Warchild

Sound: Dolby

Comments: A new level of fear.

Summary: Angela is a borderline workaholic. It's Christmas Eve and she winds up working late. Her calls to her family indicate that she's worked late and missed what plans they had made before in the past. As Angela finally calls it a night and makes it down to the second level of the parking garage where her car is parked, she finds out that it won't start. Angela stumbles upon a security guard, Tom, and he's the only remaining person besides her in the building. Tom seems like a nice guy who's just trying to help, but he doesn't want to be alone this Christmas. Not again. Tom's true intentions are revealed after the lights in the parking garage go out and he gets his hands on Angela.

Tom is extremely well-mannered and polite for a psychopathic killer. I mean, unless you say his name too many times or mess with his dog, Rocky. He's pretty much had his eye on Angela for a long time as he knows the names of her family members and knows what Bob, a fellow co-worker, did to her in the elevator during the office Christmas party. Bob doesn't get out of it unscathed though. I don't think anyone will look at office chairs the same again after this film. Tom is basically sick of being alone and will do anything he can to keep Angela there with him.

The best part of the film has to be the fact that Angela isn't some helpless woman that doesn't do anything but cry after she's kidnapped. She actually makes some pretty legit decisions in the midst of the pandemonium happening around her. She even manages to hold her own against a dog, which can't be said for many other horror movies out there. She still breaks down, but it's really only after she makes a smart move, fails, and the reality of the situation sinks in.

P2 is definitely worth watching. The film is a bit slow paced though. It's the type of film that builds and the payoff is rather satisfying. It's a relief to see a horror film with a female lead who isn't stupid, makes some logical decisions, and actually fights back against the psycopath stalking her. The definitive scene of this movie is the scene with the car and an office chair. It's the scene everyone will be talking about after viewing this film and for a good reason. So be sure to check this out if you're sick of the same, run of the mill horror flicks with women who do nothing but run away, scream, are stupid, have sex, or a combination of all four.

Languages: English, French

Subtitles: English, French

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0

Summary: Gene Hackman is a career officer assigned a routine mission well beneath him: deliver a prisoner (Tommy Lee Jones) from Europe to the United States. However, the simple assignment becomes a daring cat-and-mouse game played as the last flames of the Cold War are flickering. This is the first of three films that teamed Jones with director Andrew Davis. In 1989 Jones was a wild card: an actor respected but only popping up in grade B fare. After Davis's "Under Siege" and "The Fugitive", Jones was America's favorite gruff character actor, with an Oscar on his mantel. With a weaker script, Davis still creates the same kind of magic here. Hackman is superb as the officer, an action role similar to others that the nearly 60-year-old unexpectedly excelled at ("Bat 21", "Narrow Margin") during this period. Tight, tense, and with no letup in the third act, "The Package" is a good gem for a Saturday night flick. "--Doug Thomas"

Comments: The Life of Painter Jang Seung-up

With A Millionaire's First Love, The Hidden Blade

Summary: Chihwaseon

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: Hell comes home

Summary: A gold mining camp in the California foothills is besieged by a neighboring landowner intent on stealing their claims. A preacher rides into camp and uses all of his powers of persuasion to convince the landowner to give up his attacks on the miners.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0

Comments: She can shoot a gun almost as fast as BOB can run !

Summary: Someone is selling guns to the Indians and in order to find the culprit Calamity Jane and a secret agent go undercover posing as man and wife. When the agent is killed Jane recruits a new husband -- none other than innocent dupe "Painless" Peter Potter, a totally inept dentist and confirmed coward who's main goal is to leave the barbaric west far behind. When their wagon train is attacked by the Indians it's Jane's sharpshooting that saves the day, but she gives the credit to Potter making him an instant hero to the townspeople and instant target to both the Indians and the gunrunners.

Languages: English

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Summary: Among the earliest writers to set his sights on the director's chair, Preston Sturges brought a frank, unsentimental view of the war between the sexes to his mid-'40s features that exemplify his style, as demonstrated in this prescient 1942 gem. Architect Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and his wife, Gerry (Claudette Colbert), further refine the archetypal Sturges couple--the male embodying strength, idealism, and a certain naivete, the female ultimately stronger, smarter, and (as revealed early on in an astonishing speech by Colbert) clearer-eyed and more pragmatic about the subtext of sex. This giddy shaggy-dog story follows the couple's split, and Gerry's subsequent flight to Palm Beach. This head-snapping frolic is paced by double-entendres and lampooning looks at the very rich, with standout performances by the predatory Princess Centimillia (the delicious Mary Astor), who's more than ready to comfort Tom, and the wealthy, dim-witted John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee, staking out a new career, post-crooner, as comic foil), Gerry's new suitor. Even the predictable reunion of the star-crossed lovers is achieved with an antic surrealism. Sturges's strength in building strong character ensembles is matched by his affection for coupling screwball dialogue with physical slapstick, seldom to better effect than in the drunken target practice of the Ale and Quail Club, who make Colbert's train ride to Florida a different kind of shoot-'em-up. "--Sam Sutherland"

Comments: What happens when make-believe believes it's real?
Laberinto del fauno, El

Summary: In 1944 fascist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0

Comments: In the dark corner of the city, they found light

Summary: This movie is a stark portrayal of life among a group of heroin addicts who hang out in "Needle Park" in New York City. Played against this setting is a low-key love story between Bobby, a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen, a homeless girl who finds in her relationship with Bobby the stability she craves. She becomes addicted too, and life goes downhill for them both as their addiction deepens, eventually leading to a series of betrayals. But, in spite of it all, the relationship between Bobby and Helen endures.

Comments: Where Science Fiction Ends And Fact Begins!!

Summary: While on a fishing trip, Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland) and his family hear an explosion and realize that Los Angeles has been leveled by a nuclear attack. Looters and killers are everywhere. Escaping to the hills with his family, he sets about the business of surviving in a world where, he knows, the old ideals of humanity will be first casualties. Not one to give up, he holds up a store for supplies and hides the family in a cave.

Languages: English

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Comments: The greatest adventure of escape ever filmed!

Summary: Based on the true story of Henri Charriere, also known as Papillon, which is French for 'butterfly' (the character even sports a large tattoo of a butterfly). A petty criminal, Papillon is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in a French penal colony in 'Guiane' (French Guiana, South America). Papillon is determined to escape but attempt after attempt meets with difficulty, resulting in eventual recapture. He continues his attempts to escape despite incarcerations in solitary confinement as punishment.

Languages: English

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0

Comments: From Xvid
With Touch

Summary: With its stunning camerawork and striking compositions, Carl Th. Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" convinced the world that movies could be art. Renée Falconetti gives one of the greatest performances ever recorded on film, as the young maiden who died for God and France. Long thought to have been lost to fire, the original version was miraculously found in perfect condition in 1981-in a Norwegian mental institution. Criterion is proud to present this milestone of silent cinema in a new special edition featuring composer Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, an original opera/oratorio inspired by the film.

Languages: English

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Comments: Best of enemies. Deadliest of friends.

Summary: "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" may be the most beautiful and ambitious film that Sam Peckinpah ever made. The time is 1881. Powerful interests want New Mexico tamed for their brand of progress, and Sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn) is commissioned to rid the territory of his old gunfighting comrades. He serves fair notice to William Bonney--Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson)--and his Fort Sumter cronies, but it's not in their nature, or his, to go quietly. Peckinpah's theme, more than ever, is the closing of the frontier and the nature of the loss that that entails. But this time his vision takes him beyond genre convention, beyond history and legend, to the bleeding heart of myth--and surely of himself.
This is one strange and original movie. In 1973 most American reviewers responded by panning it and deriding its director, whom they saw as having betrayed the promise of "Ride the High Country", been swept up in his own cult of violence, and become incoherent as a storyteller. Coherence wasn't helped by MGM's cutting at least a quarter-of-an-hour out of the finished film and removing a bitter, retrospective prelude. Subsequent releases have restored a lot of material, and now there's more widespread appreciation of the depth and power of Peckinpah's achievement.
The cast, teeming with fine character actors, is extraordinary, making the gallery of frontier denizens vivid and resonant. Coburn's Garrett, a man who comes to loathe himself for his mission yet cannot abandon it, is the high-water mark of the actor's career. L.Q. Jones, Luke Askew, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack Elam, and Richard Bright create indelible moments, and Slim Pickens becomes the center of an unforgettably moving scene. The presence of Kristofferson (just starting out as an actor) and Bob Dylan (whose enigmatic role is nearly wordless) nudges us toward recognizing Old West outlawry as an early form of rock stardom--flesh-and-blood gods for a primitive society to feed on. "--Richard T. Jameson"

Comments: Two Worlds, One War. The Ultimate Battle Begins.

Summary:

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 2.0; French, Dolby Digital 2.0

Subtitles: English

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0

Comments: Never has the screen thrust so deeply into the guts of war!

Summary: The futility and irony of the war in the trenches in WWI is shown as a unit commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an impossible attack.

Languages: English

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Summary: When a star comedian dies, his comedy team, decides to train a nobody to fill the shoes of the Star in a big TV show (a Patsy). But the man they choose, bellboy Stanley Belt, cant do anything right. The big TV show is getting closer, and Stanley gets worse all the time.

Languages: English

Summary: The Man Who Laughs is considered by many to be an essential silent film. Its use of the grotesque certainly makes an impact on the viewer. When Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt) was a young boy, he was surgically forced to smile at all times as a reminder of the tyranny done to his father by those in power. As an heir to the throne, he was meant to be killed, but he manages to stay alive after being adopted by a showman. He is loved by a blind girl named Dea (Mary Philbin), but Gwynplaine's eerie appearance causes him a great deal of pain. His smile is put on display nightly for the townsfolk of the country for them to laugh at his ailment. When the rebellious duchess (Olga Baclanova) sets her sights on him, a new world of trouble and heartbreak opens up for Gwynplaine.



The message of the film is ambiguous. In some ways, it seems that one is to feel sorry for Gwynplaine who suffers from the smile inflicted upon him. At the same time, it is impossible not to be slightly put off by his appearance. The original choice for the part was Lon Chaney who doubtless would have been more sympathetic in the part. But was that what the film makers were going for? As it stands, The Man Who Laughs is an enjoyable and memorable film.



Also included on this DVD are some great extra features. One featurette talks about the making of the film. Another is a home video montage of many stars including Veidt. Finally, there are some photo galleries.

Languages: English

Subtitles: English

Sound: MP3

Comments: If you can't smoke it, drink it, spend it or love it... forget it.

Summary: A cynical look at the life of a not so nice country-western singer, Maury Dann - played by Rip Torn in one of his most memorable performances. He ruthlessly manipulates every one around him to suit his selfish needs...he even gets his limo driver to take the blame for the death of a fan which he stabbed.

Comments: with Galaxy Quest, Invasion Of The Saucer Men, Nails, Shanty Tramp

Summary: Two aliens arrive on Earth trying to kill each other. This is not easy, since they seem to be able to regenerate lost body parts and survive bullet wounds. Both of them happen to meet a young pathologist Dori Caisson, and each alien tells her that he is a peacemaker (an intergalactic cop) and that the other one is a bad guy. Whom can she trust ?

Summary: Qun long xi feng

Languages: English

Subtitles: English

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0

Comments: "Do you know what the most FRIGHTENING thing in the world is ...?"

Summary: Michael Powell lays bare the cinema's dark voyeuristic underside in this disturbing 1960 psychodrama thriller. Handsome young Carl Boehm is Mark Lewis, a shy, socially clumsy young man shaped by the psychic scars of an emotionally abusive parent, in this case a psychologist father (Michael Powell in a perverse cameo) who subjected his son to nightmarish experiments in fear and recorded every interaction with a movie camera. Now Mark continues his father's work, sadistically killing young women with a phallic-like blade attached to his movie camera and filming their final, terrified moments for his definitive documentary on fear. Set in contemporary London, which Powell evokes in a lush, colorful seediness, this film presents Mark as much victim as villain and implicates the audience in his scopophilic activities as we become the spectators to his snuff film screenings. Comparisons to Hitchcock's "Psycho", released the same year, are inevitable. Powell's film was reviled upon release, and it practically destroyed his career, ironic in light of the acclaim and success that greeted "Psycho", but Powell's picture hit a little too close to home with its urban setting, full color photography, documentary techniques, and especially its uneasy connections between sex, violence, and the cinema. We can thank Martin Scorsese for sponsoring its 1979 rerelease, which presented the complete, uncut version to appreciative American audiences for the first time. This powerfully perverse film was years ahead of its time and remains one of the most disturbing and psychologically complex horror films ever made. "--Sean Axmaker"

Languages: Cantonese, Dolby Digital 5.1; zh-guoyo, Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles: English, Vietnamese, Japanese, Georgian, Chinese, id, Thai

Comments: Do ma daan

Summary: The movie is set in chaotic 1920's China, when warlords fought each other for power while Sun Yat-Sen's underground movement tried to establish a democratic republic. The movie tells the story of three young women and two young men who are thrown together. One young woman grabs a box of jewels during the looting when one warlord takes Peking. A deserting soldier joins her, but the jewels end up at the Peking Opera. Here we meet the daughter of the head of the troupe, who dreams of being an actress. But even female roles are played by men in the opera. Soon, the daughter of the currently ruling warlord and a male agent of the democratic underground are involved.

Languages: English

Subtitles: Spanish

Comments: Some Girls are to DIE for

Summary: Hello World,

I seen twisted sisters and chambermaid which star alot of the same cast, same director etc and are really great as well. Then I searched this gem out. Unbelieveable story and cast which reminds me of works by David Lynch and Peter Jackson. This film jumps around but always centers on the ever amazingly beautiful Fiona Horsey who is one hell of an actress I cant wait to see more from her. Really entertaining film, funny, gorey, sexy, suspenseful it has all the elements of a cult classic. Buy it rent it just check it out and I garantee you will not be dissapointed.