Sky High (Widescreen Edition)

• A super adventure of heroic proportions, this crowd-pleasing hit from Walt Disney Pictures stars Hollywood favorites Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston! The son of legendary heroes Commander (Russell) and Jetstream (Preston), young Will Stronghold carries huge expectations as he enters a high-tech high school known for molding the heroes of tomorrow. With no apparent superpowers of his own, however, W

A super adventure of heroic proportions, this crowd-pleasing hit from Walt Disney Pictures stars Hollywood favorites Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston! The son of legendary heroes Commander (Russell) and Jetstream (Preston), young Will Stronghold carries huge expectations as he enters a high-tech high school known for molding the heroes of tomorrow. With no apparent superpowers of his own, however, Will seems destined to grow up a mere sidekick. But as he discovers his true strengths, he'll also learn ! that it takes loyalty and teamwork to truly become a hero!The idea of a high school for superheroes will appeal to teens and preteens, who struggle powerlessly with petty authoritarians, bullying peers, and their own rampant hormones, and Sky High spotlights young Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano, Lords of Dogtown), the son of top-of-the-heap superheroic couple the Commander (Kurt Russell, Tango & Cash) and Josie Jetstream (Kelly Preston, View from the Top). Unfortunately, though he's about to be dropped into the midst of kids who can stretch, turn to living stone, or shoot fire, Will has yet to develop any powers at all--and may never develop them. His development anxieties (and some entertaining metaphors for high school social hierarchies) contrast with a bubbling plot by an old foe of the Commander's to destroy Sky High and all of superhero-dom. Sky High has a great supporting cast (including Bruce Campbell, Army of Darkness; D! ave Foley, NewsRadio; Lynda Carter, Wonder Woman! ; and Cl oris Leachman, Young Frankenstein) and a handful of funny, offhand bits, but the bulk of the movie is bland and obvious. Younger kids may not mind the clumsy action scenes, generic dialogue, and tacky production design, but even comic-book-loving teenagers will label Sky High bargain-basement. --Bret Fetzer

Fortunes of War

• The Baltics, 1939. British professor Guy Pringle (Kenneth Branagh) arrives in Romania with his new bride, Harriet (Emma Thompson) and becomes enmeshed in the politics of anti-fascism. Despite Harriet's serious misgivings, Guy's social circle soon includes members of the British Secret Service who want to involve him in dangerous missions, and a downtrodden prince who zeroes in on Guy's generous na

This book contains hundreds of solutions to all your housekeeping needs! Banish those stains and transform your home into a palace of sparkling surfaces, clutter-free cupboards and carpets to be proud of. From ovens to fridges to bathrooms, red wine rings, and foul smelling microwaves - Aggie has all the answers to any cleaning question you can think of. From top to bottom, inside and outside, you'll find oodles of nifty ideas to take the drudgery out of cleaning. Erase each and every one of your do! mestic nightmares - after all, nobody knows housekeeping quite like Aggie!Solo album debut for Baby Spice. 12 tracks including the #1 hit single 'What Took You So Long' & covers of Edie Brickell's 'What I Am' & a re-working of Zoe's 'Sunshine on a Rainy Day'. Think classic pre-'Soul Kiss' Olivia Newton-John. Standard jewel case. 2001 release.The Baltics, 1939. British professor Guy Pringle (Kenneth Branagh) arrives in Romania with his new bride, Harriet (Emma Thompson) and becomes enmeshed in the politics of anti-fascism. Despite Harriet's serious misgivings, Guy's social circle soon includes members of the British Secret Service who want to involve him in dangerous missions, and a downtrodden prince who zeroes in on Guy's generous nature and winds up living with the Pringles. Thus the stage is set for this mesmerizing story of marriage tested by accidental betrayal, callous insensitivity, and a world in upheaval. Based upon the autobiographical novels of best-selling aut! hor Olivia Manning, and set in places as far-flung as Buchares! t, Athen s and Cairo, Fortunes of War is majestic in both its scope and its vision."Wherever we are, that will always be the center of things." So professor Guy Pringle reassures his new wife, Harriet. Unfortunately, where they are is Bucharest in 1939, with the Nazis gathering on the border, and fascism casting longer, darker shadows. Thus begins this epic 1987 miniseries based on Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant trilogies that was originally broadcast in the United States on Masterpiece Theatre. For most Americans, it was an auspicious first look at England's glamorous former First Thespian couple, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, who, as one character notes of Harriet, "lightens the darkness." Fortunes of War suggests what Casablanca might have been like had it followed Victor and Ilsa instead of Rick, who famously didn't want to stick his neck out for anybody. Not Guy. "I want to do something more dramatic than lecturing," he proclai! ms. "It is our duty to shine a little light to hope someone notices." His activities are enough to put him on a Nazi death list, forcing Guy and Harriet to Greece and Egypt. "It isn't a lark," Guy tells Harriet early on, "but it is an adventure." Fortunes of War is populated by colorful characters, most notably the pitiable and decidedly untrustworthy Prince Yakimov (Ronald Pickup), and the dashing young soldier Simon Boulderstone (Rupert Graves of The Forsythe Saga and A Room with a View). There is plenty of intrigue, betrayals, domestic melodrama, and emotional separations and reunions to propel this nearly seven-hour production to its powerful conclusion. Readers of Manning's books and Branagh and Thompson fans will find the release of War good fortune indeed. --Donald Liebenson

Friday the 13th (Extended Killer Cut)

• A man in search of his missing sister stumbles across a deadly secret in the woods surrounding Crystal Lake as Texas Chainsaw Massacre redux duo Michael Bay and Marcus Nispel resurrect one of the silver screen's most feared slashers -- machete-wielding, hockey mask-wearing madman Jason Voorhees. The last time Clay heard from his sister, she was headed toward Crystal Lake. There, amidst the creaky

Art of Fighting star Jae Hee makes a welcome return to the big screen in the 2008 supernatural action thriller Mandate. His last film before heading to the military, Jae Hee plays a sword-wielding ghost hunter chasing after a manipulative serial murderer. Helmed by Park Hee Joon, who previously directed the genre-bending Pan-Asian actioner Dream of a Warrior, Mandate keeps viewers on the edge of the seat with exciting action, ghostly scares, and a mind-twisting case. The film co-stars Yoo Da In (Cind! erella) and Shim Won Cheol (Underground Rendezvous). There has been a serial murderer and rapist on the loose in Whagoklee over the past decade. With the police unable to make heads or ends of the case, most of the town's residents have moved away over the years, leaving Whagoklee in disarray. After two years of relative peace, death and terror strike the town again when two college girls are raped and killed. The police are again at a lost, but this time a mysterious ghost hunter (Jae Hee) rolls into town claiming that the murderer is actually an evil spirit.Finding your roots in the hood ain't easy. An accidental switch at an adoption agency sends a Chinese baby to an African-American family. Julian is accepted into the family and his tight-knit Atlanta neighborhood, but the search for a better life takes the family to South Central L.A., where his new neighbors think Julian is pretending to be black. For the first time in his life, Julian faces an identity crisis. "Fakin' da Funk" pokes fun at stereotypes and proves that wh! at's in your heart is what's important.FRIDAY THE 13TH:KILLER CUT - DVD MovieIf you thought a bigger budget and an A-list producer (Michael Bay) would go to Jason's head, well, forget it. The indestructible villain of so many bottom-of-the-barrel shockers isn't about to change his shtick, and the 2009 Friday the 13th proves it. This, the umpteenth sequel (nope, it's not a remake of the origin story) to the original 1980 movie, gives us a clever prologue that manages to fit an entire Jason Voorhees killing spree in a brisk and bloody 20 minutes. Jumping ahead six weeks, the film introduces a carload of clueless teens headed for a weekend at a lakeside cabin, plus a lone motorcyclist (Jared Padalecki) in search of his missing sister (Amanda Righetti). When the "lakeside" happens to refer to Crystal Lake, of course, there can be only one outcome. Cue the hockey mask, and pass the machete. Bay and director Marcus Nispel, who collaborated on the Texas Chainsaw Massa! cre remake, are surprisingly indifferent to changing up t! he formu la this time, although there's more care taken in building up a few characters, and for once the comic relief (mostly supplied by Aaron Yoo and Arlen Escarpeta) is pretty funny. You might even regret the slaughter of a couple of these young folk, which is an unusual feeling in Friday-watching. The film's Jason is quite the athletic fellow, and he's assembled an elaborate underground corpse-hiding lair in the vicinity of Crystal Lake. How he's been able to live down there for 30 years (if the film's own timeline is to be believed) and had enough unwitting campers pass by to keep himself entertained is anybody's guess. But if they keep coming, he'll keep slashing. --Robert Horton

Also on the disc
The extended Killer Cut is 106 minutes compared to 97 for the theatrical cut, and it's hard to imagine choosing to watch the theatrical cut if you have a choice. In addition to some more of Amanda Righetti and of Jason, the extra nine minutes is mostly m! ore gore in the gory scenes and more sex in the sexy scenes. If you're squeamish you might not want those things, but if you're that squeamish you probably don't want to watch Friday the 13th in the first place, right? The longer cut will give you more of the stuff that you probably watch this movie for. There's also an 11-minute featurette on the new movie and three deleted scenes (a different version of Jason getting his mask, the police response to the phone call, and a revised climax). --David Horiuchi