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Billy Bob Thornton heads an all-star cast in this zany comedy that everyone is toking...er, talking about. When a pot grower is mysteriously murdered, his $5 million "crop" is up for grabs. Employee Thornton and his partners decide that it's theirs for the keeping, but the cops, as well as the mob, will do anything to stop them. Also stars Hank Azaria, Jon Bon Jovi, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Kelly Lynch. 102 min. Widescreen; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital stereo, French Dolby Digital stereo, Spanish Dolby Digital stereo; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; theatrical trailer.Released to only a handful of theaters in the spring and summer of 1998, Homegrown was neglected by nervous distributors who couldn't figure out how to market a movie about marijuana farmers. As a result, hardly anyone saw this cleverly plotted comedy-thriller about three experienced ! pot growers in northern California (Billy Bob Thornton, Hank Azaria, and Ryan Phillippe) who guard their valuable outdoor crop against raids by the cops and unwanted competitors. When their mysterious leader is apparently murdered, Thornton assumes the dead man's identity to arrange one last, lucrative bumper-crop deal, but pulling off the scam proves to be a lot harder than they'd anticipated. While the three potheads seek refuge with an old colleague (Kelly Lynch) and routinely sample their goods (which explains the film's theatrical obscurity), Homegrown turns into a taut thriller fueled by equal parts comedy and paranoid tension--an update of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with marijuana instead of gold! Featuring cameo roles for Jamie Lee Curtis, Ted Danson, and John Lithgow, this entertaining film fell victim to the misguided fear that it promotes drugs and illegal activity. If anything, it promotes interesting characters, catchy dialogue, and a welcom! ed alternative to mainstream Hollywood comedies. --Jeff Sha! nnon

Swap the annuals for edibles, creating attractive beds and containers that both beautify the yard and provide a bounty of fresh produce

As a trained chef-turned-professional kitchen garden designer, Marta Teegen knows what a difference freshly harvested vegetables can make to a mealâ€"and how easy it is to ensure seasonal vegetables are always available when you need them. She touts the joys creating front yardâ€"friendly raised beds and container gardens that take up only a small amount of space and look beautiful to boot, and shares ideas for tucking productive gardens in other small nooks and corners.

Teegenâ€™s unique cuisine-based planting methods mean herbs, vegetables, and edible flowers grow next to each other in comingled plotsâ€"quickly, reliably, and efficiently.Â You'll find more than 40 top picks for small-space vegetables that yield big and are trouble-free, plus a variety of menus and 50 recipes f! or fresh and delicious summer dishes.

With food prices on the rise and concern over pesticide residues on produce ever present, the number of home owners growing vegetables nearly doubled in the last year. Homegrown shows that even urban and suburban dwellers can grow their own vegetables in easy-to-tend plots and spaces.

Mainstream rhetoric has made a concerted effort to polarize African Americans and Latinos, emphasizing differences in language and religion, while designating one or the other as the â€œfavored minorityâ€ at will. In Witness, Amalia Mesa-Bains and bell hooks invite us to reexamine this politically popular binary and consider which differences are manufactured and which are real.

In Witness, Mesa-Bains and hooks explore their own similarities and differences, sharing the ways their childhoods, families, and work have shaped their political activism, teaching, and artistic expression. Drawin! g on shared experiences of sexism, classism, and racism, hooks! and Mes a-Bains show how people from divergent cultural backgrounds can work together for radical social change.

While the black/Latino divide and the increasing cross-community political collaboration has been addressed in progressive newspapers and magazines, Witness, an inclusive call to reflect and act, is the first of its kind to look at these issues in depth. And Amalia Mesa-Bains, a pioneer scholar and producer of Chicana art, with bell hooks, one of the most acclaimed of African American theoristsâ€"prove an unparalleled match for the job.

bell hooks is one of the leading public intellectuals of her generation. She has written extensively on the emotional impact of racism and sexism, particularly on black women, as well as the importance of political engagement with art and the media. In her recent work on love, relationships, and community, she shows how emotional health is a necessary component to effective resistance and activism.

Ama! lia Mesa-Bains is an artist, curator, and writer who has initiated comprehensive exhibitions of Latino art, including Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation and Mi Alma, Mi Tierra, Mi Gente: Contemporary Chicana Art. Her artwork incorporates various aspects of Chicano/a history, culture, and folk traditions, exploring religion, ritual, and female rites of passage. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1992.

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