Video Rentals

1 Me, Myself, and Irene

$9.75 million 2 weeks in release $20.86 million to date

PLOT A highway patrol officer develops multiple personalities, each of which falls in love with the same girl and fights to win her heart.

MESSAGE Comedy pushes the boundaries of taste and decency in the context of a good-natured story.

CAUTION Rated R for sexual content, crude humor, strong language, and some violence.

$7.59 million 1 week in release $7.59 million to date

PLOT A small-town New Jersey girl moves to New York City to make it as a songwriter, and ends up working at a bar owned and operated by very independent women.

MESSAGE An oft-told story that seeks originality through the addition of '90s feminist sensibilities, with an emphasis on sensuality.

CAUTION Rated PG-13 for sensuality.

$6.37 million 3 weeks in release $24.48 million to date

PLOT Government-funded scientists discover the secret to making people invisible, with disastrous results.

MESSAGE Interesting themes of private morality (i.e., what you do when no one can see you) are buried under exploitive sex and violence and a shoddy plot.

CAUTION Rated R for strong violence, language, and some sexuality/nudity.

$3.98 million 3 weeks in release $14.36 million to date

PLOT Gere plays a notorious womanizer who is taught to love by Ryder, a girl less than half his age who has a terminal heart condition.

MESSAGE A contrived, manipulative story that falls completely flat, with its attractive New York locations one of few redeeming qualities.

CAUTION Rated PG-13 for language and some sensuality.

$3.57 million 1 week in release $3.57 million to date

PLOT An adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction novel about primitive men revolting against alien rulers in the distant future.

MESSAGE An unqualified mess; although appropriately given a PG-13 rating, there's nothing remotely "intense" about this lifeless story.

CAUTION Rated PG-13 for intense sci-fi action.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee received near universal acclaim several years ago for his filming of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. His latest film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, recently won Golden Globes for best foreign film and best director. In between the releases of those films, Mr. Lee made a film that received far less fanfare, and an even smaller audience, but nevertheless showcases his visual and story-telling skills. Ride with the Devil (rated R for graphic war violence) is another period piece, set in Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War. The story focuses on Southern bushwackers, ragtag bands of Confederate rebels that fought too far from the war's key battlegrounds to be part of the regular army. In typical Ang Lee fashion, the story is more about friendship, love, and a brutal coming of age than the philosophical or political underpinnings of the Civil War. While this detracts from a complete understanding of these characters' motivations, the story serves to humanize a group of men who are often portrayed as hollering savages. Ride with the Devil also trusts the audience enough to understand that America's bloodiest war was a complex, complicated tragedy, not a clean-cut battle between right and wrong-giving the film a welcome subtlety and intelligence.