The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration Giftset
dir. Francis Ford Coppola
I fully expect to see about 7 or 8 more re-releases of this trilogy within the next 20 years.
Product Description:
THE GODFATHER: Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather (1972) is a touchstone of cinema: one of the most widely imitated, quoted, and lampooned movies of all time. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino star as Vito Corleone and his youngest son, Michael, respectively. It is the late 1940s in New York and Corleone is, in the parlance of organized crime, a "godfather" or "don," the head of a Mafia family. Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Marines to fight in World War II, has returned a captain and a war hero. Having long ago rejected the family business, Michael shows up at the wedding of his sister, Connie (Talia Shire), with his non-Italian girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), who learns for the first time about the family "business." A few months later at Christmas time, the don barely survives being shot by gunmen in the employ of a drug-trafficking rival whose request for aid from the Corleones' political connections was rejected. After saving his father from a second assassination attempt, Michael persuades his hotheaded eldest brother, Sonny (James Caan), and family advisors Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) that he should be the one to exact revenge on the men responsible. After murdering a corrupt police captain and the drug trafficker, Michael hides out in Sicily while a gang war erupts at home. Falling in love with a local girl, Michael marries her, but she is later slain by Corleone enemies in an attempt on Michael's life. Sonny is also butchered, having been betrayed by Connie's husband. As Michael returns home and convinces Kay to marry him, his father recovers and makes peace with his rivals, realizing that another powerful don was pulling the strings behind the narcotics endeavor that began the gang warfare. Once Michael has been groomed as the new don, he leads the family to a new era of prosperity, then launches a campaign of murderous revenge against those who once tried to wipe out the Corleones, consolidating his family's power and completing his own moral downfall. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards and winning for Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay, The Godfather was followed by a pair of sequels.
THE GODFATHER PART II: This brilliant companion piece to the original The Godfather continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells two stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, played with uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the talents who helped make The Godfather, Coppola has produced a movie of staggering magnitude and vision, and undeniably the best sequel ever made. Robert De Niro won an Oscar®; the film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1974.
THE GODFATHER PART III: One of the greatest sagas in movie history continues! In this third film in the epic Corleone trilogy, Al Pacino reprises the role of powerful family leader Michael Corleone. Now in his 60's, Michael is dominated by two passions: freeing his family from crime and finding a suitable successor. That successor could be fiery Vincent (Andy Garcia)... but he may also be the spark that turns Michael's hope of business legitimacy into an inferno of mob violence. Francis Ford Coppola directs Pacino, Garcia, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Eli Wallach, Sofia Coppola, Joe Montegna and others in this exciting, long-awaited film that masterfully explores the themes of power, tradition, revenge and love. Seven Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture.
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L.A. Confidential (1997)
dir. Curtis Hanson
Product Description:
In a time when it seems that every other movie makes some claim to being a film noir, L.A. Confidential is the real thing--a gritty, sordid tale of sex, scandal, betrayal, and corruption of all sorts (police, political, press--and, of course, very personal) in 1940s Hollywood. The Oscar-winning screenplay is actually based on several titles in James Ellroy's series of chronological thriller novels (including the title volume, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz)--a compelling blend of L.A. history and pulp fiction that has earned it comparisons to the greatest of all Technicolor noir films, Chinatown. Kim Basinger richly deserved her Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a conflicted femme fatale; unfortunately, her male costars are so uniformly fine that they may have canceled each other out with the Academy voters: Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, and James Cromwell play LAPD officers of varying stripes. Pearce's character is a particularly intriguing study in Hollywood amorality and ambition, a strait-laced "hero" (and son of a departmental legend) whose career goals outweigh all other moral, ethical, and legal considerations. If he's a good guy, it's only because he sees it as the quickest route to a promotion. --Jim Emerson
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Leatherheads (2008)
dir. George Clooney
Product Description:
Academy Award® winners George Clooney and Ren e Zellweger team up in this fun-filled comedy set against the beginnings of pro football. Dodge Connelly (Clooney) captain of a struggling squad of barroom brawlers has only one hope to save his team: recruit college superstar Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski The Office). But when a feisty reporter (Zellweger) starts snooping around she turns the two teammates into instant rivals and kicks off a wild competition filled with hilarious screwball antics! Critics are cheering Leatherheads as a real winner (Claudia Puig USA Today).
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Run, Fatboy, Run (2008)
dir. David Schwimmer
Not a terribly funny movie, but it's OK. If nothing's on TV and I come across it on HBO, I'd probably watch it again.
Product Description:
It only makes sense that a television star would turn to a fellow practitioner for his first film. With Run Fatboy Run--no commas, please--Friends' David Schwimmer doesn't reinvent the romantic comedy, but he finds the perfect lovable loser of a lead in TV vet Simon Pegg (Faith in the Future, Spaced). On his wedding day, London lay-about Dennis (Pegg, who co-wrote with Michael Ian Black) deserts his pregnant fiancée, Libby (Crash's Thandie Newton), seconds before the ceremony. Crippling insecurity--which remains unexplored--prevents him from finishing anything ("Not even a sentence," Libby quips). Flash-forward five years, and he's a loving dad to son Jake (the charming Matthew Fenton), but sports a small potbelly, smokes too much and entertains no ambition beyond his job as security guard at a high-end boutique. Fortunately, he has friends, like gambler Gordon (Shaun of the Dead co-star Dylan Moran) and avuncular landlord Mr. Ghoshdashtidar (Harish Patel). Fit American financier Whit (Huff's Hank Azaria) shakes up his routine when he starts seeing Libby. To win her back, Dennis trains for the same 26-mile charity marathon as Whit. No one believes he can make it to the end, and even Dennis has doubts, but true love is a formidable motivator. It may not have been Schwimmer's intention, but there's more chemistry between the buddies than the couples. That makes the movie a must for fans of Pegg and the scene-stealing Moran--but optional for admirers of Newton and Azaria. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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This American Life - Season One (2007)
dir. n/a
Product Description:
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.
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Aki Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy
dir. Aki Kaurismäki
Product Description:
The poignant, deadpan films of Aki Kaurismäki are pitched somewhere in the wintry nether lands between comedy and tragedy. And rarely in his body of work has the line separating those genres seemed thinner than in what is often identified as his Proletariat Trilogy, Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl. In these three films, something like social-realist farces, Kaurismäki surveys the working-class outcasts of his native Finland with detached yet disarming amusement. Featuring commanding, off-key visual compositions and delightfully dour performances, the films in this triptych exemplify the talents of a unique and highly influential film artist.
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Deception (2008)
dir. Marcel Langenegger
Product Description:
With its attractive cast and "stylish thriller" vibe, Deception is a much better movie than a raft of negative reviews might suggest--provided that you can suspend (if not completely discard) your disbelief and go along for the ride. The first feature by veteran commercial director Marcel Langenegger, it stars Ewan McGregor as Jonathan McQuarry, a mousy freelance tax auditor who’s taken under the wing of one Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman), a slick, ultra-confident Manhattan lawyer. We know from jump that Jonathan’s new best friend isn’t all, or even any, that he seems, and sure enough, when the pair "accidentally" switch cell phones, a series of credibility-defying events destined to turn Jonathan’s bleak, lonely life upside down is set in motion. At first, it’s all good, as the wide-eyed young CPA finds himself joining "The List," a Wall Street sex club that brings together lawyers, stockbrokers, and other professionals whose lives are too busy for anything more than brief, anonymous assignations at various high-rent hotels (exchanging real names is verboten is this world). But apparently spending nights with the likes of Natasha Henstridge and Charlotte Rampling isn’t enough; when he meets the blonde beauty known only as "S" (Michelle Williams), the club’s credo of "intimacy without intricacy" goes out the window, lust turns to love, and Jonathan is drawn into a protracted cat-and-mouse game that leads to murder, big-time corporate embezzlement, identity switches, and other nefarious activity. One needn’t be Nostradamus to predict where all of this is headed, but that’s hardly the point. Even if you don’t buy a single moment of it, Deception is fun, flashy, and entertaining--and since when is pure escapism a bad thing? --Sam Graham
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Savage Streets - Special Edition (1984)
dir. Danny Steinmann
Product Description:
After nearly being rundown by a gang known as the Scars, Brenda (Linda Blair) and friends trash the leader's car. Gang leader, Jake, exacts his revenge by getting his cohorts to gang-rape her mute-deaf sister, Heather (in a gloriously nuanced role by Linnea Quigley). Armed with a crossbow and a bad attitude, Linda Blair sets out to avenge her mute-deaf sister while blazing a bloody, Bronson-inspired trail through 80's Los Angeles.
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Friday The 13th - The Series: The First Season (1987)
dir. n/a
Product Description:
Fans awaiting the DVD release of this 1987 cult fave made-in-Canada series, this is your lucky day! Friday the 13th: The Series has as much to do with Jason Vorhese as Halloween III: Season of the Witch had to do with Michael Myers; that is to say, nothing. But it stands on its own as a horror anthology series that delivers cheap, but effective, thrills. Louise Robey and John D. LeMay star as Micki and Ryan, distant relations who are reunited after inheriting her uncle Lewis' antiques shop. They learn that Lewis' death was by (super)natural causes; he broke his immortality pact with the Devil to sell cursed antiques. Now, Lewis is in hell (from which he returns in the episode, "Hellowe'en"), and Micki and Ryan must recover everything Lewis sold to an unsuspecting public. Jack (Chris Wiggins), Lewis' former friend, a magician with a helpful knowledge of the occult and an eventful backstory (as revealed in the episodes "Bottle of Dreams" and "Brain Drain"), helps them. The series gets off to an auspiciously creepy start with "The Inheritance," in which yuppie Micki and geeky Ryan attempt to retrieve a killer doll that has worked its demon magic on a spoiled brat (a young Sarah Polley) who uses it to dispatch her strict new stepmother. Perhaps worth the price of this set is "Faith Healer," directed by David Cronenberg, a grisly episode in which a charlatan gains the power to heal from an ancient glove. Atom Egoyan, another Canadian art house darling, directed the episode "Cupid's Quiver." Another memorable episode is "Scarecrow," which introduces a boogieman that gives Jason a run for his hockey mask, a scythe-wielding scarecrow. This inaugural season's most stellar guest star is Ray Walston as an embittered "has been" comic book artist whose superhero creation comes to murderous life. Unlike the movie franchise, Friday the 13th: The Series gets better as the season unfolds. The special effects are resourceful and the gore quotient at times pushes the syndication envelope. All in all, this show delivers--to quote the name of Micki and Ryan's emporium--the "Curious Goods." --Donald Liebenson
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The New Centurions (1972)
dir. Richard Fleischer
Product Description:
Fans of the TV series Police Story and Hill Street Blues will dig this gritty 1972 drama based on Joseph Wambaugh's groundbreaking first novel. George C. Scott is in his element as Kilvinski, the philosophical 20-year veteran who mentors his new night shift partner, Roy (Stacy Keach), a "slick-sleeved" rookie. "Kilvinski's Law," he growls, "If a dude uses his fist, you use your stick. If he uses a stick you use your gun." Quincy Jones' Shaft-ian score gives the film a funky '70s vibe. Jane Alexander costars as Roy's neglected spouse, with Eric Estrada and Scott Wilson as fellow rookies, and Isabel "Weesie" Sanford as one of a vanful of prostitutes the partners roust in one of the few sequences played for laughs. Directed by Richard Fleischer (Compulsion) and written by Academy Award-winner Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night), The New Centurions deglamorizes the cop drama with gallows humor and sudden and shocking violence. It is a little dated, but in portraying the dangers and stresses that beat cops face everyday, The New Centurions is not, to quote Kilvinski, the same old "Hollywood crap." --Donald Liebenson
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The Anderson Tapes (1971)
dir. Sidney Lumet
Product Description:
An early example of the techno-thriller, The Anderson Tapes--sharply directed by Sidney Lumet from the novel by Lawrence Sanders--follows just-out-of-jail Duke Anderson (a balding Sean Connery) as he plots the heist of an entire New York apartment building, enlisting a crew that includes Martin Balsam as a vintage 1971 gay stereotype and a very young Christoper Walken in perhaps the first of his jittery crook roles. The gimmick is that Anderson has been out of circulation so long that he doesn't realizse his mafia backers are only supporting him because they feel nostalgic for the days before they were boring businessmen and that the whole set-up is monitored by a criss-crossing selection of government and private agencies who don't care enough to thwart the robbery, which instead becomes unglued thanks to a spunky handicapped kid-cum-radio ham. With a cool Quincy Jones score, very tight editing, a lot of spot-on cameo performances from the likes of Ralph Meeker as a patient cop, The Anderson Tapes hasn't dated a bit: it's wry without being jokey and suspenseful without feeling contrived. --Kim Newman
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$ (Dollars) (1971)
dir. Richard Brooks
Product Description:
Superstars Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn both took on the mantle of Robin Hood as they set out to fleece the criminally over-privileged (drug dealers, racketeers, gamblers, etc.) of $1 million from a safe-deposit vault in Hamburg. He's a security expert, she's a hooker. Together they made a dynamite combination at the box-office.
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Mother of Tears (2007)
dir. Dario Argento
Product Description:
The final installment of the "Three Mothers" trilogy. A young American art student, Sarah, "unwittingly opens an ancient urn that unleashes the demonic power of the world's most powerful witch. As a scourge of suicides plague the city and witches from all over the world converge on Rome to pay homage, Sarah must use all her own psychic powers to stop the 'Mother of Tears' before her evil conquers the world."
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Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1990)
dir. Anthony Hickox
Product Description:
Bruce Campbell co-stars with David Carradine in a terrifying tale of bloodthirsty horror. The townsfolk of Purgatory are mean and ornery for one very good reason-they're vampires! Hidden away in their secret community, the come out at night and feast with gusto! Now the Harrisons, an unsuspecting family from "outside" have ventured into Purgatory. Count Margulak, the ruler of the vampires, has ended their tradition of human bloodletting. Now the vampire get their fix from synthetic bottled blood, a drink so distasteful it's making the natives crave the "real thing." Rebel leader Shane and his army plan to overthrow the count- but it won't happen without a fight! The battle for the "right to bite"- begins at SUNDOWN!
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Last House on the Beach (1978)
dir. Franco E. Prosperi
Product Description:
As European producers raced to top the deviant extremes of 1972's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, only one movie dared to combine the genres of sicko-psycho thriller with the unholy depravity of 'nunsploitation'; Ray Lovelock (of LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE fame) stars as the leader of a gang of brutal bank robbers who invade an isolated seaside villa, only to discover five teenage schoolgirls, their nun teacher (Florinda Bolkan of FLAVIA THE HERETIC), and a nightmare of sexual assault and horrific revenge. Laura Trotter (NIGHTMARE CITY) and Sherry Buchanan (WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS?) co-star in this rarely seen slice of `70s EuroSleaze - also known as LA SETTIMA DONNA - now presented uncut and uncensored for the first time ever in America!
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Bloody Moon (1981)
dir. Jess Franco
Product Description:
Re-Mastered In High-Definition And Featuring An All-New Interview With Jess Franco!As the body-count genre stabbed its way into audiences hearts in the early 80s EuroTrash auteur Jess Franco (SADOMANIA MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD) was asked to create his own saga of slaughtered schoolgirls complete with gratuitous nudity graphic violence and gory set pieces. But just when you thought you d seen it all Franco shocked the world by delivering surprising style genuine suspense and a cavalcade of depravity that includes incest voyeurism and roller disco. The luscious Olivia Pascal of VANESSA fame stars in this twisted thriller that was banned in England yet is now presented uncut and uncensored including the complete stone mill power saw sequence for the first time ever in America!
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In the Folds of the Flesh (1970)
dir. Sergio Bergonzelli
Product Description:
In a genre defined by shocking violence and psychosexual kink, it remains perhaps the most over-the-top 'giallo' in EuroCult history: Former MGM starlet and doomed James Dean paramour Pier Angeli - two decades past her Golden Globe award for 'Most Promising Newcomer' and just one year before her tragic death - stars in this ultra-lurid epic packed with decapitations, pet vultures, creepy incest, groovy fashions, cyanide baths, swirly psychedelics, inexplicable plot twists, Nazi death camp flashbacks and more. Eleonora Rossi Drago (CAMILLE 2000), Fernando Sancho (RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD) and Luciano Catenacci (KILL BABY, KILL!) co-star in the 1970 sickie that would make Freud himself scream in horror, now fully restored from the original Italian vault elements.
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