Disney couldn't resist the temptation to remake 1961's popular comedy The Absent Minded Professor, so they cast Robin Williams as Professor Philip Brainard (a role vaguely related to the character originated by Fred MacMurray), and the result is a comedy that, frankly, doesn't fully deserve its modest success. It's admittedly clever to a point, and certainly the digitally flubberised ...

Manufacturer: Walt Disney Home Video
Starring: Robin Williams, Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher McDonald, Raymond J. Barry, Clancy Brown
Directed By: Les Mayfield

Spin-off shows rarely match the success of their parent programmes, especially in the superhero/fantasy genre (cf. The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., The Bionic Woman, The Green Hornet). Characters who were perfectly useful as supporting figures dwindle when forced into the spotlight, and Angel takes a special risk by building an entire series around a character who is: a) supposed to ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Andy Hallett

Disney loved to mix live action with animation (Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks), but this 1977 effort falls on its face. The turn-of-the-century story concerns an orphaned boy whose only friend is a cartoon monster. While the latter is entertainingly rendered, the rest of the film strains to be enchanting and the cast overreaches in a big way. Not for anybody over the age of ...

Manufacturer: Walt Disney Home Video
Starring: Sean Marshall, Helen Reddy, Jim Dale, Mickey Rooney, Red Buttons
Directed By: Don Chaffey

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Steve Guttenberg, Lori Loughlin, Rodney Dangerfield, Michael McKean, Brendon Ryan Barrett
Directed By: Sean McNamara

Angela Lansbury plays a good witch who uses her powers against the Nazis in World War II and is aided by three children in the effort. This 1971 movie directed by Disney stalwart Robert Stevenson (Mary Poppins) was never up to the studio's best efforts--the music isn't all that good and the idea just doesn't quite catch on. But Lansbury, David Tomlinson and the late Roddy McDowall are good ...

Manufacturer: Walt Disney Home Video
Starring: Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, Roddy McDowall, Sam Jaffe, John Ericson
Directed By: Robert Stevenson

When it was announced that Tom Cruise would play the vampire Lestat in this adaptation of Anne Rice's bestselling novel, even Rice chimed in with a highly publicised objection. The author wisely and justifiably recanted her negative opinion when she saw Cruise's excellent performance, which perceptively addresses the pain and chronic melancholy that plagues anyone cursed with immortal bloodlust. ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Virginia McCollam, John McConnell
Directed By: Neil Jordan

"I have a bad feeling about this," says the young Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan McGregor) in Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace as he steps off a spaceship and into the most anticipated cinematic event ... well, ever. He might as well be speaking for the legions of fans of the original episodes in the Star Wars saga who can't help but secretly ask themselves: sure, this is ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Pernilla August
Directed By: George Lucas

In the wonderfully entertaining Freaky Friday, teenager Anna (Lindsay Lohan) and her fortysomething psychiatrist mum Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) have sunk into a rut of frustrated bickering--until a magic spell causes them to switch bodies. Suddenly Tess finds herself faced with petty teachers, vicious rivals and a hunky boy, while Anna has to cope with her mother's neurotic patients as well as ...

Manufacturer: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Mark Harmon, Harold Gould, Chad Michael Murray
Directed By: Mark Waters

Manufacturer: 2 Entertain Video
Starring: Marc Minardi, Thomas Wansey, Shadia Simmons, Ashley Leggat, Brooke D'Orsay
Directed By: Graeme Lynch

Manufacturer: Prism Leisure Corporation
Starring: Charles Adler, Shûko Akune, Jack Angel, Michael Bell, Gregg Berger
Directed By: Don Jurwich