Drama

Written by Diane Tillis

On the outskirts of Reno in 1976, a pink building complex is illuminated by neon lights that read ‘The Love Ranch’.

The Love Ranch is a popular brothel owned by scarred hustler Charlie (Joe Pesci) and his elderly wife Grace (Helen Mirren). Charlie is the typical gangster pimp who swears too much and smokes cigars wrapped in $100 bills. The ranch hosts several career prostitutes who bring in a lot of money. With the large cash flow, Charlie is able to seize control of the local law enforcement and keep a few politicians in his pocket.

The teenage soap opera sensation of the 90s came to an end with this, its 10th season. As one would expect, in a season all about wrapping up storylines, along with various assorted crises, romantic and otherwise, weddings are in the offing. One is supposed to be between Kelly (Jennie Garth) and Matt (Daniel Cosgrove), but is complicated by the brooding presence of Dylan (Luke Perry). Will Kelly and Dylan sort out how they feel about each other (and I note with amusement that the jacket copy describes the relationship between these two twenty-somethings as “age-old”)?

A 911 operator returns to work after suffering the loss of her child during delivery, only to start suffering what seems like hallucinations of a lost girl and a menacing man. Obsessed with what she sees, she starts a journey from New York to Pennsylvania to discover the truth behind her visions.

Based on the books by Jan Guillou this film is in fact the merging of two epics produced in Sweden. It also happens to be Sweden's most expensive production thus far. It tells the tale of a boy raised in a convent and trained to become a warrior by a former knight Templar. He falls in love and has a child with a young woman named Cecilia and the two are forced away from each other. Cecilia must pay penance living as a nun while Arn is sentenced to 20 years fighting in the name of God as a Knight Templar in Jerusalem.

My dad was a Vietnam veteran. He did his time and came home to his wife (and eventually me). Because of when I was born, I never knew my father before the war. Therefore, I can’t really speak on his personality changes after he went off to fight the good fight. But in the same breath, I can tell you that we really don’t talk about that time except in very broad brush strokes. War is heck and hopefully my experience with The Dry Land is one that isn’t such a painful undertaking.

Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is basically the kid from The Sixth Sense, only with boobs, killer cheekbones, and a formerly lucrative pop career. I may not be entirely accurate about that last item, but until this 6-disc set arrived, I had not really watched the show. It always seemed a little too Touched by an Angel meets The Sixth Sense meets Jennifer Love Hewitt’s aforementioned cheekbones for my taste. Upon viewing the episodes in this set, I pretty much stand behind that assessment, and though it is still not my particular cup of tea, I can understand its appeal to its fans.

Grace, California is the kind of “small” town that all the young people wish to escape. Why? I suppose it is because they have ambitions for “greater” things. What are their ambitions while they have to stay? To be as catty and backstabbing as possible while living out a teen soap opera existence. Such is the groundwork for Seven Deadly Sins, a two-part mini-series created for the Lifetime network and based on a series of books of the same name. On this DVD the two parts are merged into a monstrous movie (clocking in at over 3 hours).

Written by Diane Tillis

I’ve come to learn that you either love the 1997 – 2002 American drama-comedy series Ally McBeal, or you loathe it.

For its time, Ally McBeal was an unusual show. It mixed comedy, drama, law, and a unisex bathroom to create a quirky television series. Ally McBeal is unapologetic for representing the insane, ridiculous, and crazy situations the characters get into, and how they get out of them. It focuses on the romantic and personal lives of several characters who work in a Boston law firm.

A hitman is getting into his senior years; a notable luxury for someone in his line of work. To feel more secure, he plans to pull off one last job before calling it quits. In order for this film to have an interesting plot something surely must go wrong, and it does. Now reunited with his son, who is aspiring to learn from dear ole (estranged) dad and elevate himself in the crime world, Charlie Valentine hopes to settles things in one way or another.

Written by Diane Tillis

As the title suggests, Attack on Darfur depicts the genocide occurring in Darfur, and it doesn’t get more real than this.

I have seen many films that chronicle the evil that exists within mankind. These films, in my opinion, are the most difficult to watch. I can sit through the goriest of horror films and not have a physical reaction. However, films that depict the horrors of real life terrorism make my stomach turn, because you know it is real. The Boogey Man isn’t real, but a terrorist with a mind towards ethnic cleansing is very real.