Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action filmmaking. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition digital transfers of all three films Original stereo audio Optional English subtitles for all three films New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi New interview with actor Sho Aikawa New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes Archive interviews with cast and crew Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final Original theatrical trailers for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the films by Kat Ellinger
Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros) is a young woman in 1930s Paris whose husband is slowly defecting from art to working in a bank, leaving her very bored. When the then-unpublished Brooklyn writer Henry Miller (Fred Ward) enters her life, she embarks on a journey of seduction and sexual exploration that eventually leads from the writer to his wife, June (Uma Thurman), who finances her husband's life in Paris so he may praise her beauty in his writing. Unhappy with her husband's writing and her lovers' affair, June enters a jealous rage, forcing Henry into suffering-artist mode and Nin back to her husband. Despite having one of the more erotic scenes of the 1990s, between Nin and June, the film does not live up to its subject, largely due to a mediocre screenplay and flawed direction. The strength of the original material and Medeiros' strong performance make it worth viewing. -- James McGrath, Amazon.com
Lighthearted German drama about a ten-year-old girl whose wish for a pet dog leads to havoc within the family. Marietta (Maria Erich) wants nothing more in the world than a pet dog, but her parents keep refusing. Little wonder when she receives a magical stone for her birthday she retreats to her room and wishes upon that stone her desire to have a dog. To her delight and amazement the wish is granted and she is soon playing with friendly schnauzer Tobi, but there is a catch. Marietta's four-year-old brother Tobias (Hans-Laurin Beyerling) has disappeared and her new dog shares certain physical characteristics with Tobias which convinces her that her brother has been transformed. Will Marietta be able to get her human brother back? And will little Tobias even want to come back to the human world after his adventures as a canine?
She was everything America wanted a movie star to be...except white Actress dancer singer. Here was a woman with talent beauty and ambition. Dorothy Dandridge owed it to herself to make it to the top. And make it she would. An acclaimed stage performer Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of Carmen Jones becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved abused cheated glorified undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
The mighty warrior Kain (David Carradine) crosses the barren wastelands of the planet Ura where two arch enemies Zeg (Luke Askew) and the evil degenerate Balcaz (William Marin) fight incessantly for control of the village's only well. Kain sees his opportunity and announces that his sword is for hire... but his eyes stay clearly on the beautiful captive sorceress Naja (Maria Socas) and his newly awakened purpose.
After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world's leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep everyone safe. But now, something has gone wrongthe system built to protect the Earth is attacking it, and it's a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide geostorm wipes out everything...and everyone along with it.
Import/Export chronicles two different migrations: a young woman who leaves behind her mother and young child in the Ukraine to begin a new life as a nurse in Vienna; and a headstrong young security guard called Paul who leaves Vienna to accompany his stepfather on a trip delivering gumball machines in Eastern Europe. Blackly funny filled with striking images shot by cameraman Ed Lachman (Erin Brockovich Far From Heaven) and featuring extraordinarily potent performances from its cast Import/Export is the new film from director Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days). Hailed by critics as a startling and bold film it is without doubt recent European cinema's most provocative and audacious investigation of the post-Soviet universe and the new relations between East and West.
Jagged Edge was one of a series of entertaining if porous thrillers crafted by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas before he wrote the ridiculous Showgirls. This 1985 movie is a taut mystery about an attorney (Glenn Close) who defends a newspaper publisher (Jeff Bridges) accused of murder. The fact that Close's character falls for him is more convenient than plausible, but it is a necessary emotional bridge for Eszterhas and director Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle) to build toward a powerful finale. Scary, fun as courtroom dramas go, the film is well serviced by the two lead stars and has impressive support from co-star Peter Coyote and especially from Robert Loggia, who plays Close's cop buddy. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
Dark Justice: Ten years after his resurrection Robocop is up against a renegade cyborg creating havoc known as Bone Machine. A sinister rebel group called The Trust secretly re-programmes Robocop to kill Delta City's security commander Cable. An all-out three way tussle between Robocop Cable and Bone Machine proves to be the Delta City champion's biggest challenge yet... Meltdown: A sinister rebel group The Trust schemes to take control of Delta city. They transform the dead body of Robocop's best friend Cable into a machine designed to destroy Robocop. Will Cable remember he is the man inside the machine? Resurrection: Fugitives on the run Robocop and former partner Cable are separated during a pitched battle with Robohunters falling into the hands of two opposing mercenary groups who restore and re-programme them for the purposes of their respective dark crusades... Crash And Burn: With Delta City on the verge of a new Dark Age Robocop and Cable are trapped inside the towers of Control Headquarters. To save the city the embattled defenders must shut down the all-powerful computer and in doing so the ultimate sacrifice must be made...
Directed by Dennis Hopper, Colors is a superior 1988 action movie set among the street gangs of LA that teams up Robert Duvall as Hodges, the elder cop, with young hothead partner Danny McGavin (Sean Penn). Investigating a murderous feud between the Bloods and the Crips, Duvall attempts to impress upon the impetuous Penn the value of a more cautious, easy-going approach in dealing with gang members, rather than trying to charge in among them. The film as a whole was one of the first to take a serious, unromantic and unstereotypical look at gang culture, at how youngsters are sucked into it, how few options are actually open to these macho hoodlums and how little they have in the way of family, community and stability other than the gangs. The partnership between Penn and Duvall by contrast, though well played, is pretty much the standard old cop/young cop set-up, right down to Duvalls frequent, ominous remarks about how close he is to retirement. While the action is sometimes disjointed and the relationships between the gangs at times confused, it at least helps to dispel the usual Hollywood good vs. evil dynamic. Instead, theres a more ambient sense of violence, desperation, retribution and recrimination. Penns doomed relationship with a homegirl indicates that while the LAPD may capture a few felons, theyve little chance of capturing the hearts and minds of the criminalised poor. Later films such as John Singletons Boyz 'n the Hood (1991) would go further in exploring how life looks from the gangsta perspective.On the DVD: The films is presented in an anamorphic 16:9 widescreen version, with the usual chapter and language selections. The only other feature is the original, detailed but run-of-the-mill trailer. --David Stubbs
If your idea of Austrians is of cheerful folk cavorting about mountains or relaxing in old-world coffee-shops, Dog Days will come as quite a shock. Set amid the residential streets and shopping precincts of a charmless, sterile southern suburb of Vienna, documentary-maker Ulrich Seidl's first feature revels in the ugliness, both physical and moral, of his characters. None of these are people you'd want to spend time with: in fact most of them you'd go several miles out of your way to avoid, which perhaps accounts for the strangely perverse fascination there is about watching them. Dog Days--it takes place, as you might guess, during a sticky, sweltering July heatwave that improves tempers not one bit--comes on rather like a low-rent version of Robert Altman's Short Cuts. We meet a dozen or so main characters, all of whom gradually come to impact on each other's lives in various ways. Among them, a girl with a psychotically jealous boyfriend; an elderly man who obsessively stockpiles groceries, first weighing them to check for the least hint of short measure; an estranged couple still sharing a house, where the wife entertains her lovers under her husband's morose gaze; a middle-aged schoolteacher whose abusive lover invites lowlifes to join in humiliating her; a no-hoper salesman of security systems; and the world's most excruciatingly irritating hitch-hiker. There's a dark humour at work here; after a while the sheer bleakness and collective vindictiveness become wincingly funny. Seidl's disenchanted view of his compatriots, and his contempt for their vaunted gemütlichkeit, is epitomised by his image of a man forced to sing the Austrian national anthem ("A nation blessed by its sense of beauty") stark naked with a lighted candle up his backside. To cap it all, he can't remember the words. --Philip Kemp
A must-see for anyone who enjoyed the Pacino/Williams remake which unusually for Hollywood treated the source material with the respect it deserved by remaining faithful to the original film's premise plot and its lead character's unique predicament and simply transplanting the action from Norway to Alaska. Celebrated but recently disgraced Swedish cop Jonas Engstrom (Stellan Skarsgard) and his partner Erik Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal) are transferred to northern Norway the land o
William Christie and Les Arts Florissants propel this exuberant production of Jean-Phillipe Rameau's second opera to great heights. Andrei Serban's extravagant highly baroque staging presents the four exotic love stories vibrantly. In Le Turc Genereux Osman sets free his captive Emilie whom he loves so that she may be reunited with her former lover Valere; Les Incas De Perou is all about the rivalry of the Inca Huascar and the Spaniard Don Carlos both in pursuit of Princess Phani; Les Fleurs offers a Persian love intrigue as the Sultana Fatime tries to detect whether her husband Tacmas has his eye on the lovely Atalide; and Les Sauvages takes us to North America where a Spaniard and a Frenchman compete for the love of Zima daughter of a native chief who prefers one of her own people.
The Third Man (Dir. Carol Reed 1949): This classic noir mystery from the team of Carol Reed and Graham Greene is regarded to be the best filmwork of both of these extreme talents. 'The Third Man' features Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins a pulp novelist who has come to post-WWII Vienna with the promise of work from his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). When he finds that Lime has just been killed in a questionable car accident he decides to remain in the city to investigate his friend's mysterious death. 'The Third Man' is a masterpiece of melancholia featuring extraordinary writing acting and directing as well as a classic zither score by Anton Karas. Brighton Rock (Dir. John Boulting 1947): The elegant and respectable facade of Brighton hides a sinister underworld ruled by intimidation and terror. Richard Attenborough stars as Pinkie a ruthless and sadistic young criminal whose trail of killings and double crossings lead to his eventual downfall when savage justice is finally meted out in a thrilling and memorable climax... Fallen Idol (Dir. Carol Reed 1948): A lonely young boy is caught up in a sinister and intriguing murder-mystery in this classic British film based on a short story by Graham Greene and directed with great style by Carol Reed both of who received Academy Award nominations. It was the first film on which Greene and Reed collaborated and remains both a moving portrayal of lost innocence and a genuine classic of British cinema. Heart Of The Matter (Dir. George More O'Ferrall 1953): Adapted from Graham Greene's novel Trevor Howard stars as Harry Scobie an assistant police commisioner working in Sierra Leone during WWII. Harry finds himself drawn to Helen a survivor of a U-boat attack and whilst the cat is away he decides that he can no longer stay married. However his catholic union threatens the outcome of both relationships. Harry soon convinces himself that desperate measures need to be taken...
Pierce Brosnan returns as sexy super-spy James Bond. The agent's assignment is as follows: he must protect Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) the sole heir of a British oil tycoon from the influence of terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle). Unfortunately she double-crosses him and the world's oil supply is put in peril. Now he must take on Renard a villain who feels no physical pain with the help of do-gooder scientist Christmas Jones (Denise Richards)...
Martin Scorsese presents Academy Award(R)-winning star Juliette Binoche in a uniquely uplifting story of two misfits who risk everything for love! A homeless artist who is losing her sight Michele (Binoche) finds herself drawn into a passionate relationship with a troubled street performer named Alex. Then despite all obstacles they together find love and shelter on the famed Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris. But in time their unlikely love will be tested as Michele's secret past catches up with her! With memorable performances from an outstanding cast you'll be swept away by the stirring romance of this wonderfully inspired motion picture!
Buddy Holly laid the foundations for a generation of popular music with his ground-breaking combination of country music and rhythm and blues. This film tells his story from it's explosive beginning to its tragic end with Gary Busey giving an electrifying Oscar nominated performance (Best Actor 1978) as the young genius from Lubbock Texas who changed the tune of rock 'n' roll history. Young Buddy's studious appearance gave no hint of the 'new music' which was about to take the world by storm. His unique brand of rock 'n' roll catapulted him and the Crickets to national stardom in just three short years with hits such as 'That'll Be The Day' and 'Peggy Sue'. Despite opposition from the mainly redneck Texas community his mother who nagged him to get a proper job and his girlfriend who wanted to tame him - by the age of 22 Holly had it all but the trials and tribulations of fame began to take it's toll and his brilliant career ended in tragedy all too quickly. 'The Buddy Holly Story' is one of the best biopics ever produced for the cinema and features 12 of his greatest hit songs as well as winning the 1978 Academy Award for Best Adaptation Score. It's a dynamic tribute to one of the most influential rock 'n' rollers of all time and his legacy.
Bertrand Tavernier directs this epic film set in 1942 Paris during the country's occupation by Germany. The French film industry during that period is the focus of the story told from the point of view of two characters: an actor and a director.
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