Wagner - Das Rheingold (DVD) @ discount dvd online store
Wagner - Das Rheingold (DVD)
Patrice Chereau`s Centenary production of Wagner`s DAS RHEINGOLD (part of the Der Ring Des Nibelungen, or Ring of the Century ) with music by the Bayreuther Festspiele conducted by Pierre Boulez. Brilliantly filmed at the Bayreuther Festival stage. Singers include Donald McIntyre, Heinz Zednik, Hermann Becht and Hanna Schwarz. DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN - SIEGFRIED, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN - DAS RHEINGOLD, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN - DIE WALKURE, and DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN - GOTTERDDMMERUNG complete the Ring.NR"
The New Big Boss (VHS)
Edmond Leung stars in this ambitious Donnie Yen film about a young hitman named Ben Chan who is out to find and kill the legendary Wolf, a very old and legendary assassin. However, when Chan arrives at the Wolf`s lair, he begins a conversation with the old man`s second in command, who proceeds to tell him the Wolf`s life story. The main section of the film is composed of this flashback, and begins as the Wolf is a young soldier fleeing from a company of men who are trying to kill him. Filled with the impeccably choreographed fight sequences Mr. Yen has become famous for, THE LEGEND OF THE WOLF is also a highly stylized melodrama, making it one of the more unique period films to come out of Hong Kong in the 1990s.NR"
Director: Donnie Yen
ACTORS: Edmond Leung, Dayo Wong, Donnie Yen, Carman Lee
Mauvaise Graine (DVD)
Billy Wilders vibrant pre-Hollywood directorial debut expresses many of the sensibilities that were to be explored in his future films. Codirected by Alexander Esway, the film features a clever and cutting screenplay written by Alexandre Esway, H.G. Lustig, and Max Kolpe, based on a short story by Billy Wilder. A ring of scrappy Parisian car thieves uses an innocent-looking girl named Jeanette (Danielle Darrieux) as a decoy. Trouble ensues when they collide with a disinherited French wastrel named Henri Pasquier (Pierre Mingrand). Henri--whose father has recently cut off his inheritance in an attempt to teach him a lesson--has responded in turn by stealing a car. The gangs leader, Jean la Cravate (Raymond Galle), quickly incorporates Henris skills, but jealousy within the new gang inevitably gets in the way. Finding production on a shoestring budget insufferable, Wilder would not direct another film for nine years. Interestingly, the film`s run-and-gun style predates the French Nouvelle Vague movement by many years. Franz Waxman provides the powerful jazzy score. The film also featutes a dose of the classic cleverer-than-she-looks bad girl with a gleam in her eye whom Wilders future actresses would revel in playing.NR"
Director: Billy Wilder|Alexandre Esway
ACTORS: Danielle Darrieux, Pierre Mingand, Raymond Galle
Amores Perros (DVD) Signature Series Alejandro Gonzalez Iniarritu makes an electrifying directorial debut with AMORES PERROS, an energetic, assured motion picture that jumps off the screen with a seemingly boundless energy. Told in three separate chapters...
Alejandro Gonzalez Iniarritu makes an electrifying directorial debut with AMORES PERROS, an energetic, assured motion picture that jumps off the screen with a seemingly boundless energy. Told in three separate chapters--OCTAVIO AND SUSANA, DANIEL AND VALERIA, and EL CHIVO AND MARU--the film deals with love in the lives of several individuals residing in modern day Mexico City. Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal) has fallen in love with his brother`s wife, Susana (Vanessa Bauche). He begins entering his dog in illegal dogfights in order to save up enough money to run away with her, but eventually learns a powerful lesson when she fails to keep her word. Meanwhile, Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero) has left his wife and daughters for the gorgeous model Valeria (Goya Toledo), but when she is hurt badly in a car accident, the strain on their relationship is stretched to its limits. Finally, El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) is an ex-revolutionary who has become a paid assassin. Saddened that he has lost all contact with his daughter, he takes one final stand when an intended act of kindness turns brutally tragic. Shot with hand-held immediacy on grainy film stock, Iniarritu`s invigorating, Oscar-nominated film gets an added jolt of adrenaline from its throbbing soundtrack.
R"
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Iqarritu
Chicago (DVD)
This Hollywood adaptation of the classic Broadway musical sparkles with glamour and reverberates with the energy of good, old-fashioned song and dance. As the film leaps into its first riveting act, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), one half of the famous number she performs with her sister, arrives at the night club late, disheveled, and with blood on her hands. Nonetheless, she goes onstage unhindered and wows the crowd with her shimmying rendition of All That Jazz. Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) a young blond who dreams of someday being famous like Velma, watches from the audience with eyes full of envy. Later, as the cops pick up Velma for the murder of her sister, sending her fame to all-time heights as she becomes a tabloid sensation, Roxie also commits a crime of passion--shooting a lover who falsely promised to secure her cabaret debut. The girls wind up together in jail, where Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), a compassionate guard, is their only hope of redemption; and Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) is the lawyer who can get them out. There, through wonderfully familiar songs like Razzle Dazzle, Cell-Block Tango, and Cellophane Man Roxie and Velma tell their story of competing for bad-girl celebrity.
Director Rob Marshall presents a loveable CHICAGO that shares all the grit and grime of the Bob Fosse Broadway original with phenomenal performances by this grouping of Hollywood stars. The dizzying camerawork and dazzling sets make an easy transition from stage to film.PG-13"
Director: Rob Marshall
ACTORS: Renie Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly
