At first look, a film entitled You Are Alone, may not be at the top of your list of must sees unless, perhaps, you are alone. However, one must never judge the straight to DVD video by its title.

You Are Alone centers on two primary characters. Well, actually three. There is Daphne. She’s been accepted into Harvard, she’s beautiful and she’s alone. Then there is Britney. She’s seen things that most people won’t see in their lifetime. And then there is Buddy, a sad sack whose wife has left him, whose dog has recently died and his empty dark encapsulation that he calls home.

The main difference between Daphne and Britney is pretty obvious. On one hand we have a very bright, sexy and sharp young woman on the brink of something great. On the other hand we have a young prostitute who claims that she is the one always in control. The biggest similarity is that Daphne and Britney is the same person.

Mike White has a knack for making you feel uncomfortable. After all, he did pen Chuck and Buck as well as several episodes of Freaks and Geeks (both bodies of work are highly underrated). His characters can be so awkward that I sometimes need to look away.

Shannon plays a lonely executive assistant whose life spins out of control due to the untimely death of her dog, Pencil. Pencil was her life and now she has no life. That is until a kind veterinarian (Sarsgaard) offers Shannon a new dog to adopt. Not only does she fall in love with the dog but with the vet as well.

Things get more and more, dare I say, creepy as she changes almost every aspect of her life to gain more commonalities with her fellow dog lover. Everything from becoming vegan (not because it’s a dietary choice) to sponsoring abused farm animals.

From the deranged mind that brought you Bad Lieutenant, Ms. 45 and King of New York comes a horror tale involving drug addicts, graduate students and vampires.

Not particularly scary or even bulging with production value, the film is still great fun for any fan of the vampire sub genre.

The story plays out as a cautionary yarn warning the audience of the perils of drug abuse(?). A University of New York (not N.Y.U.) graduate student (Lily Taylor) falls prey to a sexy blood sucker (Annabella Sciora) on the dark streets of Manhattan. The experience leaves Taylor in the depths of a horrible addiction; an addiction to human blood.

Unlike many films that portray modern vampirism, St. John’s script adds a bit of a twist in that he uses an unconventional means of blood consumption.

Shot on grainy 35mm black and white, Ferrara’s New York is at once gritty and beautiful. The contrast of dark to light serves the story well.

Welcome to Treasure Town. It's an old and fading fantasy town quietly disappearing under the spread of modern Japan. But it doesn't stand alone. Black and White, two street orphans, rule Treasure Town with all the charm and wild crazy that every classic Peter Pan deserves. Don't confuse these cats with Disney's version. These lost boys live just this side of lunacy but are not without heart.

Change arrives like a slow earthquake and soon they are battling real gansters, alien assassins and urban development. Truth is a major player here and gives the fantastical its impact. Mythology explodes from every corner of this tale and threatens to trample our heroes, who are only children after all, into the dark recesses that inevitably follow change.

Violent and full of love, Tekkonkinkreet can be seen again and again for its depth, beauty and it's wicked cool. The artistry is envelopling, mind blowing and I doubt you will ever see it all. So many little details that piece together a fading city, an alley, a child's room. In the middle of chaos they must remember one thing:  Truth is love and love is all you need.

Follow the Fleet is not the formula that the Astaire/Rogers team is best known for. He's a sailor, and she's single gal making a living in the busy port of San Fransisco as a dance hall girl. Theirs isn't even the the only love story. Historically it's a piece that goes back a picture to when they were the lovable comic relief playing second fiddle to the more glamorous duo, Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott, in Roberta.

However, Fleet is loaded with adult humor and childish charm. Astaire in a sailor suit is hilarious. He looks so young and tiny compared to the bulky and once again co-lead, Scott, and Rogers seems a little crass standing next to the lithesome beauty of a young Harriet Hilliard (of Ozzie and Harriet fame). However their chemistry and spunk make the other two seem as flat and as interesting as soggy pancakes.

First you must know that, to me, men or women in drag are magical creatures - like unicorns. I love them with a wonderment I can't explain or dare not lest I somehow diffuse the potent joy I get just from admiring their mystical powers of fashion and daring.

That said, Breakfast unfolded for me like a rose in the gutter. At first a quaint story of a misfit orphan in an unflinching Irish landscape, it quickly becomes a quixotic journey of a boy/girl in search of love. And the best part is that our hero/heroine, who has always known who he/she is, just becomes more and more himself/herself no matter the hardship or heartache.

Cillian Murphy is unrecognizable as Patrick "Kitten" Braden. His transformation from his last well known lead, Jim, in the frightening 28 Days Later is nothing short of phenomenal. And I don't just mean his shade of lipstick, which is stunning by the way. It is his courage to commit completely to Kitten in all her shame and glory. As a whole director Neil Jordan has surrounded Kitten with grime and glitter, a perfect setting for her reality and what she longs for. Kitten's misadventures have her facing monsters of all shapes and disguises but though her heart breaks it never shatters completely.

Isn't it funny that few people have not heard of The Birds, and yet fewer would vote it one of Hitchcock's best? Perhaps the reason is that more than any other Hitchcock film, The Birds leaves the viewer with the very unsettling feeling of a nightmare without end.

The basic story of a beautiful, spoiled socialite chasing after her beau to small-town (and fictitious) Bodega Bay seems insignificant to the film. Even the underlying message of the mass revolt of nature, as symbolized by birds against man, seems insignificant. In the end, it is the experience of going through the nightmarish bird attacks that will haunt us forever. Hitchcock unceremoniously throws the audience in with the unfortunate lot of the characters. We were scratched, bitten, terrorized right alongside Tippi Hedren.

With this anamorphic widescreen DVD which included a most educational "Making Of," we are finally in a position to give this cinematic masterpiece its dues. The church and schoolhouse of idyllic Bodega stills looks the same today as in the film, but everything else was sheer fabrication from post-production magic in the studio. Matte painting and other pre-CGI special effects, from Tippi Hedren sailing across Bodega Bay to the horrendous attack outside the schoolhouse, withstood the test of time magnificently. But of course the true star was the birds, seemingly thousands of them, real, mechanical, or just dummies. The electronic sound effects - among the most terrifying on film - were a giant step forward from the pioneering efforts in Forbidden Planets. The 2000 DVD mastering has a slightly grainy picture. Ease off your sharpness control and you'll be rewarded with gorgeous 60s imagery, and a film for all seasons! Highest recommendation.

I have been an avid Miyazaki fan since the Hong Kong Film Festival of 1984, when I saw Nausicaä and Castle in The Sky. I think Miyazaki-san did his greatest work in the 90s, before Spirited Away brought him fame and fortune in Hollywood. And of his 1990s films, there is none more mature, moving, and masterful as Porco Rosso, the story of World War I flying ace Marco Porcellino, whose disillusionment with the rise of fascism made him choose to become a pig.

In abandoning the world, Marco also left behind people who loved him, especially the beautiful Gina, widow of his wartime comrade and owner of the best club in the Adriatics, where bounty hunters and air pirates alike leave their guns (and troubles) behind.

This is Miyazaki's most romantic film, and could easily have been done with live actors. But with his usual zeal and fanaticism for every authentic detail, Miyazaki has created out of manga (cartoon) a completely believable world, much as Hitchcock had in The Birds with matte painting. The seaplanes and their dogfights will overwhelm you with their realism, and Marco's engine actually bears the brandname Ghibli in reference to Miyazaki's movie studio, just as Grandfather Piccolo who owns the plane factory bears an unmistakable resemblance to Miyazaki-san himself.

The Earth was accidentally demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, and archetypal English bloke Arthur Dent was left hitching around the Galaxy with just his bathrobe, a towel, and a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide (the one that has "Don't Panic" in friendly block letters on its cover.)

Welcome to the first full-length cinematic version of this 1980s sci-fi icon. And, since author Douglas Adams himself wrote the script, there is no reason to panic! The film is mostly harmless - eh, make that mostly delightful. Special effects range from a spacecraft that looks like a cannister vacuum cleaner turned inside out, to aliens from the Hanson Workshop who look like giant beanie babies. But the tour of the "factory floor" of Megrathea, the planet that manufactures worlds, is worth the price of the DVD. Adams included many of the skids, anecdotes and one-liners which made the book so special, and had them discreetly animated as well.