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List Price: $14.98Price: $9.99You Save: $4.99 (33%)Brazil
Actors: Jim Broadbent, Ray Cooper (II), Robert De Niro, John Flanagan, Kim Greist
ASIN : 0783225903
Sales Rank : 3708
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783225906
ISBN : 0783225903
UPC : 025192016820
Release Date : December 31, 1998
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 132
Amazon.com essential videoIf Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant. The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive) six-disc laser package in 1996. Although the DVD (at a fraction of the price) doesn't include that set's many extras, it's still a bargain. --Jim Emerson
Reviews for the Brazil
List Price: $19.95Price: $12.99You Save: $6.96 (35%)The Monkees - Head
Actors: William Bagdad, Timothy Carey, Carol Doda, Micky Dolenz, June Fairchild
ASIN : 6305038694
Sales Rank : 13915
Director : Bob Rafelson
Studio : Rhino Theatrical
Region Code : 0
Format : Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9786305038696
ISBN : 6305038694
UPC : 081227446024
Release Date : December 21, 1998
Publisher : Rhino Theatrical
Manufacturer : Rhino Theatrical
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Rhino Theatrical
Running Time : 96
Reviews for the The Monkees - Head
List Price: $9.98Price: $7.49You Save: $2.49 (25%)Altered States
Actors: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid, Thaao Penghlis
ASIN : 6305133131
Sales Rank : 5768
Director : Ken Russell
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9786305133131
ISBN : 6305133131
UPC : 085391107620
Release Date : December 01, 2004
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 103
Product DescriptionA mind-altering trip into the heart and mind of a scientist hell-bent on finding the beast within. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: William Hurt Blair Brown Run time: 103 minutes Rating: R Director: Ken Russell Amazon.comIt's easy to understand why the late, great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky removed his name from the credits of Altered States and substituted the pseudonym Sidney Aaron. After all, Chayefsky was a revered dramatist whose original source novel was intended as a serious exploration of altered consciousness, inspired by the immersion-tank experiments of Dr. John Lilly in the 1970s. In the hands of maverick director Ken Russell, however, Altered States became a full-on sensory assault, using symbolic imagery and mind- blowing special effects to depict one man's physical and hallucinatory journey through the entire history of human evolution. It's a brazenly silly film redeemed by its intellectual ambition--a dazzling extravaganza that's in love with science and scientists, and eagerly willing to dive off the precipice of rationality to explore uncharted regions of mind, body, and spirit. William Hurt made his bold film debut as the psycho-physiologist who plays guinea pig to his own experiments; Blair Brown plays his equally brilliant wife, whose devotion is just strong enough to bring him back from the most altered state imaginable. From the eternal channels of sense memory to the restorative power of a loving embrace, this movie rocks you to the birth of the universe and back again. And while it's clearly not the story that Chayefsky wanted on the screen, the directorial audacity of Ken Russell makes it one heck of a memorable trip. --Jeff Shannon
Reviews for the Altered States
New Price: $24.89Pink Floyd - The Wall
Actors: Bob Geldof, Christine Hargreaves, James Laurenson, Eleanor David, Kevin McKeon
ASIN : 6305603847
Sales Rank : 10623
Director : Alan Parker
Studio : Sony
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Anamorphic, Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Live, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9786305603849
ISBN : 6305603847
UPC : 074645019895
Release Date : December 02, 1999
Publisher : Sony
Manufacturer : Sony
Label : Sony
Running Time : 95
Amazon.comBy any rational measure, Alan Parker's cinematic interpretation of Pink Floyd: The Wall is a glorious failure. Glorious because its imagery is hypnotically striking, frequently resonant, and superbly photographed by the gifted cinematographer Peter Biziou. And a failure because the entire exercise is hopelessly dour, loyal to the bleak themes and psychological torment of Roger Waters's great musical opus, and yet utterly devoid of the humor that Waters certainly found in his own material. Any attempt to visualize The Wall would be fraught with artistic danger, and Parker succumbs to his own self-importance, creating a film that's as fascinating as it is flawed. The film is, for better and worse, the fruit of three artists in conflict--Parker indulging himself, and Waters in league with designer Gerald Scarfe, whose brilliant animated sequences suggest that he should have directed and animated this film in its entirety. Fortunately, this clash of talent and ego does not prevent The Wall from being a mesmerizing film. Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof (in his screen debut) is a fine choice to play Waters's alter ego--an alienated, "comfortably numb" rock star whose psychosis manifests itself as an emotional (and symbolically physical) wall between himself and the cold, cruel world. Weaving Waters's autobiographical details into his own jumbled vision, Parker ultimately fails to combine a narrative thread with experimental structure. It's a rich, bizarre, and often astonishing film that will continue to draw a following, but the real source of genius remains the music of Roger Waters. --Jeff Shannon
Reviews for the Pink Floyd - The Wall
List Price: $24.95Price: $22.49You Save: $2.46 (10%)Liquid Sky
Actors: Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Sheppard, Susan Doukas, Otto von Wernherr, Bob Brady
ASIN : 6305660328
Sales Rank : 19572
Director : Slava Tsukerman
Studio : Telavista
Region Code : 0
Format : Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9786305660323
ISBN : 6305660328
UPC : 698140568339
Release Date : December 15, 2000
Publisher : Telavista
Manufacturer : Telavista
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Telavista
Running Time : 112
DescriptionThis 1983 science fiction oddity, set in the subterranean world of heroin addicts, performance artists, and androgynous models in New York's East Village, became a staple of the midnight movie circuit and college campus film societies. A tiny UFO lands o Amazon.com essential videoThis 1983 science fiction oddity, set in the subterranean world of heroin addicts, performance artists, and androgynous models in New York's East Village, became a staple of the midnight movie circuit and college campus film societies. A tiny UFO lands on the roof of a grungy penthouse apartment inhabited by androgynous model Anne Carlisle and her drug-dealing lover Paula E. Sheppard (the former child star of Alice, Sweet Alice). As explained with deadpan gravity by hilariously naive alien hunter Otto Von Wernherr, the UFOs congregate in areas of intense heroin concentration and feed off the highs of addicts. This alien has found a better high: orgasms. Russian émigré Slava Tsukerman's punk sci-fi feature takes the alien in alienation seriously, charting the mental disintegration of Carlisle as every sexual partner dies in climax and she turns herself into a heroine-chic angel of death. Easily the strangest to come out of the New York indie explosion of the early '80s, this low budget classic is talky and overlong at almost two hours, but remains an imaginative use of bargain-basement effects (heat aura photography, stop motion animation) for a tale of a most unusual alien encounter. Tsukerman co-composed the minimalist electronic score (in the Laurie Anderson vein). Carlisle, who cowrote the film, also appears as a surly gay male model. --Sean Axmaker
Reviews for the Liquid Sky
New Price: $15.48Brazil - Criterion Collection
Actors: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins
ASIN : 0780022181
Sales Rank : 26750
Director : Terry Gilliam
Studio : Criterion
Region Code : 0
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780780022188
ISBN : 0780022181
UPC : 037429138526
Release Date : December 13, 1999
Publisher : Criterion
Manufacturer : Criterion
Label : Criterion
Running Time : 142
Amazon.com essential videoIf Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant. The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive) six-disc laser package in 1996. --Jim Emerson
Reviews for the Brazil - Criterion Collection
New Price: $23.06The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
Actors: Alexis (XI), Jan Carson, George Claydon, Ivor Cutler, Mal Evans
ASIN : 6304708521
Sales Rank : 37400
Director : Stephen Sanders
Studio : Mpi Home Video
Region Code : 0
Format : Color, DVD-Video, HiFi Sound, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9786304708521
ISBN : 6304708521
UPC : 030306153827
Release Date : December 12, 1997
Publisher : Mpi Home Video
Manufacturer : Mpi Home Video
Label : Mpi Home Video
Running Time : 50
Amazon.comThis 1968 oddity is probably a film only a total Beatlemaniac could love, but it carries both musical and historical resonance. It also gives intimations of what would happen in the next 30 years as artists gained more and more power over how they were presented. The roots of virtually any rock star's vanity project (including Prince's Under the Cherry Moon) can be traced to this little Liverpudlian home movie. Fresh from the success of their films A Hard Day's Night and Help!, and still under the influence of the intoxicants of the era, the Beatles set out to make their own fancifully psychedelic project. What they got out of it was, essentially, a knock-off album with a few good songs and a lot of filler, which is more than can be said for this alternately self-indulgent and mildly amusing British version of Ken Kesey's magic bus tour. Using some of their favorite actors (including Victor Spinetti, who was in their first two movies), the Beatles make an alternative British travelogue, stopping occasionally to sing songs like "I Am the Walrus" and "The Fool on the Hill." Strictly for completists. --Marshall Fine
Reviews for the The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
Price: $7.98Reefer Madness
Actors: Dorothy Short, Kenneth Craig, Lillian Miles, Dave O'Brien, Thelma White
ASIN : 6305066795
Sales Rank : 34228
Director : Louis J. Gasnier
Brand : O'BRIEN/SHORT
Studio : Motion Picture Ventures
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9786305066798
ISBN : 6305066795
UPC : 056775006297
Release Date : December 07, 1998
Publisher : Motion Picture Ventures
Manufacturer : Motion Picture Ventures
Availability : Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks
Label : Motion Picture Ventures
Running Time : 70
Product DescriptionDesigned as a propaganda film against marijuana, exaggerated scenes of possible effects of the drug are shown, climaxing in the bludgeoning death of the drug dealer.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: O'BRIEN/SHORT
Title: REEFER MADNESS
Street Release Date: 08/25/1998
Domestic
Genre: CLASSICS Amazon.com essential videoAlthough it was made in 1936, Reefer Madness didn't become a cult hit until 1972 when the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) rescued it from the Library of Congress film archive. Thereafter, it was a mainstay on the midnight movie circuit. And it's easy to see why. The ostensible story involves a group of upstanding young high school students who succumb to the allure of the "killer weed." What follows, as if by natural progression, is a catalog of crimes that includes hit-and-run driving, loose morals, rape, murder, suicide, and my personal favorite, permanent insanity! The action is at times so hysterical, in both senses, that you may forget to inhale. Honors go to the wild-eyed, cackling hophead David O'Brien; his performance reaches a raw intensity that is hard to imagine. One measure of this film's pervasive influence is the extent to which its title continues to be invoked in news stories about decriminalization and medical marijuana. Such posterity for unintentional humor must be rare. A great film to see stoned, man. --Jim Gay Amazon.comA propaganda film from 1936 that has become a cult hit because of its dated outlook on marijuana use, Reefer Madness is the height of camp entertainment. Framed as a "documentary," the film is narrated by a high school principal imparting his wisdom and experiences with the demon weed. The bulk of the film focuses on almost slapstick scenes of high school kids smoking pot and quickly going insane, playing "evil" jazz music, being committed, and going on a murder spree. Meant to be an important and affecting cautionary tale, this dated black-and-white film's true value is in its many entertaining moments of unintended hilarity. --Robert Lane
Reviews for the Reefer Madness
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