VHS Products

Tackling an entire decade--and a turbulent one at that--within a three-hour movie is a challenge, and while The '60s is frequently entertaining, it unfortunately is not completely up to the task. The movie follows the lives of four young people, three from a white suburban family with parents out of The Wonder Years and one African American from the South. The characters are forced ...

Manufacturer: Vidmark / Trimark
Starring: Josh Hamilton, Julia Stiles, Jerry O'Connell, Jeremy Sisto, Jordana Brewster
Directed By: Mark Piznarski

This 1993 film by David Anspaugh (Hoosiers) is slowly building a reputation as a minor highlight of '90s movies. Based on a true story, Rudy stars Sean Astin as Rudy Ruettiger, a blue-collar kid whose father (Ned Beatty) worships Notre Dame football but who would never dare to dream that any of his sons could be a part of the team. The film is entirely about Ruettiger's ceaseless if ...

Manufacturer: Columbia Tristar
Starring: Sean Astin, Jon Favreau, Ned Beatty, Greta Lind, Scott Benjaminson
Directed By: David Anspaugh

Manufacturer: Showtime Ent.
Starring: Charles S. Dutton, Courtney B. Vance, Kadeem Hardison, Lonette McKee, Garland Whitt
Directed By: Ernest R. Dickerson

Manufacturer: Paramount
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, Courtney Chase, Charles S. Dutton, Roma Maffia
Directed By: John Badham

You wouldn't know it by watching the Batman movies they collaborated on, but this smart adaptation of John Grisham's novel proves that director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have some talent when the right project comes along. Schumacher had previously directed Grisham's The Client, and brought equal craft and intelligence to this story about a young Southern ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt
Directed By: Joel Schumacher

Something the Lord Made recounts the relationship between Dr. Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) and Vivian Thomas (Mos Def). It begins in 1930s Nashville when imperious cardiac surgeon Blalock hires Thomas, an African American carpenter, as his janitor. When the latter reveals a passion for medicine and facility with surgical instruments, Blalock promotes him to lab tech. Thomas isn't given a ...

Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Starring: Alan Rickman, Mos Def, Kyra Sedgwick, Gabrielle Union, Merritt Wever
Directed By: Joseph Sargent

The only one of August Wilson's plays to be filmed (and for television, at that), this 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winner is an amazing piece of work. Adapted by Wilson and directed by Lloyd Richards, who staged it on Broadway, the play deals not just with racism and its effects but with the ongoing legacy and curse of slavery on modern blacks. Set in 1920s Pittsburgh, the story deals with the arrival of ...

Manufacturer: Hallmark
Starring: Charles S. Dutton, Alfre Woodard, Carl Gordon, Tommy Hollis, Lou Myers
Directed By: Lloyd Richards

An ex-con daredevil trucker must reinfect himself with white-line fever in order to save his wife and kid from nasty gunrunners in this enjoyably mindless twisted-metal-fest from the director of Passenger 57. Longtime MIA action stud Patrick Swayze (who snagged the part after Kevin Sorbo had to suddenly vacate due to health problems) is even more expressionless than usual in the lead role, ...

Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Patrick Swayze, Randy Travis, Meat Loaf, Gabriel Casseus, Brian Vincent
Directed By: Kevin Hooks

Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
Starring: Michael Bofshever, John Capodice, Gary Cervantes, Devin DeVasquez, Don Diamont

Dedicated fans of Robert Altman will want to check out this drowsy Southern comedy, which is shot through with the director's feel for location and his musical sense of storytelling. Non-Altman fanatics might want to tread more carefully. Cookie's Fortune begins beautifully, as handyman Willis (Charles S. Dutton) staggers home from a blues club in the small town of Holly Springs, ...

Manufacturer: Polygram USA Video
Starring: Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Liv Tyler, Chris O'Donnell, Charles S. Dutton
Directed By: Robert Altman