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Blue Planet (IMAX) [Blu-ray]

ASIN : B000Q6GX1S
Sales Rank : 3957
Director : Ben Burtt
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Brothers
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Binding : Blu-ray
EAN : 0794051815422
UPC : 794051815422
Release Date : December 31, 2007
Publisher : Warner Brothers
Manufacturer : Warner Brothers
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Brothers
Running Time : 40

Description

From the unique vantage point of 200 miles above Earth's surface, we see how natural forces - volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes - affect our world, and how a powerful new force - humankind - has begun to alter the face of the planet. From Amazon rain forests to Serengeti grasslands, Blue Planet inspires a new appreciation of life on Earth, our only home.

Amazon.com

The IMAX film Blue Planet offers an eloquent reminder--and a cautionary warning--that the planet Earth is a delicate living organism, constantly reshaped and rejuvenated by the awesome forces of nature. The film targets a grade-school audience but will prove informative to anyone fascinated by our home planet's evolution. Hurricanes, glaciers, volcanoes, thunderstorms, asteroid impacts, undersea furnace vents, and earthquakes are all explored as a system of interconnected forces that ensure the planet's survival. The difference between this and other nature films is that the Earth's delicacy is emphasized by stunning views from space, filmed in the IMAX format by NASA astronauts in orbit 200 miles above the Earth's surface. With astonishing clarity, this orbital perspective supports the film's ultimate purpose: to reveal the awesome beauty of the Earth, and to emphasize that we, the custodians of this miraculous gift, are also the greatest threat to the planet's delicate health. Proof of man's destructive influence offers a sobering reminder that our responsibility toward nature is perpetual, essential, and routinely abused.

Blue Planet combines state-of-the-art sound and image, principally directed by Ben Burtt, the Oscar-winning sound designer whose credits include the original Star Wars trilogy. No home-theater system could do full justice to the film's technical achievement, but the sights and sounds of Blue Planet are awesome nonetheless, and it's impossible to overstate the importance of the film's message and its hopeful emphasis on the potentially wondrous future of our one and only home. --Jeff Shannon

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Joy Division (The Miriam Collection)

ASIN : B00104AYGA
Sales Rank : 2739
Director : Grant Gee
Brand : WELLSPRING/GENIUS
Studio : The Weinstein Company
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0796019810272
UPC : 796019810272
Release Date : December 17, 2008
Publisher : The Weinstein Company
Manufacturer : The Weinstein Company
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : The Weinstein Company
Running Time : 96
Actors: Tony Wilson, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Peter Saville

Description

Joy Division is a "fascinating look at the brief but vital trajectory of a band that died with its troubled frontman, Ian Curtis" (Jason Gargano, Cincinnati CityBeat), only to be reborn as the equally influential New Order. Featuring interviews with all surviving band members, Joy Division explores the Manchester origins of this revolutionary act, their partnership with Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, and collaboration with legendary producer Martin Hannett.

Amazon.com

While Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People took on impresario Tony Wilson and Anton Corbijn's Control concentrated on singer Ian Curtis, Grant Gee's Joy Division opts for non-fiction over biopic. Together, the three films create a multi-dimensional portrait of Manchester in the post-punk era. Curtis's minimalist quartet arose simultaneously as a product of and a reaction to their industrial environment. As Factory Records co-founder Wilson states, "I don't see this as the story of a pop group, I see this as the story of a city that once upon a time was shiny and bold and revolutionary." (Wilson succumbed to cancer shortly afterwards.) Written by Jon Savage (England's Dreaming), the narrative follows the oral history form. Aside from the surviving members of the band, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris (Curtis committed suicide in 1980), other speakers include designer Peter Saville, Curtis's girlfriend Annik Honoré, and musician Genesis P. Orridge (Throbbing Gristle). Only Curtis's wife, Deborah, chose not to appear on camera, so Gee (Radiohead: Meeting People Is Easy) uses text from her biography, Touching from a Distance. Loaded with rare audio and visual material, like Joy Division's aborted RCA sessions and manager Rob Gretton's notes, Gee presents the definitive documentary of a timeless band. Unlike Corbijn's stately feature, his stylish tribute ends on a more optimistic note: with the birth of New Order in the 1980s and the re-birth of Manchester in the 2000s. Extra features include 75 minutes of bonus interviews and a BBC performance of "Transmission." --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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Mythbusters: Collection 2 (3pc)

ASIN : B000TGJ85I
Sales Rank : 2572
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Discovery Channel
Format : Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0014381411324
UPC : 014381411324
Release Date : December 16, 2007
Publisher : Discovery Channel
Manufacturer : Discovery Channel
Label : Discovery Channel
Running Time : 600
Actor: Mythbusters

Description

Ever wonder if human teeth could stop a speeding bullet? You're about to find out! Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage are back to test a host of the most insane and dangerous myths ever dreamed of. No theory is safe from the scrutiny of the MythBusters, who take on the Hindenburg disaster, Tesla's Earthquake Machine, the Mentos mint-Diet Coke Internet myth and much, much more! From the wacky (can a hurricane blow the feathers off a chicken?) to the death-defying, Hyneman and Savage go where no reasonable people have gone before in separating the reality from the ridiculous!

EPISODES: Helium Football: Field test helium-filled footballs to find out if they stay aloft higher and longer than regulation air-filled balls. Then face a firing line to discover the bullet-halting capability of human teeth.

Bullets Fired Up: See if celebratory bullets shot into the air can kill when they return to Earth, and find out whether low-grade vodka can be transformed into a top-shelf spirit with an ordinary household water filter.

Killer Whirlpool: Literature is filled with nautical tales of ships being sucked to deathly ocean depths by killer whirlpools, but could such a thing really happen? Then discover whether snowplows can blow a car off the road or if that?s just a snow job.

Crimes and Myth-demeanors 2: Test the most high-tech home alarm systems on the market, including stripping down to birthday suits, getting sprayed with dry-ice and donning a Big Bird-like yellow rug to evade burglary detection.

Deadly Straw: Test burning barnyard myths like whether a hurricane can blow the feathers of a chicken.

Earthquake Machine: Take on Nikolai Tesla, one of the greatest scientists and inventor of all time. Unbelievably coming up with a working prototype of Tesla's Earthquake Machine, the pair put a California bridge to the test.

Diet Coke and Mentos: Inspired by an Internet myth, the MythBusters pair various sodas and candies together until they create the most explosive cocktail possible. Then: Can putting a postage stamp on a helicopter's rotor blades send it into a tailspin?

Anti-Gravity Device: Celebrate the magic of the holiday season by loading strings of hot lights on a Christmas tree to see how long it takes for the tree to burst into flames.

Firearms Folklore: Test the likelihood that a criminal's bullet could hit and then jam the chamber of a policeman's revolver and whether a sniper could kill another by shooting straight down the enemy gun scope.

Holiday Special: Yodel to an avalanche in this special episode, then exhaustively test for the best Christmas tree-water cocktail to keep the needles from falling off.

Pirate Special: Test period swords, cannons, guns and the laundry-cleaning capabilities of grog.

Hindenburg Mystery: It's generally accepted that the hydrogen keeping the Hindenburg afloat sparked the infamous inferno, but could other chemical reactions actually have caused the blaze?

Underwater Car: The team willingly recreates many people's worst nightmare: being trapped in a car submerged in water after a crash.

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This American Life - Season One

ASIN : B000UEDFLM
Sales Rank : 2800
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Showtime Ent.
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0097368529649
UPC : 097368529649
Release Date : December 23, 2008
Publisher : Showtime Ent.
Manufacturer : Showtime Ent.
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Showtime Ent.
Running Time : 120
Actors: Ira Glass, Ira

Amazon.com

The widely popular, award-winning Chicago Public Radio show of the same name is now a Showtime show. Drawing on a different theme each week, viewers hear compelling stories from everyday folks culled from six months on the road. Host Ira Glass and company create a captivating look at the American Life in a series that’s not quite documentary, not much of a news magazine and definitely not a reality show – it’s simply unlike anything else.

Amazon.com

Host of Chicago Public Radio's This American Life since 1995, Ira Glass segues successfully to the small screen with this Showtime series. The first season begins with the saga of Chance, a Brahma bull who met President Bush, appeared in a movie with Vince Vaughn, and guested on The Late Show. To prepare for the passing of their elderly pet and "business associate," Chance's owners clone him, but things don't go as planned. Their segment airs in tandem with a piece in which an improv group gives a band their best gig ever--to mixed results. In other episodes, Glass profiles a late-in-life screenwriter, the stepson of a one-hit wonder, and a 14-year-old who's sworn off love. As quirky as these one-act movies sound, Glass and reporters Jorge Just, Nancy Updike, Nazanin Rafsanjani, and Alex Blumberg play up the universality of their subjects rather going for exploitation or easy laughs. They also leave it up to viewers to provide morals and conclusions (We never find out, for instance, whether the short featured in "Lights" makes it into the Sundance Film Festival). In each of the six half-hour programs, prologues or epilogues reinforce the theme, such as Chris Ware's animation about a childhood craze for fake TV cameras. Emmy voters presented This American Life with awards for outstanding non-fiction series and direction, while Showtime renewed the show for a second season. Bonus features include a photo gallery, a Glass biography, and commentary from Glass and director Christopher Wilcha on the pilot. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

ASIN : B0001L3LUE
Sales Rank : 3975
Director : Errol Morris
Brand : Sony
Studio : Sony Pictures
Region Code : 99
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781404941663
ISBN : 1404941665
UPC : 043396019164
Release Date : December 11, 2004
Publisher : Sony Pictures
Manufacturer : Sony Pictures
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Sony Pictures
Running Time : 107
Actor: Robert McNamara

Product Description

The story of america as seen through the eyes of former secretary of defense robert mcnamara. One of the most controversial & influential figures in world politics he takes us on an insiders journey through many of the seminal events of the 20th century. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 05/13/2008 Starring: Robert Mcnamara Run time: 107 minutes Rating: Pg13

Amazon.com

The Fog of War, the movie that finally won Errol Morris the best documentary Oscar, is a spellbinder. Morris interviews Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and finds a uniquely unsettling viewpoint on much of 20th-century American history. Employing a ton of archival material, including LBJ's fascinating taped conversations from the Oval Office, Morris probes the reasons behind the U.S. commitment to the Vietnam War--and finds a depressingly inconsistent policy. McNamara himself emerges as--well, not exactly apologetic, but clearly haunted by the what-ifs of Vietnam. He also mulls the bombing of Japan in World War II and the Cuban Missile Crisis, raising more questions than he answers. The Fog of War has the usual inexorable Morris momentum, aided by an uneasy Philip Glass score. This movie provides a glimpse inside government. It also encourages skepticism about same. --Robert Horton

List Price: $39.95
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A History of Britain - The Complete Collection (2008 Repackage)

ASIN : B0016OKR34
Sales Rank : 3397
Director : The History Channel
Brand : A&E
Studio : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0733961116793
UPC : 733961116793
Release Date : December 29, 2008
Publisher : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
Manufacturer : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
Running Time : 900
Actor: History of Britain

Product Description

From the dawn of civilization to the 20th century, A COMPLETE HISTORY OF BRITAIN re-animates familiar tales and illuminates overlooked aspects of Englnd s past. Written and hosted by historian Simon Schama (the bestselling author of Rembrandt s Eyes and The Embarrassment of Riches), this monumental BBC production has been hailed by critics for its colorful--and controversial--approach.

Discarding timelines and tiresome lineages, HISTORY provides a liveley look at the personalities and cultures that infuse Britain s past and examines the impact of this extraordinary heritage on the modern nation. From India to Ireland, the Norman Invasion to the American Revolution, Schama spotlights the epic themes and towering figures that transformed an island at the edge of the world into the greatest empire on earth.

All 15 episodes of the landmark series are available on DVD in this comprehensive collector s set.

Amazon.com

What do you get when you combine the resources and ethos of the BBC with the literary panache of one of the world's best narrative historians? The answer is Simon Schama's History of Britain television series. In this well-written and thoughtfully crafted survey, Schama, the bestselling author of books on European cultural history such as The Embarrassment of Riches and Citizens, has managed to be both conventional and provocative. He tells the official version of Britain's story--Roman Britain, the Norman Conquest, the struggles of the Henrys and Richards, Elizabeth I, Scottish rebellions and the English Civil Wars, the American Revolution, the growth of the British Empire, Queen Victoria, the industrial age, and Winston Churchill. But while sticking to a script familiar to anyone who sat up and listened during history class, Schama brings it all alive with memorable prose and presence--Simon de Montfort's rebel parliament is described as inaugurating the "union between patriotism and insubordination"; with Henry VIII, Schama says, "you could practically smell the testosterone." Schama is also particularly enlightening on the symbolism of buildings, memorials, language, and ceremonies, and on the complex relations between England and its Celtic and Catholic neighbors. If history must have gloss, then let it be presented like this. --Miles Taylor

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The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

ASIN : B000XQ4HR8
Sales Rank : 2374
Director : Seth Gordon
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : New Line Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Dolby, Subtitled, Anamorphic
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0794043112348
UPC : 794043112348
Release Date : December 29, 2008
Publisher : New Line Home Video
Manufacturer : New Line Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : New Line Home Video
Running Time : 79
Actors: Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe

Description

In this hilarious, critically acclaimed arcade showdown, a humble novice goes head-to-head against the reigning Donkey Kong champ in a confrontation that rocks the gaming world to its processors! For over 20 years, Billy Mitchell has owned the throne of the Donkey Kong world. No one could beat his top score until now. Newcomer Steve Wiebe claims to have beaten the unbeatable, but Mitchell isn't ready to renquish his crown without a fight. Go behind the barrels as the two battle it out in a vicious war to earn the title of the true King of Kong.

Amazon.com

The stuff of gladiatorial battle is here: good versus evil, right versus wrong, nerd versus... super-nerd? At any rate, it's a more entertaining showdown than most fictional movies can muster. The King of Kong is the saga of Steve Wiebe, a Redmond, Washington dweeb who sets a new record in the video game Donkey Kong, only to see his accomplishment challenged by the grand poobahs of the gaming establishment. And if you don't know how pernickety the grand poobahs of the gaming establishment can be, well, one of the pleasures of this movie is finding out about this collection of oddballs. It seems Wiebe has toppled a score that has stood since 1982, when eminent "Gamer of the Century" Billy Mitchell set it, and Mitchell isn't too happy about being overthrown. A black-mulleted showboat, Mitchell provides the perfect counterpoint to Wiebe's mild-mannered family man, and the smaller fish around him are no less colorful. This is one of those movies you watch in delighted disbelief, marveling that such people exist--and that they gladly allowed themselves to be filmed. Director Seth Gordon does an important thing in presenting this world of eccentrics: he doesn't mock them, or provide editorial nudging; he simply lets them be. The result is an ingratiating classic. --Robert Horton

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Taxi To the Dark Side

ASIN : B001BEK8FQ
Sales Rank : 3484
Director : Alex Gibney
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Velocity / Thinkfilm
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0014381494020
UPC : 014381494020
Release Date : December 30, 2008
Publisher : Velocity / Thinkfilm
Manufacturer : Velocity / Thinkfilm
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Velocity / Thinkfilm
Running Time : 106
Actors: Alex Gibney, Brian Keith Allen, Moazzam Begg, Willie Brand, George W. Bush

Album Description

Oscarr-nominated director Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) investigates the torture and killing of an innocent Afghani taxi driver in this gripping probe into reckless abuses of government power. Disturbing and incisive, the Academy Awardr-winner Taxi To The Dark Side incorporates rare and never-before-seen images from inside the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons into its exposure of the Bush administration's "global war on terror." This stunningly crafted narrative demonstrates how this one man's life and death symbolizes the erosion of our civil rights and how what it means to be an American has changed forever.

Amazon.com

Among the slew of documentaries inspired by the post-9/11 war, arguably none is more important than Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side. The story it has to tell, with compelling thoroughness and no recourse to rhetoric, should be as disturbing to Americans supporting the war as it is to opponents. In December 2002, Dilawar, a young rural Afghan cabdriver, was accused of helping to plan a rocket attack on a U.S. base, clamped into prison at Bagram, and subjected to physical torture so relentless that he died after two days of it. But Dilawar was innocent--and he'd been denounced by the real culprit, who thereby took the heat off himself and won points with U.S. forces by giving them "a bad guy." Dilawar was the first fatal victim of Vice President Dick Cheney's devotion to "working the dark side"--torturing, humiliating, and otherwise abusing prisoners in the "Global War on Terror." His story, developed in horrific detail with testimony from the soldiers who tortured him, and also from two New York Times investigative reporters, becomes a prism for slanting light onto the "dark side" policy and the mindset behind it. The program at Bagram was deemed such a success that it served as the model for Abu Graibh the following year in Iraq, and both prisons became pipelines to the detainee facility at Guantánamo, Cuba.

The film's impact is powerful and complex. We come to see the very soldiers who broke Dilawar's body and spirit as victims, too--and patsies of a policy that, from Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on down, ignored the Geneva Convention and shrouded itself (and commanding officers) in "a fog of ambiguity" while the grunts took the fall. A lot of these grunts testify here, and the accumulation of their individual perspectives on a shared tragedy is devastating. The latter half of the film features penetrating commentary from critics of torture as a policy (Senator John McCain was still one at the time), all of whom agree that it doesn't work and it only damages us. And for Theatre of the Absurd, there's a PR tour of (a discrete portion of) the Guantánamo facility, which turns out to be kinda like summer camp: "They get ice cream on Sundays." Finally, Taxi to the Dark Side isn't about torture or politics or the justness or unjustness of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gibney is entirely correct when he says, "It's really about the American character and whether we have become something rather different from what we imagine ourselves to be." He's asking; he doesn't want it to be true. --Richard T. Jameson

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Life in the Undergrowth

ASIN : B000EBD9W6
Sales Rank : 2713
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : BBC Warner
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0794051251428
UPC : 794051251428
Release Date : December 02, 2006
Publisher : BBC Warner
Manufacturer : BBC Warner
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : BBC Warner
Running Time : 250
Actor: Life in the Undergrowth

Description

David Attenborough guides the viewer through a miniature universe teeming with life, never normally seen, yet all around us. New technology reveals surreal vistas and their extraordinary inhabitants -- swarming antler moths, desert locusts and a mountain of cockroaches -- up close and personal. The bizarre and the beautiful are represented and their habits, lifestyles and characteristics explained in David Attenborough's inimitable style. Though small, these creatures are as ferocious as any seen before.

Amazon.com

By getting up close and personal with Life in the Undergrowth, this extraordinary BBC series sets a new standard of excellence in wildlife cinematography. Hosted by veteran nature expert David Attenborough and utilizing the latest advances in macrophotography, the five-part series is dedicated to bugs of all shapes and sizes, from microscopic gnats to cave-dwelling millipedes so large they can capture bats in mid-flight and feast for hours thereafter! The patience involved in filming such previously unseen marvels must have been grueling (as confirmed by producer Mike Salisbury in a splendid bonus interview), but the results are nothing less than astonishing, with a parade of sequences so impressive that even insect-haters will pause in amazement. With an emphasis on reproduction and mating behaviors, each program focuses on a different, generalized group of creatures, many of them never filmed before, so that lay-persons and entomologists will be equally enlightened by discoveries made in the process of filming.

As always, Attenborough serves as an expert witness, cordial, fearless, and quintessentially British as he explains what we're seeing, from the nocturnal fluorescence of scorpions (glowing at night in ultraviolet light, they perform a mating dance playfully described as "a nuptial pas de deux") to the mysterious, 17-year life cycle of the cicada. Throughout, we see everything, both frightening and beautiful, from an intimate, bug's-eye view, in detail so vividly colorful that you'll never view the insect world in quite the same way again. (Likewise for the diverse variety of critters on view in episode 3: "The Silk Spinners," which according to Salisbury is capable of curing arachnophobes from their irrational fear of spiders.) Just when you think Life in the Undergrowth couldn't get any more fascinating, it does: episode 4, "Intimate Relations," shows how many insects symbiotically depend on other species for food, shelter, or completion of their reproductive cycles, and episode 5, "Supersocieties," focuses on the social complexities of insect colonists like ants and termites. Enough to give you the creeps for days, you say? Think again, for after seeing Life in the Undergrowth (a perfect companion piece to the Nova episode "The Unknown World"), you may find yourself in the garden, on your knees, eager for a better look at the countless millions of tiny creatures that surround us every day. --Jeff Shannon

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The Original Kings of Comedy

ASIN : B000056BOW
Sales Rank : 4316
Director : Spike Lee
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792171522
ISBN : 0792171527
UPC : 097363392446
Release Date : December 27, 2001
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 115
Actors: Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, Bernie Mac

Product Description

A film of a comedy tour starring four of the best african-american comedians. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 02/13/2007 Starring: Steve Harvey Cedric The Entertainer Run time: 115 minutes Rating: R Director: Spike Lee

Amazon.com essential video

The Original Kings of Comedy achieves the seemingly impossible task of capturing the rollicking and sly comedy routines of stand-up and sitcom vets Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac and the magic of experiencing a live concert show. Director Spike Lee and his crew plant a multitude of cameras in a packed stadium and onstage (as well as backstage, as they follow the comedians) to catch the vivid immediacy of the show, which is as much about the audience as it is about the jokes. And the jokes are funny.

All four riff fast and furiously (and with much swearing) on the world in terms of race, family, sex, and in one routine, outer space. Hughley takes comedic aim at extreme sports and eating disorders, while Cedric harks back to the day when gang fights meant calling opponents out onto the dance floor. Bernie Mac, the self-confessed id comedian of the group, presents a routine that is simultaneously offensive and hilarious--an apt reminder that comedy can and should be vicious if we are ever to learn to laugh at ourselves and hopefully be the better for it. Harvey, who acts as the MC for the show, has some transcendent moments with the crowd (a '70s slow jam sing-along, anyone?) that have to be seen to be believed. There's no doubt as to why Kings was a hit with concert and movie audiences; the laughs keep coming, in the tradition of Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, with a sharp eye on the nuances of today's racially affected culture. --Shannon Gee