Issue: "Court in the balance," April 1, 2000
The EditorsThe Editors

Video Rentals

Culture | The top 5 videos in popularity as measured by rental receipts for the week ended March 12.

Double Jeopardy $9.04 million
3 weeks in release
$35.33 million to date
CAST / DIRECTOR / STUDIO
Ashley Judd, Tommy Lee Jones / Bruce Beresford / Paramount Pictures

PLOT
Innocent woman convicted of murdering her jerk husband discovers hubby isn't dead.

MESSAGE
Revenge is mine! Since she already did jail time for "killing" her husband, she decides she can hunt him down with impunity.

CAUTION
Rated R for bad language, violence, and sexual situations.

Eyes wide shut $8.23 million
1 week in release
$8.23 million to date
CAST / DIRECTOR / STUDIO
Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman / Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey) / Warner Bros.

PLOT
A rich Manhattan couple faces their sexual obsessions in a long, detailed fashion.

MESSAGE
Freudianism meets nihilism: Life is dead, love is dead, sex is dead.

CAUTION
Rated R for graphic sex, frequent nudity, and bad language.

Stigmata $6.42 million
2 weeks in release
$14.6 million to date
CAST / DIRECTOR / STUDIO
Patricia Arquette, Gabriel Byrne / Rupert Wainwright / MGM

PLOT
Exorcist-style thriller about a woman who finds stigmata on herself and a secret gospel supposedly written by Jesus.

MESSAGE
Anti-Christian double talk. Stigmata proposes that organized religion is one big scam, but it's packed with its own brand of mystical mumbo-jumbo.

CAUTION
Stigmata wears its blasphemy with pride. Rated R for profanity, sexual situations, nudity, violence.

Random Hearts $6 million
2 weeks in release
$13.17 million to date
CAST / DIRECTOR / STUDIO
Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas / Sydney Pollack / Columbia Pictures

PLOT
Grief and romance collide for a cop and a liberal Republican congresswoman when their cheating spouses die in a plane crash.

MESSAGE
No man knows his time; one's secret plans may be revealed in unusual ways.

CAUTION
Rated R for bad language, violence, and sexual situations.

Blue Streak $3.69 million
5 weeks in release
$34.37 million to date
CAST / DIRECTOR / STUDIO
Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson / Les Mayfield (Flubber) / Columbia Pictures

PLOT
Dumbed-down action comedy about a burglar who discovers his stolen diamond is hidden inside a police station, so he pretends to be a policeman so he can get his goods.

MESSAGE
People who play by the rules are stiff and stupid, while cons and crooks know where the action is.

CAUTION
Rated PG-13 for bad language and violence.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Everybody needs a good shaggy dog story now and then. My Dog Skip (Warner Bros.; rated PG for violence and bad language) is about a shy little boy (Frankie Muniz) who learns about life after he gets an adorable little terrier as a birthday present. The pooch helps the bookish lad break out of his shell, make friends, meet a girl, and move a few steps toward manhood. Skip fits the family-friendly mold and it usually stays out of the land of corniness. The movie is a fictionalized version of the late Harper's editor Willie Morris's own adventures in Yazoo City, Mississippi, during World War II. Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane play the boy's parents. Luke Wilson plays Dink, their neighbor who goes off to war a hero and comes back something else. Skip is reminiscent of A Christmas Story minus the slapstick comedy. It takes a picture of childhood lived decades ago, but it stops well short of overblown nostalgia. It appeals to elements everyone is familiar with: social awkwardness, growing up, learning about people, and, of course, the childhood pet.
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