VideoView -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

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MOVIES

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" -- Nia Vardolos, a Chicago comic, wrote a play about her Greek family, a loving and at times exasperating remembrance, one that was made into a small independent movie that, as the word spread, became a huge hit. Nia, who also wrote the screenplay, portrays Taula Portokalos, who's somewhat of a family outcast because she's 30 and unmarried and, as she points out, life's mission for a "nice Greek girl" is to "marry a Greek boy, make Greek babies and feed everyone until the day we die." Working as a "seating hostess" for the family restaurant "The Dancing Zorbas," Taula has just about given up hope when Ian (John Corbett), a long-haired high school teacher and definitely not a Greek, happens along -- and soon they are in love. But convincing their families they should get married is another matter. Ian's family consists of his rather stodgy parents but Taula has a large extended family ("I have 27 first cousins!") and nobody in the clan has even dated a non-Greek before, meaning a major culture shock for her heritage-bound father (Michael Constantine) and more realistic mother (Lainie Kazan). Consistently funny, well-acted by a cast that makes it a believable, delightful yarn. 2002. 96 minutes. HBO Video. Rated PG (sensuality and language).

"The Fast Runner" -- An extraordinary movie of life within the Arctic Circle, inspired by legend and built around a small but closely knit community of Inuits, huddled together against the harsh elements of a frozen world covered with snow, ice and peril, a compelling story of love, jealousy, murder and revenge. The first feature ever in the Inuit language, deliberately paced and running nearly three hours, takes a while to warm up to but it's worth the effort. It is, overall, a rewarding experience. Basically, it's the story of two brothers with great powers: Amaqjuaa (Pakak Innukshuk) the older and stronger and Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq) the fast runner. Atanarjuat and Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu) fall in love, but she is promised in marriage to the sullen Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq), son of the clan's evil leader. A brutal ritual settles things for a while but leads to a sinister murder scheme that leaves one dead and, in a stunner of a sequence, sends Atanarjuat running for his life, naked, across the frozen tundra. It all seems very real. 2001. 172 minutes. In Inuktitut with English subtitles. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. Rated R (some sexuality, nudity and violence).

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"Brown Sugar" -- Music producer Dre (Taye Diggs) and music reviewer Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) have known each other since childhood, sharing a love for hip-hop music but denying all these years that their feelings for each other were more than just friendship in this sleek, charming romantic comedy. It's obvious they were made for each other and just as obvious how this is going to play out, but it takes Dre's decision to marry someone else and Sidney's dating someone else to finally make them see the light. A love story with an all-black cast but with appeal for all and a solid hip-hop soundtrack. 2002. 109 minutes. Fox Home Entertainment. Rated PG-13 (sexual situations, profanity).

"Wasabi' -- The deadpan, wry humor of Jean Reno makes this silly, contrived action movie an entertaining diversion so long as you don't worry about plot, logic or things like that. Reno is a rowdy Parisian police detective named Hubert, constantly in trouble for doing things his way, who ventures to Tokyo when a long-lost love dies and names him in her will. He finds he's left with a key, a large sum of cash and a 19-year-old daughter he didn't know he had. Hubert is asked to care for the girl Yumi (Ryoko Hirosue), a boisterous handful, until she comes of age, which in Japan is 20 -- and that's just two days away. But the Japanese mob, with whom her mother apparently had some connection, kidnaps Yumi in a plot to steal her inheritance. What they get is a whole lot of Hubert. 2002. 94 minutes. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. Rated R (violence).

"Swept Away" -- Writer-director Guy Ritchie's remake of the 1974 Lina Wertmuller romantic comedy stars Madonna as a rich, bitchy socialite and Adriano Giannini as a deck worker on a private yacht who are marooned together on a deserted Mediterranean island. Once on the island, their roles reverse as Madonna's Amber finds quickly that her husband's money and her own self-inflated social status mean nothing, that only the survival skills of Guiseppe (Giannini) can save them. Now, he calls the shots, she jumps at his every word and,improbably, they fall in love. The movie follows the original story closely (Giannini's father Giancarlo played the same role in the earlier production) but, hopelessly, can't come close to catching it. By comparison, this version is definitely swept away. 2002. 98 minutes. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. Rated R (language and some sexuality/nudity).

VIDBITS

Coming up: "The Four Feathers," "One-Hour Photo," "City by the Sea," "Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams" and "Mostly Martha"... "The Bourne Identity" and "Signs" are the top movie rentals on VHS and DVD across the land this week... Universal has announced a March 18 release of "8 Mile" starring Eminem and Kim Basinger. There will be two DVD versions, one of which will have censored bonus material and the other uncensored... Russell Crowe and his rock band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts are featured on DVD Feb. 25 in numbers from their far-flung concert tour...

That terrific road movie, "Thelma & Louise," is back in a DVD special edition featuring commentary by stars Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis and director Ridley Scott, a documentary, deleted scenes and an alternate extended version of the famous cliff-diving finale. Essentially a "buddy flick," it deals with Sarandon's fed-up waitress and Davis' put-upon housewife who become accidental outlaws on the run together through the American southwest...

Those guys who put the slap in slapstick, Moe and Curly Howard and Larry Fine, aka The Three Stooges, are generating more merry mayhem for a new generation in "Stop! Look! and Laugh!," a 1960 compilation of clips showing the boys in top form, now on DVD for the first time. Included are the best moments from such knock-about shorts as "Micro-Phonies," "A Plumbing we Will Go," "Calling all Curs" and "How High is Up," plus the complete short "A Bird in the Head." Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney handle the intro.