<I>Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow, Lois Smith, Peter Stormare, Tim Blake Nelson. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1 (English, French), DTS 5.1, Dolby Surround 2.0. Two discs. 146 minutes. 2002. DreamWorks Home Entertainment 89989. PG-13. $29.99.</I>
<I>Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Cherry Jones, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1, THX. 107 minutes. 2002. Buena Vista Home Entertainment 2789903. PG-13. $29.99.</I>
<I>Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX (English, French), DTS 5.1 Surround ES. Two discs. 121 minutes. 1982. Universal 22257. PG. $29.98.</I>
<I>Voices of Daveigh Chase, Tia Carrere, Ving Rhames, David Ogden Stiers, Jason Scott Lee, Zoe Caldwell, Kevin McDonald, Kevin Michael Richardson. Directed by Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois. Aspect ratio: 1.66:1. Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby Surround 2.0 (French, Spanish). 85 minutes. 2002. Walt Disney Home Video 00596. PG. $29.99.</I>
<I>F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow, Roy Dotrice, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, Charles Kay, Kenneth McMillan. Directed by Milos Forman. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround 2.0. Two discs. 180 minutes. 1984. Warner Home Video 37464. R. $26.99.</I>
More Ben-Hur than Spartacus, director Ridley Scott's Gladiator is painted with broad strokes of sentimentality, gory violence, and New Age spirituality.
It's hardly the kind of story that drives a classic Steven Spielberg adventure: boy meets spaceship, boy struggles to make a second date, boy lives happily ever after in space. No sharks, no dinosaurs, no Nazis to subdue. But Close Encounters of the Third Kind has endured thanks to its irresistible portrayal of human-alien contact and the sheer spectacle of its special effects.
There's Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, watching helplessly as his trusty lightsaber flies out of his hand and over his shoulder. On Corus cant, we see two pieces of toast pop out of the dual seating pods of an air taxi.
"The one that started it all" - that's how Disney Studios describes its first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the film that proved the naysayers wrong back in 1937 by drawing millions of people into theaters to watch an 83-minute cartoon.