DVD Releases February 17 2009

Samurai 7 - Box Set [Blu-ray]

Directed by Toshifumi Takizawa
Average customer review:

The Legendary Epic Reborn.

Samurai 7 is set in a futuristic world that has just seen the end of a massive war, many villages are being terrorized by Nobuseri bandits. The Nobuseri are no normal bandits. They were once men, but during the war they modifed themselves with machines to become living weapons and now apprear as more machine than man. A group of villagers decide to hire samurai to protect their village. These men of valor are as skilled as they are unique.

DVD Extra Features:

• Staff Commentary- Director/Actor Commentary
• Promotional Video
• Textless Opening and Closing Songs
• Trailers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4793 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-02-24
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: Japanese, English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 625 minutes

Customer Reviews

One of the Best Anime series of all time.
I own the collector's edition of the original series on regular dvd and I'm not sure yet if its worth getting the new one. Anime is a weird thign to put on blu-ray because it doesn't suffer from the contrast and lighting issues that plague most movies. The sound can be easily bumped up in quality to either 5.1 or 7.1 dolby surround, if thats important to you. I just don't feel that most anime does any better on blu-ray than it does in upconversion.

If you do not own this set yet however and own a blu-ray player, this is a very reasonable price for such an incredible anime series. Being a remake of a classic cultural story from Japan, its already steeped in history, but the reimagining of the series and book is just incredible. I've never fallen in love with a main character like I did in this story. He is simply one of the most tough-A-$-$-ed anime samurai you will ever meet and he is everything that epitomizes the samurai code. The story features many characters that are believable, well developed, and consistent as well as great themes that still hold true today in many respects. Whether your in for the story or the action, it doesn't matter, its worth it on both counts.

The animation technique is much liek Burst Angel or the Karas movies in that they combine some cg elements with the anime to create some jaw-droppping scenes which include sword-wielding tough-guys taking down gigantic machines in ways you never thought possible. Far-fetched? Sure, but its some of the most fun I've ever had escaping into an anime world. I highly recommend this series to anime lovers everywhere.

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Zulu (1964]) [Blu-ray]

Directed by Cy Endfield
Average customer review:

Import Blu-Ray/Region All pressing.

Narrated by Richard Burton and starring an outstanding Michael Caine in his first starring role, Zulu is a tense and dramatic war film about the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879--which was part of the Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa--where approximately 150 British soldiers held off 4,000 Zulu warriors. Zulu is an exceptionally well-made and beautifully shot film from 1964 that demonstrates the bravery of the British troops and also acknowledges the Zulu's bravery. The emotional score of the film was conducted by John Barry. Eleven Victoria Crosses were won in the action, the most in a single battle. Most of the characters in the movie were based on real participants of the battle.

Customer Reviews

UK Import- Looks/sounds great works fine on US players
I ordered this from Britain when it first came out and can confirm that it will work fine on US players. I can also confirm that it looks and sounds great. However, given the weak British pound, it is far less expensive to purchase it from Britain (just do a web search, you'll find a better deal) instead of purchasing it from Amazon.

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Chris & Don. A Love Story

Directed by Guido Santi;Tina Mascara
Average customer review:

Chris & Don: A Love Story is the true-life story of the passionate three-decade relationship between British writer Christopher Isherwood (whose Berlin Stories was the basis for the beloved Cabaret) and American portrait painter Don Bachardy, thirty years his junior. From Isherwood's Kit-Kat-Club years in Weimar-era Germany to the couple's first meeting on the sun-kissed beaches of 1950s Malibu, their against-all-odds saga is brought to dazzling life through beautiful, rare home movies and reminiscences from Don and many of their friends, including Leslie Caron and Liza Minnelli. With Isherwood's exemplary status as an out-and-proud gay hero, and Bachardy's eventual artistic triumph away from the considerable shadow of his life partner, Chris & Don: A Love Story is above all a joyful celebration of a most extraordinary couple.


SPECIAL FEATURES:
- 16:9 anamorphic transfer, formatted for widescreen televisions
- More of Chris and Don's home movies, including footage from the sets of The Rose Tattoo (1955) and King Vidor's War and Peace (1956)
- Deleted sequences with Don Bachardy, including an interview on gay marriage
- Deleted interviews with actress Gloria Stuart (Titanic), filmmaker John Boorman (Point Blank), and actress Leslie Caron (Gigi)
- "Don on Chris": An 8-page printed monograph of Bachardy's paintings of Isherwood
- U.S. theatrical trailer
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
- Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks

Customer Reviews

Chris and Don: A Love Story -- Nay, not Humbert Humbert at all
On February 14, 1953, Don Bachardy (18) meets his brother's lover Christopher Isherwood (48) on a beach in California and, unbeknownst to both parties, are locked in for life -- a life that would enlarge into creative soars for a portrait artist yet to know his calling and an established author awaiting his eternal subject. Yet Chris and Don: A Love Story is not simply about the ungovernable urge to create the life of art that only artists can know where often the object is art itself; it is more humbly about two lovers' bone-deep adamancy to preserve as much of life as one can in a durable yet aesthetic medium. Here, the intended substance is not the piece drawn nor the word written but the protraction of human essence by embalming it in text, in sketch. The documentary, much like its own subjects, is the act of reinforcing memory with creative proofs -- the body of evidence, which, in the process of its production, inspires more memories than any paper or celluloid can hold. A sketch of a gnarled Chris, haggard in his cancerous boniness, opens the smell of the author, the smell of the ink-then in the ink-now, and the taste of that morning in this morning. It is a story of an artist drawing an author while the author simultaneously writes his muse into immortality.

Amid this Edenic coalescence breathes the quiet defiance of a ritual-weary, mid-aged Chris Isherwood against societal prescriptions for public, age-aware heteronormativity. What could have been (and was) perceived as Isherwood's Humbert Humbertish captivity of the sun-sinewed boy-Lolita is now cited as one of the primary prompters in the gay liberation canon. Yet Humbert Humbertish it all was in many ways as brutally young Don, calling himself "an unconscious impersonator," willingly and star-struckly serves as Chris' substrate, replicating his accent, his Cheshire mannerism, and sparse diction. Eclipsed by Chris' deserved superluminosity and commensurate clout, Don confesses, "I wanted people to like me for who I really was but I wasn't sure myself who I was. The only thing I knew that I was good at was drawing people..." And draw he did, and with it came the urge to break free from the only lover he had known. Chris' enabling of Don's art pushes the latter to gauge the cost of unequal sexual experience with a seasoned, three-decade-distant partner. All Chris wants is for Don to come home at the end of the day after his shenanigans. Which he does in the late 60's. (Sometimes.)

Like Paulie Bleeker for Juno MacGuff, Chris Isherwood is the cheese to Don Bachardy's macaroni. Don comes back for good and draws Chris, and Chris only in the last few days of his life, chronicling the coming of his death piecemeal in a preemptively elegiac set of sketches. Chris Isherwood bares his all, his full, bleak nakedness in sacred singularity with his scribe. For Don's furious fingers, each tender stroke is a prayer for bonus time. Chris dies; Don spends the day drawing his corpse lest memory alone betray. There is everything lyrical about these last soul-jolting images of depleted youth, the shameful shriveling of the body, the kind of lovely grotesqueness that only death has. Guido Santi and Tina Mascara cleverly juxtapose them against a lithe yet withered Don's feverish workouts at the gym, and close the story with the artist in his solitary atelier where all that is left are drawers of pictures and shelves of books in poetic time-still, all the company a man has shored for a night to allay "the foul rag and boneshop of the heart."

Sabrina Sadique
Reviewed on July 20, 2008

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The Last House on the Left

Directed by Wes Craven
Average customer review:

Future Nightmare creator and Scream weaver Wes Craven's film debut is a primitive little production that rises above its cut-rate production values and hazy, grainy patina via its grimly affecting portrait of human evil infiltrating a middle-class household. The story is adapted from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, but the film has more in common with Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs as it charts the descent of a harmless married couple into methodical killers. A quartet of criminals--a distorted version of the nuclear family--kidnaps a pair of teenage girls and proceeds to ravage, rape, torture, and finally brutally murder them in the woods, unwittingly within walking distance of their rural home. The killers take refuge in the girls' own home, but when the parents discover just who they are and what they've done, they plot violent retribution.

Along with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Craven helped redefine American horror with this debut--all three movies portray modern society crumbling into madness and horror. But, unlike his fellow directors, Craven gives his film an uncomfortable verisimilitude, setting it squarely in the heartland of modern America. While at times it's awkward and inconsistent, with distracting comic interludes, his handling of the brutal horror scenes is unsettling, and the death of the daughter is an unexpectedly quiet and lyrical moment. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

A Disturbing Look into Rape, Murder, and Revenge
Although I've seen this years ago, I thought I'd give my 2 cents worth since the remake will soon be released.

"The Last House on the Left," was probably the first rape film I ever saw and although it is low budget. There are scenes in this movie that makes you sympathize for the characters, such as the self urination scene and the scene where the two girls are forced to have sex with one another. I believe those scenes struck me harder then the actual rape and murder.

When these rapist find themselves at Mary's home, I actually found myself rooting the parents on, hoping they would find out what had been done to their daughter, and of course they figure it out.

The revenge in this movie is great, especially with the castration and the chainsaw wailing father. Due to the explicit nature of this film it is a cult classic that will always be known as perhaps one of the most brutal rape/revenge movies ever.

If you have yet to see "Last House" buy it, but guys I wouldn't suggest showing this on the first date to your girl, unless she likes to see multiple rape and disembowelment. In all honesty this movie could be used as a party movie as well, there are quite a few scenes regarding dry wit humor, and plenty of blood soaked sequences that would make the strongest flinch.

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Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 [Blu-ray]

Directed by Murray Lerner
Average customer review:

This new edition of Murray Lerner's film of The Who's legendary performance at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival features newly restored pictures and remixed sound along with exclusive bonus features to finally give this amazing concert the quality release it deserves. Originally shot on 16mm film, the pictures have been restored to the highest possible quality for this Blu-ray release. Accept no substitute and play it loud!

TRACK LISTING 1) Heaven And Hell 2) I Can't Explain 3) Young Man Blues 4) I Don't Even Know Myself 5) Water 6) Medley: Shakin' All Over/Spoonful/Twist And Shout 7) Summertime Blues 8) My Generation 9) Magic Bus From "Tommy": 10) Overture 11) It's A Boy 12) Eyesight To The Blind (The Hawker) 13) Christmas 14) The Acid Queen 15) Pinball Wizard 16) Do You Think It's Alright 17) Fiddle About 18) Go To The Mirror 19) Miracle Cure 20) I'm Free 21) We're Not Gonna Take It 22) See Me Feel Me / Listening To You 23) Tommy Can You Hear Me?

Bonus Features

Bonus tracks omitted from the original film: (1) Substitute (2) Naked Eye

New 40 minute interview with Pete Townshend

Customer Reviews

At The Top Of Their Game
If you're looking for a concert video that captures The Who at the peak of their talents, this one is it. The year is 1970. Pete Townshend still looks like himself (not that I have anything against Pete as an old fart, but, you know ...). He still had hair, and lots of it. His energy is infectious. His jumps and splits are perfectly timed. In fact, he strikes an exciting balance during this concert between The Who that was and The Who that would be. The windmill guitar strokes are eternal, of course. But Pete also employs "the birdman dance" here (you'll just have to see it) -- a move used in the band's early incarnation which disappeared in the 70's. So at The Isle of Wight you still see the last gasps of The Who's early stage act alongside the "Tommy era" look and act that would prevail for nearly a decade. Townshend's guitar work, as usual, is brilliant and pulse-raising. Roger's voice is in great shape. His phrasing is near perfect. He's in full "rock god" mode with his open leather vest and lion-like locks. He struts and marches across the stage with confidence and youthful energy. John Entwhistle (still alive) provides the awesome anchor for the hurricane that this band's live presentation is. His only wild statement is one killer skeleton suit. His bass licks are inimitable. And Moonie? What can I say? He's alive. (Hard to believe he'll meet his Maker in eight short years). He's loony. And he's one fast, skillful, and exciting maniac on the drums. His sense of humor is on full display, too. The band's playing that night so long ago was, in a word: tight. I mean, these four young guys were playing off each other perfectly. Young enough to release immense kinetic energy, experienced enough to play with a high level of musicianship. Like I said, it's the perfect moment in their history to capture them on film.

The DVD quality is excellent considering this concert took place in the increasingly distant past (although 1970 seems just like yesterday to me -- I'm an old fart, too -- but not boring!). Sound quality is very good. And somehow (and this is the most magical part for me) you actually get the sense, because of the way it was originally filmed, that you're actually at the show. For me it's like a time machine deposited me in a crowd of long-haired Brits flashing peace signs in 1970; and there's The Who, onstage just a few yards (or meters if you prefer) in front of me. Watching this disc is the next best thing to being at a Who concert back in the day.

In the end, though, it's worth it to buy this DVD just to hear a cocky Townshend address the crowd with tongue firmly in cheek: ""SMILE, you buggers! Pretend it's Christmas!" A must have for any Who fan.

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Dear Zachary:A Letter to a Son About His Father

Directed by Kurt Kuenne
Average customer review:

Editorial Reviews

Review
A true-crime story so gripping, devastating, and ultimately unforgettable that it easily trumps any thriller Hollywood has to offer this year. --Village Voice.

Review
One of the best documentaries I have ever watched in my entire life. --Cinematical

Review
It is impossible not to be fired up by Kurt Kuenne's incendiary cri de coeur, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father --Stephen Holden, NY TIMES

Customer Reviews

Touching and moving
This film is just so touching. I watched it twice on MSNBC. At first I wasn't sure what it was but I couldn't stop watching. I cried all the way through. He details the failures in such a clear way, making you think, "Why couldn't they save this family?"

The twist is shocking and left me sitting in shock for the rest of the film. I was headed to bed when it came on and I stay up for two hours watching it. It was just that good.

Really, have a box of tissues handy. This was a travesty but this film is beautiful!

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