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Ararat
DIRECTOR: Atom Egoyan
CAST: Charles Aznavour, Bruce Greenwood, Marie-Jose Croze, Christopher Plummer.
SYNOPSIS: Egoyan takes on the 1915 Armenian genocide and its modern legacy through this sprawling, ambitious film with a variety of subplots and a subtext revolving around the production of a movie about the genocide.
WHAT WE SAID: The St. Petersburg Times did not review this film.
MPAA RATING: R for violence, sexuality/nudity and language.
RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes
The Life of David Gale
DIRECTOR: Alan Parker
CAST: Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney, Gabriel Mann, Matt Craven, Leon Rippy, Rhona Mitra.
SYNOPSIS: Bleeding-heart law professor (Spacey) gets sentenced to death for the grisly murder of a colleague (Linney). Is he guilty? Only a run-of-the-mill journalist (Winslet) can tell.
WHAT WE SAID: Film critic Steve Persall gave this film a B- in his February review. "The Life of David Gale is a death row drama with a twist viewers see coming a last-mile away," he said. "The first hour is fascinating, but . . . (then) a movie beginning with stark realism turns into a stretch of all credibility. Parker's film is flamingly liberal in its approach to capital punishment, with nothing like the stunning fairness of Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking."
MPAA RATING: R for sexual situations, nudity, violence, profanity.
RUNNING TIME: 130 minutes
DVD FEATURES: Theatrical trailers, commentary by Parker, deleted scenes, widescreen, features on the making of the film and the music, "Death in Texas" and poster concepts.
Nicholas Nickleby
DIRECTOR: Douglas McGrath
CAST: Charlie Hunnam, Jamie Bell, Nathan Lane, Christopher Plummer, Jim Broadbent, Anne Hathaway, Tom Courtenay, Alan Cumming, Edward Fox, Romola Garai, Barry Humphries, Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson
SYNOPSIS: Charles Dickens' tale of a young man (Hunnam) making his fortune to reunite with his mother and sister.
WHAT WE SAID: Times correspondent Philip Booth gave the film a B+
in his January review. "It may be a bit weak on the top line, with a merely amiable performance by handsome Charlie Hunnam in the lead role," he wrote. "But the supporting cast is to die for, perhaps 2002's best movie ensemble. These actors vividly bring the grand old tale to life."
MPAA RATING: PG for violence, child endangerment theme.
RUNNING TIME: 126 minutes
DVD FEATURES: Commentary by McGrath, Creating a Classic: The Making of Nicholas Nickleby, The Cast on the Cast, view on the set multiangle feature, photo gallery, full-screen and widescreen formats.
Spun
DIRECTOR: Jonas Akerlund
CAST: Jason Schwartzman, John Leguizamo, Mena Suvari, Patrick Fugit, Alexis Arquette, Debbie Harry, Eric Roberts, Chloe Hunter, Nicholas Gonzalez, Julia Mendoza, Elisa Bocanegra, Josh Peck, Larry Drake, Brittany Murphy, Mickey Rourke.
SYNOPSIS: An amphetamine junkie goes on a three-day binge with his dealer and drug chemist.
WHAT WE SAID: The Times did not review this film. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said, "The film's charm, which is admittedly an acquired and elusive taste, comes from the fact that Spun does not romanticize its characters, does not enlarge or dramatize them, but seems to shake its head incredulously as these screw-ups persist in ruinous and insane behavior."
MPAA RATING: R for pervasive drug content, strong sexuality, language and some violence.
RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes
DVD FEATURES: Available in unrated and R-rated versions