American Psycho | Beyond the Sea | Hostage | Bewitched: Season I
Cursed | Rockers: 25th Anniversary Edition

	American Psycho: Uncut Killer Collector's Edition US/Canada Gross - $15 million Christian Bale, a.k.a. Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, made a bit of a splash a half-dozen years ago when he was chosen for the lead in Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' much reviled novel, American Psycho. His physical attributes, especially, are on full display in American Psycho: Uncut Killer Collector's Edition. Bale does a great job portraying Patrick Bateman, a studly yuppie whose greed and avarice were symptomatic of the Me Generation, which had just ended when Ellis' book was published. Early on, American Psycho is hilarious is its glorification of such yuppie obsessions as designer clothes, cocaine, male cosmetics, engraved business and platinum credit cards, and expensive home-entertainment appliances. Ultimately, though, the film's literary pretensions failed to gibe with the decidedly low-brow conceits of the slasher genre, and this cinematic schizophrenia alienated fans in both camps. Actually, though, Psycho works best as an extremely bloody vampire movie. As Bateman himself suggests," I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip." Count Dracula wore Armani, who knew? The bonus materials chart the film's slow journey from the page to the screen, and help put everything into period context. In fact, much of it is far more interesting than anything that transpires over the course of the film's final half-hour (and most of the book). -- Gary Dretzka There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continuous to allude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.
	Hostage US/Canada Gross - $34.6 million Hostage represents the first of veteran crime novelist Robert Crais' novels to be turned into a movie, and it's easy to see what appealed to producer-star Bruce Willis and Miramax. In it, Willis plays former LAPD hostage negotiator Jeff Talley, who moves to a small town after failing to talk a lunatic out of killing a mother and her son. Trouble awaits, in the form of a pair of standoffs taking place simultaneously in two separate parts of town. The first incident is your basic garden-variety home invasion, which goes hinky when the security system in the hilltop mansion is tripped. Coincidentally, the lord of the manor is a mob accountant, whose sudden vulnerability could accidentally tip over a can of worms that another group of gunmen would rather not see opened. To prevent such a thing from occurring, the second group of gunmen grab Talley's wife and daughter to use as leverage. To save them, Talley may have to sacrifice the son and daughter of the accountant. But, of course, Talley isn't likely to let any such thing happen. Hostage is right in Willis' wheelhouse, even if the script is far-fetched, emotionally overwrought and, finally, preposterously violent. The critics really, really hated this picture, which was shaped by the video-game sensibilities of French director Florent Emilio Siri. Hostage is too long, too loud and the crooks are too one-dimensionally maniacal. But, DVD renters tend to be far more forgiving of such faults, and true believers in Willis' tarnished-knight persona, even more so. There are some extras, but, I mean, what's the point? -- Gary Dretzka
	Beyond the Sea US/Canada Gross - $6.14 million Far be it for me to find anything praise-worthy in the Bobby Darin biopic, Beyond the Sea. It deserved most of the criticism heaped on it by critics -- those whose vitriol wasn't of the piling-on variety, anyway -- and, yes, Kevin Spacey was his own worst choice to play the singer. I hereby confess that I enjoyed the music, dancing, orchestrations and dancing featured in the movie, and it's possible that older viewers will, too. Fans and detractors of Beyond the Sea, alike, will enjoy two new Darrin CDs, Live! At the Desert Inn and Live at the Flamingo, released in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of Las Vegas' incorporation as a city. Lions Gate has also re-released the terrific satire of Hollywood deal-making, Swimming With Sharks, in a special 10th anniversary edition. In it, Spacey plays an unctuous studio executive, who makes life a living hell for everyone he considers to be inferior to him … everyone, except his bosses., whose jobs he merely covets with murderous passion. -- Gary Dretzka The Hot Button: The ultimate vanity project, some critics react to the film as though Kevin Spacey was their 3-year-old making a really good poop in the toilet for the first time. Yes, Kevin Spacey can sing. But forget about young Bobby Darin. Dead Bobby Darin was eight years younger than Spacey is. Spacey could surely have aged Sandra Dee a little to make the movie experience a little more palatable. After all, as he keeps reminding us, it's just a movie. Well, almost. The Worst 10 Of 2004: I have always been willing to admit to a classic screenwriter's trick… if you have something going on in your story that defies a reality that the audience will buy, call attention to it… be brash. Kevin Spacey uses that trick out until it's got a hole worn into its foundation.
	Bewitched The release of Bewitched: The Complete First Season on DVD once again asks us to decide whether the theatrical adaptation of a beloved TV series lives up to our memories of the original. They rarely do, but Hollywood never seems willing to admit the cold reality of mostly embarrassing box-office tabulations. In this case, at least, the always-game Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell won't be attempting to fit into the 40-year-old costumes of Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York, whose work is recalled here in glorious black-and-white. Instead, the movie's producers are trying to re-create the magic of the original sitcom, by having Kidman's witchy woman play an actress playing Montgomery's Samantha. This four-disc collection (also available in a colorized version) offers plenty of bonus material for fans of the original series to savor, including a retrospective segment that reminds us that the Stephenses were also the first TV couple to sleep in a single bed and Samantha's mother and father (Agnes Morehead and Maurice Evans) were the medium's first separated couple. Sony is also making all 12 episodes of the spin-off series, Tabitha, available on DVD. -- Gary Dretzka The exterior of the Kravitz house is the same exterior as used in The Partridge Family and The Donna Reed Show.
Cursed US/Canada Gross - $19.3 million About 15 minutes into Cursed, one begins to wonder when Charlie Sheen or one of the Wayans Brothers will show up to reveal it as yet one more parody of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Night. Neither funny, nor particularly scary, Cursed is the much-delayed problem child of director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson, who re-invented the teen-slasher genre (they get an assist here from makeup-effects wizard Rick Baker). All that talent, and so little to show for it. In a nutshell, Cursed is a contemporary version of I Was a Teenage Werewolf, set in and around the Hollywood Hills. The self-conscious humor of previous Williamson/Craven collaborations is on display here, as well, but not in sufficient quantity to make anyone ignore the absence of any really scary parts. Cursed is being released into DVD in a special Unrated Version, which adds some gore and little else that would offend a teeny-bopper … or her parents, for that matter. With all of the excellent horror movies now being exported from Japan -- like so many Toyotas -- is it possible that even the elite Hollywood gore-meisters are content playing second-fiddle to their Asian peers? -- Gary Dretzka
Rockers: 25th Anniversary Edition As MVD's Rockers: 25th Anniversary Edition so wonderfully demonstrates, Ted Bafaloukos' exhilarating portrait of reggae music and its place in Jamaican shantytown culture has aged extremely well over the last quarter-century. In it, reggae musicians Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace and Richard "Dirty Harry" Hall played Rastafarian Robin Hoods, who turn the tables on mafia rude boys running roughshod over the local dreads. Back then, if it weren't for all the great music and cast of real-life rastas -- all of whom deliver their lines in nearly indecipherable patois (blessedly subtitled) -- Rockers might have disappeared in the wake left behind by such so-called blaxploitation crime classics as Superfly, Shaft and The Mac. Like The Harder They Come, however, it vibrates with the rhythms of Jamaica and characters (including star recording artists) who couldn't be more fascinating. The soundtrack includes music by Peter Tosh, Robbie Shakespeare, Burning Spear, Gregory Isaacs, Jacob Miler & Inner Circle, Bunny Wailer, Kiddus I and Wallace and Hall's group, the Abyssinians. There are lots of extras in this anniversary edition, including a reggae glossary (you'll need it). -- Gary Dretzka

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