Art House & International VHS Movies
|
The Killing Fields
List Price: $14.98 Now Only: $2.44 You Save: $ 12.54 (84%)
Category: VHS Movies
 Publisher: Warner Home Video Starring: Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Craig T. Nelson Directed By: Roland Joffé Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
This harrowing but rewarding 1984 drama concerns the real-life relationship between New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg and his Cambodian assistant Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), the latter left at the mercy of the Khmer Rouge after Schanberg--who chose to stay after American evacuation but was booted out--failed to get him safe passage. Filmmaker Roland Joffé, previously a documentarist, made his feature debut with this account of Dith's rocky survival in the ensuing madness of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign. The script spends some time with Schanberg's feelings of guilt after the fact, but most of the movie is a shattering re-creation of hell on Earth. |
|
|
|
Latcho Drom
Price: $59.95
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: New Yorker Video Starring: La Caita Directed By: Tony Gatlif Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
This majestic, French-made film wishes viewers a "latcho drom"--a safe journey--as it follows the roots of the Rom, traveling people better known as Gypsies. Stunning and evocative, it transcends language and culture, bringing together the best elements of National Geographic-style documentary and music video in a kind of anthropological MTV. Using only music and image, without any steady characters or plot, award-winning director Tony Gatlif (himself of Rom descent) tells a compelling story of Rom migrations from Northern India to Europe and the rest of the world. Beginning with a gathering of lavishly dressed nomads singing across the harsh deserts of Rajasthan, viewers are transported through the lush oases of Egypt into the ghettoes of Turkey, from the muddy lanes of Eastern Europe through lush French fields to the windswept coastal cities of Spain. |
|
|
|
The House of the Spirits
Price: $39.95
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: Live / Artisan Starring: Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas Directed By: Bille August Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
The House of the Spirits is a generational tale of life among the ruling class in a South American country, as adapted from the Isabel Allende novel, but the political realities coexist very uneasily with the magical realism in this Bille August film. The star power alone (Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, Vanessa Redgrave, and Armin Mueller-Stahl) should have cranked it up a few notches, but that's not the case. Irons is appropriately cruel as the ambitious man who achieves wealth and makes everyone around him miserable and Streep is luminous, but it's slow and ponderous all the way. --Marshall Fine. |
|
|
|
Oliver
List Price: $19.98 Now Only: $1.90 You Save: $ 18.08 (90%)
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Starring: Mark Lester, Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed, Harry Secombe Directed By: Carol Reed Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
Film buffs and critics can argue until their faces turn blue about whether this lavish Dickensian musical deserved the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1968, but the movie speaks for itself on grandly entertaining terms. Adapted from Dickens's classic novel, it's one of the most dramatically involving and artistically impressive musicals of the 1960s, directed by Carol Reed with a delightful enthusiasm that would surely have impressed Dickens himself. Mark Lester plays the waifish orphan Oliver Twist, who is befriended by the pickpocketing Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and recruited into the gang of boy thieves led by Fagin (played to perfection by Ron Moody). The villainous Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) casts his long shadow over Oliver and his friends, but the young orphan is still able to find loving care in the most desperate of circumstances. Full of memorable melodies and splendid lyrics, Oliver! is a timeless film, prompting even hard-to-please critic Pauline Kael to call it "a superb demonstration of intelligent craftsmanship," and to further observe that "it's as if the movie set out to be a tribute to Dickens and his melodramatic art as well as to tell the story of Oliver Twist." --Jeff Shannon. |
|
|
|
Some Mother's Son
Price: $37.00
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: Turner Home Ent Starring: Helen Mirren, Fionnula Flanagan, Aidan Gillen, David O'Hara, John Lynch Directed By: Terry George Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
Terry George, the cowriter of In the Name of the Father, wrote and directed this 1996 drama based on actual events from 1981, when Irish Republican Army prisoners in Belfast's Maze Prison staged a hunger strike to protest against British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's political policies. Led by IRA prisoner Bobby Sands, the hunger strike eventually lead to the deaths of 10 prisoners, who had refused to wear prison uniforms to emphasize their identity as political (and not criminal) prisoners. But this fictionalized account is not about the hunger strikers as much as the moral dilemma faced by two of the strikers' mothers, played by Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan in an emotional drama that gets right to the heart of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. While Annie (Flanagan) understands her son's political motivations and supports his readiness to die, Kathleen (Mirren) is a pacifist who cannot comprehend how any mother could sacrifice her own son to a political principle. |
|
|
|
Persuasion
List Price: $19.95 Now Only: $11.99 You Save: $ 7.96 (40%)
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: Sony Pictures Starring: Amanda Root, Ciarán Hinds, Susan Fleetwood, Corin Redgrave, Fiona Shaw Directed By: Roger Michell Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
Movie adaptations of Jane Austen's classic novels were all the rage (relatively speaking) in the mid-1990s. Clueless updated Austen's Emma, which was more conventionally adapted in another version (Emma) starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Emma was produced yet again, this time for British television, as were a celebrated miniseries of Pride and Prejudice and this splendid film of Austen's Persuasion. Persuasion is the story of a love that survives eight years of dormancy and the frustrating obstacles of class prejudice in 19th century England. |
|
|
|
Ulysses
Price: $18.00
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: Fox Lorber Starring: Silvana Mangano, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Rossana Podestà, Jacques Dumesnil Directed By: Mario Camerini, Mario Bava Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
This vintage Italian production of Ulysses is best enjoyed as Homeric adventure for kids. While The Odyssey is handled with admirable fidelity, you may suppress a chuckle when Kirk Douglas, as the titular Greek hero, speaks English and Italian, dubbing himself in English! Looking like a Spartacus wannabe, Douglas brings appropriate gravity to his classically mythic exploits. Having sacked Troy, Ulysses and his stalwart crew set sail for Ithaca, only to be delayed for a decade by such epic distractions as a giant Cyclops (a memorable highlight), the madness-inducing Sirens, and the deceptive Circe, who turns men into swine. Meanwhile, Ulysses's loyal wife Penelope (Silvana Mangano) is being wooed by suitors (including Anthony Quinn, fresh from Fellini's La Strada), making Ulysses's homecoming an urgent necessity. |
|
|
|
Smoke Signals
List Price: $9.99 Now Only: $6.99 You Save: $ 3.00 (30%)
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: Miramax Films Starring: Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, Tantoo Cardinal Directed By: Chris Eyre Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
Critically acclaimed as one of the best films of the year -- Miramax Home Entertainment is proud to present SMOKE SIGNALS -- a distinguished winner at the Sundance Film Festival! Though Victor and Thomas have lived their entire young lives in the same tiny town, they couldn't have less in common! But when Victor is urgently called away, it's Thomas who comes up with the money to pay for his trip. There's just one thing Victor has to do: take Thomas along for the ride! You're in for a rare and entertaining comic treat as this most unlikely pair leave home on what becomes an unexpectedly unforgettable adventure of friendship and discovery!. |
|
|
|
The Third Man (50th Anniversary Edition)
List Price: $29.95 Now Only: $14.50 You Save: $ 15.45 (52%)
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: Homevision Starring: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee Directed By: Carol Reed Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
The fractured Europe post-World War II is perfectly captured in Carol Reed's masterpiece thriller, set in a Vienna still shell-shocked from battle. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is an alcoholic pulp writer come to visit his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). But when Cotton first arrives in Vienna, Lime's funeral is under way. From Lime's girlfriend and an occupying British officer, Martins learns of allegations of Lime's involvement in racketeering, which Martins vows to clear from his friend's reputation. |
|
|
|
Ponette
Price: Check for Updated Price
Category: VHS Movies
Publisher: Fox Lorber Starring: Victoire Thivisol, Delphine Schiltz, Matiaz Bureau Caton, Léopoldine Serre, Marie Trintignant Directed By: Jacques Doillon Prices subject to change. Please verify pricing during checkout. |
|
Fresh, attentive, and emotionally shattering, the French film Ponette is an attempt to enter the world of a 4-year-old girl whose mother has just been killed in a car accident on one of the winding roads in the mountainous countryside near Lyon. Played by pudgy, sad-eyed Victoire Thivisol (winner of a controversial but perfectly understandable Best Actress award at the 1996 Venice Film Festival), Ponette turns her grief into something else, something more childish and yet more mature. Convinced that her mother has been visiting her in her dreams, and that some day she will return in flesh and blood, Ponette invents a religion for herself with the specter of her mother at its center. By keeping his camera eye level with his young actors (who include Matiaz Bureau Caton and Delphine Schiltz as Ponette's know-it-all cousins) and miking the children so closely that their voices have the presence and authority of grown-up speech, director Jacques Doillon taps directly into the private world of childhood. |
|
|
