By Michael Blowen, Globe Staff, 02/27/00

NEW RELEASES: "Random Hearts" (DVD) - Harrison Ford should be more selective in his roles or his star will be falling soon. This movie has nothing to recommend it. (Original review).

"The Astronaut's Wife" - Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron, as the astronaut and his wife, are thoroughly wasted in this science-fiction mush. The plot is silly and the resolution sillier.

"The Farmer's Wife" - Newton-based filmmaker David Sutherland's thoughtful, compassionate story of the American small-farm crisis is personified by a couple besieged by the daily pressures of weather, finances, and bucking the trend toward agribusiness. (Original review).

NEW ON DVD: Warner Home Video has done a masterful job with three Humphrey Bogart releases on DVD. The crisp black-and-white cinematography, which had grown soft through years of bad prints, comes alive in the new issues of three great movies - Howard Hawks's "The Big Sleep" (1946) and two by John Huston - "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and "Key Largo" (1948).

Columbia Tri-Star's release of Anthony Mann's "The Man From Laramie" (1955) with James Stewart is spectacular in Cinemascope. This vastly underrated Western is presented on Side A with an awkward pan-and-scan treatment. Skip it. Side B is in the wide screen and the process has rarely been better served than it is here.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: March 7: "Eyes Wide Shut" (DVD), "The Mirror" (DVD), "King of Masks" (DVD), "A Dog of Flanders," "The Sacrifice," "The Mirror," "Crime and Punishment." March 14: "The Bone Collector" (DVD), "Outside Providence," "Guinevere," "Murder She Purred," "The Architecture of Doom" (DVD), "Drive Me Crazy," "The Love Bug," "Bandits" (DVD), "Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers," "Diary of Lust," "The Prophecy 3." March 21: "Jakob the Liar" (American version; on DVD), "Pokemon: The First Movie," "The Limey," "Endurance," "Whiteboyz," "Horror Express" (DVD), "Velocity Trap" (DVD), "Swing." March 28: "The Sixth Sense," "Crazy in Alabama," "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," "Voices From a Locked Room," "The Magnificent Seven" (1998).

April 4: "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace," "Boys Don't Cry," "For Love of the Game" (DVD), "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc." April 11: "Thugs." April 18: "Mumford," "House on Haunted Hill," "My Date With the President's Daughter," "End of Days," "That's the Way I Like It," "Love Kills." April 25: "The Fight Club," "RKO 281," "Iris Blond," "Flawless," "Music of the Heart." May 2: "Dogma." May 9: "Bringing Out the Dead." May 16: "The World Is Not Enough" (DVD).

This story ran on page N07 of the Boston Globe on 02/27/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.