Video Rentals

1 The Hurricane

$6.7 million1 week in release$6.7 million to date

PLOTA boxing champ spends years in jail for a murder he didn't commit; based on the life of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.

MESSAGEPrison redemption: Hope can be found even in horrible situations.

CAUTIONRated R for bad language, drug use, and sexual content.

$6.08 million5 weeks in release$56.86 million to date

PLOTAdaptation of a non-horror Stephen King story about a prison guard on death row whose life is changed by a prisoner he must execute.

MESSAGEPop supernaturalism: Miracles happen in unexpected places.

CAUTIONRated R for bad language, violence, and sexual situations.

$5.12 million2 weeks in release$13.6 million to date

PLOTRehash of self-referential horror series about a serial killer who hacks up actors on a movie set.

MESSAGELife's just like a movie; one of Wes Craven's teen exploitation movies.

CAUTIONRated R for violence, gore, and bad language.

$4.66 million3 weeks in release$22.68 million to date

PLOTA homosexual man kills then impersonates the wealthy object of his affections.

MESSAGESome people will do anything to be one of the upper crust.

CAUTIONRated R for bad language, nudity, violence, and sexual situations.

$4.6 million4 weeks in release$28.23 million to date

PLOTA raunchy Saturday Night Live alumni vehicle about a fish tank cleaner who housesits for a male prostitute.

MESSAGEYou can get away with anything if you have a good excuse.

CAUTIONRated R for sexual content, bad language, and crude humor.

The X-Men have dominated the comic-book world for most of the last quarter century, yet they're scarcely recognized outside fandom circles. Now there's a movie (Fox; rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence) to explain what all the fuss was about. In perhaps the most elaborate comic adaptation since Superman, audiences are introduced to the world of good mutants (led by Patrick Stewart) vs. bad mutants (led by Ian McKellen). Unlike classic superheroes, these people believe that the world hates them because they are different, so they search for acceptance while fighting the bad guys. Those comic-books fans who were marginalized in high school can easily identify with the X-Men. Over the years the X-Men were adopted as poster children for egalitarianism. The characters have been considered metaphors for causes from civil rights to gay rights. Perhaps that's why the movie tosses in a bunch of real-world references: Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, the Holocaust, Malcolm X, McCarthyism, Darwinism, and human experimentation. X-Men plays like the first in a series, setting up the characters and leaving almost everything unresolved. It runs rather long, but it's a good way to see what all the comic-book fans have been talking about all these years.