Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
Paramount Home Entertainment

- The disc includes a host of wonderful extras including commentary by director Jan De Bont ("Speed"), music videos, deleted and alternate scenes with commentary and a host of featurettes. They include an intense look at Training, stunts, vehicles and weapons, visual effects and more. There are hours of entertaining treasures about making an action movie that fans will love.

The West Wing: The First Season
Warner Home Video

- The incredibly dynamic series about the ultimate work place -- the White House. The dramatic first year is fast-paced, intelligent, funny and intriguing as we follow a handful of characters who work at the Bartlett administration. This is the first time that political issues are covered from all points of view and yet, the audience learns about the careers of public and political people in Washington. Writer/producer Aaron Sorkin makes politics interesting and that's quite a feat since next to lawyers, they are the most despise profession. The ensemble cast of familiar faces but weren't well known until this show. It includes Rob Lowe, Allison Janney, Moira Kelly, Dule Hill, Richard Spencer, Bradley Whitford and Martin Sheen as the President.

The four disc set includes all of the episodes plus a host of extras including a behind the scenes look at the shooting the pilot, the casting, creating the huge set, etc. There are several featurettes which deal with the music, the politics behind the series, deleted scenes, a gag reel and much more. Fans will be thoroughly delighted with this well-crafted series.

The Last Tycoon
Paramount Home Entertainment

- Based on the unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the late Elia Kazan and Harold Pinter who wrote the screenplay, creates a lush complex world of Hollywood and the nasty back stabbing of studio politics. Robert De Niro plays studio boss, Monroe Stahr, a man haunted by a lost love. Thinly disguised as the late Irving Thalberg, De Niro delivers a gifted performance as a man of vision dueling with greedy power-hungry businessmen and ambitious performers pushing to for their big break. The film is a mesmerizing look of classic 1930s Hollywood sets and attitudes. The marvelous cast includes Jack Nicoholson, Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, Jeanne Moreau, Theresa Russell and Anjelica Huston. This is an early look at the superb acting ability of Robert De Niro.

Pretty Baby
Paramount Home Entertainment

- When it was released in 1977, Louis Malle's intriguing film about a taboo subject -- child prostitution -- caused quite a stir. Malle had created a beautiful and humane look the seedy, disturbing profession. Keith Carradine stars as a photographer in 1917 New Orleans who becomes enthralled with pretty Violet (12-year-old Brooke Shields) who lives with her prostitute mother (Susan Sarandon). Malle bravely constructs this world and his cast deliver beautifully crafted performances. The very young Brooke Shields is superb as the unpretensious Violet who scampers around like any normal child playing with friends and delivering sex in a cool professional manner. While she's being exploited by a mother who wants to escape the life and the older Madam who is so jaded that her skin is as leathery as her attitude, Violet doesn't suffer. Carradine's photographer is so entranced by her as an object that his sense of decency evaporates. One minute he fuses at her like a daughter and the next, he's indulging his love with gifts. Malle captures the early 20th Century New Orleans period with stylish clothes, manners, supersitition and few taboos. But don't be fooled! When Violet's virtue is auctioned off, the winner's devilish face is that of a common ordinary variety of sexual predator. Malle doesn't judge but he also doesn't slight the truth! This is a serious film that will delight fans of Malle and avid fans of films of 1970s.

Edited by Veronica Mixon
images courtesy of Paramount and Warner.

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