New video and game production at the Grand/ABC shopping network over the week (22.09.06 - 29.09.06)

Geoffrey Sax

Alex Pettyfer, Ewan McGregor, Robbie Coltrane, Mickey Rourke, Bill Nighy

Alex Rider is a normal teenager who lives with his uncle, a boring bank manager, or so it seems until his uncle, Ian Rider, disappears under mysterious circumstances. Alex soon learns that his uncle was a spy for Britain's secret intelligence service MI6. Uncle Ian had actually prepared Alex for a career in espionage by encouraging his hobbies, and with Alex's skills in languages, scuba diving, mountaineering and martial arts, he has all the attributes of a perfect spy. Recruited by Mr. Blunt and Mrs. Jones, and armed with special gadgets, he embarks on his first mission. Billionaire Darrius Sayle is donating a free Stormbreaker mega-computer to every school in Britain. But is there more to his generosity than meets the eye? Going undercover, he infiltrates Sayle's compound. He meets the tycoon's sinister sidekicks, vixen publicist Nadia Vole and the disfigured mute Mr. Grin, and tests out the impressive and secretive Stormbreaker computer. While exploring a restricted area, Alex begins to figure out the mysterious Stormbreakers--he knows he's onto something big. Suddenly, Sayle and his evil henchmen capture Alex. Using his cunning and his MI6 gadgets, Alex manages to escape. He hitches a ride to London to stop Sayle from activating the Stormbreakers and releasing their secret weapon throughout Britain. But time is running out. With the help of his housekeeper Jack Starbright and his friend Sabina Pleasure, Alex takes Sayle head-on in a dangerous race against time to stop the evil plan. Within days he's gone from schoolboy to super spy, but will his first assignment be his last?

Stefan Fjeldmark (II), Jesper Moller

Roger Carel (II), Lorant Deutsch, Sara Forestier, Jacques Frantz, Pierre Palmade

Though the Vikings know no fear, they kidnap the foppish nephew of the Gauls' chief to teach them how to flee for their lives from the invading Romans.

Bart Freundlich

Julianne Moore, David Duchovny, Billy Crudup, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Eva Mendes

A 'dramady' about rich white New Yorkers and their relationships, how they have so much time on their hands that they can't help but get into trouble and jeapardize the only thing that really matters to them.

Anne Fletcher

Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan, Rachel Griffiths, Mario , Drew Sidora

Everyone deserves a chance to follow their dreams, but some people only get one shot. Tyler Gage is a rebel from the wrong side of Baltimore's tracks-and the only thing that stands between him and an unfulfilled life are his dreams of one day making it out of there. Nora is a privileged ballet dancer attending Baltimore's ultra-elite Maryland School of the Arts-and the only thing standing in the way of her obviously brilliant future is finding a great dance partner for her senior showcase. When trouble with the law lands Tyler with a community service gig at Maryland School of the Arts, he arrives as an angry outsider, until his skills as a gifted street dancer draw Nora's attention. Now, as sparks fly between them, both on and off stage, Tyler realizes he has just one performance to prove that he can step up to a life far larger than he ever imagined.

Dave Rodriguez

Michael Rapaport, Chad Lindberg, Charlotte Ayanna, Otto Sanchez, Pierce Forsythe

Drugs and the allure of fast money blur the boundaries between two very different societies in Miami. Joe and his two best friends, Kevin and Mickey, are struggling to get ahead, dissatisfied with their lives and current financial situation. When a package of ecstasy ends up in their possession at a nightclub, they are enticed by the prospect of scoring some fast cash. The three friends offer to distribute the drugs to their social, business and party contacts for a notorious neighborhood drug lord. NaГЇve and encouraged by their initial success, the boys increase their distribution and quickly find themselves in over their heads with no way to turn back. As addictions take hold and their friendship begins to unravel, they find the lifestyle they have chosen may come at a very high price-their lives.

Peter Paige

Peter Paige, Kathy Najimy, Anthony Clark, Gabrielle Union, Melanie Lynskey

A young artist goes on a desperate search to replace the relationship with his godson, who has moved to Japan with his family. He tries a baby-sitting business, works in a toy store and spends his free time playing with kids at nearby playgrounds until catching the attention of a neighborhood mom who determines that Johnson is a danger to the community.

Jeremy Brock

Rupert Grint, Julie Walters, Laura Linney, Nicholas Farrell, Oliver Milburn

Shy and downtrodden Ben dreads yet another dreary school holiday coming around. Seventeen years of living in an absurdly conservative and traditional household with his highly-strung and overbearing mother and quiet, mild mannered vicar father have taken its toll on young Ben. While the other kids are out having fun, Ben spends these precious few weeks attending bible classes, having driving lessons with his mother and helping out at a local old people's home. However, Ben's world is turned upside down when he's employed by an eccentric retired actress Evie. Vulgar, dignified and childish all at once, she certainly is not the kind of person Ben expected when searching through the job listings in the stuffy parish magazine, "Hello Jesus". Evie enters Ben's life with a cataclysmic force, whisking him away on a series of adventures from camping, to performing Shakespeare in the garden, to attending the Edinburgh festival--where he finally meets a girl much nearer his own age. Evie's unconventional and often downright bizarre behavior challenges Ben's beliefs, and forces him to confront the very idea of who he wants to be. Then, when it seems that his new-found freedom is about to be taken away, Ben has to suddenly choose; should he continue to conform, or break out and live his life as his own man?

Brian De Palma

Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Mia Kirshner

Elizabeth "Betty" Short, a 22-year-old aspiring actress from the East Coast who wore a delicate flower in her raven hair and became many things to many people--dear friend, beloved sister, estranged daughter, frequent girlfriend and accused prostitute. On January 15, 1947, she was discovered brutally splayed in a vacant lot near Leimert Park in downtown Los Angeles. Enter onto the scene two ex-pugilist police officers, Lee Blanchard and Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, the poster boys for 1940s LAPD. The new partners' first homicide case starts with a call from their supervisor, Detective Millard, to investigate the slaying of the ambitious silver screen B-lister Betty Short, just as they leave a deadly shootout. Blanchard and Bleichert, like the rest of the fascinated city, become drawn into the lurid world of the Dahlia's L.A. While Blanchard's growing preoccupation with the Dahlia's murder threatens his relationship with girlfriend Kay Lake, Bleichert finds himself irresistibly drawn to the enigmatic Madeleine Linscott, the daughter of one of the city's most prominent families--who just happens to have an unsavory connection (and resemblance) to the Dahlia. Blanchard spins into obsession trying to solve the case, seeing in Betty the chance to redeem himself for letting down the other women in his life that he failed to protect. Bleichert, too, begins to question his own footing as his feelings fluctuate wildly between two disparate dames: the seemingly innocent Kay and the knowingly seductive Madeleine--whose unhinged mother, Ramona, proves to hold more than a passing clue to the mystery. Determined to be famous, destined to be infamous, Betty Short affected more lives dead than she could possibly alive. She dreamed of being photographed for the big screen but wound up the pin-up girl of tabloid autopsy photos.

Jay Chandrasekhar

Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Jay Chandrasekhar

When American brothers Todd and Jan Wolfhouse travel to Germany to spread their grandfather's ashes at Oktoberfest, they stumble upon a super-secret, centuries old, underground beer games competition--"Beerfest," the secret Olympics of beer drinking. The brothers receive a less than warm welcome from their German cousins, the Von Wolfhausens, who humiliate Todd and Jan, slander their relatives, and finally cast them out of the event. Vowing to return in a year to defend their country and their family's honor, the Wolfhouse boys assemble a ragtag dream team of beer drinkers and gamers: Barry Badrinath, the consummate skills player with a dark past; Phil Krundle (aka Landfill), a one-man chugging machine; and Charlie "Fink" Finklestein, the lab tech with a PhD in 'All Things Beer'. This Magnificent Five train relentlessly, using their hearts, minds and livers to drink faster, smarter and harder than they ever have before. But first they must battle their own demons--as well as a bunch of big, blond, German jerks who want to destroy the team before they can even make it back to Munich.

Christian Ford

Minnie Driver, James Spader, Josh Brolin, Stuart Wilson, Jennifer Ann Evans

A young woman must track down her grandmother's valuable jewels which were stolen by two escaped convicts.

Michael Philip

Crispin Glover, Jason Lee, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Audrey Marie Anderson, Brad Dourif

Frank (Jason Lee) and Eddie (Crispin Glover) want nothing more than to get out of their dead-end Texas town, so when a local crime boss (Pruitt Taylor Vince) offers them an enormous sum to drive some bootlegged cigarettes to Mexico, they gladly agree. But by the end of the day, the pair find themselves enormously in debt rather than in the money, and they hatch a wacky scheme--which involves grave robbing and ransom-in order to pay the bills.

Neil LaBute

Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Beahan, Frances Conroy, Molly Parker

Out patrolling a California highway, police officer Edward Malus stops a station wagon to return a little girl's lost doll. Moments later, a runaway truck slams into the station wagon, igniting it into a fiery wreck with the mother and child trapped inside. Edwards fails to save them before the car explodes--and then spends months of his life choking down pills to get the image of their faces out of his head. But Edward is about to get a second chance. A desperate letter from his former fiancee, Willow, arrives at his home with no postmark. Willow came into his life and left just as unexpectedly years before. But now, her daughter Rowan has gone missing, and Edward is the only person she trusts to help relocate her. She asks him to come to her home on a private island-Summersisle-a place with its own traditions where people observe a forgotten way of life. Edward seizes the opportunity to make his life right again, and soon finds himself on a seaplane bound for the islands of the Pacific Northwest. But nothing is what it seems on isolated Summersisle, where a culture, dominated by its matriarch Sister Summersisle, is bound together by arcane traditions and a pagan festival known as "the Day of Death and Rebirth." The secretive people of Summersisle only ridicule his investigation, insisting that a child named Rowan never existed there--or if she ever did was no longer alive. But what Edward doesn't know is that Willow's plea for help has invited more into his life than a chance for redemption. In unraveling Summersisle's closely held secrets, Edward is drawn into a web of ancient traditions and murderous deceit, and each step he takes closer to the lost child brings him one step closer to the unspeakable. And one step closer to The Wicker Man.

Oliver Stone

Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Stephen Dorff

True story of Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, two Port Authority police officers who rushed into the burning World Trade Center on 9/11 to help rescue people, but became trapped themselves when the tower collapsed. A race against time ensued to free them before their air ran out.

It's a flawed third-person shooter with less depth than a Jodie Marsh cable show, but the daft South American crime theme is charming and fun in a supremely dumb way. You play a good cop hell-bent on revenge for a gang killing, and along with colleagues, you seek to do this by blasting everyone in your path. The visuals are decent with chunky characters that fall about dramatically. The gameplay is fun, but the artificial intelligence can be weak and nonsensical at times. But if you yearn after a Max Payne-style shooter with gratuitous shooting, this will do the trick.

EA Tiburon built a new version of Madden from the ground up. The result was a much more attractive game of football, complete with a new menu presentation and excellent new player models, stadiums, and the like. The trade-off for that newness, however, was an incomplete game. It played like Madden, but it lacked the depth of its predecessors, offering only a barren franchise mode and online play as extra features. Madden NFL 07 builds off of that previous game, tossing back in some of the missing features from the other console versions, as well as including some new components. Unfortunately, Madden 07 comes encumbered with some quirks and bugs, as well, and it's still not nearly as complete of a football game as the other console and PC versions of 07 currently available.

In CivCity: Rome, gamers will recreate the glory of Rome by building a small settlement into a mighty imperial city. Features hundreds of buildings including gladiatorial schools, amphitheatres, the circus maximus, legionnaire forts, weapons workshops and much more.