, he is never boring."
Also recommended: Schechter's books about Albert Fish (Deranged) and Herman Mudgett a.k.a. Dr. H. H. Holmes (Depraved).The story of the killer Ed Gein is one of the weirdest, most disturbing ever, one that has inspired horror stories as diverse as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. His crimes, which were committed in and around Plainfield, Wisconsin, included exhuming corpses from! local graveyards and making trophies and keepsakes from their skin and bones.

The Murder Files is a series of individual titles, giving condensed accounts of some of the most appalling and notorious killers of all time.The story of the killer Ed Gein is one of the weirdest, most disturbing ever, one that has inspired horror stories as diverse as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. His crimes, which were committed in and around Plainfield, Wisconsin, included exhuming corpses from local graveyards and making trophies and keepsakes from their skin and bones.

The Murder Files is a series of individual titles, giving condensed accounts of some of the most appalling and notorious killers of all time.This is the true story of America’s first famous serial killer. Everyone in small Plainfield, Wisconsin thought Ed was just a little different, a local oddity. But Ed was tormented and haunted by years of family abuse and repression which led him to the bruta! l murders and mutilations of countless victims and corpses. In! a remot e farmhouse filled with the stench of death, Ed is driven to do unspeakable acts to his victims, acts that have become legend and the basis for future films like "Psycho" and the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." This film will shock you with its unflinching horror and unforgettable performances from Steve Railsback and Carrie Snodgrass. No one will ever forget the true story of "Ed Gein."

America may have had its fill of psychos for the last forty years, but none of them has inspired so many books and films (Pyscho, The Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) as Wisconsin's cannibalistic handyman, Ed Gein. None of them has been used as the ultimate ogre in countless children's stories and off-color jokes, and none of them has been found guilty of as many unspeakable atrocities as Ed Gein.

This is his story. This is his legend.

The gruesome murders shocked the world, the grisly remains told a terrifying story of pain, brutality and torture. Now, years! after inspiring PSYCHO's Norman Bates, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS's Buffalo Bill and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE's Leatherface, the story of real-life, serial killer Ed Gein is finally told. Nicknamed "The Butcher of Plainfield," Gein was responsible for a rash of gory murders that sent shock waves through his rural Wisconsin town, and across America, in the late 1950s. Prepare to enter the evil mind and twisted world of "The Butcher of Plainfield" in this dark and disturbing thriller.

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