Video (DVD & VHS) Products

Among the many films and TV shows that add a new twist to Charles Dickens's classic tale, Blackadder's Christmas Carol is the most ingenious. It was made between Blackadder the Third (1987) and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), and its inspired concept is to recast the self-serving Edmund Blackadder (Rowen Atkinson) not as Dickens's misanthropic miser but as the most kindhearted ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie
Directed By: Richard Boden

In this enchanting film adaptation of J.K. Rowling's delightful bestseller, Harry Potter learns on his 11th birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and posseses magical powers of his own. At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. He learns the high-flying sport Quidditch and plays a thrilling game with living chess pieces on ...

Manufacturer: Warner Bros. Pictures
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane
Directed By: Chris Columbus

In his 19th screen outing, Ian Fleming's superspy is once again caught in the crosshairs of a self-created dilemma: as the longest-running feature-film franchise, James Bond is an annuity his producers want to protect, yet the series' consciously formulaic approach frustrates any real element of surprise beyond the rote application of plot twists or jump cuts to shake up the audience. This time ...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, Robbie Coltrane Pierce Brosnan
Directed By: Michael Apted

If, as they say, you're in a certain mood, Message in a Bottle can be just the ticket. Based on Nicholas Sparks's bestselling novel, this handsome but overly calculated romance tale stars Robin Wright Penn as Theresa, a Chicago Tribune researcher who finds a note encased in a green bottle that has floated onto a Cape Cod shore. The message within is a heartfelt, yearning ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn, Paul Newman, John Savage, Illeana Douglas
Directed By: Luis Mandoki

Manufacturer: Goldhil Home Media
Starring: Jeremy Irons, Robbie Coltrane, Samuel Irons, Cyril Cusack, Michael Hordern
Directed By: Gavin Millar

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Robert Lindsay, Robbie Coltrane, Cathryn Bradshaw, Jackie Gayle, Bruno Kirby
Directed By: Carl Reiner

Huckleberry Finn's age has been scaled down in this 1993 Disney film in order to accommodate star Elijah Wood's young years at the time. But that's not the only concession Mark Twain's great American novel must make to Disney revisionism. Wood's Huck, as adapted for the screen by writer-director Stephen Sommers, is all rascal and only nominally a philosopher, which takes a lot of the soul out of ...

Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
Starring: Elijah Wood, Courtney B. Vance, Robbie Coltrane, Jason Robards, Ron Perlman
Directed By: Stephen Sommers

Among the many films and TV shows that add a new twist to Charles Dickens's classic tale, Blackadder's Christmas Carol is the most ingenious. It was made between Blackadder the Third (1987) and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), and its inspired concept is to recast the self-serving Edmund Blackadder (Rowen Atkinson) not as Dickens's misanthropic miser but as the most kindhearted ...

Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie
Directed By: Richard Boden

This is an impressive-looking version of Lewis Carroll's story originally produced for NBC-TV. Dreading a singing recital at her parents' lavish home, Alice falls into a strange world in pursuit of a large White Rabbit. The talented child actor Tina Majorino (Corrina, Corrina) plays Alice with all the good graces but mostly wanders through the story unquestioningly. Carroll's tale of ...

Manufacturer: Hallmark
Starring: Tina Majorino, Whoopi Goldberg, Robbie Coltrane, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lloyd
Directed By: Nick Willing

You'll finding yourself rooting for this movie to take off in a sustained flight of comic inspiration, but it seldom does. It's too bad that it doesn't, given the casting, because both leads (Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane) are capable of extreme funniness. Idle and Coltrane play a couple of low-level crooks who decide to get a piece of the action for themselves and abscond with the loot from a big ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Eric Idle, Robbie Coltrane, Camille Coduri, Janet Suzman, Doris Hare
Directed By: Jonathan Lynn