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Summer School [VHS]

Summer School [VHS]

Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Mark Harmon , Kirstie Alley , Robin Thomas , Patrick Labyorteaux , Courtney Thorne-Smith
Director: Carl Reiner
A weak, lazy comedy about an easygoing teacher (Mark Harmon, whose movie career never had the kind of trajectory that his TV work did) who is forced to teach--you guessed it--summer school. What's worse, he gets exactly the kind of kids you'd expect: the losers and slackers who are forced to make up the work they didn't complete during the year. He tries to duck work and let them fend for themselves. But in this mushy Carl Reiner film, the teacher offers some life lessons to his band of delinquents and--surprise, surprise--the kids impart a lesson or two to their teacher, as well. Harmon coasts through the film on his good looks, which are considerable. --Marshall Fine
List Price: $14.95 Our Price: $29.99
That Old Feeling [VHS]

That Old Feeling [VHS]

Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Bette Midler , Dennis Farina , Paula Marshall , Gail O'Grady , David Rasche
Director: Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner made this enjoyable romantic farce about a divorced couple who commence an affair at their daughter's wedding. Reiner lets the idea bounce around the story's setting and characters so that the full comic effect of the illicit relationship can be felt more chaotically, building on its own irony. Bette Midler and Dennis Farina are quite believable and likable as the not-so-estranged-anymore couple, and Paula Marshall is very good as their exasperated daughter. Not a masterpiece, but one of Reiner's best films in years, with a distinctively European flavor to the comedy. The DVD release has a widescreen presentation, production notes, cast and crew bios, theatrical trailer, Dolby sound, optional Spanish and French soundtracks, and optional Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh
List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $2.63
The One and Only [VHS]

The One and Only [VHS]

Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Henry Winkler , Kim Darby , Gene Saks , William Daniels , Harold Gould
Director: Carl Reiner

List Price: $7.99 Our Price: $23.99
Where's Poppa [VHS]

Where's Poppa [VHS]

Rated: R (Restricted)
Staring: George Segal , Ruth Gordon , Ron Leibman , Trish Van Devere , Barnard Hughes
Director: Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner directed this wild exercise in bad taste, an explosion of dark comedy starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon. Segal is a beleaguered New York lawyer and mama's boy who still lives with his senile mother because he promised his late father he'd never put her in a home. So he spends his time alternating between work and trying to give his mother a heart attack so that he'll be free. That becomes more urgent when he falls for the nurse (Trish Van Devere) he hires to take care of his mother. Reiner and writer Robert Klane are equal-opportunity offenders, with jokes about rape, racism, and caca (yes, caca). But if you're in the right mood, it can make you howl with laughter. --Marshall Fine
List Price: $19.98 Our Price: $18.94
All of Me (1984) [VHS]

All of Me (1984) [VHS]

Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Steve Martin , Lily Tomlin , Victoria Tennant , Madolyn Smith Osborne , Richard Libertini
Director: Carl Reiner
Steve Martin takes his wild and crazy persona and splits it into a hilarious battle of the sexes within the same body. Ambitious attorney Roger Cobb is assigned to alter the will of ailing millionaire Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin), who wishes to bequeath her estate to a healthy young woman (Victoria Tennant)--after Cutwater's guru transfers the old eccentric's soul to her healthy body. No one believes for a second it will actually work, until Ms. Cutwater awakens in Roger's body and he becomes, literally, a man possessed, fighting for control of himself. Martin delivers a hilariously animated performance as a body torn between two masters as it wrestles with itself in a spastic walk down a city street. Directed with comic aplomb by regular Martin collaborator Carl Reiner, All of Me combines the best of Martin's self-scripted films--anarchic moments of inspired physical comedy--with a solid (if somewhat silly) narrative holding the scenes together. Screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson went on to script and direct Field of Dreams. --Sean Axmaker
List Price: $6.98 Our Price: $1.75
Oh God [VHS]

Oh God [VHS]

Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: John Denver , George Burns , Teri Garr , Donald Pleasence , Ralph Bellamy
Director: Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner directed this sweet comedy about the Man Upstairs visiting Earth in the form of a funny little guy (George Burns). John Denver is the good man chosen to be God's contact in the modern age--and like an Old Testament prophet, Denver's character pays the price by being ridiculed and faced with criminal charges. Denver is a warm presence, but the film is entirely in Burns's court. Reiner feeds him lines that come out of Burns' mouth like stage patter, and it's no wonder he got a huge career boost from this film in the winter of his life. Except for some courtroom stuff in the third act--where Reiner inadvertently cheapens the movie with editing tricks to suggest "miracles"--Oh, God! is just fine. (It's certainly better than its two perfunctory sequels, Oh God! Book II and Oh God! You Devil.) --Tom Keogh
List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $2.95
The Man with Two Brains [VHS]

The Man with Two Brains [VHS]

Rated: R (Restricted)
Staring: Steve Martin , Kathleen Turner , David Warner , Paul Benedict , Richard Brestoff
Director: Carl Reiner
Meet Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin), the famous brain surgeon. Perhaps the name is not unfamiliar, though it is unpronounceable; the good doctor is the inventor of the celebrated "screw-top" method of brain surgery, in which the top of the skull twists off as easily as the lid of a pickle jar. The man may be a medical genius, but his talent for love leaves something to be desired, which explains his marriage to a gold-digging vixen (Kathleen Turner). Ah, but Dr. Hfuhruhurr may yet find true love, in the form of the disembodied brain he discovers in the lab of a mad scientist--David Warner, gone the Frankenstein route. (Lovely image: Hfuhruhurr in a rowboat, taking the brain out for a romantic ride on the lake.) Thus, in its own utterly goofy way, does The Man with Two Brains delve into the eternal dilemma of male indecision: does a man fall in love with a woman's body, or with her mind? Along the way, of course, there are gags both highbrow and very, very lowbrow, a mind-body split that might be why critics have tended to prefer the more sophisticated slapstick of All of Me (directed, like this film, by Carl Reiner) and Roxanne among the early...
List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $1.90
Enter Laughing [VHS]

Enter Laughing [VHS]

Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: José Ferrer , Shelley Winters , Elaine May , Jack Gilford , Janet Margolin
Director: Carl Reiner
A modest but pleasant comedy based on Carl Reiner's semi- autobiographical novel about how he got into show business. David, a nice young Jewish boy from the Bronx (played, oddly enough, by nice young Italian boy Reni Santoni), is a delivery boy for a machinist, but aspires to be an actor. Finally summoning up his courage to answer an audition notice, he gets cast because the leading lady (Elaine May) thinks he's the cutest of the candidates, despite the dour misgivings of her actor father (the gloriously histrionic José Ferrer). David's parents don't want him to do it; his boss doesn't want him to do it; his girlfriend, though initially supportive, becomes jealous of the leading lady. But David persists, leading to many amusing mishaps on opening night. Santoni has settled into a long career as a supporting character actor, but the supporting cast of Enter Laughing is pretty star-studded; in addition to May and Ferrer, there's Shelley Winters (as David's long-suffering mom), Michael J. Pollard, Don Rickles, Jack Gilford, and even a cameo by Carl's son, Rob, who went on to success as "Meathead" on TV's All in the Family and as director of movies such as This Is Sp...
List Price: $19.98
Summer Rental [VHS]

Summer Rental [VHS]

Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: John Candy , Karen Austin , Kerri Green , Joseph Lawrence (II) , Aubrey Jene
Director: Carl Reiner
John Candy's first leading role was in this 1985 film by Carl Reiner, in which the comic actor played a stressed-out air traffic controller who takes his family on a Florida vacation and has to deal with arrogant, rich jerks. Candy is good in what is almost a straight part (albeit with some jokes), and Reiner keeps the tone in check so his star has an opportunity to show more than one dimension. --Tom Keogh
List Price: $9.95 Our Price: $5.94
Jerk [VHS]

Jerk [VHS]

Rated: R (Restricted)
Staring: Steve Martin , Bernadette Peters , Catlin Adams , Mabel King , Richard Ward
Director: Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner (Where's Poppa?) brought comic Steve Martin to the screen in this mostly funny 1979 movie about a relentlessly stupid but innocent man, whom we get to know from childhood (where it never occurred to him that he was white as he was raised by a family of black sharecroppers) to romance (where he doesn't quite know what to do with Bernadette Peters). Martin is game as the moron, and this is the kind of film with funny moments people still talk about. --Tom Keogh
List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $2.98