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The Tuskegee Airmen

Actors: Laurence Fishburne, Allen Payne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Courtney B. Vance, Andre Braugher
ASIN : B000053V7E
Sales Rank : 3938
Director : Robert Markowitz
Studio : Hbo Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783118147
ISBN : 0783118147
UPC : 026359128523
Release Date : December 23, 2001
Publisher : Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer : Hbo Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Hbo Home Video
Running Time : 106

Description

Featuring an all-star cast headed by Laurence Fishburne, fireballs of high speed air action explode off the screen in this exciting story of the "Fighting 99th," the first squadron of black American pilots to be allowed to fight for their country. Based on the true story.

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This true story of the black flyers who broke the color barrier in the U.S. Air Force during World War II is a well-intentioned film highlighted by an excellent cast. Proud, solemn, Iowa-born Laurence Fishburne and city-kid hipster Cuba Gooding Jr. are among the hopefuls who meet en route to Tuskegee Air Force Base, where they are among the recruits for an "experimental" program to "prove" the abilities of the black man in the U.S. armed services. Fighting prejudice from racist officers and government officials and held to a consistently higher level of performance than their white counterparts, these men prove themselves in training and in combat, many of them dying for their country in the process. Andre Braugher costars as a West Point graduate who takes charge of the unit in Africa and in Italy (where it's christened the 332nd). The film is rousing, if slow starting and episodic, but it's periodically grounded by a host of war movie clichés, notably the calculated demise of practically every trainee introduced in the opening scenes (ironic given the 332nd's real-life combat record--high casualties for the enemy, low casualties among themselves, and no losses among the bombers they escorted). Ultimately the Emmy-nominated performances by moral backbone Fishburne and the dedicated Braugher and the energy and cocky confidence of Gooding give their battles both on and off the battlefield the sweet taste of victory. --Sean Axmaker

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Classical Baby 3-Pack - Music, Art & Dance

Actor: Classical Baby
ASIN : B0009WPKYA
Sales Rank : 3910
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : HBO Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783136882
ISBN : 0783136889
UPC : 026359857126
Release Date : December 30, 2005
Publisher : HBO Home Video
Manufacturer : HBO Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : HBO Home Video
Running Time : 90

Description

Three Pack includes:

Classical Baby: The Art Show: The gallery is set: it's time to see some of the world's greatest works of art accompanied by some great classical music. The exhibit features works by Monet, Degas, Pollock, Van Gogh, plus many other masterpieces. The music is playing, the tour is about to begin; it's time to explore Classical Baby: The Art Show!

Classical Baby: The Dance Show: The animal dancers are stretching and getting limber, it's going to be a fantastic show featuring some impressive moves inspired by George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Pilobolus, plus many other great choreographers. The warm-up music has stopped, the dancers are ready; it's time to begin Classical Baby: The Dance Show!

Classical Baby: The Music Show: The animal orchestra is warming up and the animals in the audience are buzzing with anticipation about the musical program featuring Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart and Copland, plus many other great classical composers. The baby conductor has made his entrance. The maestro is ready to lead the animal orchestra; it's time to begin Classical Baby: The Music Show!

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The fine arts have a universal appeal that offers an opportunity for forging intergenerational connections. Classical Baby is a three DVD set in which each DVD focuses on a single classic art form: dance, visual art and music. Each animated program is brimming with catchy melodies, brilliant colors, and fun animated animal characters that appeal to babies and toddlers as well as famous musical pieces, revered artwork and varied dance styles that encourage adults to share their love of the arts with a special child. "The Music Show" presents musical masterpieces from artists as varied as Bach, Mozart, Villa Lobos and Bartok and runs the gamut from large orchestral pieces to opera and intimate chamber music. Animated polar bears, toddling babies and violin-playing crickets ensure that little ones are fully engaged and entertained. "The Art Show" focuses in close on masterpieces from famous artists like Monet, Hopper and Degas and includes a snowy romp through a sculpture garden showcasing works from the 2500's BC to the 20th century AD. Accompanying the images are famous musical themes, ranging from classical to jazz and ragtime, and animation that allows modern artwork to spin and encourages cute little frogs to hop right into a Monet canvas. "The Dance Show" gives free reign to the imagination with animated animal characters performing dances inspired by great choreographers like Balanchine, Robbins, and Pilobolus in styles reminiscent of classical ballet, the Broadway musical and the silver screen. Adults may laugh aloud when animated sheep dance "Sheep to Sheep" ala Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but the beauty is that a classic moment has been shared and a connection forged between the generations. (Ages 6 months to 4 years) --Tami Horiuchi

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Jerry Seinfeld Live on Broadway: I'm Telling You for the Last Time

Actors: Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Barryte, Grace Bustos, George Carlin, Alan King
ASIN : B00000JWVS
Sales Rank : 2697
Director : Marty Callner
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Hbo Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Live, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783116006
ISBN : 0783116004
UPC : 026359166723
Release Date : December 28, 1999
Publisher : Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer : Hbo Home Video
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Label : Hbo Home Video
Running Time : 75

Description

DVD Features:
Biographies
Interactive Menus
Interviews
Other:Audience Q&A

Amazon.com

When Seinfeld wrapped up its ninth and final season in the spring of 1998, the popular show's namesake and cocreator decided to offer a symbolic gesture to his fans. Taped for HBO in August 1998, on the final date of Jerry Seinfeld's tour appearances at New York City's Broadhurst Theater, I'm Telling You for the Last Time presents the standup comedian's so-called "final" standup, or at least his final tour with the standup material that made him famous. The video opens with a great prologue in which Seinfeld's old material is literally laid to rest, with many of Seinfeld's comedy colleagues in attendance at the "funeral." (Jay Leno is there, but David Letterman is conspicuously absent, and while it's a bit self-congratulatory to show Seinfeld's fellow comedians fighting like vultures over his abandoned jokes, it's worth it just to see Garry Shandling pilfering from the catering table like a homeless intruder.)

Whether he's talking about airline flights, cab drivers, or memories of Halloween and an ill-fitting Superman costume, Seinfeld's observational humor is as timeless and sharp as the day he first performed it. Even the most familiar routines (such as the one about pharmacists with a superiority complex) are like old friends who still haven't overstayed their welcome. Seinfeld's delivery is polished to a shine--he's a consummate professional--and an impromptu Q&A with his appreciative audience demonstrates that he's equally adept with a fast and witty comeback. This performance certainly wouldn't be the last we'd see of Jerry Seinfeld, but from the perspective of phenomenal fame and fortune, it's a fitting farewell to the classic "bits" that took him to the top. --Jeff Shannon

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Wit

Actors: Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Atkins, Audra McDonald, Jonathan M. Woodward
ASIN : B00005MKKV
Sales Rank : 3285
Director : Mike Nichols
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Hbo Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783118413
ISBN : 0783118414
UPC : 026359178122
Release Date : December 11, 2001
Publisher : Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer : Hbo Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Hbo Home Video
Running Time : 99

Product Description

Vivian bearing is a disciplined english professor who finds her rational approach to live overturned when she is diagnosed with cancer. No longer a teacher but a subject for others to study vivian is about to discover a fine line between life and death that can only be walked with wit. Studio: Hbo Home Video Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Emma Thompson Christopher Lloyd Run time: 99 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Mike Nichols

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Deservedly hailed as one of the best films of 2001, Wit makes it clear why top-ranking talents seek refuge in the quality programming of HBO. Unhindered by box-office pressures, director Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson turn the most unglamorous topic--the physical and psychological ravages of cancer--into an exquisite contemplation of life, learning, and tenacious, richly expressed humanity. In adapting Margaret Edson's compassionate, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Nichols and Thompson open up the one-room setting with a superb supporting cast. But their focus remains on the hospital experience of Vivian (Thompson), a fiercely demanding professor of English literature whose academic specialty--the metaphysical poetry of John Donne--is the armor she wears against the cruel indignities of her cancer treatment. While losing all that she held dear, she reassesses her life as an aloof intellectual, and Wit illuminates her bracingly eloquent and deeply moving struggle for dignity, meaning, and peace at life's ultimate crossroads. --Jeff Shannon

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When the Levees Broke - A Requiem In Four Acts (Documentary)

Actors: Spike Lee, Sam Pollard
ASIN : B000J10F14
Sales Rank : 2502
Brand : LEE,SPIKE
Studio : HBO Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0026359397325
UPC : 026359397325
Release Date : December 19, 2006
Publisher : HBO Home Video
Manufacturer : HBO Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : HBO Home Video
Running Time : 256

Description

One year after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, director Spike Lee presents a four-hour, four-part chronicle recounting, through words and images, one of our country?s most profound natural disasters. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the arrival of Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane before it hit the coast of Louisiana, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts tells the personal stories of those who lived to tell about it, at the same time exploring the underbelly of a nation where the divide along race and class lines has never been more pronounced.

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Director Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke is the definitive document of the unmitigated disaster that was, and is, Hurricane Katrina. It's also a contemporary manifestation of an ancient tradition: an oral history, told by the people who lived it, with no narration and only the occasional use of archival cable and broadcast news footage in addition to Lee's own film. And a grim tale it is, an "American tragedy" subtitled "a Requiem in Four Acts," each of them about an hour long ("Act V," appearing on the third of the set's three discs, is a lengthy epilogue with new material not included in the original HBO broadcast) and focusing almost exclusively on New Orleans, as opposed to the Gulf Coast region in general.

Act I sets the scene; as the hurricane nears the Crescent City, some residents leave town, while others stay behind, figuring they'll just ride the storm out (Mayor Ray Nagin's "mandatory evacuation" order rings fairly hollow, as there's no public transportation provided for the many who don't own vehicles and thus couldn't get out even if they wanted to). The real problems begin after Katrina makes landfall on August 29, 2005. Displaced New Orleaneans crowd into the Superdome, soon to become a living hell for those stuck there; the incredibly poorly engineered levees break, flooding some 80 percent of the city; and people start dying by the hundreds, victims of drowning, lack of food, water, and medicine, and other causes. And so it goes. Act II finds the survivors struggling to keep it together while the federal, state, and local assistance they've been promised fails to show up; Act III traces the dispersal of these so-called "refugees" (as one man puts it, "Refugees? You mean they took away our citizenship, too?") all over the country, not knowing where their families, friends, and neighbors are, or even if they're still alive; and Act IV deals with the slow rebuilding of the city while insurance companies refuse to pay claims and money keeps going toward the Iraq war effort instead.

Several themes predominate here. One, of course, is the appalling performance of authorities on nearly every level, who ignored specific warnings about the levees and then professed ignorance after the fact; Lee doesn't have to go out of his way to make George W. Bush, FEMA chief Michael Brown, and other members of the Bush administration (not to mention his own mother) look bad, as they do an excellent job of that themselves. Another is the shameful ineptitude of the response; it's hard not to be disgusted when it's pointed out more than once that while we were able to provide supplies and assistance to Indonesians within two days of the 2004 tsunami, American citizens were virtually ignored for five days or more. Most of all, When the Levees Broke (which includes optional commentary by Lee for all four acts) leaves us feeling the sheer rage of the poor and dispossessed of New Orleans, where the population is 70 percent African-American. Confronted with the ignorance, arrogance, and callousness of the people whose job it was to protect them, they can point to just one cause: racism. --Sam Graham

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Actors: Aidan Quinn, Adam Beach, August Schellenberg, Anna Paquin
ASIN : B000R20164
Sales Rank : 2152
Brand : Bury
Studio : Hbo Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0026359422126
UPC : 026359422126
Release Date : December 11, 2007
Publisher : Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer : Hbo Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Hbo Home Video
Running Time : 132

Description

Inspired by Dee Brown's acclaimed bestseller, the HBO Films event begins powerfully with the Sioux triumph over General Custer at Little Big Horn. The action centers on the struggles of three characters: Charles Eastman (Adam Beach, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS), a young, Dartmouth-educated Sioux doctor; Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg, THE NEW WORLD), the proud Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of their identity, dignity and sacred land; and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn, EMPIRE FALLS), one of the men responsible for the government policy on Indian affairs. While Eastman and schoolteacher Elaine Goodale (Anna Paquin, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND), work to improve life for the Sioux on the reservation, Senator Dawes lobbies President Grant for kinder Indian treatment. Epic in scope, BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE is a new Western classic called "...insightful...deeply affecting...visually striking" by The Washington Post.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
Featurette
Interviews
Photo gallery
Production Notes

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With an acceptable balance of strengths and weaknesses, HBO's revisionist rendition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee can be recommended as a very basic (if slightly inaccurate) history lesson for younger viewers. It doesn't flinch from the harsh realities that were so passionately chronicled in author Dee Alexander Brown's enduring 1970 classic of Native American history, nor does it soften the brutality of violence between the U.S. federal forces and the doomed Native American tribes who fought to preserve their native territories, from the legendary battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 (depicted in the opening scenes) to the shameful slaughter of Sioux warriors at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on December 29, 1890. Originally broadcast on May 27, 2007, and running slightly over two hours, this U.S./Canadian coproduction struggles to tell a story that would've been better served by a full-length miniseries (and will surely disappoint anyone familiar with Brown's important book), and the screenplay is so busy giving us a Cliff's Notes version of history that it lacks any particular focus or consistent point of view. Instead, we get a sobering, noble, and heartbreaking tale of territorial injustice, with forced parallels to the war in Iraq, full of admirable performances yet riddled with clichés and anachronistic details.

If you look closer, however, you'll find much to admire: Although his character was dubiously conceived to appeal to a contemporary white audience, Adam Beach (from Flags of Our Fathers) gives a fine performance as Charles Eastman, a Sioux doctor integrated into white society, who grows increasingly conflicted by the plight of his people. He's the tragic embodiment of the faulty ideals of Senator Dawes (Aidan Quinn), whose governmental effort to assimilate Native Americans leads to disastrous outbreaks of violence, depicted here with blunt-force realism. As Eastman's sympathetic and upright wife (a white schoolteacher with a strong sense of conscience), Anna Paquin makes the most of an underwritten role, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is an impressive showcase for outstanding native American actors like August Schellenberg (as Sitting Bull) and Gordon Tootoosis (as Red Cloud), who bring obvious authority and conviction to their roles. The film is most effective when addressing the inevitable failure of the white man's well-meaning but ultimately misguided policies toward Native Americans. To the extent that we still struggle with the historical legacy of those policies, this flawed but instructional rendition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee can be viewed as a compact precursor to deeper historical study. --Jeff Shannon

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The Corner (HBO Miniseries)

Actors: T.K. Carter, Khandi Alexander, Sean Nelson, Clarke Peters, Larry Hull
ASIN : B00009ATJZ
Sales Rank : 4137
Director : Charles S. Dutton
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : HBO Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783123721
ISBN : 0783123728
UPC : 026359908224
Release Date : December 22, 2003
Publisher : HBO Video
Manufacturer : HBO Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : HBO Video
Running Time : 360

Product Description

On the front lines of americas drug war one family is living in the crossfire. Studio: Hbo Home Video Release Date: 11/14/2006 Starring: Tk Carter Sean Nelson Run time: 360 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Charles S Dutton

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The bleak reality of drug addiction is captured with unflinching authenticity in The Corner, an excellent, reality-based HBO miniseries. Having lived on the streets of West Baltimore, Maryland, where this compelling drama takes place, actor-director Charles S. Dutton knows the territory, physically, socially, and emotionally, and his compassionate approach is vital to the series' success. Dutton cares for his characters deeply enough to give them a realistic shred of hope, even when hope is consistently dashed by the ravages of addiction. This is, at its root, a family tragedy, focusing on errant father Gary (T.K. Carter, in a heartbreaking performance) a once-successful investor trapped in a tailspin of heroin dependency. His estranged wife Fran (Khandi Alexander) was the first to get hooked, and she's struggling to get clean, while their 15-year-old son DeAndre (Sean Nelson, from the indie hit Fresh) deals drugs, temporarily avoiding their deadly allure while facing the challenge of premature fatherhood.

Through revealing flashbacks and numerous local characters, we see the explicit fallout of addiction, and while violence occasionally erupts, its constant threat is secondary to Dutton's dramatic vision, which remains steadfastly alert to the humanity and neglected potential of these lost and searching souls. The Corner is, essentially, the civilian flipside of HBO's equally laudable series The Wire, which approaches a similar neighborhood from a police-squad perspective. Performances are uniformly superb, details are uncannily perfect, and for all of its human horror, The Corner is riveting, not depressing. A closing interview with the characters' real-life counterparts bears witness to the fact that these lives--with inevitable exceptions--need not be lost forever. --Jeff Shannon

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Sex and the City - The Complete Series (Collector's Giftset)

Actors: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall
ASIN : B000ASDFJU
Sales Rank : 3129
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Home Box Office (HBO)
Region Code : 1
Format : Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783133591
ISBN : 0783133596
UPC : 026359866128
Release Date : December 01, 2005
Publisher : Home Box Office (HBO)
Manufacturer : Home Box Office (HBO)
Label : Home Box Office (HBO)
Running Time : 2820

Description

For six seasons Carrie Bradshaw and friends Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte offered us their hilarious, outspoken and outrageous look at dating, mating and relating in the big city. Celebrate the show that explores the day-to-day -- and night-to-night -- world of single women in this, the definitive collector's edition.

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Sex and the City is based on Candace Bushnell's provocative bestselling book. Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Carrie Bradshaw, a self-described "sexual anthropologist," who writes "Sex and the City," a newspaper column that chronicles the state of sexual affairs of Manhattanites in this "age of un-innocence." Her "posse," including nice girl Charlotte (Kristin Davis), hard-edged Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and party girl Samantha (Kim Cattrall)--not to mention her own tumultuous love life--gives Carrie plenty of column fodder. Over the course of the first season's 12 episodes, the most prominent dramatic arc concerns Carrie, who goes from turning the tables on "toxic bachelors" by having "sex like a man" to wanting to join the ranks of "the monogamists" with the elusive Mr. Big (Chris Noth). Meanwhile, Miranda, Cynthia, and Samantha have their own dating woes.

The second season builds on the foundation of the first season with plot arcs that are both hilarious and heartfelt, taking the show from breakout hit to true pop-culture phenomenon. Relationship epiphanies coexist happily alongside farcical plots and zingy one-liners, resulting in emotionally satisfying episodes that feature the sharp kind of character-defining dialogue that seems to have disappeared from the rest of TV long ago. When last we left the NYC gals, Carrie had just broken up with a commitment-phobic Mr. Big (Chris Noth), but fans of Noth's seductive-yet-distant rake didn't have to wait long until he was back in the picture, as he and Carrie tried to make another go of it. Their relationship evolution, from reunion to second breakup, provides the core of the second season. Among other adventures, Charlotte puzzles over whether one of her beaus was "gay-straight" or "straight-gay"; Miranda tries to date a guy who insists on having sex only in places where they might get caught; and Samantha copes with dates who range from, um, not big enough to far too big--with numerous stops in between.

The third season was the charm, as the series earned its first Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series to go along with its Golden Globes for Best Comedy Series and Best Actress (Parker). One of this season's two principal story arcs concerned hapless-in-love Charlotte and her pursuit of a husband; enter (if only...) Kyle McLachlan as the unfortunately impotent Trey. Meanwhile, Carrie has a brief but memorable fling with a politician who's golden, but not in the way she anticipated. She then sabotages her too-good-to-be-true relationship with furniture designer Aidan (John Corbett) by having an affair with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who himself has gotten married. Like I Love Lucy, the series benefited from a brief change of scenery with a three-episode jaunt to Los Angeles, where Carrie and company encountered, among others, Matthew McConaughey, Vince Vaughn, Hugh Hefner, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The fourth season is just as smart and sexy as ever, mixing caustic adult wit and sharply observed situation comedy on the mean streets of Manhattan, though this time the quartet of singleton city girls must endure even tougher combat in the unending war of love, sex, and shopping. Carrie finally seems to have found her ideal life partner when she is reunited with handsome craftsman Aidan. But can their relationship survive trial by cohabitation? Meanwhile Charlotte seems to have both her dream Park Avenue apartment and a solution to her marital problems with Trey. But when the subject of babies comes up, everything starts to unravel for her, too. It's not just Charlotte who has baby issues either: after what seems like an eternity of enforced sexual abstinence Miranda is horrified to discover she's pregnant. And as for the sultry Samantha, she's on a quest for monogamy, first with an exotic lesbian artist, then with a philandering businessman, with whom to her utter dismay she just might have fallen in love.

It was a short but sweet fifth season, as HBO's resident comediennes found themselves affected by forces beyond their control--the pregnancies of both Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon. A truncated shooting schedule to accommodate the actresses forced this season to be reduced to a mere eight episodes, but they and creators forged ahead, creating a handful of episodes that if short in content were long on emotion and laughs. Carrie and Miranda wrestled with their solitary lifestyles, albeit with new attachments--Miranda had new baby Brady and single motherhood, while Carrie found herself in the world of publishing as the author of a real-life book of her columns. Charlotte wondered if she'd ever find another man, while Samantha finally got rid of the one that had been vexing her far too much. If the season as a whole felt less than the sum of its parts, those parts were some of the best comedy in the show's history. The season's climactic episode, "I Love a Charade," was one of the series' best episodes ever, equally touching and funny, and grounded the show in an emotional maturity that announced that after all their wild travails, these women had truly grown up.

After a long wait--like the entire fifth season--Carrie is dating again. The sixth season starts with Carrie and her sparkly new potential, Berger (Ron Livingston), trying to leave past relationships and hit it off, with mixed results. Meanwhile Carrie's friends seem to be settling down, relatively speaking. Miranda decides that her affair with TiVo cannot compete when Mr. Perfect (Blair Underwood, at his most charming) moves into her building. Charlotte's feelings for her "opposites attract" boyfriend (Evan Handler) deepen, but they still have a few things to iron out. Most surprising is Samantha's hot relationship with waiter-actor-stud Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis) taking on something resembling love, despite Samantha's best intentions. Before the sixth season started in the summer of 2003, a bombshell hit: it was announced that this would be the finale. But it would be a long season, and these 12 episodes plant the seeds for the final 8 airing the following winter. These dozen episodes illustrate the maturity of the show: there's not a bad one in the bunch, and the show is still flat-out funny. The comedy blends serious points of how we perceive singles, couples, and parents (and the gifts we lavish on the latter two). Carrie's method of celebrating her singlehood is just another gem in this treasure of a series.

With the last eight episodes of the sixth season, HBO's grand sitcom concluded, leaving untold numbers of women--and many men--feeling deprived. The six-year series certainly did not outlast its welcome; the final season is some of the best TV had to offer in 2004. In many ways, the eight episodes served as a single finale, with all four characters approaching a kind of destiny and happiness, the theme of this last half-season (which aired weeks after the first half). Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) continues her romance with Russian artist (Mikhail Baryshnikov), a flippantly arrogant man who's been around the block, but able to supply Carrie's needed desire for magic. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has settled down with Steve (David Eigenberg), but there is more that will change with her, including her address. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) continues to make baby plans now that the husband slot is filled quite nicely (Evan Handler). Going down the final stretch--and Samantha's (Kim Cattrall) cancer--gives the series a more serious tone, but there's always a jab to tickle the funny bone: Miranda's awkwardness with happiness, Charlotte's latest passion, Carrie typing someplace new, and Samantha getting into Paris Hilton territory. Like any series winding down, there is a wedding, a baby, old faces popping up, and some star-ladened new ones. In the final two-part episode, "An American in Paris," Carrie faces her romantic destiny, but also solidifies herself as a fashion icon, an Audrey Hepburn for 21st-century television. In the penultimate episode, she asks her friends an emotional question: "What if I never met you?" Certainly fans can ask of themselves the same question and reminisce how much better TV became since they first tuned in these four women of the City.

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The Tuskegee Airmen

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Classical Baby 3-Pack - Music, Art & Dance

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Jerry Seinfeld Live on Broadway: I'm Telling You for the Last Time

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Wit

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When the Levees Broke - A Requiem In Four Acts (Documentary)

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

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The Corner (HBO Miniseries)

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George Lopez - America's Mexican

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Entourage: The Complete Seasons 1-3 a and B

Sex and the City - The Complete Series (Collector's Giftset)

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