America's Sweethearts

• DVD
• JULIA ROBERTS
• BILLY CRYSTAL

FOR KIKI, BEING THE PERSONAL ASSISTANT TO BEAUTIFUL MEGASTARGWEN ISN'T EASY. IN FACT, IT'S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE SINCE THE MANOF HER DREAMS IS EDDIE. GWEN'S ESTRANGED HUSBAND. KIKI IS GIVEN THE MONUMENTAL TASK OF HELPING GWEN AND EDDIE MAKE IT THROUGH A PRESS JUNKET ORGANIZED BY PUBLICITY EXEC LEE PHILLIPS.America's Sweethearts is just the kind of romantic froth that makes for pleasant viewing on a lazy, rainy day. While Julia Roberts, John Cusack, and Catherine Zeta-Jones offer high-wattage marquee value, costar and cowriter Billy Crystal reworks Singin' in the Rain for latter-day Hollywood, where estranged superstars Gwen (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie (Cusack) reluctantly promote their latest movie by pretending their messily disputed relationship is still going strong. The studio chief (Stanley Tucci) is desperate for a hit, so he hires ! a seasoned publicist (Crystal) to orchestrate a press junket that will cast everyone in a profitable light. The catch: The director (Christopher Walken) has abducted his own film in an act of artistic extortion, and Gwen's sister and longtime assistant Kiki (Roberts) is the true object of Eddie's desire.

Chaos ensues at the luxury hotel where the junket is scheduled, and America's Sweethearts pokes easy fun at the cynical machinery that keeps Hollywood running. Quotable quips are delivered in abundance, and while Zeta-Jones is readily convincing as a bitchy narcissist, Roberts effortlessly steals the show with her trademark charms. All of which makes America's Sweethearts lightly entertaining, even though it never rises (like Roberts's earlier Notting Hill) to the level of classic romantic comedy, hampered by a script that too often substitutes easy laughs for ripe satirical invention, flashing a phony grin when it should be baring its fangs. --J! eff Shannon

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Comeback: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels)

• ISBN13: 9780226770581
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Research shows that over time, most churches plateau and then eventually decline. Typically, they start strong and experience periods of growth, then stagnate and lose members. Since 1991, the North American population has increased by 15 percent while the number of "unchurched" people has increased by 92 percent. Large church houses that were filled in the 1950s and 60s now hold a fraction of their capacity.

To counter this trend, authors Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson surveyed 300 churches from across ten different denominations that recently achieved healthy evangelistic growth after a significant season of decline. What they have discovered is an exciting method of congregation reinvigoration ! that is shared in the new book entitled Comeback Churches.

Endorsements

“As a successful pastor, church planter, researcher, and advisor to thousands of churches, Ed Stetzer speaks from a wealth of experience with all kinds of churches. Now, in one volume, your church can benefit from his wisdom. This book is a winner!”
â€"Dr. Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life and The Purpose-Driven Church 

“First and foremost, it is biblical. Second, it is well researched. And third, it is immensely practical and applicable . . . this book should be in the hands of hundreds of thousands of pastors, staff, and church leaders. Simply stated, it is just that good.” â€"Thom S. Rainer, author of Simple Church, president/CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources

“Finally, a book of practical advice that is based on research. I have seen it both waysâ€" endless research with little ad! vice, or, much advice with little facts. This book strikes the! balance with perfection.” â€"Elmer Towns, Dean of Liberty University

“This is the most helpful, practical book on church revitalization I’ve read this century.” â€"Leonard Sweet, Drew Theological School, George Fox University

“Comeback Churches is more than a pep talk. It’s rooted in the ‘right stuff’ to bring a congregation out of the dismal into the vital.” â€"Jack W. Hayford, President, International Foursquare Churches, Chancellor, The King’s College and Seminary

“No one, to my knowledge, has done the hard research, presented the facts, and offered such sound advice as Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson… Comeback Churches is the number-one book on turning around declining and plateauing church ministry. â€"Gary L. McIntosh, D.Min., Ph.D., Biola University

“A refreshing book by authors who know how to make research exciting and instructional. Leaders and members of non-growing ! evangelical churches should read this book (it wouldn't hurt mainliners either)!” â€"Bill Easum, Easum, Bandy & Associates

Here are ten suspenseful, serpentine stories  of betrayal, blackmail, murder, and revenge...all  culminating in shocking twists of fate.  Within these pages live a wealth of  characters you will not soon forget...people  whose lives become irrevocably trapped in a world of  no comebacks, beyond the point of no return--from  the manipulators and the manipulated to the  ultra-rich capable of buying and selling human lives, to  the everyday man maneuvered by circumstances into  performing deadly acts of violence.

Known as The Makeover Guy ® from his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and other national television programs, Christopher Hopkins believes that as they age, women become more beautiful but often feel less attractive. He's out to change that. For more than twenty years he's encouraged women wh! o often feel like they' have taken a backseat to everything a! nd every one else to come out of the shadows and take center stage. Now it's your turn. Using Christopher's step-by-step strategies and detailed advice,you will learn to: 

• Restore your hair with your ideal cut, color, and style.  
• Revamp your wardrobe to flatter a changing body.
• Refresh your face with 'visible lift' makeup techniques.
• Renew your spirit and maintain your look using Christopher's revival guide.

After the bloodbath of Butcher's Moon, the action-filled blowout Parker adventure, Donald Westlake said, "Richard Stark proved to me that he had a life of his own by simply disappearing. He was gone." And for nearly twenty-five years, he stayed away, while readers waited.

But nothing bad is truly gone forever, and Parker’s as bad as they come. According to Westlake, one day in 1997, "suddenly, he came back from the dead, with a chalky prison pallor"--and ! the resulting novel, Comeback, showed that neither Stark nor Parker had lost a single step. Knocking over a highly lucrative religious revival show, Parker reminds us that not all criminals don ski masks--some prefer to hide behind the wings of fallen angels.

The frighteningly prolific mystery writer Donald E. Westlake, a.k.a. Richard Stark, ended his legendary series of books about a career criminal known only as Parker with 1974's Butcher's Moon. He cited too much competition from copycats in print, on film, and on television. Persuaded by fans and family, Westlake has resurrected Parker with a welcome burst of energy and imagination. The felon and his long-time lady friend Claire are enjoying the quiet life in their New Jersey lakeside home when Parker's invited to become part of a plan to remove a large sum of cash from a glossy TV-preacher named William Archibald. It's a heist that goes wrong from the start and turns into a tense, chaotic bal! let of betrayal and death. One of Parker's partners is a weak! babbler , another a cold traitor. Archibald's security chief is a tenacious pursuer, intent on retrieving his employer's money. Along the way, we learn how to hide crooks, cars, and cash in a small city with an efficient police force; how to escape from a variety of traps and sealed rooms; and most of all how Parker has managed to stay alive--in readers' minds as well as in the brain of his creator--for all these years.

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Alexander, Revisited: The Final Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition)

• Now available is an all new and completely unrated version of Oliver Stone's incredible epic film, loaded with nearly 40 minutes of additional never-before-seen footage, that takes the film to a new level of realism and intensity. Restructured and expanded into two acts with one intermission, Oliver Stone's vision is delivered the way he originally conceived and intended. With the new, unrated and

Now available is an all new and completely unrated version of Oliver Stone's incredible epic film, loaded with nearly 40 minutes of additional never-before-seen footage, that takes the film to a new level of realism and intensity. Restructured and expanded into two acts with one intermission, Oliver Stone's vision is delivered the way he originally conceived and intended. With the new, unrated and graphic battle scenes and unadulterated sensuality, it's the movie you couldn't see in theatres, now av! ailable on DVD for the very first time!

DVD Features:
Introduction
Theatrical Trailer

For better or worse (and in this case, it's mostly for better), Oliver Stone's Alexander Revisited should stand as the definitive version of Stone's much-maligned epic about the great Asian conqueror. Following the DVD release of his previous Director's Cut, Stone offers a video introduction here, explaining why he felt a third and final attempt at refining his film was necessary. Essentially, he's using this opportunity to re-create the "road show" format of the Biblical epics of the 1950s and '60s, with a three-and-a-half-hour running time (with an intermission at the two-hour mark) including 45 minutes of previously unseen footage. Stone has also significantly restructured the film, resulting in substantial (if not exactly redemptive) improvements in its narrative flow. Alexander (played in a torrent of emotions by Colin Farrell) is dyin! g as the film opens, his final moments serving to bookend the ! film's e pic story, which incorporates flashback sequences to flesh out the Macedonian king's back-story involving the turbulent battle of fate between his father, King Philip (Val Kilmer) and his scheming sorceress mother Olympia (Angelina Jolie, ridiculous accent and all), who insists that Alexander is literally a child of the gods.

In Stone's final cut, epic battles remain chaotic (although Alexander's strategy is somewhat easier to follow, with on-screen titles indicating left, right, and center during his army's greatest maneuvers) and the ultra-violent battles are more graphically gory than ever (hence their "unrated" status). The animalistic lovemaking of Alexander and his barbarian bride Roxana (Rosario Dawson) is slightly extended (with Dawson as ravishing as ever), and Stone's additional footage also improves the overall arc of Alexander's relationship with his closest generals and male companions, although his most intimate homosexual encounters remain mostly discreet.! As Alexander Revisited makes clear, the film's weaknesses remain unavoidable, but Stone deserves credit for recognizing how a longer running time, and more disciplined narrative structure, would bring Alexander closer to the respect it never earned from critics and filmgoers alike. This is unquestionably a better film than it used to be, leaving us to wonder why it took three separate efforts to shape Alexander into its best possible presentation. --Jeff Shannon

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