Gary Allen

The hard-ball gamesmanship and casual character assassination of American politics sets the stage for this thriller from writer and director Rod Lurie. When the Vice President of the United States unexpectedly dies, all eyes in Washington D.C. are on President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) as he chooses a new VP. Sen. Jack Hathaway (William Petersen), a respected career politician enjoying a new swell of popularity after a well-publicized attempt to save a drowning woman, is expected to be Evans' choice, but instead he picks Sen. Laine Hanson (Joan Allen), a decision that raises eyebrows on both sides of the political fence. Veteran power broker Shelly Runyon (Gary Oldman) is vehemently opposed to Hanson's appointment, in part because the Democratic senator was once a Republican, and vows to do everything in his power to prevent her from being confirmed. Runyon and his staff start digging for dirt on Hanson, and soon make a surprising discovery her personal morality is called into question when it's alleged that she took part in a group sexual liaison while she was a college student. The Contender also stars Mike Binder as one of Hanson's advisors, Mariel Hemingway as an old friend with a surprising secret, Christian Slater as an ambitious congressmen assisting Runyon, and Philip Baker Hall as Hanson's father; it was the second feature from former film critic Rod Lurie.

What Happened to Kerouac? The Beat Goes On -- What Happened to Kerouac? The Beat Goes On, the extras to the acclaimed 1986 documentary, is composed of interviews taken from the original footage shot at the 25th anniversary celebration of the publication of On the Road, held at The Naropa Institute in 1982. It features fellow Beat writers Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and others. The film starts off with an all-star line-up of Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Paul Krassner debating whether the Beat Generation was a political or cultural movement. Then Abbie Hoffman, activist extraordinaire, gives a passionate, funny speech praising the Beats. Other scenes reveal Kerouac's only daughter Jan's incestuous dream of her father, Edie Parker's marriage to Jack in jail, Kerouac keeping Steve Allen up all night, Allen Ginsberg recalling Kerouac's monumental drunken humor on the William Buckley Show, actor Paul Gleason telling of Kerouac's physical confrontations in bars along with his singing and loud voice, poet Robert Creeley describing a wonderful scene of a flood from Dr. Sax, Carolyn Cassady remembering the embarrassing night Jack and Neal brought a hooker home to the Cassadys, and Ann Charters' comprehensive overview of Kerouac's books, his critics, his Buddhism, his lost friendships, and his dutiful attachment to his mother. These extras delve deeper into Kerouac, offering more intimate, personal, and contradictory views than the original documentary. His genius, his writing styles, his working-class background, and his eventual decline into alcoholism are revealed by those who knew him best.

Welcome to One Square Mile of Earth. From animator Jeff Drew, and comedy double-act The Pajama Men, AKA Mark Chavez and Shenoah Allen, comes a dazzling new animated series chronicling the lives of a unique ensemble cast. Bill the bunny is a struggling novelist, who has never actually written anything, much to the chagrin of his perfectionist life partner, Gary the frog. Thad the bear is a hopeless romantic who can't find the right words to express his feelings for the scandalous and alluring Lucy goat. And Leon the hippopotamus, one the coolest and hippest guys in town, has struck up a unlikely friendship with a down-on-his-luck high school sociology teacher, Pedro the mouse.

Welcome to One Square Mile of Earth. From animator Jeff Drew, and comedy double-act The Pajama Men, AKA Mark Chavez and Shenoah Allen, comes a dazzling new animated series chronicling the lives of a unique ensemble cast. Bill the bunny is a struggling novelist, who has never actually written anything, much to the chagrin of his perfectionist life partner, Gary the frog. Thad the bear is a hopeless romantic who can't find the right words to express his feelings for the scandalous and alluring Lucy goat. And Leon the hippopotamus, one the coolest and hippest guys in town, has struck up a unlikely friendship with a down-on-his-luck high school sociology teacher, Pedro the mouse.