Four Christmases

• Every Christmas happily unmarried Brad and Kate escape divorced parents and exasperating relatives by getting on a plane. This year a fog rolls in, the airport shuts down and the couple is forced to celebrate four family Christmases in one hectic, hilarious day. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon lead an all-star cast in a comedy brimming with good cheer and great laughs -- as well as the answer t

When their only daughter Blair leaves the family nest, Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide to book an island cruise to beat the yuletide blues and just skip the holidays. But their decision to boycott tradition has the whole neighborhood in an uproar, and when Blair callson Christmas Eve to announce a surprise visit with her new fiancée, the Kranks have just twelve hours to perform a miracle and pull themselves and their neighbors together to throw the best celebration eve! r.Slapstick humor gets a full-body workout in Christmas with the Kranks. Critics were unanimous in their derision, and John Grisham must have gnashed his teeth over what studio-boss-turned-director Joe Roth did to his bestselling novel Skipping Christmas, to which this broad-stroked comedy bears little or no resemblance. The title characters are played by Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis, who decide to skip Christmas because their daughter's in Peru with the Peace Corps. Thus begins a rabid program of enforced conformity when their neighbors (led by Dan Aykroyd) coerce the Kranks into changing their holiday attitude--a change that comes easily when the daughter announces she'll be home for Christmas after all. Imagine if a suburban lynch mob said "Have a Merry Christmas or we'll kill you," and you'll get some idea of what spending Christmas with the Kranks is really like. And if you laughed at the frozen cat, you're probably on Santa's "naughty" list. ! --Jeff ShannonA hilarious family comedy! Subtitled in Engl! ish, Fre nch, Chinese, Thai. Wide and full screen.Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito are hilarious as two neighbors trying to put the "win" in "winter" in one of the year's funniest comedies! Determined to unseat Steve Finch's (Broderick) reign as the town's holiday season king, Buddy Hall (DeVito) plasters his house with so many decorative lights that it'll be visible from space! When their wives (Kristin Davis and Kristin Chenoweth) bond, and their kids follow suit, the two men only escalate their rivalry ­ and their decorating. It's anybody's guess whether the holidays will wind up jolly or jostled in this wild and woolly laugh-fest that the whole family will love!Good neighbors can be hard to come by and when the flighty Buddy Hall (Danny Devito) moves in across the street from the conservative Dr. Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick), it quickly becomes apparent that the two men are complete opposites. While Finch methodically plans out every minute of the coming Christmas season! for his family, Buddy craves freshness and excitement and is seized by an impulsive desire to decorate his house so brightly that it can be seen from space. While the men's wives Kelly (Kristin Davis) and Tia (Kristin Chenoweth) and their children revel in one another's differences and form solid friendships, a rivalry of personalities and Christmas spirit ensues between the two men that will wind up testing the patience and love of every member of both families. This is fun, comical holiday entertainment for the entire family ages 9 and older. --Tami Horiuchi

Beyond Deck the Halls

The Holidays on DVD

Matthew Broderick Films

Danny DeVito Films

Stills from Deck the Halls

Slapstick humor gets a full-body workout in C! hristmas with the Kranks. Critics were unanimous in their derision, and John Grisham must have gnashed his teeth over what studio-boss-turned-director Joe Roth did to his bestselling novel Skipping Christmas, to which this broad-stroked comedy bears little or no resemblance. The title characters are played by Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis, who decide to skip Christmas because their daughter's in Peru with the Peace Corps. Thus begins a rabid program of enforced conformity when their neighbors (led by Dan Aykroyd) coerce the Kranks into changing their holiday attitude--a change that comes easily when the daughter announces she'll be home for Christmas after all. Imagine if a suburban lynch mob said "Have a Merry Christmas or we'll kill you," and you'll get some idea of what spending Christmas with the Kranks is really like. And if you laughed at the frozen cat, you're probably on Santa's "naughty" list. --Jeff ShannonWhen their only daughter Blair l! eaves the family nest Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jam! ie Lee C urtis) decide to book an island cruise to beat the yuletide blues and just skip the holidays. But their decision to boycott tradition has the whole neighborhood in an uproar and when Blair calls on Christmas Eve to announce a surprise visit with her new fianc e the Kranks have just twelve hours to perform a miracle and pull themselves and their neighbors together to throw the best celebration ever! With fast-paced energy and support from Dan Aykroyd Cheech Marin Jake Busey and M. Emmet Walsh this hilarious adaptation of John Grisham's best-selling novel "Skipping Christmas" has become "an instant family classic!" (Gorman Woodfin CBN)System Requirements: Running Time 99 MinFormat: UMD Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG UPC: 043396125452 Manufacturer No: 12545Slapstick humor gets a full-body workout in Christmas with the Kranks. Critics were unanimous in their derision, and John Grisham must have gnashed his teeth over what studio-boss-turned-director Joe Roth did to his best! selling novel Skipping Christmas, to which this broad-stroked comedy bears little or no resemblance. The title characters are played by Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis, who decide to skip Christmas because their daughter's in Peru with the Peace Corps. Thus begins a rabid program of enforced conformity when their neighbors (led by Dan Aykroyd) coerce the Kranks into changing their holiday attitude--a change that comes easily when the daughter announces she'll be home for Christmas after all. Imagine if a suburban lynch mob said "Have a Merry Christmas or we'll kill you," and you'll get some idea of what spending Christmas with the Kranks is really like. And if you laughed at the frozen cat, you're probably on Santa's "naughty" list. --Jeff ShannonA COUPLE STRUGGLES TO VISIT ALL FOUR OF THEIR DIVORCED PARENTS ON CHRISTMAS DAY.When your significant other tells you you both need an exit "safe word" before you enter his dad's Christmas gathering, you know yo! u're not in Bedford Falls. But while Vince Vaughn and Reese Wi! therspoo n may not be It's a Wonderful Life's George and Mary Bailey, Four Christmases is a modern holiday classic in its own right. For one thing, every family neurosis and dysfunction have taken root in the four families of Vaughn and Witherspoon's characters, Brad and Kate--and the sleek yuppie façade each has built with the other is about to come tumbling down. There are real belly laughs as the couple unexpectedly has to spend holidays with their four extended family groups. "I don't want to speak ill of your mother on Christmas," growls Howard (Robert Duvall) to son Brad, while Brad's bullnecked ultimate-fighter brothers are rassling everything in sight, "but she's nothing but a common street whore." Brad may cringe, but Kate's own family is about to mortify her in abundant ways, from her randy "Gram-Gram" and about-to-pounce cougar mom Mary Steenburgen ("I feel like a Saudi prince in here," marvels Brad as all of Kate's female relatives drape themselves over him! ), to the revelation to Brad that Kate used to be--how to put this--a bit on the chubby side. If the plot isn't full of surprises, the quips are nonstop and the acting believable and charming. The supporting cast also includes Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau and Dwight Yoakam in a memorable turn as the mega-church pastor Steenburgen's character is involved with. It's a comic Christmas blessing, and there'll be no need to say "mistletoe"--at least not till the viewers are home with their own families. --A.T. Hurley

Eyes Wide Shut [Blu-ray]

• Stanley Kubrick?s daring last film is a bracing psychosexual journey, a riveting suspense tale and a career milestone for stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Cruise plays a doctor who plunges into an erotic foray that threatens his marriage ? and may ensnare him in a murder mystery ? after his wife?s (Kidman) admission of sexual longings. As the story sweeps from doubt and fear to self-discovery a

Stanley Kubrick’s daring last film is a bracing psychosexual journey, a riveting suspense tale and a career milestone for stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Cruise plays a doctor who plunges into an erotic foray that threatens his marriage â€" and may ensnare him in a murder mystery â€" after his wife’s (Kidman) admission of sexual longings. As the story sweeps from doubt and fear to self-discovery and reconciliation, Kubrick orchestrates it with masterful flourishes. Graceful tracking shots, r! ich colors, startling images: bravura traits that make Kubrick a filmmaker for the ages are here to keep everyone’s eyes wide open.

It was inevitable that Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut would be the most misunderstood film of 1999. Kubrick died four months prior to its release, and there was no end to speculation how much he would have tinkered with the picture, changed it, "fixed" it. We'll never know. But even without the haunting enigma of the director's death--and its eerie echo/anticipation in the scene when Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) visits the deathbed of one of his patients--Eyes Wide Shut would have perplexed and polarized viewers and reviewers. After all, virtually every movie of Kubrick's post-U.S. career had; only 1964's Dr. Strangelove opened to something approaching consensus. Quite apart from the author's tinkering, Kubrick's movies themselves always seemed to change--partly because they changed us, changed the world and the ways! we experienced and understood it. And we may expect Eyes W! ide Shut to do the same. Unlike Kubrick himself, it has time.

So consider, as we settle in to live with this long, advisedly slow, mesmerizing film, how challenging and ambiguous its narrative strategy is. The source is an Arthur Schnitzler novella titled Traumnovelle (or "Dream Story"), and it's a moot question how much of Eyes Wide Shut itself is dream, from the blue shadows frosting the Harfords' bedroom to the backstage replica of New York's Greenwich Village that Kubrick built in England. Its major movement is an imaginative night-journey (even the daylight parts of it) taken by a man reeling from his wife's teasing confession of fantasized infidelity, and toward the end there is a token gesture of the couple waking to reality and, perhaps, a new, chastened maturity. Yet on some level--visually, psychologically, logically--every scene shimmers with unreality. Is everything in the movie a dream? And if so, who is dreaming it at any given moment, and why! ?

Don't settle for easy answers. Kubrick's ultimate odyssey beckons. And now the dream is yours. --Richard T. Jameson

So La Vita Girls 2-6X Velvet Dress with Sash, Sapphire, 6

• Soft velvet
• Fully lined
• Unique detail

Theresa Randle (BAD BOYS) delivers a breakthrough performance as a frustrated New York City actress who reluctantly takes a job as a phone sex operator. But when she discovers her natural gift for aural pleasure, she becomes a different woman to her sports memorabilia-obsessed neighbor (director Spike Lee), her romantic shoplifter ex-husband (Isaiah Washington of GREY’S ANATOMY), and an endless stream of calls from men fueled by dark and wild desires. Even if she loves being every man’s fantasy, can she ultimately handle her own reality? Quentin Tarantino, Madonna, Halle Berry, Naomi Campbell, Jenifer Lewis, Peter Berg, Debi Mazar, Michael Imperioli, John Turturro, Richard Belzer, Gretchen Mol and Ron Silver appear in this sexy comedy/drama written by Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan- Lori Parks (TOPDOG/UNDERDOG) and featuring a hot soundtr! ack of hits by PrincePerhaps only Spike Lee could make a dignified yet extremely funny comedy-drama about phone sex. Theresa Randle (Bad Boys) is the title character, a hard-working actress who becomes addicted to this peculiar form of safe sex (the movie is verbal, not physical, in that department) at a high-class New York agency. Throughout the film, Girl 6 (she's unnamed beyond this) sports a dazzling array of new looks, hairstyles, and clothes. Randle radiates every step of the way. Lee even delivers on fantasy elements when Girl 6 finds herself in a send-up of blaxploitation films and a keen lampoon of The Jeffersons (the three-minute sequence is better than any planned TV-to-movie film that may come along). Revelations about Girl 6's life are brought out through her ex-husband (Isaiah Washington), who, in his very flawed but honest way, plans to reunite with her. Better yet are conversations with the next-door neighbor (Spike Lee, doing some of his best ! work). Solitary, experimental, with plenty of delicious cameos! (includ ing Madonna), Girl 6 is playwright Suzan-Lori Parks's first screenplay. Similar in tone to Lee's debut, She's Gotta Have It, Girl 6 also boasts an energetic mix of old and new songs by Prince and, as always with Lee, colorful camerawork. An alleyway kiss near the end is a great romantic image. --Doug ThomasPerhaps only Spike Lee could make a dignified yet extremely funny comedy-drama about phone sex. Theresa Randle (Bad Boys) is the title character, a hard-working actress who becomes addicted to this peculiar form of safe sex (the movie is verbal, not physical, in that department) at a high-class New York agency. Throughout the film, Girl 6 (she's unnamed beyond this) sports a dazzling array of new looks, hairstyles, and clothes. Randle radiates every step of the way. Lee even delivers on fantasy elements when Girl 6 finds herself in a send-up of blaxploitation films and a keen lampoon of The Jeffersons (the three-minute sequence is ! better than any planned TV-to-movie film that may come along). Revelations about Girl 6's life are brought out through her ex-husband (Isaiah Washington), who, in his very flawed but honest way, plans to reunite with her. Better yet are conversations with the next-door neighbor (Spike Lee, doing some of his best work). Solitary, experimental, with plenty of delicious cameos (including Madonna), Girl 6 is playwright Suzan-Lori Parks's first screenplay. Similar in tone to Lee's debut, She's Gotta Have It, Girl 6 also boasts an energetic mix of old and new songs by Prince and, as always with Lee, colorful camerawork. An alleyway kiss near the end is a great romantic image. --Doug ThomasYour little girl will love to wear this blue rhinestone bow Christmas dress! The sleeveless dress is a deep royal blue color and features a white bow sash at the waist adorned with a square rhinestone buckle. The sash wraps around to tie in the back. There is also a f! our button closure in back and the dress is fully lined. Great! for a h oliday party!

Fisher-Price Little People Lil' Movers Airplane

• Lights, sounds, talking, and a fun sing-along song help little imaginations take flight while they learn about high and low
• Little People figures wiggle and wobble as kids spin the wheel, and the easy-carry handle helps pretend flights soar
• Includes plane and 3 Little People figures: Mia, Roberto, and a pilot
• Part of the World of Little People System
• 3 AA batteries required (not included)

This Fisher Price - Little People Lil' Movers Airplane features lights; sounds, talking, and a fun sing-along song help little imaginations take flight. It includes plane and 3 people. It requires 3 AA batteries for lights and sound, which are not included."Ready for take-off…here we go!" Diminutive pilots in training can let their imagination take flight with this stocky, swooshy, wiggly-wobbly airplane. Measuring 12 inches nose to tail, and 8 inches from wingtip t! o wingtip, this sturdy plastic plane features a pilot, two passengers, a piece of luggage, a door that opens, six windows, including the pilot’s windshield, a handle over the cut-out top, working wheels (which make the pilot and passengers go up and down as if encountering turbulence), and the obligatory face on the front of the craft. Push down on the pilot in her seat (yes, her seat…we are in the 21st century, you know!) for flashing lights, a tune, flight attendant commentary, and swooshing airplane sounds. Judging from the outfits of the passengers and the palm tree design on the wings, this aircraft seems to be headed for a tropical port--airport, that is. What’s not to love? Check out the entire line of Lil’ Movers vehicles. Three AA batteries required (not included). (Ages 18 months to 3 years) --Emilie Coulter