Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe What's new in the world of home video... MOVIES Advertisement "Hart's War" -- In this generally well-done war movie that's more about the interaction of people than about war itself, Lt. Tommy Hart (Colin Farrell) tries to make up for his own weakness by defending an African-American officer falsely accused of murdering a racist white sergeant in a Nazi prison camp. Hart is a former Yale law student on a relatively cushiony assignment (his father is a senator) in the closing months of World War II when he's unexpectedly caught in a deadly ambush. He survives but breaks under torture and gives up the location of a fuel dump. Later he's thrown into a Belgium POW camp where the U.S. prisoners are led by a beached warrior, Col. William McNamara (Bruce Willis), under the watchful eye of the camp commandant, Major Visser (Marcel Iures). Suspicious of Hart, McNamara assigns him to bunk with the enlisted men rather than the officers. Soon two black lieutenants are sent to join him, fueling fierce racial hatred and outrage that leads to two deaths and a murder charge against one of the officers (Terrence Howard). Seeking personal redemption for his earlier failure, Hart defends the accused man in a courtroom where justice obviously is not the prime concern. "War" covers a lot of ground, some of it familiar. 2002. 125 minutes. MGM Home Entertainment. Rated R (some strong war violence, language). Advertisement "The Royal Tenenbaums" -- Wes Anderson's oddball comedy about an oddball family, a quirky study of deadpan humor with a twinge of sadness, follows the travails of the Tenenbaum clan whose members for the first time in years are under the same roof. The patriarch, Royal (Gene Hackman), moved out some time ago and has been living in a hotel but now that his credit has run out he wants to return home. His estranged wife (Angelica Huston) doesn't want him, has grown close to her accountant (Danny Glover) but relents when Royal tells her he's dying. Also back home for now are their three kids (Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson), all child prodigies who grew up to be full-blown neurotics -- and all despise dear ol' dad. Throw into the mix the siblings' close friend (Owen Wilson), who reversed the trend by becoming a literary personality (Owen Wilson also co-wrote the screenplay with Anderson), and a confused son-in-law (Bill Murray). Everybody's an eccentric but that's mostly a mask hiding loneliness. A cockeyed comedy that works most of the time. At one point, Hackman describes his character as being "very peculiar." That goes pretty much for the movie -- slyly entertaining but still peculiar. 2001. 109 minutes. Touchstone Home Video. Rated R (some language, sexuality/nudity, drug content). Advertisement "Charlotte Gray" -- The vivacious, versatile and very busy Cate Blanchett plays the title character, a plucky Scottish woman who parachutes into France to join the Resistance movement during World War II. Charlotte's motivation is a young airman she met at a party and fell in love with after a one-night stand. He's been shot down and she hears he's being cared for by Resistance fighters so she lets herself be recruited by British Special Operations, trained and dropped into France where her airman is supposed to be. He's not there but it's never made clear what she expected to do even if he was. She's soon involved with a French group headed by Julien (Billy Crudup) and, for some reason, is taken along on a train demolition mission that nets not only a big bang but fans a spark of affection between the two. Blanchett is good, as always, even with a script that's loaded with plot holes. 2001. 123 minutes. Warner Home Video. Rated PG-13 (some war-related violence, sensuality and brief strong language). "Impostor: The Director's Cut" -- The world in 2079 is not a pretty place. Much of the planet lives under electromagnetic force-field domes to protect it from years of attack by aliens who already have ruined most of Earth's cities. Democracy has given way to global rule, surveillance is so tight everybody carries an implant to make individual monitoring easier. No one is safe from the stifling paranoia, not even scientist Spencer Oldham (Gary Sinise) whose work promises to save mankind until he's suddenly targeted as an alien robot spy and has to go on the run to prove himself. Based on Phillip K. Dick's McCarthy era story, Gary Fielder's film will be appreciated most by dedicated sci-fi fans, though it does make its point quite clearly and Sinise's co-stars (Madeleine Stowe, Vincent D'Onofrio and Mekhi Phifer) fit their tense surroundings well. 2002. 102 minutes. Dimension Home Video. Rated R (violence, some language). Advertisement VIDBITS Coming up next: the charming French romantic comedy "Amelie," "John Q" with Denzel Washington as a desperate father and "Mean Machine," the "Longest Yard" of soccer... In a season of war movies, "Black Hawk Down" is still the No. 1 video rental... One of television's greatest sitcoms of all time has finally made it to DVD with the release of two volumes of "I Love Lucy" from the 1951-52 premiere season.... Among the latest batch of oldies getting new life on DVD are "My Favorite Year," an entertaining 1982 romp tailor-made for Peter O'Toole who gives it his all as a drunken matinee idol trying his hand at the new art of television, and "Innerspace," the engaging 1987 sci-fi comedy-thriller in which a miniaturized Dennis Quaid is accidentally injected into Martin Short with bad guys in hot pursuit...Coming this fall: The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night," a remastered, two-disc set due Sept. 24.
