Fashion Designer

• TRACY TAKES ON (DVD MOVIE)

When hair stylist Peaches (Mo'Nique) arrives in Beverly Hills to get reacquainted with her sister, Angela (Kellita Smith of "The Bernie Mac Show"), sparks fly! Angela finds out Peaches owes $50,000 in back taxes and is on the run. So the two sisters join forces to fight off a pesky rival salon owner in a show-stopping competition to win a cash prize for Peaches and bragging rights at the city's annual hair show.Hair Show is a lively and funny ensemble comedy set in the busy, high-pressure milieu of an upscale hair salon. As in Barbershop or Empire Records, a handful of idiosyncratic characters share the shop's load but are individually defined by peculiar obsessions or circumstances. Jun Ni (Keiko Agena), for instance, just wants to learn to cook for the husband who adores her yet who is starving because of her failures in the kitchen. Peaches (! Mo'Nique) is trying to save her bacon from the IRS agents hounding her for $50,000 in back taxes. At the center of the story is Peaches' rivalrous relationship with sister Angela (Kellita Smith), who took a sizable inheritance from her late grandmother (Peaches got no cash from Grandma's will) and built the salon in which brassy Peaches might be the most talented stylist. Crisply directed by Leslie Small and co-produced by Magic Johnson, Hair Show is lightly but genuinely rewarding. --Tom KeoghThe Salon stars Vivica A. Fox (Jenny) as the inheritor of a neighborhood beauty salon. Jenny is being forced to sell her shop to the Department of Water and Power (DWP) due to eminent domain. She has not told the other tenants in the salon and is trying to build a case to save the shop. The DWP is represented by a hot shot attorney (Darrin Dewitt Henson) who takes a liking to her and a romance begins. This is a fresh look on the inside of a salon where anything can happ! en.Hair Show is a lively and funny ensemble comedy set ! in the b usy, high-pressure milieu of an upscale hair salon. As in Barbershop or Empire Records, a handful of idiosyncratic characters share the shop's load but are individually defined by peculiar obsessions or circumstances. Jun Ni (Keiko Agena), for instance, just wants to learn to cook for the husband who adores her yet who is starving because of her failures in the kitchen. Peaches (Mo'Nique) is trying to save her bacon from the IRS agents hounding her for $50,000 in back taxes. At the center of the story is Peaches' rivalrous relationship with sister Angela (Kellita Smith), who took a sizable inheritance from her late grandmother (Peaches got no cash from Grandma's will) and built the salon in which brassy Peaches might be the most talented stylist. Crisply directed by Leslie Small and co-produced by Magic Johnson, Hair Show is lightly but genuinely rewarding. --Tom KeoghBrimming with the energy, passion and music that rocked a nation, Hair is an en! tertaining and powerful tribute to the turbulent spirit of the '60s. Brilliantly recreated by OscarÂ(r)-winning* director Milos Forman and screenwriter Michael Weller (Ragtime), this vibrant screen version of the Broadway phenomenon ranks "among the best film musicals" (The Hollywood Reporter)! Fresh from the farm, Claude Bukowski (John Savage, The Thin Red Line) arrives in New York City for a date with the Army Induction Board, only to walk into a hippie "happening" inCentral Park and fall in love with the beautiful Shelia (Beverly D'Angelo, American History X). Befriended by the hippies' pacifist leader, Berger (Treat Williams, Mulholland Falls), and urged to crash a formal party in order to declare his love for Shelia, Claude begins an adventure that lands him in jail, Central Park Lake and, finally, in the army. But Berger's final effort to save Claude from Vietnam sets in motion a bizarre twist of fate with shocking consequences. *1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's N! est; 1984: AmadeusThe Age of Aquarius is brought to life by th! e filmma ker who made Amadeus a household word. Milos Forman directed this version of James Rado, Gerome Ragni, and Galt MacDermot's landmark musical in 1979 between his Oscar-winning films One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus. With mixed reviews (Gene Siskel named it that year's best film) and lukewarm box-office grosses, the film all but disappeared from the collective consciousness. Yet the film beautifully delivers on its promise to bring the '60s back to life. Hair re-creates a colorful world of counterculture finding an anvil to pound on: the Vietnam War. Forman and his design team allow the film to wash over you, starting at the free-flowing opening in which masses of hippies, police, and even their horses eagerly groove to the familiar beat of "Aquarius." In the best work of his career, Treat Williams makes his leading- man debut as Berger, the leader of the Central Park troop who takes draftee Claude (John Savage) under his wing on his trip! through New York City and the apex of what the '60s was. The new recording of the music is quite fine, with Chicago band member Don Dacus's rendition of the title song a highlight. As Berger's pièce de résistance number says, "I've Got Life"; so does the film, right down to its poignant declaration to "let the sunshine in." --Doug ThomasJoin Ren and Stimpy in their bizarre and gross world that features the oddly lovable duo in some outlandish situations coupled with hilarious jokes. THE REN AND STIMPY SHOW: SEASONS FIVE & SOME MORE OF FOUR consists of amusing episodes combined with the gross-out humor that became popular when the show first premiered on Nickelodeon in 1991The animated misadventures of Ren and Stimpy on Nickelodeon came to a close with its fifth season, the entire controversial collection of which is bundled together with the second half of season 4. Some fans of the series seem less than enthralled by the shows that are compiled here (as series cr! eator John Kricfalusi and his Spumco team had been replaced by! Games A nimation), but there's still plenty of inspired insanity to be found; season 4 offers "My Shiny Friend" (Ren takes some extreme measures to cure Stimpy's TV addiction) and "Cheese Rush Days" (the boys head to the Blue Cheese Mountains to mine), while season 5 features "Stupid Sidekick Union" (Stimpy learns that his union is striking); "Reverend Jack Cheese" (the late Frank Gorshin lends his voice to a minister with a thing for meats and cheeses); "Wilderness Adventure," which includes the much-maligned George Liquor; and "Space Dogged" (a Russian cat/dog team--Ren and Stimpy lookalikes, natch-â€"are being sent into space).

As with previous R&S DVD sets, the supplemental features are somewhat spare--Kricfalusi and members of Spumco and Games contribute commentaries, and there's a featurette on the show--and the episodes are indeed the edited versions, but the comments by the show's creative team are both entertaining and informative. And no matter what your opinion! of these final episodes (before the show's revival as an Adult Party Cartoon on Spike TV), there's still plenty of stinky laughs to be had. --Paul GaitaChris Rock visits beauty salons and hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories and Indian temples to explore the way hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of the black community in this exposé of comic proportions that only he could pull off. A raucous adventure prompted by Rock’s daughter approaching him and asking, "Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?”, GOOD HAIR shows Chris Rock engaging in frank, funny conversations with hair-care professionals, beauty shop and barbershop patrons, and celebrities including Ice-T, Nia Long, Paul Mooney, Raven Symoné, Dr. Maya Angelou, Salt-N-Pepa, Eve and Reverend Al Sharpton â€" all while he struggles with the task of figuring out how to respond to his daughter's question.When one of Chris Rock's young daughters asked h! im an innocent question about having "good hair," the comedian! probabl y had no idea just how complicated the answer would be. Fortunately for us, he decided to find out, and the result is this funny, informative, and highly entertaining documentary of the same name. Turns out that for a great many African-American women (and quite a few men, too), "good hair" means "white hair"--i.e., straight and lanky--while the natural or "nappy" look is bad. And oh, the lengths and expense women will go to in order to get "good hair"! In the course of the film, which was directed by Jeff Stilson and cowritten by Rock and several others, Rock first travels to Atlanta, home of the Bronner Brothers Hair Show, where thousands of folks buy and learn how to use new products (the show is also the site of the outrageous and climactic Hair Battle Royale, in which four stylists compete for money and fame). It's there that he learns about sodium hydroxide, better known as hair "relaxer," the "nap antidote," or the "creamy crack" (as effective as the chemical substanc! e is for straightening hair, it can also be highly dangerous). In Harlem and Los Angeles, he investigates the extraordinary popularity of hair weaves, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars annually to create and maintain; Rock even goes to Madras, India, source of most of the hair used in weaves (for Indian women, tonsure, or shaving their heads, is a ritual act of self-sacrifice). Along the way, Rock interviews a great many young women with fabulous hair (including actresses Nia Long, Raven-Symoné, and Kerry Washington, and rappers Salt-N-Pepa), but he also talks to the esteemed poet Maya Angelou, as well as men like rapper-actor Ice-T and the Reverend Al Sharpton. Sharpton, who is very amusing (he's referred to as "the Dalai Lama of relaxed hair"), is about the only celeb who touches on racial issues, pointing out that while it's African Americans who use the overwhelming majority of these hair products, the companies who sell them tend to be owned by Asians. Some ! viewers may object to the film's lack of a strong socio-politi! cal stan ce, but others will no doubt prefer the lighter touch, including a hilarious discussion at a barber shop about dating women with hair weaves (basically, it's "hands off the hair, pal"). --Sam Graham

This 4-DVD set contains the final two seasons of the HBO comedy series "Tracey Takes On..." based on characters created and performed by Tracey Ullman. Each episode focuses on a particular subject (Sports, Love, Agents, Loss, etc.) in a sequence of hilarious scenes involving a number of Ullman-creat! ed characters.

BONUS FEATURES Includes 72 Minutes of Never! - Before -Seen Shows!

Special Guests include: Hugh Laurie (House) Julie Kavner (The Simpsons) Cheech Marin (Cars, Cheech & Chong) Michael McKean (Spinal Tap, Best In Show) Billy Connolly (Boondock Saints, The Aristocrats) Jennifer Jason Leigh (Fast Times At Ridgemont High) Corbin Bernsen (Psych, Major League)

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