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Aladdin (A Walt Disney Classic)
: essential video:Disney's 1992 animated feature is a triumph of wit and skill. The high-tech artwork and graphics look great, the characters are strong, the familiar story is nicely augmented with an interesting villain (Jafar, voiced by Jonathan Freeman), and there's an incredible hook atop the whole thing: Robin Williams's frantically hilarious vocal performance as Aladdin's genie. Even if one isn't particularly moved by the love story between the title character (Scott Weinger) and his girlfriend Jasmine (Linda Larkin), ...
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FernGully - The Last Rainforest
: :Environmentally friendly animated film with a strong message that doesn't club anyone over the head--but it certainly can't be missed. Zak (voiced by Christian Slater) is a heavy-machine operator whose job is to push over any vegetation in his path. He's shrunken to wee size, however, when Crysta (Samantha Mathis), a fairy of the forest, not only finds him cute but wants him to see the results of his handiwork. They end up battling Hexxus, an evil force imprisoned ...
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Return of Jafar
: :This 1994, direct-to-video follow-up to Aladdin (it's actually four episodes of the Aladdin television program, back-to-back) is a wash-out compared to the Robin Williams-driven animation feature that kicked off the franchise. The story partially involves the villainous Jafar's parrot--Iago--trying to leave his master and befriend Aladdin and Jasmine. Williams is nowhere to be found, unfortunately; the genie's voice is provided by Dan Castellaneta, and the difference shows. --Tom Keogh
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Only Love
: :Erich Segal seems to be obsessed with beautiful young women inflicted with cancer. He first used this formula in his tearjerking book Love Story (later made into a 1970 film starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal). It appears again in Only Love, based on Segal's novel of the same name. Rob Morrow is Matthew Heller, a neurosurgeon who had his heart broken by a stunning Italian doctor, Silvia Rinaldi (Mathilda May). Marisa Tomei is Evie, his best friend from ...
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Johnson Family Vacation
: :Cedric the Entertainer (Barbershop, Intolerable Cruelty) lends his stubborn, skeptical charm to Johnson Family Vacation. Though separated from his wife (Vanessa Williams, Soul Food, Shaft), Nate Johnson (Cedric) pulls his family together so that they can compete for an award at the Johnson family reunion. Of course, the road trip from California to Missouri--featuring a sexy but crazy hitchhiker, motel high jinks, and an afternoon in jail--threatens to split up the family permanently. The humor of Johnson Family Vacation ...
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Living Proof: Hank Williams Jr Story
:Description:Biopic of the son of a country music legend who grew to become one of America's greatest songwriters in his own right.
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Scaramouche
: :As first lines go, Scaramouche's is irresistible: 'He was born with a gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad.' This exuberant period adventure is pretty irresistible itself--even more than Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk, likewise derived from Rafael Sabatini novels. Within more or less one day in pre-revolutionary France, devil-may-care Stewart Granger learns he's the bastard offspring of a nobleman, gets orphaned, realizes he's fallen in love with his sister (Janet Leigh), swears to ...
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I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998)
: :Jonathan Taylor Thomas stars as Jake, a shallow huckster attending college in Los Angeles who finds troubles aplenty and, eventually, redemption on a road trip home in this youth-oriented Christmas vehicle. The action begins with Jake dumped in the desert dressed in full Kris Kringle regalia as payback for a scheme gone wrong, making Taylor Thomas the second Home Improvement cast member to don a Santa suit for film. (The first, of course, was his TV dad Tim Allen ...
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Aladdin (Disney Special Platinum Edition)
: essential video:Disney's 1992 animated feature is a triumph of wit and skill. The high-tech artwork and graphics look great, the characters are strong, the familiar story is nicely augmented with an interesting villain (Jafar, voiced by Jonathan Freeman), and there's an incredible hook atop the whole thing: Robin Williams's frantically hilarious vocal performance as Aladdin's genie. Even if one isn't particularly moved by the love story between the title character (Scott Weinger) and his girlfriend Jasmine (Linda Larkin), ...
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Aladdin: The Return of Jafar
: :This 1994, direct-to-video follow-up to Aladdin (it's actually four episodes of the Aladdin television program, back-to-back) is a wash-out compared to the Robin Williams-driven animation feature that kicked off the franchise. The story partially involves the villainous Jafar's parrot--Iago--trying to leave his master and befriend Aladdin and Jasmine. Williams is nowhere to be found, unfortunately; the genie's voice is provided by Dan Castellaneta, and the difference shows. --Tom Keogh
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