Alias - The Complete First Season

• Golden Globe Award-winning actress Jennifer Garner (Best Actress In A Television Series, 2002) is Sydney Bristow. Syd's not exactly your average grad student. Her life might appear normal, but she's hiding a secret life working as a spy for the CIA. Sydney's world is turned upside down when she learns she may work for the very enemy she thought she was fighting. Now she's entangled

CATCH AND RELEASE - DVD MovieJennifer Garner's lips grow more Angelina-esque every year. In the romantic comedy Catch and Release, Garner (Alias, 13 Going On 30) plays Gray Wheeler, a young woman whose fiance dies unexpectedly before the wedding, leaving Gray unable to afford her home--so she moves in with her fiance's best friends, Sam (Kevin Smith, director of Clerks and Dogma) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger, Lucky Number Slevin). But the presence of another old friend named Fritz (Timo! thy Olyphant, Deadwood) leads to the unveiling of a secret: Gray's fiance had a child with another woman. Catch and Release lacks the clear story structure that most romantic comedies are built on, but trades it for a richer sense of the ambiguities of human relationships. Garner, though lovely and personable, is a bit bland--fortunately, she's surrounded by actors with all kinds of edges, including Smith (who shows an unexpected and uncloying earnest side), Fiona Shaw (from the Harry Potter movies) as the fiance's grieving mother, and Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), who demonstrates once again her powers as a fearless and surprising actress. Catch and Release is an uneven movie, with a remarkably elegant visual style that sometimes clashes with the workmanlike dialogue, but it can't be written off as the same old Hollywood claptrap. Though a happy ending is inevitable, the path it takes has some surprising turns and flashes of unexpected emot! ional depth.-- Bret Fetzer

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SIGNIFICANT OTHERS:SERIES - DVD MovieThe 1998 Fox television series Significant Others amounted to six episodes (three of which never aired) before cancellation, but this two-disc set strongly suggests that the witty, nimble dramedy from the creators of Party of Five deserved a longer run. In a nutshell, PO5 went on hiatus in '98, and irritated fans of that series ignored replacement program Significant Others, which follows the career and romance hassles of three twentysomething best friends. Fox pulled the plug on Significant Others very quickly, but fans of actor Scott Bairstow (who went on to a recurring role on PO5) and two terrific actresses, Jennifer Garner and Elizabeth Mitchell (who next turned up in the PO5 spin-off, Time of Your Life), sh! ould definitely look into this truncated project.

Bairstow plays Henry, an aspiring writer reduced to churning out website pornography and inexperienced enough to enter, wide-eyed, into an affair with his older, married boss. Campbell (Eion Bailey of Band of Brothers), in defiance of his parents' wishes, stumbles through initial steps to become a producer of children's videos; he's also coping with the shock of discovering pals Henry and Nell (Garner) are getting it on and that an old girlfriend (Mitchell) is marrying his shallow, older brother. Talented Nell, destined for big things but afraid of commitment, hops from one important job to the next and develops an attachment to her absent father's best friend. As with PO5 (and Sisters, another primetime series from some of the same producers), Significant Others treats serious topics with smart dialogue and enough of a light touch to make the series feel comforting and familiar. Still, that'! s not enough for the irrepressible Garner (Alias, 13! Going o n 30), whose enchanting, tragi-comic performance on this series is almost larger-than-life and reminds one of such Golden Age stars as Jean Arthur and Ginger Rogers. --Tom KeoghGHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST - DVD MovieStarring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner and directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls), Ghost of Girlfriends Past seems to be lacking some of the chemistry we have seen from the stars in similar romantic comedies, but is still entertaining and worth a watch. McConaughey plays a womanizer named Conner Mead far from settling down who is forced to take a Christmas Carol-type journey through girlfriends of his past, present and future while attending his brother’s wedding weekend. Jenny (Garner) is the childhood sweetheart and longstanding object of his affection. Will he be able to grow up and admit his love for Jenny before the weekend is over, or will he continue his man-whore ways and lose her forever? Although McConaughey and! Garner both tread familiar territory, they’re so good at it that you don’t mind. Some of the best scenes in the movie involve Michael Douglas, who is perfect as Conner’s dead uber-womanizing mentor Uncle Wayne, and Lacey Chabert, who is also hilarious as the stressed out bride-to-be. Yes, it’s predictable and cheesy, but it has some real moments and provides laughs--and that is exactly what a romantic comedy is for. --Lisanne ChastainGolden Globe Award-winning actress Jennifer Garner (Best Actress In A Television Series, 2002) is Sydney Bristow. Syd's not exactly your average grad student. Her life might appear normal, but she's hiding a secret life working as a spy for the CIA. Sydney's world is turned upside down when she learns she may work for the very enemy she thought she was fighting. Now she's entangled in a covert lifestyle where she is forced to question the allegiances of everyone, including those closest to her. Entertainment Weekly says ALIAS ! is "a spy-fi roller coaster of killer gadgets, double roundkic! ks, trip le crosses, poignant confessionals, cliff-hangers, sliced-off fingers, conspiracies, outrageous outfits, exotic locales, flirtations, mythologies -- and that's just before the first commercial break." Now see the 22 mesmerizing episodes that launched it all in this 6-disc set. You'll also experience never-before-seen extras that give you special access inside the world of ALIAS. See the show everyone has been talking about that has redefined series television. This edge-of-your-seat collection with its heart-pounding action of unpredictable plot twists will have you gasping for air and begging for Season 2!Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is a super (and super sexy) spy, fighting nefarious villains and working for the good guys--or so she thinks. Recruited as a college freshman for espionage work, Sydney found her true calling with SD-6, a secret division of the CIA. When her hunky doctor-boyfriend proposes to her, she decides to let him in on the truth she's not supposed to! tell anyone: she's not a grad student with a demanding job for an international bank, but a secret agent who constantly puts her life on the line for the free world. But when SD-6 discovers her security breach, her fiancé is brutally assassinated, and Sydney suddenly finds herself face-to-face with the truth: she's been working for the bad guys. Deciding to become a double agent for the CIA and bring down the evildoers, Sydney gets one more surprise--her estranged father (Victor Garber) is also working for SD-6, and the CIA as well. Welcome to the family, Syd!

Confusing? This is all just in the first episode of Alias, the brainchild of Felicity creator J.J. Abrams that plays like a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and James Bond. With its double-edged tension (how long can Syd play double agent?) and one heck of a MacGuffin (the dreaded Rambaldi device, the mythic creation of a Renaissance genius), the show leads its viewers from episode to ! episode with visceral, compelling action, not to mention the n! ascent r omance between Syd and her CIA handler, Vaughn (Michael Vartan), and her clashes with her heretofore distant father. Sharp, smart, and always suspenseful, Alias' center was held by the gorgeous Garner, a stellar action heroine and an even better actress who could pull off Sydney's exotic undercover missions and conflicted emotions with equal dexterity. By the end of this first season, which concludes with a breathtaking cliffhanger, you'll be seduced into Alias' world with, happily, no desire to escape. --Mark Englehart