VHS Products

Andrei Konchalovsky's expansive television mini-series production of Homer's epic poem gets off to clumsy start as he tries to squeeze the Trojan War into a mere half hour, but once the arrogant but honorable Odysseus (strikingly played by Armand Assante) and his loyal crew begin their doomed voyage home, this film turns into a fantastical adventure. Integrating often-stunning special effects with ...

Manufacturer: Hallmark Entertainment
Starring: Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Eric Roberts
Directed By: Andrei Konchalovsky

David Lean focused all his talent as an epic-maker on Boris Pasternak's sweeping novel about a doctor-poet in revolutionary Russia. The results may sometimes veer toward soap opera, especially with the screen frequently filled with adoring close-ups of Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, but Lean's gift for cramming the screen with spectacle is not to be denied. The streets of Moscow, the snowy ...

Manufacturer: MGM
Starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness
Directed By: David Lean

Manufacturer: Embassy/Nelson Ent. - O.B.
Starring: Sarah Miles, Joss Ackland, Greta Scacchi, Charles Dance, Geraldine Chaplin
Directed By: Michael Radford

Andrei Konchalovsky's expansive television mini-series production of Homer's epic poem gets off to clumsy start as he tries to squeeze the Trojan War into a mere half hour, but once the arrogant but honorable Odysseus (strikingly played by Armand Assante) and his loyal crew begin their doomed voyage home, this film turns into a fantastical adventure. Integrating often-stunning special effects with ...

Manufacturer: Hallmark
Starring: Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Eric Roberts
Directed By: Andrei Konchalovsky

Holly Hunter plays a Chicago-based single mom who--on the day before Thanksgiving--loses her job and is informed by her daughter of the latter's intention to surrender her virginity while on a weekend-long affair. If that's not enough, Hunter's character then has to fly to Baltimore to join her fractious family for another difficult Thanksgiving. Robert Downey Jr. is terrifically charming as her ...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey Jr., Charles Durning, Dylan McDermott
Directed By: Jodie Foster

Sir Richard Attenborough's biographical film of the life and times of Charles Chaplin is a little thin as a narrative, but it is so charmingly creative and ultimately moving, it's hard to care about any deficits. Robert Downey Jr. does an excellent job re-creating Chaplin's graceful slapstick and getting inside the silent-film superstar's head over many years of triumph, defeat, scandal, official ...

Manufacturer: Lions Gate/Artisan
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Geraldine Chaplin, Paul Rhys, John Thaw, Moira Kelly
Directed By: Richard Attenborough

This TV movie doesn't venture far from biblical accounts to dramatize the life of the Virgin Mary. It gets off to a promising start by showing Mary to be a resourceful and brave teenager, as she stands up to Roman soldiers who come thundering on horseback into her village. The production then proceeds chronologically, and the major events of Mary's life, and the life of Jesus, are played out in ...

Manufacturer: Hallmark
Starring: Christian Bale, Pernilla August, Melinda Kinnaman, David Threlfall, Simone Bendix
Directed By: Kevin Connor

Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, C. Thomas Howell, Kim Cattrall
Directed By: Richard Lester

Director Richard Lester strikes the perfect balance between slapstick and swashbuckling swordplay in this whimsical adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's grand adventure. Michael York, all innocence and wide-eyed chivalry as young D'Artagnan, makes quite an impression on his first day in Paris: he challenges all three of the legendary Musketeers to a duel, then joins them in arms against the cardinal's ...

Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Starring: Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York, Frank Finlay
Directed By: Richard Lester

Martin Scorsese does not sound like the logical choice to direct an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about manners and morals in New York society in the 1870s. But these are mean streets, too, and the psychological violence inflicted between characters is at least as damaging as the physical violence perpetrated by Scorsese's usual gangsters. At the center of the tale is Newland Archer (Daniel ...

Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Starring: Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, Geraldine Chaplin, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tracey Ellis, Carolyn Farina