RECENT MOVIES
ALL'S FAIR (1989) (Media) $79.95. 90 minutes. Sally Kellerman, George Segal, Robert Carradine, Lou Ferrigno. Comedy about a rising corporate star who discovers that the only way to make it to the top in her company is by joining the boss on weekend war games. She decides to give the weekend warriors a surprise by enlisting their wives for a battle of the sexes.
CHASING DREAMS (1986) (Prism) $79.95. 96 minutes. David G. Brown, John Fife, Jim Shane. Fired by the success of an older brother (played, in a brief appearance, by Kevin Costner) and cheered on by a younger brother, an invalid, a young boy decides to leave the family farm and try for a career in professional baseball.
CURSE II: THE BITE (1989) (TWE) $89.95. 97 minutes. Jill Schoelen, J. Eddie Peck, Jamie Farr. A young couple find more than romance when they unknowingly enter an abandoned nuclear-test site that has become a home for mutant killer snakes.
ECHOES OF PARADISE (1989) (Academy) $89.95. 89 minutes. John Lone, Wendy Hughes. After experiencing a series of personal tragedies, a woman loses herself in the beauty of an island paradise - and in the arms of a mesmerizing Balinese temple dancer.
FRIDA (1984) (Connoisseur) $79.95. 108 minutes. Ofelia Medina, Juan Jose Gurrola. Paul Leduc directed this biography of painter and political activist Frida Kahlo. In Spanish with English subtitles.
JUDGMENT DAY (1988) (Magnum) $79.98. 93 minutes. Monte Markham, Kenneth McLeod, Cesar Romero. Weird thriller about a small Mexican village hiding a terrible secret: Each year the entire population is forced to leave town for one day because they believe that Satan will destroy them if they don't.
LADY AVENGER (1989) (Southgate) $79.95. 85 minutes. Peggie Sanders. After being released from prison, a woman delves into the seedy world of L.A. gangs in search of the group that murdered her brother, only to learn some disturbing truths about the incident.
MIDDLE AGE CRAZY (1980) (CBS/Fox) $59.98. 95 minutes. * * Bruce Dern, Ann- Margret, Eric Christmas, Deborah Wakeman. Dern is a menopausal married male who wants sex to be fun again. Ann-Margret, in a familiar sex-kitten role, tries to help.
NAM ANGELS (1989) (Media) $79.95. 91 minutes. Brad Johnson, Vernon Wells, Kevin Duffis. An arrogant and foolhardy gang of Hell's Angels heads deep into enemy territory during the Vietnam War to rescue a pair of POWs - and a $10 million cache of gold.
PARTY INCORPORATED (1989) (New World) $79.95. 80 minutes. Former X-rated movie star Marilyn Chambers stars in this comedy as a woman who decides to solve her money problems by doing the one thing she does best: throw parties.
POSED FOR MURDER (1989) (Academy) $79.95. 90 minutes. Charlotte J. Helmkamp, Carl Fury. A madman, obsessed with a model who has been named ''Thrill of the Year," determines that if he can't have her, no one will.
TAINTED (1989) (Southgate) $79.95. 90 minutes. Shari Shattuck, Park Overall. When her husband dies while killing an intruder, a mother and schoolteacher finds herself hurled into a nightmare of deception and blackmail.
TRUE BLOOD (1989) (Fries) $79.95. 100 minutes. Jeff Fahey, Sherilynn Fenn, Chad Lowe. A Los Angeles street kid flees to New York when he is framed for the murder of a cop. When he returns to L.A., he learns that his brother is now a member of the gang that framed him.
VINTAGE FILMS
CINDERELLA LIBERTY (1973) (CBS/Fox) $59.98. 117 minutes. * * * * Marsha Mason, James Caan, Kirk Calloway, Eli Wallach. If you've never seen this, it may be difficult picturing Mason playing a prostitute, even one with a heart of gold. But she's very good - and so is Caan - in this tear-jerker about a sailor, a hooker and her little boy.
THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE . . . (1954) (Connoisseur) $69.95. 105 minutes. * * * * Charles Boyer, Vittorio de Sica, Danielle Darrieux. A sometimes hard-to-follow, but nonetheless charming account of a woman who is fickle toward men but ever-faithful in her regard for a pair of diamond earrings.
KEETJE TIPPEL (1975) (Connoisseur) $79.95. 104 minutes. Monique van der Ven, Rutger Hauer. Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop) directed this bawdy tale of a young Dutch girl, adrift in 1881 Amsterdam, who uses her wits to attain a place in high society.
THE MEPHISTO WALTZ (1971) (CBS/Fox) $59.98. 109 minutes. Alan Alda, Curt Jurgens, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins. A journalist's visit to a dying pianist leads to more than just a story: He is possessed by the spirit of the pianist - a satanist who's eager to continue living.
MONIKA (1952) (Connoisseur) $69.95. 82 minutes. * * * Harriet Andersson, Lars Ekborg. Interesting early Ingmar Bergman drama about the brief affair between an indiscriminate girl and a working-class man that results in marriage and the birth of their child.
THE WILD WORLD OF BAT WOMAN (1966) (Rhino) $29.95. 70 minutes. Katherine Victor, George Andre, Steve Brodie, Lloyd Nelson. Trust the oddball folks at Rhino Video to dig this one out of the vaults to coincide with a certain movie now in theaters. Bat Woman is an obscure piece of 1960s silliness directed by cheapo filmmaker Jerry Warren. Because of an almost immediate lawsuit by D.C. Comics (which Warren eventually won), it also was released theatrically under the title She Was a Hippy Vampire. The plot, for those interested, pits Bat Woman and her scantily clad Bat Girls against the evil Ratfink and the scheming Dr. Neon, who plan to destroy the world.
COMEDY
THE ANDY KAUFMAN SPECIAL (1979) (Media) $29.95. 59 minutes. A 1979 ABC-TV special starring the late stand-up comedian and performance artist, who died in 1984 at the age of 35. Co-stars Cindy Williams.
SPORTS
GRAND SLAM! (1989) (VidAmerica) $29.98. 98 minutes. Sportscaster Dick Schaap hosts this video version of his book of the same name, which features footage of and interviews with some of baseball's greats, including Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Reggie Jackson.
PRO WRESTLING
PREMIERE: AMERICAN WOMEN'S WRESTLING FEDERATION (1989) (Fox Hills) $29.95. 60 minutes. Female wrestling action featuring Salem Witch, Galaxina, Kitten Steele, Mercedes Benz and Cajun Queen.
MADE FOR TELEVISION
DROP-OUT MOTHER (1987) (Fries) $39.95. 95 minutes. Valerie Harper, Wayne
Rogers, Carol Kane. Lightweight comedy about an executive who does an about- face and decides she wants to return to being a housewife.
THE LONE RANGER: TEXAS DRAW and OUTLAW TRAIL (1958) (Rhino) $14.95 each. 55 minutes each. Two more tapes, each containing two episodes from the TV series starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels.
TIMESTALKERS (1987) (Fries) $39.95. 96 minutes. William Devane, Lauren Hutton, Klaus Kinski, John Ratzenburger. A professor who invents a time machine finds himself assisting a 26th-century woman in search of an evil cohort who has escaped into the past.
DOCUMENTARIES
"I'M ALMOST NOT CRAZY . . . ": JOHN CASSAVETES - THE MAN AND HIS WORK (1989) (Cannon) $29.95. 56 minutes. A tribute to the late actor-director who was one of film's great mavericks.
MAN ON THE MOON (1989) (CBS/Fox) $19.98. 60 minutes. As the 20th anniversary of the first manned moon landing approaches, CBS news coverage of the event is used to tell the momentous story of the Apollo 11 mission.
THE VISUAL HISTORY OF CARS, VOLS. 1-3 (1989) (MPI) $59.95 each. 120 minutes each. Three videos tracing the evolution of the automobile from its earliest days to the present.
OTHER
MINUTE MOVIE MASTERPIECES (1989) (Rhino) $14.95. 30 minutes. If you want to sound like a movie expert but don't want to sit through them all, here's the tape for you. It contains 30 well-known films, including The Birth of a Nation, A Star Is Born, Les Miserables and The Stranger, each condensed into one-minute summaries, narrated by speed talkers Judith Silinsky and David Starns.
TO OUR READERS
Many readers have phoned or written, saying they have been unable to find some of the tapes listed in "New on Video" in their stores. This column tries to list every new cassette as it becomes available. Realistically, your store cannot have every video in its inventory, so, for each item, we list the producer (the name in parentheses directly after the video's date). With this information, your store should be able to order the cassette you want.
COMING NEXT WEEK
James Woods is a lawyer at the end of his rope in TRUE BELIEVER, Eric Bogosian pulls no punches as an obnoxious talk-show host in TALK RADIO and Glenn Close and John Malkovich play sexual games in DANGEROUS LIAISONS.
RATINGS:
* * * * Excellent
* * * Good
* * Fair
* Poor
(Videos with no stars were not reviewed by The Inquirer.)
