Death: A Love Story (DVD) @ discount dvd online store
Death: A Love Story (DVD)
Filmmaker Michelle Le Brun and producer/actor Mel Howard (HESTER STREET, RENALDO AND CLARA) were married only two years when Mel was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Accustomed to living life through the medium of film, the couple courageously decided to document Mel`s yearlong struggle with the disease--from his search for treatment to his final breath--with Michelle behind the camera. The resulting footage was assembled in Michelle`s award-winning documentary DEATH: A LOVE STORY, an honest and thought-provoking meditation on death and dying that also becomes a stirring testament to life and the power of love.NR"
Director: Michelle Le Brun
In Search of Peace - Part One: 1948-1967 (DVD)
Michael Douglas narrates this documentary look at the first 20 years of Israel`s existence, with a concentration on the origins of the Middle East Conflict. Through archival footage and photos, the film examines not only events in Israel, but their effect on other places as well--giving a truly global perspective on a monumental event, both in history and the history of the Jewish people.NR"
Director: Richard Trank
Good Bye, Lenin! (VHS)
This culture-shock comedic drama takes a look at life in East Germany before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Alex (Daniel Bruhl) dreams of being an astronaut while his high-strung mother (Katrin Sass) works tirelessly as a teacher and state official. She`s so vehemently pro-socialist that when she glimpses her son getting arrested during a political protest, she falls into a heart-attack-induced coma and stays there through the raising of the iron curtain and the influx of West German capitalism. When she suddenly wakes up, Alex decides he has to keep the country`s sudden change a secret from her, in order to prevent her weak heart from giving out at the shock. Lots of subterfuge and comedy ensues, and what ultimately emerges is a touching parallel between the outward economic change and Alex`s own inability to grow up and let go of his own mother-dominated past for an uncertain future with his cute Russian girlfriend (Chulpan Khamatova). Director Wolfgang Becker cleverly incorporates archival news footage of the space race, riots, soccer matches, the fall of the wall, and the arrival of consumer goods en masse. The score by Yann Tiersen (AMELIE) is effective, and Sass earns high marks as Alex`s keenly intelligent, heartbroken mother.NR"
Director: Wolfgang Becker
ACTORS: Katrin Sass, Daniel Bruhl, Chulpan Khamatova, Alexander Beyer, Florian Lukas
La Forza Del Destino (DVD)
This opera, conducted by James Levine, is the story of a young couple in love as they plan to elope. The girls father catches them and the father is accidently killed. The brother swears revenge, causing the couple to separate. When at last they are reunited, it is too late as her brother finally gets his revenge and kills her. Performed in Italian.NR"
ACTORS: Giuseppe Giacomini, Leo Nucci
The King and I (DVD)
Rogers and Hammerstein`s Broadway musical, adapted from Margaret Landon`s fact-based novel and the 1946 film ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM, makes a spectacularly successful move to the silver screen in the Yul Brynner tour de force THE KING AND I. Brynner, reprising the role he`d polished to perfection on stage, plays the blustering, headstrong Siamese potentate who meets his match in the form of Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr), the prim and proper English widow he`s hired to oversee the rearing of his huge, unruly flock of children.
Director Walter Lang (TIN PAN ALLEY) presents THE KING AND I, one of the most popular musicals in cinema history, as a dizzyingly bountiful Technicolor feast. Kerr (aided during songs by the overdubbed voice of Marni Nixon) contributes a dynamic performance that is every bit the equal of Brynner`s transcendent, career-defining turn, for which he won an Academy Award. The delightful score, which also garnered an Oscar, includes three perennial favorite show tunes: I Whistle a Happy Tune, Getting to Know You, and Shall We Dance? G"
Director: Walter Lang
ACTORS: Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, Rita Moreno, Martin Benson, Terry Saunders