DVDpedia : Library : Title : J

Theatrical: 2002

Studio: Paramount / MTV

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 88

Summary: Some critics see the success of "Jackass: The Movie" as the last nail in the coffin of civilization, and they're probably right. This compilation of pain-inflicting stunts and embarrassing pranks has no artistic merit whatsoever--which doesn't keep it from being freakishly entertaining. Among other things, Johnny Knoxville and his posse get beaten up by a female kick-boxing champion; shoot bottle rockets out of their rectums; run amok in Japan wearing giant panda bear costumes; swim with whale sharks while holding pounds of brine shrimp in their swimsuits; and get done up in realistic old-age makeup so that they can race each other in motorized wheelchairs, among other goofs. It's a weird mixture of machismo and masochism, adolescent recklessness and frat boy homoeroticism, and someday someone will write a doctoral thesis about how "Jackass" relates to our safety-obsessed society. In the meantime, just enjoy. "--Bret Fetzer"

Theatrical: 1997

Studio: Miramax Entertainment

Genre: Action & Adventure

Duration: 154

Summary: Quentin Tarantino presents the premiere of the JACKIE BROWN COLLECTOR'S SERIES DVD, complete with your favorite award-winning movie, all-star cast, and never-before-seen footage. What do a sexy stewardess (Pam Grier), a street-tough gun runner (Samuel L. Jackson), a lonely bail bondsman (Academy Award®-nominee Robert Forster), a shifty ex-con (Robert DeNiro), an earnest federal agent (Michael Keaton), and a stoned-out beach bunny (Bridget Fonda) have in common? They're six players on the trail of a half million dollars in cash! The only questions are ... who's getting played ... and who's gonna make the big score! Combining an explosive mix of intense action and edgy humor, Tarantino scores again with the entertaining JACKIE BROWN!

Theatrical: 2006

Studio:

Genre: Adventure

Duration: 135

Summary: In the aftermath of a major earthquake under Suraga Bay, Misaki (a young girl) and Toshiro (a pilot of a deep sea submarine) are rescued from a ruined city street just as leaking gasoline ignites. Reiko Abe arrives just in time, lowered from a helicopter. Scientists predict that Japan will sink within 40 years, due to subduction of a tectonic plate to the west. However, Dr. Tadokoro, who leads an oceanic scientific team that includes Toshiro, calculates that this will happen far sooner, in only 338.54 days. He presents his findings to Prime Minister Yamamoto who decides to create a new department for impending disaster relief assigning Saoro Takamori to cover the new duties, since of all his ministers she will take it seriously but also bring "heart" to the process. As further earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions devastate Japan, the government pleads with other countries to take refugees. Yamamoto flies to China to negotiate relocations there, but his plane is destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Saoro fills the resulting vacuum in leadership and decides that Dr. Tadokoro's plan to blow holes in the disintegrating tectonic tectonic plate is the best remaining hope to not only save the people, but what remains of the country itself. Ironically it was her career that hastened their divorce 20 years earlier. Misaki becomes orphaned following her mother's death from earthquake injuries, and bonds with Reiko who was similarly rescued from, but orphaned by the Kobe quake. Toshiro is offered a job in England and wants Reiko and Misaki to come with him, but Reiko feels bound to help others and refuses to leave. Fellow submarine pilot Shinji Yuki also turns down Toshiro's offer to work with him in England. Drillships place massive explosives deep in the crust, but the detonator is not placed properly and Yuki dies attempting to place it by submarine.

Theatrical: 1999

Studio: Sony Pictures

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 87

Summary: Rose McGowan vamps it up mercilessly as the "Satan in heels," a teenage-bitch queen whose birthday prank gone terminally wrong leaves her best friend dead, choked to death on a jawbreaker the size of a fist. Rebecca Gayheart, with her sparkling eyes and a smile that could melt an iceberg, is the good girl at heart who becomes a social pariah when she drops out of the group, trading her plunging necklines for librarian-lite sweaters and long skirts. "Jawbreaker" wants nothing less than to be the "Heathers" of its generation, but only intermittently hits the mark, such as when McGowan turns a mousy nobody into the next big thing, a slutty tease whose craving for attention soon challenges McGowan's supremacy. "She's evil," someone finally realizes, "and she's only in high school!" That's unfortunately the best Darren Stein's film gets. For all its catty talk and surface glamour, it's a flat, broadly directed satire that never lives up to its evocative title. Features an appearance by teen rock punks the Donnas as the prom band. "--Sean Axmaker"

Theatrical: 1975

Studio: Universal Studios

Genre: Action & Adventure

Duration: 124

Summary: In the vastly overrated 1998 book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls", author Peter Biskind puts the blame for Hollywood's blockbuster mentality at least partially on Steven Spielberg's box-office success with this adaptation of Peter Benchley's bestselling novel. But you can't blame Spielberg for making a terrific movie, which "Jaws" definitely is. The story of a Long Island town whose summer tourist business is suddenly threatened by great-white-shark attacks on humans bypasses the potboiler trappings of Benchley's book and goes straight for the jugular with beautifully crafted, crowd-pleasing sequences of action and suspense supported by a trio of terrific performances by Roy Scheider (as the local sheriff), Richard Dreyfuss (as a shark specialist), and particularly Robert Shaw (as the old fisherman who offers to hunt the shark down). The sequences on Shaw's boat--as the three of them realize that in fact the shark is hunting "them"--are what entertaining moviemaking is all about. "--Marshall Fine"

Theatrical: 2001

Studio: Dimension

Genre: Adventure

Duration: 104

Summary: Experience Kevin Smith's wildly irreverent comedy in a whole new way on high-definition Blu-ray disc. Packed with stars, including Ben Affleck, Chris Rock, Jason Lee, and more, the hilarious conclusion of Jay and Silent Bob's story is big entertainment that looks and sounds even better in Blu-ray's revolutionary new format. When best buddies Jay and Silent Bob discover that a major motion picture is being based on their likenesses, the dopey duo head for Hollywood to claim the movie money they deserve. Watch all the hysterical action in stunning 1080p, and enjoy the film's hot soundtrack in 5.1 48 kHz, 16-bit uncompressed audio. See, hear, and feel the excitement with Blu-ray high definition.

Theatrical: 1979

Studio: Universal Studios

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 94

Summary: That wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin, makes his film-starring debut in the wacky comedy hit The Jerk. Steve portrays Navin Johnson, adopted son of a poor black sharecropper family, whose crazy inventions lead him from rags to riches and right back to rags. Along the way, he s smitten with a lady motorcycle racer, survives a series of screwball attacks by a deranged killer, becomes a millionaire by inventing the Opti-grab handle for glasses and shows why he s one of the hottest comic performers in the world.

System Requirements:
Starring: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Jackie Mason
Directed By: Carl Reiner
Running Time: 94 Min.

Format: DVD MOVIE

Theatrical: 1996

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 139

Summary: One of the best romantic comedies of the 1990s, this box-office hit cemented writer-director Cameron Crowe's reputation as "the voice of a generation." Crowe could probably do without that label, but he's definitely in sync with the times with this savvy story about a sports agent (Tom Cruise) whose fall from grace motivates his quest for professional recovery, and the slow-dawning realization that he needs the love and respect of the single mom (Renée Zellweger in her breakthrough role) who has supported him through the worst of times. This is one of Cruise's best, most underrated performances, and in an Oscar-winning role, Cuba Gooding Jr. plays the football star who remains Jerry Maguire's only loyal client on a hard road to redemption and personal growth. If that sounds touchy-feely, it is only because Crowe has combined sharp entertainment with a depth of character that is rarely found in mainstream comedy. "--Jeff Shannon"

Theatrical: 1998

Studio: Hbo Home Video

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 75

Summary: When "Seinfeld" wrapped up its ninth and final season in the spring of 1998, the popular show's namesake and cocreator decided to offer a symbolic gesture to his fans. Taped for HBO in August 1998, on the final date of Jerry Seinfeld's tour appearances at New York City's Broadhurst Theater, "I'm Telling You for the Last Time" presents the standup comedian's so-called "final" standup, or at least his final tour with the standup material that made him famous. The video opens with a great prologue in which Seinfeld's old material is literally laid to rest, with many of Seinfeld's comedy colleagues in attendance at the "funeral." (Jay Leno is there, but David Letterman is conspicuously absent, and while it's a bit self-congratulatory to show Seinfeld's fellow comedians fighting like vultures over his abandoned jokes, it's worth it just to see Garry Shandling pilfering from the catering table like a homeless intruder.)
Whether he's talking about airline flights, cab drivers, or memories of Halloween and an ill-fitting Superman costume, Seinfeld's observational humor is as timeless and sharp as the day he first performed it. Even the most familiar routines (such as the one about pharmacists with a superiority complex) are like old friends who still haven't overstayed their welcome. Seinfeld's delivery is polished to a shine--he's a consummate professional--and an impromptu Q&A with his appreciative audience demonstrates that he's equally adept with a fast and witty comeback. This performance certainly wouldn't be the last we'd see of Jerry Seinfeld, but from the perspective of phenomenal fame and fortune, it's a fitting farewell to the classic "bits" that took him to the top. "--Jeff Shannon"

Theatrical: 2004

Studio: Miramax

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 102

Summary: "Jersey Girl" stars Ben Affleck as a workaholic music executive who loses his wife (Jennifer Lopez) in childbirth and has to raise his newborn daughter with the help of his crotchety New Jersey dad (George Carlin). The movie unspools as if writer-director Kevin Smith, normally a highly self-aware filmmaker ("Clerks", "Chasing Amy", "Dogma"), set out to put a fresh spin on every cliché he could imagine (parent forced to choose between child and career; parent rushing to attend school performance; etc.)--then forgot to put in the spin. The scenes that aren't lifeless are implausible (Liv Tyler plays the fantasy girl of every awkward boy's dreams). The only real feeling comes from the strong soundtrack. However, Raquel Castro, as the daughter, is an uncanny double for Lopez; when the light plays across Castro's cheekbones just so, you'd swear the casting director simply shrunk Lopez for convenience. "--Bret Fetzer"

Theatrical: 1991

Studio: Warner Home Video

Genre: Drama

Duration: 206

Summary: A film that chronicles New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison's investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It explores all the credible assassination theories that have raised the nation's persistent questions, doubts and suspicions.

Theatrical: 2003

Studio: Lions Gate

Genre: Art House & International

Duration: 92

Summary: Following in the footsteps of "The Ring" cycle, the "Ju-On" series of horror films has taken Japan by the throat. According to this movie, the title refers to a curse placed upon a house where violence occurred. Sure enough, we see a string of unhappy encounters in a seemingly ordinary home, where ghosts have settled in the aftermath of murder. Director Takashi Shimizu (who also directed the Hollywood remake, "The Grudge") constructs the picture out of separate fragments, not told in chronological order; the haunted house is the main character, not any one of the unsuspecting human characters. Cult mavens might suggest that Shimizu uses devices and images that have already worked well in films by Hideo Nakata and Kiyoshi Kurosawa--the Japanese horror film does have its conventions. But none of that matters if you're watching this movie alone at home on a dark night. Click, click, click.... "--Robert Horton"

Theatrical: 1967

Studio: Walt Disney Video

Genre: Kids & Family

Duration: 78

Summary: A classic 1967 Disney animated film that's loosely based on Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name, "Jungle Book" tells the story of a young boy Mowgli who was raised by animals in the jungle. When tiger Shere Khan threatens to return to their part of the jungle, the other animals decide that Mowgli must return to the man village in order to ensure his safety. Panther Bagheera has difficulty convincing Mowgli to follow him to the man village and recruits the help of a big lovable bear Baloo. Mowgli's journey is one of wit, song, and many surprises. A timeless film populated by strong characters bursting with personality, great music like "Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You," and inspiring animation by Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and other master animators, "Jungle Book" captivates audiences of all ages.
This Platinum Edition includes everything from the standard bonus features like interactive games, music videos, and deleted songs to exciting and sometimes rare commentaries by everyone from modern day animators to Walt Disney himself, multiple featurettes about specific aspects of the film and its production, and a lengthy deleted scene featuring lost character Rocky the Rhino. Especially interesting for adults and Disney fans are "The Bare Necessities: The making of "The Jungle Book"" featurette, which explores Walt Disney's commitment to developing strong characters and his insistence that writers, animators, and song writers create a light version of Jungle Book that followed his own personal interpretation of the story, and the "The Lure of "The Jungle Book"" featurette, which discusses Frank Thomas' and Ollie Johnston's amazing contribution to the film as prolific animators and the inspiration and influence that their work provided for future animators including Brad Bird ("The Incredibles"), Andreas Deja ("Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King"), Sergio Pablos ("Tarzan"), Will Finn ("Home on the Range"), and Eric Goldberg ("Fantasia 2000"). The full length commentary by Bruce Reitherman (voice of Mowgli), animator Andreas Deja, and composer Richard Sherman with its interspersed archival commentary of Disney greats from the original creative team (Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Woolie Reitherman, and others) is also very interesting and insightful. "--Tami Horiuchi"

Theatrical: 1989

Studio: Universal Studios

Genre: Action & Adventure

Duration: 627

Summary: Clockers
Based on the riveting bestseller by Richard Price, this 1995 crime drama was directed by Spike Lee with such authority and authenticity that it has the hyper-real quality of a stylized documentary. Fully capturing the thoroughly researched detail of Price's novel, the film focuses on Strike (newcomer Mekhi Phifer), a young, ambitious "clocker"--or drug dealer--who works the streets of his New York housing project, selling drugs for a local supplier named Rodney (played with ferocious charisma by Delroy Lindo). Just as Strike is struggling to get away from his dead-end life of crime, another dealer is murdered in a fast-food restaurant and local detectives (Harvey Keitel, John Turturro) consider Strike the primary suspect. In cowriting the script with novelist Price, Lee uses this murder mystery to explore the plague of guns and black-on-black crime in America's inner cities, in which drugs and death are familiar routines of daily life. The film doesn't pretend to offer solutions, nor does it dwell on the problem with numbing insistence. Rather, this taut, well-acted film takes the viewer into a world often hidden in plain sight--a world where options seem nonexistent for youth conditioned to have little or no expectation beyond a probable early death. Lee and Price are deadly serious in handling this volatile subject (which incorporates racism, powerless law enforcement, and political indifference), but "Clockers" is also blessed with humor, insight, and humanity. It's one of Lee's most confidently directed films, signaling a creative maturity that Lee continued to develop throughout the 1990s. "--Jeff Shannon"
Jungle Fever
Spike Lee's 1991 story about an interracial relationship and its consequences on the lives and communities of the lovers (Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra) is one of his most captivating and focused films. Snipes and Sciorra are very good as individuals trying to reach beyond the limits imposed upon them for reasons of race, tradition, sexism, and such. Lee makes an interesting and subtle case that they are driven to one another out of frustration with social obstacles as well as pure attraction--but is that enough for love to survive? John Turturro is featured in a subplot as an Italian American who grows attracted to a black woman and takes heat from his numbskull buddies. "--Tom Keogh"
Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee's incendiary look at race relations in America, circa 1989, is so colorful and exuberant for its first three-quarters that you can almost forget the terrible confrontation that the movie inexorably builds toward. "Do the Right Thing" is a joyful, tumultuous masterpiece--maybe the best film ever made about race in America, revealing racial prejudices and stereotypes in all their guises and demonstrating how a deadly riot can erupt out of a series of small misunderstandings. Set on one block in Bedford-Stuyvesant on the hottest day of the summer, the movie shows the whole spectrum of life in this neighborhood and then leaves it up to us to decide if, in the end, anybody actually does the "right thing." Featuring Danny Aiello as Sal, the pizza parlor owner; Lee himself as Mookie, the lazy pizza-delivery guy; John Turturro and Richard Edson as Sal's sons; Lee's sister Joie as Mookie's sister Jade; Rosie Perez as Mookie's girlfriend Tina; Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as the block elders, Da Mayor and Mother Sister; Giancarlo Esposito as Mookie's hot-headed friend Buggin' Out; Bill Nunn as the boom-box toting Radio Raheem; and Samuel L. Jackson as deejay Mister Señor Love Daddy. A rich and nuanced film to watch, treasure, and learn from--over and over again. "--Jim Emerson "
Mo' Better Blues
With "Mo' Better Blues", the story of a young trumpeter's rise to jazz-world stardom, Spike Lee set out to counter Clint Eastwood's cliché-ridden biopic of Charlie Parker in Bird. But the final product, a slick, glossy drama (with hip-hop jazz provided by Gangstarr no less), is just as superficial as the numerous Alger-esque stories of music stardom to which movie audiences are accustomed.
Denzel Washington gives a typically charismatic performance as the trumpeter in question, as does Wesley Snipes as his sax-playing rival. And as with most Spike Lee films, there are numerous solid performers in small roles such as Bill Nunn, Latin-music star Rubén Blades, and comedian Robin Harris. One character, however, attracted unwanted attention: John Turturro's role as an unscrupulous music-industry exec. Critics called the Turturro character, who is at once money hungry, swarthy, and perpetually shrouded in darkness, a classic anti-Semitic caricature. But the charge seems almost irrelevant in Spike Lee's cartoonish, overstylized world of impossibly hunky jazzmen, curvaceous hangers-on, and incessant bebop. "--Ethan Brown "
Crooklyn
Spike Lee's semiautobiographical, 1994 film about the good and bad times for a Brooklyn family in the '70s has passion and nostalgic good feeling, but it is also a mess of random reflections and arbitrary storytelling. The centerpiece of the movie is a little girl (Zelda Harris) who views the ups and downs of her parents' experiences (mom and dad are played by Delroy Lindo and Alfre Woodard), and who navigates the life of her neighborhood. Lee tosses in a lot of '70s detail (watching "The Partridge Family") and other diversions (Harris's journey through suburbia), but he has no master sensibility controlling the flow of it all. The film is more wearying than anything, although bright spots include Lindo's fine performance as a talented man suffering from irrelevance. "--Tom Keogh"

Theatrical: 2001

Studio: Universal Studios

Genre: Action & Adventure

Duration: 349

Summary: Jurassic Park
Steven Spielberg's 1993 mega-hit rivals "Jaws" as the most intense and frightening film he'd ever made prior to "Schindler's List", but it was also among his weakest stories. Based on Michael Crichton's novel about an island amusement park populated by cloned dinosaurs, the film works best as a thrill ride with none of the interesting human dynamics of Spielberg's "Jaws". That lapse proves unfortunate, but there's no shortage of raw terror as a rampaging T-rex and nasty raptors try to make fast food out of the cast. The effects are still astonishing (despite the fact that the computer-generated technology has since been improved upon) and at times primeval, such as the sight of a herd of whatever-they-are scampering through a valley. "--Tom Keogh"
The Lost World - Jurassic Park
In the low tradition of knockoff horror flicks best seen (or not seen) on a drive-in movie screen, Steven Spielberg's sequel to "Jurassic Park" is a poorly conceived, ill-organized film that lacks story and logic. Screenwriter David Koepp strings along a number of loose ideas while Jeff Goldblum returns as Ian Malcolm, the quirky chaos theoretician who now reluctantly agrees to go to another island where cloned dinosaurs are roaming freely. Along with his girlfriend (Julianne Moore) and daughter, Malcolm has to deal with hunters, environmentalists, and corporate swine who stupidly bring back a big dino to Southern California, where it runs amok, of course. Spielberg doesn't seem to care that the pieces of this project don't add up to a real movie, so he hams it up with big, scary moments (with none of the artfulness of those in "Jurassic Park") and smart-aleck visual gags (a yapping dog in a suburb mysteriously disappears when a hungry T-rex stomps by). A complete bust."--Tom Keogh"
Jurassic Park III
Surpassing expectations to qualify as an above-average sequel, "Jurassic Park III" is nothing more or less than a satisfying popcorn adventure. A little cheesier than the first two "Jurassic" blockbusters, it's a big B movie with big B-list stars (including Laura Dern, briefly reprising her "Jurassic Park" role), and eight years of advancing computer-generated-image technology give it a sharp edge over its predecessors. While adopting the jungle spirit of "King Kong", the movie refines Michael Crichton's original premise, and its dinosaurs are even more realistic, their behavior more detailed, and their variety--including flying pteranodons and a new villain, the spinosaurus--more dazzling and threatening than ever. These advancements justify the sequel, and its contrived plot is just clever enough to span 90 minutes without wearing out its welcome.
Posing as wealthy tourists, an adventurous couple (William H. Macy, Téa Leoni) convince paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and his protégé (Allesandro Nivola) to act as tour guides on a flyover trip to Isla Sorna, the ill-fated "Site B" where all hell broke loose in "The Lost World: Jurassic Park". In truth, they're on a search-and-rescue mission to find their missing son (Trevor Morgan), and their plane crash is just the first of several enjoyably suspenseful sequences. Director Joe Johnston ("October Sky") embraces the formulaic plot as a series of atmospheric set pieces, placing new and familiar dinosaurs in misty rainforests, fiery lakes, and mysterious valleys, turning "JP3" into a thrill ride with impressive highlights (including a T. rex versus spinosaurus smack-down), adequate doses of wry humor (from the cowriters of "Election"), and an upbeat ending that's corny but appropriate, proving that the symptoms of sequelitis needn't be fatal. "--Jeff Shannon "