What’s Hot

* Last week’s Top 5 VHS rentals:

1. “The Hurricane” (1999). Denzel Washington does exceptional work, perhaps the best of his career, as boxer and unjustly imprisoned murder suspect Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. Regrettably, the rest of this conventional, middle-of-the-road biopic is not up to his level. Directed by Norman Jewison. (Kenneth Turan, Dec. 29) R for language and some violence.

2. “The Green Mile” (1999). Although its Stephen King story is a good one, this version, written and directed by Frank Darabont, is hampered by excessive length, the suffocating deliberateness of its pace and some truly stomach-turning moments. Even Tom Hanks’ compelling performance as the head guard on death row in a 1935 Louisiana prison can’t overcome that. (Kenneth Turan, Dec. 10) R for violence, language and some sex-related material.

3. “Scream 3” (2000). Director Wes Craven and writer Ehren Kruger bring the smart, darkly amusing--though very bloody--horror trilogy to a bravura finish, as that elusive serial killer terrorizes the set of “Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro.” Neve Campbell is back to face down evil once again, and so are the couple Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette as a ruthlessly ambitious TV newscaster and a small-town cop. (Kevin Thomas, Feb. 4) R for strong horror violence and language.

4. “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999). This Anthony Minghella-directed version of the Patricia Highsmith novel about an amoral wannabe (Matt Damon) who worms his way into the good graces of clueless U.S. expatriates (Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow) in 1950s Europe is unexpectedly lacking in emotional impact. (Turan, Dec. 24) R for violence, language and brief nudity.

5. “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” (1999). Rob Schneider is the latest “Saturday Night Live” veteran to get a “doofus feature” of his very own. He plays a softhearted, softheaded fish-tank cleaner forced to become what some would call a “professional escort”--well, anyway, the movie is about what you’d expect. (Gene Seymour, Dec. 10) R for sexual content, language and crude humor.

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* Last week’s Top 5 DVD rentals:

1. “The Hurricane”

2. “Bicentennial Man” (1999). Robin Williams gives a touching performance as a robot who gradually transforms into a human being in this romantic but overly glossy sci-fi fable. Directed by Chris Columbus. (Kevin Thomas, Dec. 17) PG for language and some sexual content.

3. “The Talented Mr. Ripley”

4. “Green Mile”

5. “Boiler Room” (2000). Giovanni Ribisi shines as a college dropout driven to get rich by greed and a misguided desire to please his dad. But this sometimes intriguing look at the testosterone-driven world of a sleazy New York brokerage is marred by too many poorly drawn subplots populated by cardboard characters. (Eric Harrison, Feb. 18) R for strong language and some drug content.

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* Last week’s Top 5 VHS sellers

1. “The Sixth Sense” (1999). Director M. Night Shyamalan’s startling and nervy film about a child psychologist (Bruce Willis) who tries to help a boy with a disturbing secret (Haley Joel Osment) is one of the creepiest thrillers to arise in years. d Rich in a kind of matter-of-fact horror. (John Anderson, Aug. 6) PG-13 for intense thematic material and violent images.

2. “My Dog Skip” (2000). Based on Willie Morris’ 1995 memoir, this film is a standard-issue Hollywood family film about a boy (Frankie Muniz) and his dog growing up in a small Southern town during World War II. It’s a little too glossy and Skip is a bit too much the trained performer, but young Muniz is good, as are Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane as the boy’s parents. (Thomas, Jan. 12) PG for some violent content and mild language.

3. “Jaws Collector’s Edition” (1975). A hellishly exciting movie. A bit sterile perhaps and a bit fascinated with its own gadgetry--director Steven Spielberg sometimes comes across like a chronically enthusiastic whiz kid--but a blood-freezer and a spine-tingler all the same. The massed forces of science, the military and the police can stop one shark, right? Ha! With Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss.

4. “Runaway Bride” (1999). Though it’s fun to see Richard Gere and Julia Roberts smooching on screen for the first time in nine years, the flawed and unpleasant conception of a woman who abandons men at the altar crossing swords with a misogynist newspaperman will leave viewers with an unavoidably sour taste. (Turan, July 30) PG for language and some suggestive dialogue.

5. “American Pie” (special edition) (1999). An unexpected hybrid of “South Park” and Andy Hardy that uses its surface crudeness as sucker bait to entice teenagers into the tent to see a high school movie that is sweet and sincere at heart. With a cast of likable young people. (Turan, July 9) R for strong sexuality, crude sexual dialogue, language and drinking, all involving teens.

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* Last week’s Top 5 DVD sellers

1. “Jaws Collector’s Edition”

2. “Hurricane”

3. “Independence Day” (1996). Mean, marauding aliens hit planet Earth planning to take no prisoners. Spectacular special effects are joined to a cardboard story line that exactly reproduces the fatuous sensibility of the 1950s. (Turan) PG-13, for sci-fi destruction and violence.

4. “Green Mile”

5. “Scream 3”

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What’s New

“Magnolia” (1999). The film by Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights”) is drunk and disorderly on the pure joy of making movies. A frantic, flawed, fascinating look at 24 hours in the life of nine characters in today’s San Fernando Valley, it’s the kind of intriguing jumble only a truly gifted filmmaker can make. Look for Tom Cruise in a picture-stealing role as a male supremacist. (Kenneth Turan, Dec. 17) New Line/Warner: no list price; DVD $29.98 (Aug. 29); (CC); R for strong language, drug use, sexuality and some violence.

“The Beach” (2000). A tedious and unsatisfying film about a young American vagabond (Leonardo DiCaprio) who journeys to a hidden Thai paradise after being given a secret map. DiCaprio’s character is naive, self-involved and pretentious and the island’s community of dropouts and slackers seems slightly weird and even sinister almost immediately. (Turan, Feb. 11) CBS/Fox: no list price; DVD $34.98; (CC); R for violence, some strong sexuality, language and drug content.

“Drowning Mona” (2000). Bette Midler has the title role in this funny and inspired comedy mystery as a woman you love to hate who winds up dead, leaving just about everyone in her upstate New York blue-collar community a suspect. Splendid comic ensemble work. (Kevin Thomas, March 3) Columbia/TriStar: no list price; DVD $24.95; (CC); PG-13 for some thematic elements, language and brief sexuality.

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What’s Coming

Tuesday: “Romeo Must Die,” “Whatever It Takes” and “Women (Elles).”

Aug. 8: “Bedrooms & Hallways,” “The Grandfather,” “Holy Smoke” and “Reindeer Games.”

Aug. 15: “After Life,” “The Cider House Rules,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Family Tree,” “Ghost Dog,” “Here on Earth,” “It’s the Rage” and “Titus.”

Aug. 22: “Agnes Brown,” “Beyond the Mat,” “Mifune,” “Not One Less,” “Simpatico,” “Supernova” and “The Tigger Movie”

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Aug. 29: “The Big Kahuna,” “Deterrence,” “Held Up,” “I Dreamed of Africa,” “The Next Best Thing” and “Princess Mononoke.”

Commentary by Times critics.

Rental video charts provided by VSDA

VidTrac, sales charts by VideoScan Inc.