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Kalifornia

Actors: Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, Kathy Larson, David Milford, David Duchovny
ASIN : 0792846435
Sales Rank : 7243
Director : Dominic Sena
Brand : TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792846437
ISBN : 0792846435
UPC : 027616851550
Release Date : December 15, 2000
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 117

Description

Excitement, adventure and unimaginable terror await on the road to Kalifornia. "Brad Pitt isoutstanding" (Rolling Stone) and "Juliette Lewis is utterly, heartbreakingly convincing" (Boxoffice) in this chilling psychological thriller co-starring David Duchovny and Michelle Forbes. When urban intellectuals Brian (Duchovny) and Carrie (Forbes) set out on a cross-country trip to research a book about serial killers, they share the ride with a couple they barely knowEarly Grace (Pitt) and his girlfriend, Adele (Lewis). Locked in a car hurtling westward, the four travelers struggle to find some common ground. But when they finally do connect, Early's violent nature abruptly emerges, and the terrified Brian and Carrie realize that they don't need to go very farto learn about ruthless killers...because they're already face to face with one!

Amazon.com

David Duchovny is a blocked author with a fascination for outlaw killers who hatches a plan to road trip through America's mass-murder landmarks to finish his book. He enlists his frustrated photographer girlfriend Michelle Forbes, who desperately wants to leave the East Coast for L.A., to illustrate the tome, and they advertise for riding partners. Luckily for them, they wind up with a veteran killer, the greasy trailer-park ex-con Brad Pitt, who decides to skip parole with his cowering child-woman girlfriend Juliette Lewis. Duchovny is enamored by gun-toting Pitt's recklessness and lawless disregard for, well, everything; he's simultaneously terrified and thrilled by Pitt's brutal beating of a barfly. Meanwhile, Pitt's leaving a trail of corpses in their wake.

Directed with a cool remove by Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds 2000), Kalifornia falls somewhere between Badlands and Natural Born Killers. Pitt brings a ferocious magnetism to his part, but it's still hard to buy genial Duchovny's odd attraction; Juliette Lewis conveys a terrifying sense of victimization with her poor dumb creature. Despite the film's best efforts, it never really plumbs the psyche of Pitt's simmering psycho--he's just plain bad, you know--but it does fashion an effective little thriller out of the tensions brewing in the restless quartet. --Sean Axmaker

Apt Pupil

Actors: Ian McKellen, Brad Renfro, Joshua Jackson, Mickey Cottrell, Michael Reid MacKay
ASIN : 0767821599
Sales Rank : 6875
Director : Bryan Singer
Brand : Sony
Studio : Sony Pictures
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780767821599
ISBN : 0767821599
UPC : 043396223097
Release Date : December 13, 1999
Publisher : Sony Pictures
Manufacturer : Sony Pictures
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Sony Pictures
Running Time : 111

Product Description

Obsessed with the atrocities war criminal kurt dussander committed during the war young todd bowden begins a game of psychological warfare which spirals out of control and produces terrifying results. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 03/23/2004 Starring: Ian Mckellen Brad Renfro Run time: 111 minutes Rating: R Director: Bryan Singer

Amazon.com

At the top of his game, Stephen King has a real gift for mining monsters--zero-at-the-bone horror--out of everyday faces and places. Adapted from a novella in the 1982 collection that also spawned Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil looks at first as if it might draw authentically enlightening terror from the soul-cancer that makes blood relations of a Southern California golden boy (Brad Renfro) and an aging Nazi war criminal (Sir Ian McKellen). Turned on by a high-school course about the Holocaust, Todd Bowden (such a bland handle for this top-of-his-class sociopath!) tracks down Kurt Dussander, a former Gestapo killer hiding in the shadows of sunny SoCal. Blackmailing the old man into sharing his firsthand stories of genocide, the teenager trips out on the virtual reality of the monster's memories. There's perverse play here on the way a kid hungry for knowledge can bring a long-retired teacher or grandparent back to life. Truly superb as James Whale in Gods and Monsters, McKellen brings subtlety to this Stephen King creepshow: his dessicated Dussander is like a mummy or vampire revivified by Todd's appetite for atrocity.

Considerable talent intersects in Apt Pupil: It's director Bryan Singer's first film since The Usual Suspects, that enormously popular, rather heartless thriller-machine. The outstanding cast also includes David Schwimmer as a Jewish guidance counselor pathetically impotent in the face of Todd's talent for evil, and Bruce Davison as Todd's All-American Dad, lacking the capacity to even imagine evil. And the story itself has the potential for gazing into the heart of darkness right here in Hometown, U.S.A. But Apt Pupil just turns ugly and unclean when it trivializes its subject, equating Holocaust horrors with slamming a cat into an oven or offing a nosy vagrant (Elias Koteas). Reducing the great spiritual abyss that lies at the center of the 20th century to cheap slasher-movie thrills and chills is reprehensible. Both Todd and the writers of Apt Pupil should have heeded the old saw: When supping with the devil, best use a long spoon. --Kathleen Murphy

Devil in a Blue Dress

Actors: Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals, Don Cheadle, Maury Chaykin
ASIN : 0767818075
Sales Rank : 12694
Director : Carl Franklin
Brand : Sony
Studio : Sony Pictures
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780767818070
ISBN : 0767818075
UPC : 043396513495
Release Date : December 09, 1999
Publisher : Sony Pictures
Manufacturer : Sony Pictures
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Sony Pictures
Running Time : 102

Product Description

Easy rawlins is a world war ii vet who accepts $100 to find daphne monet a lady whos involved with a wealthy mayoral candidate. Central avenue in 1948 los angeles is where the action returns time and time again. When easy goes there looking for daphne the woman he meets winds up dead. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 12/21/2004 Starring: Denzel Washington Tom Sizemore Run time: 101 minutes Rating: R Director: Carl Franklin

Amazon.com essential video

Despite rave reviews as one of the most stylish and intelligent detective pictures in a number of years, this 1995 adaptation of Walter Mosley's novel never found a mass audience. Too bad, because Carl Franklin's film is nearly perfect in every way, from its rich, shadowy look to its depiction of life in post-World War II black America (L.A.-style) to the acting of Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and others. Washington plays Easy Rawlins, an aircraft factory worker who is laid off only to find his true calling: as a private eye, albeit an unlicensed one. Hired to find a missing woman, he becomes entangled in a complex but satisfying case involving sex, corruption, racism, and of course money. Top-notch from top to bottom--and Cheadle is dangerously funny as Easy's best friend, a killer named Mouse. --Marshall Fine

187

Actors: Samuel L. Jackson, John Heard, Kelly Rowan, Clifton Collins Jr., Tony Plana
ASIN : 0790733633
Sales Rank : 12629
Director : Kevin Reynolds
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790733630
ISBN : 0790733633
UPC : 085391543220
Release Date : December 15, 2000
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 119

Description

A vicious high school student is dead. A gang hit? An act of sudden rage? Or did a once-idealistic teacher finally snap? The issues and the tension hit home when Samuel L. Jackson stars in a gritty urban-school thriller that's "gripping, high-octane entertainment" (Newhouse News Service).

Badlands

Actors: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri, Alan Vint
ASIN : 0790739240
Sales Rank : 12413
Director : Terrence Malick
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790739243
ISBN : 0790739240
UPC : 085391608622
Release Date : December 27, 1999
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 94

Product Description

Dramatization of the starkweather-fugate killing spree of the 1950s in which a teenage girl and her twenty-something boyfriend slaughtered her entire family and several others in the dakota badlands. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/26/2006 Starring: Warren Oates Sissy Spacek Run time: 93 minutes Rating: Pg Director: Terrence Malick

Amazon.com essential video

Still one of American cinema's most powerful, daring filmmaking debuts, Terrence Malick's Badlands is a quirky, visionary psychological and social enigma masquerading as a simple lovers-on-the-lam flick. Inspired by the 1958 murders in the cold, stark badlands of South Dakota by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, the film's plot, on the surface, is similar to that of other killing-couple films, like Bonnie and Clyde and Gun Crazy. Martin Sheen, in an understated, sophisticated performance, plays the strange James Dean-like social outcast who falls in love with the naïve Sissy Spacek--and then kills her father when he comes between them. The two flee like animals to the wilderness, until the police arrive and the killing spree begins.

What sets the film apart from others of its genre is Malick's complicated approach. Gorgeous, impenetrable images contrast sharply with Spacek's nostalgically artless narration, serving as ironic counterpoints, blurring concrete meaning, and stressing that nothing this horrific is simple. Malick observes, rather than analyzes, the couple in a manner as detached and apathetic as the couple's shocking actions. No judgment or definitive motivations are offered, though Malick's empathy often leans toward his senseless protagonists, rather than the star-struck society that makes killers famous. Compared with the interchangeable uniform cops who hunt them and the film's other nameless characters stuck in suburban banality, the couple are presented like tarnished, warped and frustrated results of squelched individuality.

Badlands, on one level, views America's suffocating homogeneity and, conversely, its continued obsession with celebrities (individuals considered different but adored) as hypocritical. Ambiguous and bold, the movie hints that society may be as guilty as the killers. --Dave McCoy

Deathtrap

Actors: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth, Henry Jones
ASIN : B00000JGHT
Sales Rank : 20595
Director : Sidney Lumet
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0085391125624
UPC : 085391125624
Release Date : December 27, 1999
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 116

Description

Ira Levin's cat-and-mouse Broadway suspense smash about a playwright's deadly game of murder gets diabolically comic screen treatment.

Amazon.com

Man (Christopher Reeve) writes play. Older washed-up hack (the blissfully hammy Michael Caine) covets play. A meeting is arranged in a remote cabin festooned with various sharp objects. To reveal anything more would serve to ruin one of the most wondrously convoluted plots of the '80s and '90s. It's a cerebrum-bending romp from start to finish, with marvelously airtight plotting that simultaneously parodies and honors its genre, and two vibrant, continuously morphing lead performances (pity poor Dyan Cannon's weak-link wife, though, who gets stuck with the shrillest character and worst dialogue of the lot). Based on Ira Levin's long-running play, this adaptation's rhythm is thrown off a bit by director Sidney Lumet's somewhat misguided attempts to open it up for the screen, but the script and performers are so playfully adept that, as one of the characters says, "even a gifted director (which Lumet most certainly is, based on evidence such as Dog Day Afternoon and Network) couldn't hurt it." Delirious, nasty fun that's twistier than a corkscrew and loaded with enough red herrings to keep Flipper fed for a year. --Andrew Wright

Switchback

Actors: Claudia Stedelin, Ian Blake Nelson, Brent Hinkley, R. Lee Ermey, Walton Goggins
ASIN : 6305182035
Sales Rank : 13625
Director : Jeb Stuart
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792153085
ISBN : 6305182035
UPC : 097363312079
Release Date : December 01, 1998
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 118

Amazon.com

This film has the feel of a script that's been resurrected by a writer given the chance to direct his own movie. So it was with writer Jeb Stuart (Die Hard) and this film, his directing debut. The plotting is creaky and predictable in this story of an FBI agent (Quaid) relentlessly pursuing a serial killer (Glover) who, in an effort to intimidate the lawman, kidnaps the agent's child. The action set-pieces show up like clockwork, as this rogue cop battles his own agency in an effort to find his child. Quaid is grim and lifeless, so the film's only sparks are given off by Glover, in a wonderfully shaded performance that keeps you guessing whether he is, in fact, the bad guy after all. --Marshall Fine

Bugsy (Unrated Extended Cut)

Actors: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould
ASIN : B000H5TH20
Sales Rank : 11944
Director : Barry Levinson
Brand : Sony
Studio : Sony Pictures
Region Code : 99
Format : AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0043396102590
UPC : 043396102590
Release Date : December 12, 2006
Publisher : Sony Pictures
Manufacturer : Sony Pictures
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Sony Pictures
Running Time : 149

Sony

Warren Beatty and Annette Bening star in the incredible true story of Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, the playboy gangster who betrayed the Mob for love. A cold-blooded killer who dreamed of Hollywood stardom, a crazed patriot who plotted against Mussolini, and the brilliant visionary who carved Las Vegas out of the dry Nevada desert, Bugsy had it all. Until he fell for the one woman who wanted more. A critical masterpiece, BUGSY is a remarkable collaboration of Hollywood's best: director Barry Levinson, screenwriter James Toback, and an all-star supporting cast that includes Harvey Keitel, Oscar®-winner Ben Kingsley (Best Actor, Gandhi,1982), Joe Mantegna, and Elliott Gould. But at the center of itall is the white-hot romance between Bugsy and the insatiable starlet, Virginia Hill.

Amazon.com

Bugsy represents an almost miraculous combination of director, writer, and star on a project that represents a career highlight for everyone involved. It's one of the best American gangster movies ever made--as good in its own way as any of the Godfather films--and it's impossible to imagine anyone better than Beatty in the movie's flashy title role. As notorious mobster and Las Vegas visionary "Bugsy" Siegel, Beatty is perfectly cast as a man whose dreams are greater than his ability to realize them--or at least, greater than his ability to stay alive while making those dreams come true. With a glamorous Hollywood mistress (Annette Bening) who shares Bugsy's dream while pursuing her own upwardly mobile agenda, Bugsy seems oblivious to threats when he begins to spend too much of the mob's money on the creation of the Flamingo casino. Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) will support Bugsy's wild ambition to a point, after which all bets are off, and Bugsy's life hangs in the balance. From the obvious chemistry of Beatty and Bening (who met and later married off-screen) to the sumptuous reproduction of 1940s Hollywood, every detail in this movie feels impeccably right. Beatty is simply mesmerizing as the man who invented Las Vegas but never saw it thrive, moving from infectious idealism to brutal violence in the blink of an eye. Director Barry Levinson is also in peak form here, guiding the stylish story with a subtle balance of admiration and horror; we can catch Bugsy's Vegas fever and root for the gangster's success, but we know he'll get what he deserves. We might wish that Bugsy had lived to see his dream turn into a booming oasis, but the movie doesn't suggest that we should shed any tears. --Jeff Shannon

Bugsy: Extended Cut special features

Anyone who's heard how intense (or perhaps the word is "torturous") it can be to make a film with Warren Beatty will be captivated by the behind-the-scenes extras on the Bugsy: Extended Cut DVD. The highlight is the chat among screenwriter James Toback, director Barry Levinson, and star and co-producer Beatty on how the project and the final film came to be. Tellingly, Beatty is sitting quite apart from the other two, though they're in a semi-circular banquette at Perino's in Los Angeles.

The conversation starts out slowly, with Toback, a genial blowhard, talking about losing the original script, but it picks up steam when the topic turns to the casting of the excellent actors in the film, including Sir Ben Kingsley and Elliott Gould, who also participate. And of course the most interesting off-screen component of the project--Beatty meeting his future wife, costar Annette Bening--is given a fun spotlight in the film. Levinson remembers that after meeting Bening for the first time, Beatty called him enthusiastically saying, "She's great, I love her, I'm going to marry her" ("you know, just a throwaway line," Levinson says, laughing), and Toback and Levinson and Bening herself talk about the signs the two were slowly falling in love. It's as dishy as anything you're likely to see about the notoriously private Beatty, and well worth the investment.

Other extras include several deleted scenes that are now included in the film (and unlike many other "extended cut" releases, actually enhance the depth of the story). One is a harrowing scene in which Bugsy contemplates, and nearly commits, suicide, via Russian roulette. Another is an amusing screen test that Siegal takes, thinking his roguish charm will translate to the big screen. Though it takes Beatty's considerable talents to make that happen, the earnestness of Siegal's outsider character is touching in glimpses like this. --A.T. Hurley

Beyond Bugsy

Other Gangsters films on Amazon.com

More Films staring Warren Beatty

See the true story

Stills from Bugsy (click for larger image)

Presumed Innocent

Actors: Harrison Ford, Raul Julia, Greta Scacchi, Brian Dennehy, Bonnie Bedelia
ASIN : 6304712588
Sales Rank : 9459
Director : Alan J. Pakula
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Bros. Pictures
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790733548
ISBN : 6304712588
UPC : 085391203421
Release Date : December 17, 1997
Publisher : Warner Bros. Pictures
Manufacturer : Warner Bros. Pictures
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Bros. Pictures
Running Time : 127

Product Description

A prosecuting attorney who finds himself under suspicion when his mistress is murdered. Includes filmographies and production notes. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/07/2004 Starring: Harrison Ford Brian Dennehy Run time: 127 minutes Rating: R Director: Alan J. Pakula

Amazon.com essential video

Rich with ambiguity, this smooth adaptation of Scott Turow's bestselling mystery novel stars Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, the prosecuting attorney assigned to a case involving the murder of a beautiful, seductive lawyer (Greta Scacchi) with whom he'd been having a secret affair. After the investigation gets off to a slow start, damning evidence points to Rusty as the prime suspect. His career is destroyed when his superior and secondary suspect Raymond Horgan (Brian Dennehy) sets him up for the fall. Bonnie Bedelia plays Rusty's wife Barbara, who is not above suspicion herself. While Ford's performance rides a fine line between presumed innocence and possible guilt, director Alan J. Pakula (All the President's Men) maintains a consistent tone of uncertainty that keeps the viewer guessing. --Jeff Shannon

River's Edge

Actors: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck, Dennis Hopper
ASIN : B000053VAX
Sales Rank : 8929
Director : Tim Hunter
Brand : TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792848158
ISBN : 0792848152
UPC : 027616857712
Release Date : December 23, 2001
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 99

Description

Based on the horrifying real-life murder of a young California girl, this "powerful portrait" (Newsweek) of deadly, disaffected teens stars Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Crispin Glover (Charlie's Angels), Ione Skye Leitch (One Night Stand), Daniel Roebuck (Final Destination) and Dennis Hopper (Ed TV) in a tale that is "chilling to witness" (The New York Times). On the bank of a river lies the naked body of a brutally murdered young girl. Atthe nearby high school, Samson (Roebuck) brags to Matt (Reeves) and his friends about how he killedher. Drunk and stoned, the doubting teens trudge to the river and discover that he isn't lying. Andoddly, they decide to protect Samson behind a loyal wall of secrecy. Tormented with guilt, Matt questions their silence and suddenly finds himself in a troubling position: should he do what he thinksis right, or should he keep quiet and live with this demon for the rest of his life?

Amazon.com

This disturbing little film is even more unsettling when you think about the fact that it's based on an actual case. Troubled teen Samson murders his girlfriend Jamie for no particular reason, leaves her nude body by the river's edge, then brings his friends to see the corpse to prove he did it. They look at her, prod her, and talk about her, but no one seems to manage to feel anything. River's Edge is ultimately a study of kids who are so numbed by drugs, casual parenting, and the ever present threat of nuclear war that not even death can get a rise out of them. A young Keanu Reeves is surprisingly poised as Matt, the one character with a few shreds of empathy left. His quiet performance is powerful enough to hold the audience's interest even with Crispin Glover and Dennis Hopper both being as crazy as they can be. Glover steals much of the movie with his whacked-out performance as Layne, the group's leader. He undercuts his teen alpha-male power with a nervous giggle, and the spin he puts on much of his dialogue manages to be scary and funny at the same time--after hiding Jamie's body for Samson, he complains: "You'd think I'd at least rate a Michelob!" River's Edge is not necessarily a pleasant movie, but it is certainly a compelling one. --Ali Davis