Silver Bullet is a generic, by-the-numbers Stephen King film with a Stephen King screenplay adapted from an earlier novella. Back in the innocent days of 1976--the age of innocence gets later every year--the town of Tarker's Fall finds itself in the grip of mass hysteria when something starts tearing people apart. Only a crippled child Martie (Corey Haim) works out the truth, which is that the new pastor is a werewolf. Eventually he manages to convince his supercilious sister Janey and his unreliable drunk Uncle Red (Gary Busey) and there is the usual confrontation involving a silver bullet melted down from the children's religious jewellery; the title also refers to the boy's motorised wheelchair. The film neglects interesting possibilities--the lynch-mob mentality that takes over the town fizzles after the major vigilantes are killed, the pastor tries to justify the killings to himself--in favour of stock ultra-violent confrontations and extended metamorphoses; its major strength is a familiar King theme, the helplessness of being a child in a world full of people who will not listen to you.

On the DVD: The DVD comes with a director's commentary by Daniel Attias and dubbed versions in German, French and Italian. The soundtrack has Dolby sound which brings out the stylised fairy-tale elements in the score and the widescreen picture is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic ratio. The sometimes muddy-looking night-scenes are balanced by brisk pastoral daylight scenes that have their own innocence. --Roz Kaveney

Director Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill) clearly set out to make an old-fashioned Western, but he couldn't help bringing a hip, self-conscious attitude to the proceedings. Silverado thus finds its own funky tone--sometimes rousing, sometimes winking. Four cowboys--Kevin Kline (a distinctly modern kind of Western hero), Scott Glenn, Danny Glover, and the rowdy young Kevin Costner--converge on a little Western burg called Silverado. Kasdan peppers the somewhat generic action with smart dialogue and a parade of quirky supporting players, including John Cleese as a sheriff who seems to have stepped straight from a Monty Python sketch into an Old West saloon. Bruce Broughton supplies the music, a real throwback to the glory days of thundering Western themes. One thing's for sure: Silverado's a lot more fun than the later Kasdan-Costner Western, Wyatt Earp. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com

What started as a suggestion for Paul Simon to play a concert in New York's Central Park blossomed, on September 19, 1981, into a full-blown Simon and Garfunkel reunion after an 11-year hiatus, and now proves a priceless snapshot of two of America's greatest folk-rock performers. (It's also the rightful bookend to Simon and Garfunkel's acoustic Live from New York City, 1967.) Performed with a who's-who of East Coast session aces before a record-setting crowd of half-a-million fans, the Concert in Central Park finds its stars just shy of their 40th birthdays and very much in their primes, their voices sweet and pure and their playing relaxed, perfectly in tune and in synch.

The show features a mix of S&G and solo Simon tunes, including all the songs that appear on the CD, with the addition of a reprise of "Late in the Evening" and the first live performance of Simon's "The Late Great Johnny Ace". This is classic material from start to finish, 87 minutes of unmitigated beauty. --Michael Mikesell