Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 06/10/2008 Run time: 122 minutes Rating: Pg13

Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 05/20/2008 Run time: 122 minutes Rating: Pg13

859 AD, the incompetent Emperor and corrupted government are ruining the Tang Dynasty. Rebel armies are forming, House of Flying Daggers being the largest and most prestigious. Feng Tian County's two local captains, Leo and Jin, are ordered to capture the House leader within ten days. Captin Leo suspects that Mei, the beautiful new dancer at the Peony Pavillion is actually the daughter of the former leader and hatches a plan to arrest her and bring her in for questioning. Captain Jin will then pretend to be a lone warrior and rescue her from prison, earning her trust and escorting her to the secret headquarters of the House of Flying Daggers. The plan works but on their long journey to the House, something unexpected and uncontrollable is forming...

Although Quentin Tarantino has cherished Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 "macaroni" war flick The Inglorious Bastards for most of his film-geek life, his own Inglourious Basterds is no remake. Instead, as hinted by the Tarantino-esque misspelling, this is a lunatic fantasia of WWII, a brazen re-imagining of both history and the behind-enemy-lines war film subgenre. There's a Dirty Not-Quite-Dozen of mostly Jewish commandos, led by a Tennessee good ol' boy named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who reckons each warrior owes him one hundred Nazi scalps—and he means that literally. Even as Raine's band strikes terror into the Nazi occupiers of France, a diabolically smart and self-assured German officer named Landa (Christoph Waltz) is busy validating his own legend as "The Jew Hunter." Along the way, he wipes out the rural family of a grave young girl (Melanie Laurent) who will reappear years later in Paris, dreaming of vengeance on an epic scale. Now, this isn't one more big-screen comic book. As the masterly opening sequence reaffirms, Tarantino is a true filmmaker, with a deep respect for the integrity of screen space and the tension that can accumulate in contemplating two men seated at a table having a polite conversation. IB reunites QT with cinematographer Robert Richardson (who shot Kill Bill), and the colors and textures they serve up can be riveting, from the eerie red-hot glow of a tabletop in Adolf Hitler's den, to the creamy swirl of a Parisian pastry in which Landa parks his cigarette. The action has been divided, Pulp Fiction-like, into five chapters, each featuring at least one spellbinding set-piece. It's testimony to the integrity we mentioned that Tarantino can lock in the ferocious suspense of a scene for minutes on end, then explode the situation almost faster than the eye and ear can register, and then take the rest of the sequence to a new, wholly unanticipated level within seconds. Again, be warned: This is not your "Greatest Generation," Saving Private Ryan WWII. The sadism of Raine and his boys can be as unsavory as the Nazi variety; Tarantino's latest cinematic protégé, Eli (director of Hostel) Roth, is aptly cast as a self-styled "golem" fond of pulping Nazis with a baseball bat. But get past that, and the sometimes disconcerting shifts to another location and another set of characters, and the movie should gather you up like a growing floodtide. Tarantino told the Cannes Film Festival audience that he wanted to show "Adolf Hitler defeated by cinema." Cinema wins. —Richard T. Jameson

As revisionist history, Michael Mann's intelligent docudrama The Insider is a simmering brew of altered facts and dramatic license. In a broader perspective, however, the film (cowritten with Forrest Gump Oscar-winner Eric Roth) is effectively accurate as an engrossing study of ethics in the corruptible industries of tobacco and broadcast journalism. On one side, there is Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), the former tobacco scientist who violated contractual agreements to expose Brown & Williamson's inclusion of addictive ingredients in cigarettes, casting himself into a vortex of moral dilemma. On the other side is 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), whose struggle to report Wigand's story puts him at odds with veteran correspondent Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer) and senior executives at CBS News.

As the urgency of the story increases, so does the film's palpable sense of paranoia, inviting favorable comparison to All the President's Men. While Pacino downplays the theatrical excess that plagued him in previous roles, Crow is superb as a man who retains his tortured integrity at great personal cost. The Insider is two movies—a cover-up thriller and a drama about journalistic ethics—that combine to embrace the noble values personified by Wigand and Bergman. Even if the details aren't always precise (as Mike Wallace and others protested prior to the film's release), the film adheres to a higher truth that was so blatantly violated by tobacco executives seen in an oft-repeated video clip, lying under oath in the service of greed. —Jeff Shannon

Crime never sleeps. Neither does will dormer a veteran lapd homicide detective sent north to alaska to head a murder case. There his investigation is disrupted by an ever-shining midnight sun that wreaks sleep-depriving havoc on his body clock & brings dormers shady guilt-plagued past into the open. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 11/13/2007 Starring: Al Pacino Hilary Swank Run time: 118 minutes Rating: R Director: Christopher Nolan

Explosive, hi-tech, edge-of-your-seat action as Iria, a young bounty hunter, stalks Zeiram, a dangerous alien monster, in the shadow of a corporate cover-up. Iria accompanies her brother and his boss on a mission to rescue a VIP and a mysterious cargo. Things turn deadly when it is discovered that the cargo is Zeiram. A mysterious corporation attempted to import the monster for use as a new bio-weapon—and now it's loose. Only Iria, and her streetwise sidekick Kei, can halt the monster's rampage. She has a dangerous plan to discover Zeiram's Achilles' Heel—but will she be able to escape the corporation's trap? Enjoy all six episodes of the sci-fi thriller on one dual-layer disc.

This gentle reworking of Ted Hughes's 1968 novella was the unseen gem of 1999. Hogarth, a young boy who lives in the Maine woods during the cold war, befriends a giant robot. As with E.T., the iron giant is a misunderstood outsider who becomes a child's best friend, and Hogarth does his best to hide the massive figure from his mom (voiced by Jennifer Aniston) and the local scrap-yard beatnik (Harry Connick Jr.). Soon the suspicions of neighbors and a government agent (Christopher McDonald) spell trouble.

With no songs, no sidekicks, and no cheap ending, The Iron Giant is a refreshing change— like an off-Broadway production compared to the glitz of Disney's annual animated extravaganzas. Director Brad Bird may have Family Dog and The Simpsons to his credit, but this film doesn't have that brand of scatological humor. As with the best family entertainments, there are gags that adults will howl at while the kids are watching something else (see Bird's interpretation of cold war propaganda). And the star is one cool piece of animated magic. Voiced by Vin Diesel (Saving Private Ryan's hulking Private Caparzo) and filled with more gadgets than a Swiss army knife, the giant is a grand thing to behold. And like another famous cinema tin man, our hero—and the movie—has heart. Superb entertainment for ages 5 and up. —Doug Thomas

This wacky sci-fi comedy-adventure originally aired in Japan from 1993 to 1994 and was followed by a 10-part original animation video. Justy Ueki Tylor bridges two Japanese traditions: he begins as a common anime type, the endearing dolt, but develops into the drunken, wise fool of Zen parables. As war erupts between Earth and the Raalgon Empire, Tyler enlists in the United Planets Space Force because he wants "an easy life." Through sheer dumb luck, he resolves a hostage crisis involving a venerable admiral and wins a promotion to captain of the Soyokaze, a broken-down battle cruiser manned by a crew of misfits. His bumbling successes bring Tylor to the attention of the 16-year-old Raalgon empress Azalyn and her trusted lieutenant, Captain Ru Baruba Dom: he wins the heart of the former and the respect of the latter, along with the affection of his crew. Although Tylor's adventures are played for laughs and clearly aren't intended to be taken seriously, there are some major holes in the plot. The filmmakers introduce questions and subplots, ranging from a scheme to usurp the throne of Raalgon to the fate of the previous captain of the Soyokaze, that are left unresolved when Tylor and his crew blast off for new adventures. Captain Tylor lacks the no-holds-barred nuttiness of Nadesico but will appeal to fans of comic space adventures. Unrated; suitable for ages 12 and up: sexual humor, minor nudity, violence, alcohol use. —Charles Solomon

Bertie Wooster is feeling a bit shy of the mark when his new valet reports for duty, bringing with him a much-needed cure for the effects of the previous night's excesses. On the strength of this sterling debut, Jeeves is formally retained, and the unsuspecting servant is thrown headlong into the glorious mix of overbearing aunts, unbidden guests, friends in need and romantic entanglements that is Bertie's lot in life.

To millions of devoted fans, P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories are a delightful obsession, an irresistible and irreverent romp through the drawing rooms of Edwardian England's tweedy elite. Now, these comic masterpieces come to life in acclaimed productions with an extraordinary cast that features Hugh Laurie (Sense and Sensibility, Strapless) as the well-meaning but dim aristocrat Bertie Wooster, and Stephen Fry (Wilde, Cold Comfort Farm) as Jeeves, his hilariously arch and resourceful valet. This 8-DVD collector's set includes 23 digitally restored and remastered episodes.

Tokiko "Key" Mima is a robot shaped like a pubescent girl who wants to become human. In a deathbed message, her "grandfather," a brilliant scientist, told her that the love of 30,000 friends could somehow change her into a human girl. Key leaves her small village for Tokyo to recruit the necessary friends. In the city, she encounters a slimy pornographer and his muscle-bound assistant. She's saved from their clutches by Sakura, a friend from junior high school, which sets a pattern. The alternately bitchy and loving Sakura, the dashing young Tataki, and Tamayo, a self-styled bodyguard from her native village, take turns rescuing Key.

Her grandfather's ultimate creation, Key contains components that the sinister president of Ajo Heavy Industries needs to perfect his unreliable cyborgs. As the president's icy henchman stalks her, Key reveals she possesses superhuman strength, the ability to levitate, and the power to blow up Ajo warrior robots. These adventures are played against the search for 30,000 friends, which leads Key to a concert by rock star Miho (another cyborg controlled by Ajo) and a cult that worships a snake god.

Key's waif-like appearance recalls Yasuomi Umetsu's "Presence" segment of the 1987 feature Robot Carnival, but her monotone voice and habit of referring to herself in the third person ("Key understands") quickly cloy. The tone of the adventures seesaws between wistful yearning and sinister violence.

Unrated; graphic violence, nudity, profanity, and sexual situations are unsuitable for children. —Charles Solomon