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List Price: $14.95Price: $9.99You Save: $4.96 (33%)The Red Balloon (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)
Actor: Red Balloon
ASIN : B0012Z361M
Sales Rank : 545
Director : Albert Lamorisse
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Janus Films
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0715515028820
UPC : 715515028820
Release Date : December 29, 2008
Publisher : Janus Films
Manufacturer : Janus Films
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Janus Films
Running Time : 34
Product DescriptionNewly restored and available for the first time on DVD, Albert Lamorisse s exquisite The Red Balloon remains one of the most beloved children s films of all time. In this deceptively simple, nearly wordless tale, a young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world s harsh realities finally interfere. With its glorious palette and allegorical purity, the Academy Award winning The Red Balloon has enchanted movie lovers, young and old, for generations. Amazon.comThe late French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse made this classic, 1956 short work about a lonely little Parisian boy (Pascal Lamorisse) befriended by a large red balloon, which seems to have a will of its own. As with his preceding short, 1952's White Mane, Lamorisse took home a grand prize from the Cannes Film Festival for The Red Balloon, and the latter film also won an Academy Award. There have been some stimulating pieces of film criticism (some pro, some con) written about the aesthetics of this little movie over the years, but there's no question it makes for a touching, allegorical piece always certain to prompt conversations among viewers of any age. --Tom Keogh
Reviews for the The Red Balloon (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)
![The African Queen [IMPORT]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61HRT6G2GQL._SL160_.jpg)
List Price: $16.98Price: $12.49You Save: $4.49 (26%)The African Queen [IMPORT]
Actors: Theodore Bikel, Humphrey Bogart, Walter Gotell, Katharine Hepburn, Richard Marner
ASIN : B000GJ2882
Sales Rank : 3936
Director : John Huston
Studio : Castaway Nw UK
Region Code : 0
Format : Color, DVD-Video, Import, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 4897007031085
Release Date : December 31, 2006
Publisher : Castaway Nw UK
Manufacturer : Castaway Nw UK
Availability : Usually ships in 6 to 10 days
Label : Castaway Nw UK
Running Time : 105
Reviews for the The African Queen [IMPORT]
List Price: $39.98Price: $22.99You Save: $16.99 (42%)La Dolce Vita (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux, Magali Noël
ASIN : B00005JKGO
Sales Rank : 5093
Director : Federico Fellini
Brand : Koch International
Studio : Koch Lorber Films
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Black & White, Collector's Edition, DVD-Video, Enhanced, Original recording remastered, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781417200221
ISBN : 1417200227
UPC : 741952301295
Release Date : December 21, 2004
Publisher : Koch Lorber Films
Manufacturer : Koch Lorber Films
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Koch Lorber Films
Running Time : 174
Product DescriptionStudio: Koch International Release Date: 09/21/2004 Run time: 167 minutes Rating: Nr Amazon.com essential videoAt three brief hours, La Dolce Vita, a piece of cynical, engrossing social commentary, stands as Federico Fellini's timeless masterpiece. A rich, detailed panorama of Rome's modern decadence and sophisticated immorality, the film is episodic in structure but held tightly in focus by the wandering protagonist through whom we witness the sordid action. Marcello Rubini (extraordinarily played by Marcello Mastroianni) is a tabloid reporter trapped in a shallow high-society existence. A man of paradoxical emotional juxtapositions (cool but tortured, sexy but impotent), he dreams about writing something important but remains seduced by the money and prestige that accompany his shallow position. He romanticizes finding true love but acts unfazed upon finding that his girlfriend has taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Instead, he engages in an ménage à trois, then frolics in a fountain with a giggling American starlet (bombshell Anita Ekberg), and in the film's unforgettably inspired finale, attends a wild orgy that ends, symbolically, with its participants finding a rotting sea animal while wandering the beach at dawn. Fellini saw his film as life affirming (thus its title, The Sweet Life), but it's impossible to take him seriously. While Mastroianni drifts from one worldly pleasure to another, be it sex, drink, glamorous parties, or rich foods, they are presented, through his detached eyes, are merely momentary distractions. His existence, an endless series of wild evenings and lonely mornings, is ultimately soulless and facile. Because he lacks the courage to change, Mastroianni is left with no alternative but to wearily accept and enjoy this "sweet" life. --Dave McCoy
Reviews for the La Dolce Vita (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
List Price: $39.95Price: $22.99You Save: $16.96 (42%)Le Deuxième Souffle
Actors: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Raymond Pellegrin, Christine Fabréga, Marcel Bozzufi
ASIN : B001CW7ZSU
Sales Rank : 2315
Director : Jean-Pierre Melville
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : The Criterion Collection
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Black & White, Digital Sound, Mono, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0715515032926
UPC : 715515032926
Release Date : December 07, 2008
Publisher : The Criterion Collection
Manufacturer : The Criterion Collection
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : The Criterion Collection
Running Time : 144
Product DescriptionWith his customary restraint and ruthless attention to detail, director Jean-Pierre Melville follows the parallel tracks of French underworld criminal Gu (the inimitable Lino Ventura), escaped from prison and roped into one last robbery, and the suave inspector, Blot (Paul Meurisse), relentlessly seeking him. The implosive Le deuxième soufflé captures the pathos, loneliness, and excitement of a life in the shadows with methodical suspense and harrowing authenticity, and contains one of the most thrilling heist sequences Melville ever shot.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris, and film critic Geoff Andrew of the British Film Institute
New video interview with director Bertrand Tavernier, who served as publicity agent on the film
Archival footage featuring interviews with Melville and Lino Ventura
Original theatrical trailer
New and improved subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by film critic Adrian Danks Amazon.comIt's hard to imagine that crime novelist/screenwriter José Giovanni didn't write with melancholy tough guy Lino Ventura in mind. First came 1960's Classe Tous Risques, then 1966's Le Deuxième Soufflé, and then 1969's Sicilian Clan. In Jean-Pierre Melville's Giovanni adaptation--the title translates as "Second Wind"--Ventura plays deadly, yet deeply moral lifer Gustav "Gu" Minda. When the 46-year-old busts out of the pen, three people wait for him in Paris: nightclub proprietor Sophie Manouche (Christine Fabréga), double-crossing rival Jo Ricci (Marcel Bozzuffi), and manipulative Inspector Blot (Diabolique's Paul Meurisse). After Minda and Manouche’s unflappable bodyguard, Alban (Le Trou’s Michel Constantin), dispatch the thugs trying to blackmail Manouche, the former partakes in an armored-car heist in order to flee the country with the cool blonde (like the bank robbery in Michael Mann's Heat, this entire sequence plays out in broad daylight). Needless to say, not everyone gets out alive. Compared to sleek Melville classics like Bob le Flambeur and Le Samouraï, this 144-minute movie has its longeurs, but Melville and Ventura go together like Scorsese and De Niro. Consider this understated drama a dry run for their Resistance-era masterpiece, Army of Shadows (in which Meurisse also appears). Supplemental features include detail-oriented commentary from author Ginette Vincendeau (Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris) and programmer Geoff Andrew (the British Film Institute), remembrances from publicist-turned-director Bertrand Tavernier, an essay by critic Adrian Danks, and TV interviews with Ventura and Melville, who describes the actor as "a force of nature" and "a monolith." --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Reviews for the Le Deuxième Souffle
List Price: $49.95Price: $34.49You Save: $15.46 (31%)The Battle of Algiers - Criterion Collection
Actors: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash, Ugo Paletti
ASIN : B0002JP2OI
Sales Rank : 9269
Director : Gillo Pontecorvo
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Criterion
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Box set, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780780028876
ISBN : 0780028872
UPC : 037429195628
Release Date : December 12, 2004
Publisher : Criterion
Manufacturer : Criterion
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Criterion
Running Time : 125
DescriptionOne of the most influential films in the history of political cinema, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers focuses on the harrowing events of 1957, a key year in Algeria’s struggle for independence from France. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film vividly recreates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, the French torture prisoners for information and the Algerians resort to terrorism in their quest for independence. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés. The French win the battle, but ultimately lose the war as the Algerian people demonstrate that they will no longer be suppressed. The Criterion Collection is proud present Gillo Pontecorvo’s tour de force—a film with astonishing relevance today. Amazon.comDirector Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 movie The Battle of Algiers concerns the violent struggle in the late 1950s for Algerian independence from France, where the film was banned on its release for fear of creating civil disturbances. Certainly, the heady, insurrectionary mood of the film, enhanced by a relentlessly pulsating Ennio Morricone soundtrack, makes for an emotionally high temperature throughout. Decades later, the advent of the "war against terror" has only intensified the film's relevance. Shot in a gripping, quasi-documentary style, The Battle of Algiers uses a cast of untrained actors coupled with a stern voiceover. Initially, the film focuses on the conversion of young hoodlum Ali La Pointe (Brahim Haggiag) to F.L.N. (the Algerian Liberation Front). However, as a sequence of outrages and violent counter-terrorist measures ensue, it becomes clear that, as in Eisenstein's October, it is the Revolution itself that is the true star of the film. Pontecorvo balances cinematic tension with grimly acute political insight. He also manages an evenhandedness in depicting the adversaries. He doesn't flinch from demonstrating the civilian consequences of the F.L.N.'s bombings, while Colonel Mathieu, the French office brought in to quell the nationalists, is played by Jean Martin as a determined, shrewd, and, in his own way, honorable man. However, the closing scenes of the movie--a welter of smoke, teeming street demonstrations, and the pealing white noise of ululations--leaves the viewer both intellectually and emotionally convinced of the rightfulness of the liberation struggle. This is surely among a handful of the finest movies ever made. --David Stubbs
Reviews for the The Battle of Algiers - Criterion Collection
List Price: $39.95Price: $22.99You Save: $16.96 (42%)Le Doulos - Criterion Collection
Actors: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli
ASIN : B001CW7ZSA
Sales Rank : 3723
Director : Jean-Pierre Melville
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : The Criterion Collection
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Black & White, Digital Sound, Mono, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0715515032827
UPC : 715515032827
Release Date : December 07, 2008
Publisher : The Criterion Collection
Manufacturer : The Criterion Collection
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : The Criterion Collection
Running Time : 109
Product DescriptionThe backstabbing criminals in the shadowy underworld of Jean-Pierre Melville's Le doulos have only one guiding principle: Lie or die. A stone-faced Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as enigmatic gangster Silien, who may or may not be responsible for squealing on Faugel (Serge Reggiani), just released from the slammer and already involved in what should have been a simple heist. By the end of this brutal, twisty, and multilayered policier, who will be left to trust? Shot and edited with Melville's trademark cool and featuring masterfully stylized dialogue and performances, Le doulos (slang for an informant) is one of the filmmaker's most gripping crime dramas.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Selected-scene audio commentary by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris
Video interviews with directors Volker Schlöndorff and Bertrand Tavernier, who served as assistant director and publicity agent, respectively, on the film
Archival interviews with Melville and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Serge Reggiani
Original theatrical trailer
New and improved subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by film critic Glenn Kenny Amazon.comThough he had forced his way into French film culture by working entirely outside his country's studio system in the 1940s and 1950s, by the 1960s director Jean-Pierre Melville was working with larger budgets and well-known actors such as Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of Le Doulos. An extension of Melville's fascination with the existential milieu of American gangster films, Le Doulos presents New Wave icon Belmondo as Silien, a man newly released from prison and by reputation a professional informer. A figure, then, of possible duplicity and ambiguity, Silien is the perfect Melvillian hero, difficult to read but propelled by internal forces manifested as direct action. Maintaining friendships with both cop and crook, Silien's notoriety as a "finger man" who informs on the latter is underscored when one acquaintance, a police inspector (Daniel Crohem), waits in ambush for another, a burglar (Serge Reggiani), to perform his next job. But did Silien actually rat out the fellow? Melville pushes the envelope of our perceptions by making it appear Silien did, and then goes through the tale again to reveal another story. A much darker film than his celebrated Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos is an absorbing tale of a world that seems to exist between light and shadow. --Tom Keogh
Reviews for the Le Doulos - Criterion Collection
List Price: $39.95Price: $31.99You Save: $7.96 (20%)Earrings of Madame de...
Actors: Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, Paul Azäis, Madeleine Barbulee, Jean Debucourt
ASIN : B001BEK8C4
Sales Rank : 8657
Director : Max Ophuls
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Criterion Collection
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0715515031622
UPC : 715515031622
Release Date : December 16, 2008
Publisher : Criterion Collection
Manufacturer : Criterion Collection
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Criterion Collection
Running Time : 100
Product DescriptionFrench master Max Ophuls's most cherished work, The Earrings of Madame de . . . is an emotionally profound, cinematographically adventurous tale of false opulence and tragic romance. When the aristocratic woman known only as Madame de . . . (the extraordinary Danielle Darrieux) sells her earrings, unbeknownst to her husband (Charles Boyer), in order to pay personal debts, she sets off a chain reaction, the financial and carnal consequences of which can only end in despair. Ophuls adapts Louise de Vilmorin's incisive fin de siecle novella with virtuosic camera work so elegant and precise it's been called the equal to that of Orson Welles.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New, restored high-definition digital transfer, Audio commentary featuring film scholars Susan White and Gaylyn Studlar , Interviews with Ophuls collaborators Alain Jessua, Marc Frederix, and Annette Wademant
A visual analysis of The Earrings of Madame de . . . by film scholar Tag Gallagher, Interview with novelist Louise de Vilmorin on Ophuls's adaptation of her story, New and improved English subtitle translation PLUS: A new essay by Molly Haskell, Louise de Vilmorin's novella Madame de, upon which the film is based, and a reprinted essay by costume designer and longtime Ophuls collaborator George Annenkov
Reviews for the Earrings of Madame de...
List Price: $39.95Price: $34.99You Save: $4.96 (12%)Vampyr - Criterion Collection
Actors: N. Babanini, Albert Bras, Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg, Henriette Gerard, Jan Hieronimko
ASIN : B00180R06I
Sales Rank : 6311
Director : Carl Theodor Dreyer
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Criterion
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0715515030427
UPC : 715515030427
Release Date : December 22, 2008
Publisher : Criterion
Manufacturer : Criterion
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Criterion
Running Time : 75
Album DescriptionWith Vampyr, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's brilliance at achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, profoundly unsettling imagery (as in The Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath) was for once applied to the horror genre. Yet the result-concerning an occult student assailed by various supernatural haunts and local evildoers at an inn outside Paris-is nearly unclassifiable, a host of stunning camera and editing tricks and densely layered sounds creating a mood of dreamlike terror. With its roiling fogs, ominous scythes, and foreboding echoes, Vampyr is one of cinema's great nightmares. Amazon.comIn this chilling, atmospheric German film from 1932, director Carl Theodor Dreyer favors style over story, offering a minimal plot that draws only partially from established vampire folklore. Instead, Dreyer emphasizes an utterly dreamlike visual approach, using trick photography (double exposures, etc.) and a fog-like effect created by allowing additional light to leak onto the exposed film. The result is an unsettling film that seems to spring literally from the subconscious, freely adapted from the Victorian short story Carmilla by noted horror author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, about a young man who discovers the presence of a female vampire in a mysterious European castle. There's more to the story, of course, but it's the ghostly, otherworldly tone of the film that lingers powerfully in the memory. Dreyer maintains this eerie mood by suggesting horror and impending doom as opposed to any overt displays of terrifying imagery. Watching Vampyr is like being placed under a hypnotic trance, where the rules of everyday reality no longer apply. As a splendid bonus, the DVD includes The Mascot, a delightful 26-minute animated film from 1934. Created by pioneering animator Wladyslaw Starewicz, this clever film--in which a menagerie of toys and dolls springs to life--serves as an impressive precursor to the popular Wallace & Gromit films of the 1990s. --Jeff Shannon
Reviews for the Vampyr - Criterion Collection
List Price: $39.95Price: $29.99You Save: $9.96 (25%)8 1/2 - Criterion Collection
Actors: Bruno Agostini, Anouk Aimée, Guido Alberti, Caterina Boratto, Claudia Cardinale
ASIN : B00005QAPH
Sales Rank : 9461
Director : Federico Fellini
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Criterion
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780780021990
ISBN : 0780021991
UPC : 037429135624
Release Date : December 04, 2001
Publisher : Criterion
Manufacturer : Criterion
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Criterion
Running Time : 138
DescriptionOne of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (Otto e Mezzo) turns one man's artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is a director whose film-and life-is collapsing around him. An early working title for the film was La Bella Confusione (The Beautiful Confusion), and Fellini's masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the 1963 Academy Award® winner for Best Foreign-Language Film-one of the most written about, talked about, and imitated movies of all time-in a beautifully restored new digital transfer. Disc two features Fellini's rarely seen first film for television, Fellini: A Director's Notebook (1969). Produced by Peter Goldfarb, this imagined documentary of Fellini is a kaleidoscope of unfinished projects, all of which provide a fascinating and candid window into the director's unique and creative process. Amazon.com essential videoFederico Fellini's 1963 semi-autobiographical story about a worshipped filmmaker who has lost his inspiration is still a mesmerizing mystery tour that has been quoted (Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland) but never duplicated. Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido, a director trying to relax a bit in the wake of his latest hit. Besieged by people eager to work with him, however, he also struggles to find his next idea for a film. The combined pressures draw him within himself, where his recollections of significant events in his life and the many lovers he has left behind begin to haunt him. The marriage of Fellini's hyperreal imagery, dreamy sidebars, and the gravity of Guido's increasing guilt and self-awareness make this as much a deeply moving, soulful film as it is an electrifying spectacle. Mastroianni is wonderful in the lead, his woozy sensitivity to Guido's freefall both touching and charming--all the more so as the character becomes increasingly divorced from the celebrity hype that ultimately outpaces him. --Tom Keogh
Reviews for the 8 1/2 - Criterion Collection
List Price: $29.95Price: $24.99You Save: $4.96 (17%)Nosferatu (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)
Actors: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Alexander Granach, Georg H. Schnell
ASIN : B000VUQ4HW
Sales Rank : 5326
Director : F.W. Murnau
Studio : KINO VIDEO
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Restored, Silent, Special Edition, Surround Sound
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0738329056520
UPC : 738329056520
Release Date : December 20, 2007
Publisher : KINO VIDEO
Manufacturer : KINO VIDEO
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : KINO VIDEO
Running Time : 94
Product DescriptionA cornerstone of the horror film, F.W. Murnau s NOSFERATU is triumphantly reborn in this breathtaking new restoration by the F.W. Murnau Foundation. Backed by an orchestral performance of Hans Erdmann s 1922 score (recorded in 5.1 stereo surround), Kino International edition presents Murnau s masterpiece in this all-new restored HD transfer with unprecedented clarity and faithfulness to the original release version. This double-disc collection presents the film with the original German intertitles as well as with newly-translated English intertitles. Accompanying the film is a 52-minute documentary by Luciano Berriatúa which provides a detailed account of the production and explores the filmmakers involvement in the occult. Also includes 'Nosferatu: Historic Film Meets Digital Restoration' - a 3-minute documentary - Lengthy excerpts from other films by F.W. Murnau: Journey Into the Night (1920), The Haunted Castle (1921), Phantom (1922), The Finances of the Grand Duke (1924), The Last Laugh (1924), Tartuffe (1925), Faust (1926), and Tabu (1931) - Photo Gallery - Scene Comparison Amazon.com essential videoAs noted critic Pauline Kael observed, "... this first important film of the vampire genre has more spectral atmosphere, more ingenuity, and more imaginative ghoulish ghastliness than any of its successors." Some really good vampire movies have been made since Kael wrote those words, but German director F.W. Murnau's 1922 version remains a definitive adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Created when German silent films were at the forefront of visual technique and experimentation, Murnau's classic is remarkable for its creation of mood and setting, and for the unforgettably creepy performance of Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a.k.a. the blood-sucking predator Nosferatu. With his rodent-like features and long, bony-fingered hands, Schreck's vampire is an icon of screen horror, bringing pestilence and death to the town of Bremen in 1838. (These changes of story detail were made necessary when Murnau could not secure a copyright agreement with Stoker's estate.) Using negative film, double-exposures, and a variety of other in-camera special effects, Murnau created a vampire classic that still holds a powerful influence on the horror genre. (Werner Herzog's 1978 film Nosferatu the Vampyre is both a remake and a tribute, and Francis Coppola adopted many of Murnau's visual techniques for Bram Stoker's Dracula.) Seen today, Murnau's film is more of a fascinating curiosity, but its frightening images remain effectively eerie. --Jeff Shannon
Reviews for the Nosferatu (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)
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