It provided Walt Disney with the money he needed to finance a slate of productions, establish his own distribution company, enter television production and begin building Disneyland. Down the road, the same strategy would allow Disney engineers to take advantage of every new technology and keep the product looking fresh.
The digitally restored version will be shown on Thursday, October 4, at 7: Tickets are available at participating theater box offices and online at www. The two-disc Blu-ray will add even more supplementary material. During this period, the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation became an international eyesore, with a disintegrating economy and health-care system and a human-right record only the North Korean government might applaud. Meanwhile, the military officers in charge of the nation became fabulously wealthy men.
Rather than assassinate Suu Kyi and risk a backlash in Myanmar and beyond, the generals decided, instead, to put her under house arrest and strictly limit access to her. Working from a script by Rebecca Frayn, Besson uses the recent history of the country as a frame for a depiction of the romance between Suu Kyi Michelle Yeow and her British husband, Dr. Michael Aris David Thewlis. As compelling as that story might be, it presented a challenge for audiences. After all, between , when his wife was first placed under house arrest, and his death to cancer in , Aris had seen Suu Kyi only five times.
The government forced them to live in two extremely different worlds. No matter the temptation, both were cognizant of the fact that Suu Kyi would never be allowed to return to Myanmar if she went to England to visit Aris and their two sons.
Besson gets around this dilemma by inserting far too many cumbersome phone calls, mysterious disconnections and attempts to monitor world affairs via forbidden radios. Things were happening in the streets of Rangoon a. Most of the rest of the tumultuous story is told in postscript form riots organized by monks and students or overlooked the devastating effects of a hurricane. In fact, in October, , while they were shooting in Thailand, the cast and crew were pleasantly surprised to learn that Suu Kyi had been released from house arrest. Less than two years later, as the movie was opening around the world, MP-elect Suu Kyi was preparing to take her place in Parliament.
Catherine Keener portrays her daughter, Diane, a soon-to-be-divorced Manhattan lawyer with a stick up her ass, and her overly sheltered kids are played by Elizabeth Olson and Nate Wolff. To get as far away from her husband as possible, Diane grabs the teenagers and heads back to the family farm for the first time in 20 years. There, she finds Granny Grace still fighting the good fight: In any other context, the proselytizing and morally questionable lifestyle of the pot-growing, chicken-liberating, still sexually adventurous Grace might be seen as something less than charming.
Even then, the characters are required to overcome feelings of guilt for betraying their normal tendencies toward avoiding intimacy. When was the last time you saw a rom-com in which they did, however. Contrary to what normally happens in Hollywood movies, middle-age men and women and senior citizens are perfectly capable of enjoying sex and finding fulfillment in relationships, too.
It may sound like a small point to audiences under 30, but the older one gets, the more we need to be reminded that romance can be re-kindled after the kids leave home. Shot in and around Woodstock, New York, the scenery looks pretty nice in Blu-ray, as well. It adds a standard-issue making-of featurette. Using available lunar resources, Nazi fugitives and their offspring constructed a gargantuan fortress and aeronautics facility invisible even to the many satellites and space capsules that once surveyed the orb.
Skip ahead to , when a Nazi armada is on the brink of attacking Earth. The Blu-ray supplements include a pair of making-of featurettes. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate: Instead of being armed with six-guns and Winchesters, the Ming Dynasty characters fight with their hands, feet, spears, whips, arrows and other exotic wuxia weaponry. The common denominators are horses and a high body count. Here, the inn has been rebuilt and it has become a mecca for warriors, fugitives and assassins. Everyone else at the inn is focused on the gold believed hidden under the inn. The Blu-ray includes making-of and behind-the-scenes material, as well as interviews.
Instead of merely voicing their unhappiness with the work of a year-old rookie and moving on to the next assignment, they sharpened their knives and went out of their way to disembowel it. In hindsight, the story of extreme obsession fits alongside other modern horror movies, before and since, that have attempted to elevate the genre intellectually. Lynch was unable to convince her detractors of the necessity of putting themselves in the box alongside the quadruple-amputee Helena and accepting that the character was a stand-in for all women stuck in abusive relationships.
Early in the movie, Bob does exactly this to Julia Ormond. The difference this time is that Bob forces her young son to listen to the screams, before he decides to hold the boy captive and mold him into a miniature copy of himself. He even beats the boy with the same crazed fervor as his father beat him. Even so, Bob demands that Rabbit take his home schooling seriously, especially the anatomical lessons that could prove useful when swiftly killing and dismembering his victims. The time eventually comes when Bob thinks Rabbit is ready to participate in the hunts and break through the final barrier, by killing a prostitute brought back to the house.
At first, estranged relatives of the owners — one dead, the other laid low by a stroke — seem bent on taking the money and running home. When they become aware of how much the tavern means to the community, however, they have a change of heart. Marijuana also figures in the transition of his up-tight, big-city daughter Jennifer Restivo from money-grubber to one of the gang of offbeat locals attempting to raise the money needed to buy the facility.
If too much of the comedy looks like a film-school project, it deserves credit for its upbeat spirit and unpretentious attitude. Jackson also is in great demand as a voice actor in major animated features. The secret has been so deeply guarded, in fact, only one person besides Ethan knows it. By attempting to have it both ways, Weaver met neither goal. Even so, Jackson is great fun to watch and the atmospherics are pretty good.
The popular image of a drug dealer is a gang member working a corner for a more senior thug or a young white guy who dreams of hitting Vegas with supermodel on each arm. The truth is far more banal. Open any high school yearbook, close your eyes and point a finger at a random student. That person is more likely to be a purveyor of recreational drugs than the archetypal street dealer. As long as supply and demand remains on even keel, however, business runs smoothly and risks are low. The day begins when a friend from Manchester surprises Shifty by showing up at the door of his home on the outskirts of London after a four-year absence.
Chris Daniel Mays abruptly split the scene for reasons that remain a mystery throughout most of the movie. Chris accompanies Shifty on his rounds, remaining mute but absorbing how much the business has changed in his absence. Buffs may find that to be more of a compliment than a curse. Sound of My Voice: These people believe that she will lead them to salvation, or whatever. Freshman director Zal Batmanglij in his first of two collaborations with Marling, is basically asking us to question what leads some people to follow charismatic religious leaders — be they L. Ron Hubbard or Jesus H. Christ — after listening to appeals that sound preposterous on the face of them.
Here, Marling plays a woman who claims to be a time-traveler from the future — , to be exact — and a prophet of much trouble to come in the 21st Century. Maggie wears the customary white shawl and diaphanous gown, while sermonizing in a tone that resonates with self-confidence and integrity. The DVD adds interviews and a making-of featurette. The outlander had taught a local man the sport and he taught everyone else. Today, there are enough surfing clubs to support a national competition and dreams of competing in Tahiti, Australia and everywhere else waves break, curl and crash.
Because of the lack of economic opportunity in the developing nation, surfing has also provided residents of the beach communities with a source of pride and purpose. Once mastered, the men and women we meet put surfing above nearly everything else in their lives, including marriage, paying alimony and finding work outside the village. Surfing does that to people, especially if the homegrown waves are among the best in the world. At stake, after all, besides bragging rights, was the opportunity for winners to visit countries that might has well have been designed for them by Walt Disney.
There are several times in the movie when fights almost break out among the competitors and dirty tricks are played on the favorites. Things are changing, but too slowly to help the victims. The smiles on the faces of the competitors and audience members during the contest speak volumes about how it feels to be part of a global community that demands nothing more than a love of surfing.
Aeronautics buffs certainly are aware of Air Commodore Frank Whittle, the British engineer credited with inventing the turbojet engine and advancing jet propulsion in the 20th Century. How could such a debacle be allowed to happen? Unfortunately, the documentary merely points fingers at the likely culprits, without providing the hard evidence that would be needed for a blanket indictment. Whittle was so disturbed by the course of events that he spend much of the war and post-war period in the United States, where he would be compromised by nervous breakdowns.
The movie provides plenty of testimonials, as well, to back up the assertions of the experts, who coincidentally also are the filmmakers. Ever-credible Michael Rooker plays Ray, the father in a family hoping to enjoy a pleasant weekend of ice fishing, somewhere in Minnesota, Wisconsin or the Adirondacks. After spending enough time semi-submerged to believe he should have experienced hyperthermia, his family senses something is wrong and rescues him.
Still, after a night spent defrosting and being blasted with some heebie-jeebies effects, the family is good to go in the morning. The best part of the experience is the making-of material, which explains how one might go about making a horror movie in sub-zero conditions, as well as the motivations of filmmakers, who admit to being scared out of their minds by the horror films they saw on TV when they were kids.
Fact is, though, folks in the Great White North have a very good reason to crow about their disco heritage. In the mids, Montreal had a nightclub scene that was the equal of New York and Los Angeles, and celebrities routinely made pit stops there on the way to other destinations. Hanging like a black cloud of doom over the proceedings, however, is the political dynamic that would result in a vote among Quebecois as to the question of secession from the rest of Canada.
This led directly to the flight of major corporations from Montreal to Toronto, where businesses were free to hang signs in any language they desired, not just French. Overnight, the Starlight was required to advertise itself as Le Starlight. In a couple of more years, Montreal had lost its luster as one of the most culturally hip and fastest-growing cities in North America.
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The most recognizable actor for U. Songwriter, Tight No rock band has experienced more tumult and caused more anxiety among its fan base than the Beach Boys. It played out on the pages of Rolling Stone and via the rumor mill, which made Brian sound as if he was either completely out of his mind or was under the control of an evil puppet master. Brian had more than his fair share of mental problems, certainly, and his personal psychologist did as much harm as good.
In addition to the headline-making turmoil, the Beach Boys were coming apart at the seams. Actually, Frank Zappa showed us the same thing, only 20 years earlier. The dork spends most of his time ogling the ladies and eating sardines from the can with his hands. The same can be said about most reality series, though. The DVD adds deleted scenes, music videos, concert footage, a photo gallery and liner notes.
In , alone, five titles were turned into films. As the story goes, a city-slicker doctor Dale Midkiff and his family move to a small town in Maine, where the greatest threat to happiness appears to be the giant trucks that pass by their property at breakneck speed. A few hours later, it returns a very different creature.
The deaths are horrifying and the people who return from the dead look very much like considerably more ambulatory zombies. What happens when the little boy returns from the dead is almost unconscionably monstrous. The Blu-ray upgrade makes the year-old movie look as fresh as a daisy, while the sound design is as unnerving as it could be. The Blu-ray package adds commentary by director Mary Lambert and three background featurettes. The 3D cover image is pretty scary, too.
After being caught pulling a prank, his no-nonsense coach tells him to see a psychologist to help get his priorities straight. In most other movies targeted directly at the African-American audience, the troubled protagonist would seek the advice of a preacher. Here, while asking the same kinds of questions, the counselor encourages Curtis to keep a journal detailing his circumstances and thoughts.
His life is further complicated by a brief affair with a sexy femme fatale and his determination to keep on the right side of things with his new girl, a genuinely nice single mother and nursing student. Not only does Levi Chris Sheffield fail the course, but he also stands to flunk summer school.
That everything eventually works out for Levi should be evident from the moment the opening credits begin to roll. Given what I saw and heard, even the PG seems extreme. The bonus material includes outtakes, a making-of featurette and commentary with director, producers and sound editor. As her dutiful son and progressive American daughter-in-law, Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern also are great fun to watch.
Season Two takes place as World War I rages across Europe and the impact is felt, as well, by everyone at the estate — rich and poor — especially after its been retrofitted as a hospital. Decade of Magic Throughout much of the s, magic experienced the kind of commercial renaissance that standup comedy had a decade earlier. Las Vegas may have been the world capital of magic, but exposure on network television encouraged club owners to switch from comedy to magic.
After viewers watched one made an elephant disappear before millions of viewers, how many people would pay for the same privilege on stage? Among the survivors was David Copperfield, who made a very good living by dispensing with the tuxedo and top hat and creating illusions that might have made Houdini gasp. How would the next generation of magicians top his act? Along with Chris Angel, David Blaine found another way — guerrilla magic, if you will — to build a customer base.
Instead of forcing their fans to buy tickets to a club or showroom, they took their act to the streets and made new friends along the way. Cable networks would exploit the popularity, using unobtrusive cameras to capture the excitement and wonder on the faces of the spectators. The bigger the risks, the larger the audience became. His illusions and tests of endurance go on for days at a time and in places in full view of thousands of non-paying customers. Perhaps, I missed something. The Complete First Season: Opening Night at the Smith Frontline: Credit belongs to the bold decision to begin showcasing high-quality original mini-series, produced on budgets nearly the equivalent of those afforded shows on premium-cable competitor HBO and Showtime.
When in doubt, steal from the best. If most of the men look as if they just stepped out of a police lineup, the women — Olga Kurylenko, Jessica Marais and Elena Satine, among them — may as well have been recruited from the Playboy mansion. Although the introduction of silicone and saline breast implants would come several years after the period in which the show is set.
The Blu-ray adds several background and making-of featurettes, none of which is long enough to add much perspective. The kooky flavor-of-last-year star, Deschanel, plays a slightly ditzy young woman, who, after losing her cheating boyfriend and job, moves into a bachelor pad with three single guys. This is the kind of thing that happens every day outside TV Land, right?
Rachel Bilson plays Dr. Zoe Hart a New Yorker bred in the bone hoping to become a heart surgeon, just like Daddy. After a major setback, Zoe agrees to accept a job at a practice in someplace called Bluebell, Alabama. Before she can even open a box of tongue depressors, though, the doctor who owns the practice dies. Unexpectedly, he bequeaths half of it to Zoe. The other half belongs to a doctor played by Tim Matheson, who had the audacity to name his pretty blond daughter Lemon Jaime King.
Naturally, too, the rest of the Gulf Coast town is populated by colorful rustics, one of whom keeps an alligator as a pet. The second season begins on October 2. If, perchance he loses, Barney must agree to wear the duckling-patterned tie that he finds hideous. Look out, as well, for the return of the Slutty Pumpkin. Opening Night at the Smith. Back in the day, the casino bosses would have put the kibosh on any such complex, but the city is large enough now to provide separate entertainment magnets for tourists and locals.
Inconveniently, the bay also is home to the last great wild Sockeye salmon fishery in the world. The battle already is being waged in the statehouse and courts. Take that, Criterion Collection! Season One, Volume One Red vs. Reese, three teens with the ability to turn themselves into virtual superheroes. It debuted in and ran for two years. The DVD contains 26 episodes.
It begins with two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of the desolate box canyon. The episodes included here were voted by fans to be the best. Nonplussed, Frank decides to prove to Mia that he not only is capable of being a good father, but also that his discomfort with being around children can be cured. He fears that a pre-pubescent year-old would spoil the fun.
- Product details.
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- The Protector: The Dream Reborn?
- Author Archive;
- En enfance (FICTION) (French Edition)?
- The Joy of Motherhood!
- Howler.
This plan fails even more miserably. One of the episodes, written by Lars Von Trier, is included in the Blu-ray bonus package, along with commentary with the director and stars; three making-of featurettes; outtakes; deleted scenes; and a photo booklet. The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1: Damnation For comic books and the movies inspired by them to serve a greater service to mankind than keeping idle minds occupied, they must trigger the imaginations of young people who live in a society where individualism is encouraged but conformity is rewarded.
If mere mortals felt sufficiently empowered to prevent evil from sprouting in our soil, there would be no need for superheroes. At the moment, though, even a cameo appearance by a Captain America or Iron Man at the White House would go a long way toward easing fears of imminent global apocalypse. They operate at the behest of S. Jackson and trusted aide, Agent Coulson Clark Gregg. The Avengers are re-assembled here when Loki, the disgraced villain and brother of Thor, comes to Earth to retrieve the Tesseract, a blue-glowing energy cube that could set him apart from every other supervillain in the universe.
Dark of the Moon. I can only assume it looks pretty amazing in 3D, too. Compared to them, Joker and Two-Face are pussycats.
Kennedy — goes off the reservation in Eastern Europe to verify rumors that Bio-Organic Weapons are being used in a civil war. In the three years since his death, Natalie has done nothing but keep her nose to the grindstone at work and inert at home. More impishly cute than classically beautiful, Natalie has spent some of her time, at least, brushing off the advances of her boorish boss. One night, after a promotion, he convinces her to join him for a celebratory cocktail.
Even so, Natalie is too valuable an asset to be fired for giving the married man his just dessert. When a tall, shy and gawky employee comes into her office to update her on the progress of project, she gets up from behind her desk and gives him a passionate kiss. The Blu-ray adds a long and casually delivered making-of featurette. American Badass Strippers vs.
For one thing, the cast is extremely talented and fully engaged in the conceit: Barry Bostwick is terrific as F. As the movie opens, then-Governor Roosevelt is attacked by a werewolf on a hunting trip — someone forgot to put silver bullets in his rifle — and he contactx polio from the spattered blood. Eleanor is repulsed by his shriveled legs, but FDR is inspired by a boy in a wheelchair to persevere. Meanwhile, Louis learns that the werewolf lying in the morgue has a swastika tattooed on its hairy chest. Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. Back in the day, it would have appeared on the bill at every drive-in theater from San Diego to Bangor, Maine, and might even have been held over for a weekend or two.
As the movie opens, a stripper is giving a gangster a lap dance. When they finally notice that the leader of the gang is missing and presumably has been made to disappear by the dancers in his favorite club, the battle is on. How much simpler can genre filmmaking be? The jist of the non-story is that there is a show on Japanese cable-TV in which four Japanese women are grabbed off the street — some have vague connections to degenerate mahjong gamblers — and forced to play the game as if their lives depended on it, which they do.
Before they go broke, however, the losers in each round are required to remove articles of clothing. While this is OK in a voyeuristic sort of way — in true Japanese tradition, glimpses of pubic hair are avoided — the scenes in which rape is simulated to extract confessions are no fun at all to watch. In fact, all of the women here are shrill characterizations of the kind of Japanese teenagers who incessantly giggle or squeal, instead of converse in any known language. Here, the undead superdog is a wisecracking cutie-pie.
A boy living in a stereotypical suburban community inherits a year-old dog, Fang, from his Carpathian grandfather. Neither does Fang escape the attention of an anti-aging researcher, Dr. Delaney is reluctant to invite him into the house, but her year-old sees in the coot an opportunity to escape forever, as did his older brother. To do so, he wants to buy a boat from a shady dealer, Mr. Fletcher John Goodman , who uses plaster of Paris to fix leaks. Not surprisingly, Mom refuses to sign the papers. Hoping to connect with a blind date in another town, she entrusts the Abe Jacob Zachar to the care of Mort.
Fletcher then silently conspire to rob Mort of his sobriety. The final act is too far-fetched to be believed, but, considering the autobiographical nature of the story, it may have some basis in fact. Almost every male playwright who came of age in the last 30 years in Chicago has been influenced in some way by David Mamet and such rough-and-ready theater companies as Steppenwolf, Remains and the Organic Theater. Malkovich and Goodman fit theirs character like well-worn leather gloves and deliver compelling performances.
Fans of the lead actors, at least, might be willing to forgive Meyer his lost opportunity. Credit also belongs to sound editors David McCallum and David Rose for the many audio tricks that will keep DVD renters on the edge of their seats throughout the movie. The bonus interviews explain how the hidden cameras that were used to shot the movie were deployed.
As it turns out, however, the two guys are cops and the head of the Corsican syndicate somehow knows it. He orders his underlings to kidnap the teenage son of one of the cops and hold him for ransom, in return for the bag. Unbeknownst to her, another cop — one even dirtier than she believes Vincent to be — steals the bag and stashes it somewhere else. All come into play when Vincent learns of the triple-cross and must come up with the real stuff he assumes is still hidden in the nightclub, as is his son.
Within minutes, the cop is being chased through the club not only by the Corsicans but the Turks and fellow cops. Sisley, who began his career as a standup comic, has already proven that he can play action parts. The most interesting element, though, is the violence itself. The primary human character is a disheveled professional hitman, who botched an assignment and is ordered to leave town to avoid the heat. Until things cool down, Walter Jurgen Ribmann is sent to the mountains, where he and an old friend, Mickey, will guard the chalet of another crime boss, Berger Reiner Schone.
Walter is old-school goon, who prefers not to draw attention to himself, while Mickey is a party-hardy hustler. After her nightly run, Sibyll returns home in a frisky mood. When Berger finally returns to the chalet, with his Russian henchman, Kazik Walera Kanischtscheff carrying a dead wild boar over his shoulders, the first person he wants to see is Sibyll.
After a while, he begins to believe that she was kidnapped and Walter and Mickey are to blame. To get them to confess, he and Kazik take turns beating the crap out of the newcomers, who know that the consequences of telling the truth could be even worse than a thrashing. The gag is reprised later — when the truth about Sibyll emerges — with decidedly different results.
At a brisk 95 minutes, the absence of a narrative is hardly noticed. It almost goes without saying that, before long, the newly sighted professor, Jack Louis Mandylor , begins to see things only the killer would recognize. They come to him in the form of lightning-quick flashbacks of gory crime scenes and murders. An alcoholic congressman played by Costas shows up about halfway through the movie — with a bad attitude and a buxom babe — at the same island resort as Jack and his newlywed wife, Gwen Gwendolyn Edwards.
By this time, Jack has begun to exhibit anti-social habits that are especially vexing to Gwen. They do, however, play right into the somewhat soiled hands of their new friends. The first two series are available on DVD, as are the complete Swedish-language compilations. As the title might suggest, the international thriller sometimes suffers from narrative dissociation and the curious decision to have all characters — Scandinavian, Chinese, American — converse in Swedish. Again, your patience will be rewarded. The story opens with the discovery of a ghastly mass-murder on a farm complex in rural Hudiksvall.
Eighteen members of the Andren family have been chopped apart by someone wielding a sharp blade. There are two survivors, but they mostly provide the baffled police with convenient suspects to serve the voracious appetite of the media. The suspicion is confirmed when police in Reno inform her of the killings of several more Andrens at the hands of a sword-wielding assassin. Sensing that the only thing likely to satisfy the killer is the murder of the final two Andrens, Brigitta begins her own investigation. Being a stranger in a strange land, her appearance draws the attention of state authorities and, yes, the brother and sister we met earlier.
The very few exceptions were required to play subservient roles to Caucasian actors, occasionally in Asian drag. In , she moved back to Hong Kong to care for her ill father. Kwan would play action parts in Southeast Asia until , when she moved to Los Angeles, where she accepted a relative handful of roles over the next 30 years and promoted the hiring of actors with Asian roots.
Movies from China, Korea, Japan and Thailand have found a home in arthouses and video stores, as well. The DVD adds a photo gallery and original watercolor art gallery of images from the documentary. Bob Dylan and the Band: Down in the Flood Just Around the Corner: Others believed he was dead, comatose or tragically disfigured. Among the rumors that managed to slip through the cone of silence were reports of private sessions Dylan was conducting in Woodstock with his backup band, the Hawks, soon to be known as the Band.
Rock mavens assumed incorrectly that any new album would, in fact, be comprised of session tapes. Dylan obsessives will want this DVD in their collection. Well, for one thing, he has the rare distinction of being divorced from a woman and a man. You can imagine how this might sound coming from a comedian, who, from a distance, could pass for John Denver. The DVD adds a behind-the-scenes featurette, audience interviews and footage of the cover photo shoot. One day, after spying his mother and sister service a couple of bozos at home, he decides to find a less compromised place to live.
Raul would introduce to him an earlier, less enlightened period in history, when self-loathing homosexuals took out their shame and hostility on young prey, in short and violent encounters.
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He hurts Roberto in their first coupling, but not so much as to convince the boy to leave. Things get even more complicated, but in ways that make sense within the context of the story. Steve Martin is Standup comedy was nearly dead around the time Rodriguez and his peers made their mark on fledgling HBO and L. He became one of very few Hispanic comedians getting work at a time when comedy clubs were blooming in every major city. Far less a standup routine than a memoir, it recalls his early years as the son of migrant workers from Mexico and, soon, a Hispanic in mostly black Compton.
From there, it was the military, college on the G. He also reminisces about some of the stars he met on his way to the top. The movie opens in the Venezuelan rain forest, where a previously unknown type of spider is killing villagers. After hitching a ride to the United States in a casket, one of the spiders escapes detection and is able to cross-breed with critters here. The offspring are real killers and, of course, they find their way into the house recently purchased by an arachnophobic doctor looking for some peace and quiet in the country.
The Blu-ray adds featurettes on the production and Marshall, as well as more material from Venezuela. The Carol Burnett Show: For many years, Ed Sullivan hosted the most popular variety show on the air. In addition to presenting Elvis Presley and the Beatles to mainstream America, Sullivan featured a steady stream of entertainers representing the best of their respective discipline. When Sullivan left television, dozens of entertainment specialists, Broadway shows and touring companies lost their primary publicity source. Some ended up in Vegas, Branson and on the cruise ship circuit, while others simply disappeared.
The afternoon and late-night talk shows have picked up the slack somewhat, but guests are mostly limited to bands, actors and comics that appeal to the to demographic or are pitching a new movie. As complete an entertainer as she was, the Hollywood High School graduate maintained a repertory company of gifted comic actors, not unlike those who surrounded Sid Caesar in his heyday.
In Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner and Tim Conway, Burnett had a troupe capable of turning an idea into a sketch overnight and contributing songs and dance routines whenever necessary. The material on the discs looks and sounds as good as it ever will and probably of better quality than color TV permitted in s. The full set contains 18 complete, unedited episodes, some introduced by Burnett and other regulars.
Season Two Gossip Girl: Volume Ten Imagine buying a house in which both the Manson and Addams families once lived, then having to deal with their spirits on a daily basis. Adding to the bad vibes are the psychiatric patients drawn to Dr. The candles on the cupcake, though, are the busybody neighbors played by Jessica Lange and Jamie Brewer, who pop up at the most inconvenient times for the fragile Vivien Harmon Connie Britton. The Blu-ray set adds commentary on the pilot episode, a visit to the mansion by Eternal Darkness Tours of Hollywood and four behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Among the characters to look for in the new Blu-ray collection and on Comedy Central are Barack Obama Peele and his anger translator, Luther Key , who says the things the President would say if the black half of his personality was the dominant side. It was a cruel blow, indeed. They mistrust people they consider to be square, mainstream, opponents of non-motorized transportation and intolerant of New Age theories.
Like all Oscilloscope products, the Blu-ray package is environmentally safe and the features include elongated and deleted scenes, and some funny making-of material. For freed, fugitive and escaped slaves, the situation may have been even worse and that realization led in part to the Emancipation Proclamation. So, as the series asks, what is our responsibility to the dead? That was made easier by the fact that the disease first impacted immigrant African and Haitian communities.
Even when it began to devastate homosexual communities in France and the United States, officials acted as if other people were immune from the disease and there was no urgency to treat AIDS as if it were a plague threatening all Americans. Even when budget-makers and the medical establishment began to take action, poor blacks, infected children and drug addicts continued to get the least attention. HIV may now be treatable, but, for some patients, the cost of keeping it in check is prohibitively expensive.
The documentary is a reminder of the distance we still need to go for a cure. Cable television thrives on the promulgation of conspiracy theories, government secrets, military intelligence and lore, mysterious fraternal organizations, lost and hidden documents and outright bullshit.
Not all of the secrets are all that well-kept and the ones that are highly classified remain so. For more than a half-century, the lore and legend surrounding British Secret Agent has continued to grow unabated. Always are essential element of the books and movies are the gadgets, gizmos and weapons created for James Bond by Q — for Quartermaster — and his team.
Neither is it beyond the realm of possibility to imagine cars within built-in RPGs and oil slicks being sold alongside SUVs and vehicles that run on garbage. Two, at least, already are available in hi-def. Like any sitcom, the family members often are joined on screen by colorful sidekicks and resident authorities. The shop is known for its Civil War and Mardi Gras artifacts. Sounds like another good reason to get out the vote for Obama in November.
It would have been nice if someone though to include more than a snippet from their sets. There is a Katt animated short, though. San Francisco 49ers Behind the Steel Curtain: The Pittsburgh Steelers The new line of titles from NFL Films and Vivendi Entertainment puts so-called dynasties of professional football under a microscope, not only by recapping games that led to championships, but also exploring the things separating those teams from the one-year wonders and formidable also-rans. Moreover, it became as identified with the city as the Golden Gate Bridge and sour-dough bread.
Unlike the 49ers, these were blue-collar teams constituted for the enjoyment of blue-collar fans. There may never have been a more dominant defense as the famous Steel Curtain, which literally was impenetrable. Blu-ray In the world of independent filmmaking, a very thin line separates dysfunctional families from those merely offbeat, quirky and unconventional. The young man in question here, Ellis Graham Phillips , has lived with a desperately New Age-y mother in the desert outside Tucson for most of his 14 years on Earth.
Wendy Vera Farmiga has led him to believe that his estranged father, Frank Ty Burrell , is a total prick, who made her life a living hell and abandoned them, emotionally, if not financially. Ellis accompanies Goat Man on his vision-quest treks, during which the bearded wise man shares hippy-dippy philosophies and bong hits with the boy. We meet this atypical family, just as Ellis is about to travel east to attend the same prep school as his dad and learn to exist in an infinitely more traditional world of privilege and excess.
To suggest that Ellis is more mature, at 14, than his parents ever were is only to point out the obvious. Her daughter was allowed to leave the nest, as well, but off-screen. Where Do We Go Now? The adult males mistake these pranks for the bitter fruits on intolerance and begin to plot against each other. The women, who jointly mourn the deaths of loved ones now lying in segregated cemeteries, concoct a scheme to defuse the increasingly volatile situation. Left to their own devices, the villagers could have lived in peace for another century, at least.
As the war and news of it encroach even closer on the town square — where a church and mosque stand side by side — it seems as if only a miracle can prevent further strife. She balances the potentially tragic realities of war with comedic interludes and songs. If only such dialogues were possible in real life, we all could sleep easier. The Smartest Guys in the Room. They include former CIA operatives, torturers, torturees, historians, clerics and, even, the late brother-in-law of Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban used it to regroup, expand and argue that the infidels were there to stay.
If it fails to meet your standards for twisted behavior and storytelling, I suggest having yourself committed … immediately. Although not at all geeky or unpleasant to look at, mousy wallflower Lola Robin McLeavy has a history of being rejected and dissed by the cool crowd at school. Such is the case with Brent Xavier Samuel , a troubled young man who accidentally killed his father while trying to avoid a naked teenage boy standing in the middle of the road, bleeding.
When Lola approached Brent for a prom date, he had already committed to attending with the likely queen, Holly. In , the Hammer team went on location to the old Hampden Manor House, where it produced an anthology series of 13 stories to air on ITC television. The Synapse package presents the complete series in its original airdate order, with all-new introductions, featurettes and a stills gallery. Blu-ray When it comes to 3D and hi-def, consumers can always count on James Cameron to deliver the goods. With it, stocking-stuffer season has officially arrived. G-String Festival Female Teacher: The new additions to the series are reliably gonzo, even though pubis-disguising techniques have improved.
That prohibition would be lifted, in part because of the importation of adult videos from abroad, in the s. Here, a once-thriving Japanese coastal village is experiencing a shortage in divers to go after oysters, abalone, octopi and clams. Naturally, the girl divers are wildly promiscuous and seemingly insatiable. The ladies also are required to compete in a thong-bikini contest, during which the sumo-like G-strings cause excruciatingly painful wedgies.
The girl is accused of prostitution, even though she freely surrenders her physical gifts to strangers. This revelation haunts the teacher to the point where she seeks redemption through illicit sexual encounters of her own. Both DVDs arrive with the theatrical trailers and liner notes. Not a good idea. This is truly crazy stuff, not at all appropriate for kiddies with a Transformers fixation. Here, cyber-babes use their breasts as weapons and command such transformers as the Diarrhea Monster.
Blu-ray 6 Bullets After almost 30 years in the biz, Sean Bean has emerged as one of the most dependable action stars on the virtually-direct-to-DVD circuit.
It requires him to take out a deeply entrenched terrorist cell, using the same license granted to James Bond and other agents. At first, Ewan is perfectly willing to do his duty for Queen and country. After a while, though, he begins to sense that his mission is serving an entirely different purpose. The DVD adds a making-of featurette. He plays a veteran mercenary — duh — who specializes in child abductions. Not surprisingly, the action is fast, furious and not remotely credible. Who really cares about credibility, though, when the Van Dammes are in the house?
Play in the Gray It would be far too easy to portray the Boston-based dance, music and performance troupe, All the Kings Men, as simply a highly evolved drag act. Comprised of a half-dozen multi-talented lesbian artists, ATKM has built on its drag-king foundation to probe the limits of gender identity and breaking down the barriers that limit sexual choice. It does so through the use of satire and crowd-pleasing comedy.
Some of their observations are directly on-point, while others float in from left field. Off stage, we follow the women along on tour stops and visits to relatives, some of whom are still coming to grips with their sexuality. It might have been even more appropriate if Lumley had lit a cigarette off the sacred flame while trotting along. After 20 years, the AbFab girls may have a few more well-camouflaged wrinkles, but they can still party-hardy and make complete fools of themselves, without realizing — or caring — how foolish they look.
Blu-ray The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Fifth Season Roseanne: The Complete Series Kojak: Gods of the Arena. Indeed, the special makeup effects used in the battle scenes could very well set the standard for nightmares to come. One, it involves time travel from the unforeseeable future, , to the fog of the distant past, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
Remarkably, the Shannon family is able to survive certain destruction — along with the rest of humankind — by escaping to the prehistoric refuge, Terra Nova. Unfortunately, the situation there is similarly tenuous, even 85 million years removed from environmental wasteland that men wrought through their ignorance. Fox took its time cancelling the series, though, hoping Netflix or a cable network would bite on a second season. The new Blu-ray package should get newcomers up to date on what happened during Season Three on the sexy teen melodrama.
In Season Three, when a family of vampire hunters awake from their millennial sleep, none of the residents of Mystic Falls — be they hybrid, ghost, witch, vampire or werewolf — will be safe. They include visits from Dr. Blessedly, it will live forever on DVD, a format far more favorable than reruns. At a time when meathead politicians willingly build walls along our southern border, these young Americans — and possibly a few immigrants who snuck in years earlier — chose to embrace their heritage and interpret it with a Texas accent.
The DVD includes follow-up material on the musicians. This requires the year-old comic actor to re-learn Spanish, so that he can present the show in the language of the people paying good money to see it. He prepares for it as if he were a boxer getting ready for the fight of his life. Once healthy in mind and body, the strongest orphans are moved to a protected reserve in the interior of Borneo.
The new PBS set contains the first and second series, which aired in England in and Double Feature Sherlock Holmes: Challenger feels obligated to go to Africa to fulfill his promise to a local tribal chief, but first must get over himself and settle a nasty feud with a rival. How does one fairly distinguish one adaptation of Holmes material from the more than others that have preceded or succeeded it since ? And they keep right on coming. Holmes completists, more than casual readers, will want to check it out.
My Sucky Teen Romance: Blu-ray There are no larger targets for parody than the conventions that attract obsessive fans of sci-fi, horror and comic-books. Trekkies were the first to find comfort the numbers of like-minded people drawn to such events, but other fanatic fans soon followed suit. The career of year-old genre wunderkind Emily Hagins provides ample evidence to support just such a theory. It has some gory moments, but nothing that would frighten a year-old.
Hagins seems dedicated to portraying teenagers, in all their awkwardness, as just that … kids. Blu-ray The guiding principle behind most stoner comedies — especially those destined for a straight-to-DVD launch — is to spend money on an actor or singer notorious for public consumption of dope and put the expository material in the script in the first 30 minutes. After that point, viewers probably will be too high to appreciate any of what passes for witty repartee and clever gags. Why waste good material when all it takes to get viewers laughing uproariously is a monkey with a bong or a talking squirrel?
Also prominent are the names of Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody, Emmy-winning actor Michael Chiklis, rising star Colin Hanks and some young actors I heard are pretty good. How bad could it be? If he flunks the test, Henry could be demoted to class shmuck and lose his ride to MIT. In fact, the flakey plan works like a charm, stoning everyone from the cheerleading squad to the vice principal. It takes an inordinate amount of time for them to come up with the non sequiturs, ass-backward logic and goofy revelations that distinguish conversations between people who are completely whacked out on drugs.
Much of it I found to be quite funny, if not easily translatable for the consumption of straight audiences. It was almost as if the filmmakers threw away the script, got everyone stoned and told the actors to improvise from experience. The Blu-ray adds a few deleted scenes. The chase begins when motorbike messenger is assigned to do something for a cute singer in a poppy girl group. When she makes the mistake of trying his helmet on for size, a countdown mechanism is automatically triggered and the time left for detonation becomes visible in the wind shield.
Removing the helmet would instantaneously trigger the bomb and the anonymous caller also warns against the pair separating by more than 10 feet. The setup is pretty simple, but director Cho Beom-gu loves to see things blow up real good, especially in crowded urban streets, shopping malls and trains. In fact, the greatest glory is reserved for those leaders who convince their enemy to surrender without a fight. Some disputes are settled over the board game, weiqi a. Basically, though, the story is about a time of great change in China, when sworn brothers in arms, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, are pitted against each other in pursuit of the title of Lord Qin and leadership of the emerging Han Dynasty.
The fighting scenes are as exciting as they usually are in such movies, while the costume and set design work also are splendid. The Blu-ray extras add a long behind-the-scenes featurette and interviews with cast and crew. Jersey Shore Shark Attack: Greedy developers are turning the ocean-side city and amusement park into a ritzy resort for seasonal traffic and the vibrations from the heavy equipment have awoken the creatures from an almost century-long dormancy.
After exhausting all other alternatives, the police chief agrees to let the faux Guidos and Guidettes make an attempt to save the July 4 holiday for local businesses. Syfy regulars know that monster antagonists often perform such impressive acrobatic feats. The Blu-ray edition comes with a making-of featurette. It may seem like a small thing to less-perverted fans, but those of us who care about the English language find it difficult to get past such miscarriages of grammatical justice.
It takes the stars about three minutes to get past their jet lag from the trip home from Italy to head for their favorite barbers, tanning facilities and exfoliators to get back in shape for whatever it is they do. That is, besides eating with their fingers and sleeping in their clothes. No one outside of L. When this happens, the line between parody and splatter completely disappears. An unrelated short featuring John McEnroe is the best thing in the three-disc package. Blu-ray Sometimes it is fun to go back and read the reviews of movies that stirred controversy and outrage movies when they were released.
The difference between then and now is the emergence of niche websites and blogs dedicated to such genre fare. Their criteria are far different than those of mainstream critics, whose opinions are read by a cross-section of readers. The premise to both movies is that several hideous crimes are committed by criminally insane young men to impress their mother, who is a dyed-in-the-wool sadist. In the version, everything is done with an eye toward being as offensive as possible, while also telling something of a story.
In it, three longtime friends hope to revisit the good old days by spending a weekend communing with nature in the woods. Things get worse, of course, before the women figure out a way to fight back. Inadvertently, perhaps, Kaufman and Leight were creating a template that would shape Troma products for years to come. Heavily discounted collections are already available. They include all previously released materials and more than 10 hours of new-to-disc bonus content, as well as five hours of never-before-seen material.
No need to rehash what made the movies so wonderful. So, what about the new stuff and other bonus material? It does this by introducing us to victims and survivors in the hours before the planes hit the WTC and, again, in the minutes before the towers collapsed. Because she focuses so tightly on the average, everyday people impacted by the terrorist attack, she forgoes stories of heroism.
The ordeal these teenagers endure would never have been permitted if the kids grew up in the U. Sadly, potential stars in the Dominican attend baseball schools as they approach 16, knowing they can provide the only escape route from poverty. Someday, maybe sooner than later, you may hear the names, Jean Carlos Batista and Miguel Angel Sano, on baseball broadcasts or called out as they step up to the plate … maybe not. Directed by Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin and Jonathan Paley, the film opens on a deceptively positive high, then, unexpectedly, turns the corner on the depressing chicanery, before ending on the uptick.
Until the beginning of the current season, pitching a no-no was as rare a feat as catching a foul ball with a full cup of beer. Already this year there have been three. The destination is the same, but the path to get there is refreshingly different. People remember him most as the hard-nosed quarterback who led a team of farm boys to an unlikely championship against an Ohio prep powerhouse.
After being injured in that game, Scott Murphy Brian Presley lost his opportunity to star at Ohio State and make a fortune as a pro. Instead of being the macho prick his roughneck buddies recognize, Scott is a mature and chastened young gentleman. His girlfriend Sarah Wright is the prototypical blond cheerleader, whose odds of getting pregnant before Scott enters the NFL draft are prohibitively high.
Instead of giving himself wholeheartedly to the cheerleader, he recognizes the band-geek girl Melanie Lynskey he would marry in real life and raise a family. Neither would androgyny win acceptance as a powerful fashion and lifestyle statement. Today, teenagers are still discovering the many Bowie incarnations and buying his CDs as if he were something very new and different. This gives her plenty of time to make friends with Amy, who was invited to stay in the guest house so the old man can have easy access to her when he comes back from a business trip.
When daddy comes home he finds them in bed and pitches a fit. Seemingly, the thought of having to share his mistress with his daughter — and vice versa — only works in hard-core porn. Her bliss abruptly disturbed, Amy is left wondering what hit her. Give me a break. The other members of the racially and economically diverse cast are experiencing one crisis or another, and not all of them are going to survive their ordeals.
This time, the common denominator is a soccer team comprised, in large part, of the sons of the primary characters. Needless to say, the kids have serious problems of their own with which to deal. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: Blu-ray Cold Creek Manner: Their directors were selected from the top shelf of their profession. He also was a founding member of the Tubes. Three hundred years later, they pick up where they left off in the mischief department.
Few writers sold more books in the s in any genre. Newly available on DVD are episodes from the first two seasons. A third is in production. Blu-ray Once Upon a Time: Blu-ray 2 Broke Girls: If nothing else VanCamp gave the audience something pleasant to look at while the rest of Walkers yelled at each other and swapped gossip they had sworn not to repeat. Her Emily Thorne arrives as an accommodating stranger in a strange land, but quickly evolves into a femme fatale dedicated to avenging the death of her father.
In each episode, Emily constructs intricate plots to discredit and humiliate the people, all of whom summer in the Hamptons, responsible for framing her dad. The acts of revenge are often quite intricate and highly entertaining. On the flip side, the dialogue and much of the acting are laughable. Because he was adopted after the curse was imposed, a boy named Henry is the only resident able to leave Storybrooke and co-exist in both realms. He uses the free pass to track down his birth mother, Emma Jennifer , who, he believes to be the daughter of Snow White Ginnifer Goodwin and Prince Charming Josh Dallas , and the only person capable of lifting the spell.
Considering who owns ABC, the writers probably had few concerns about borrowing liberally from the Disney library. The Blu-ray package offers several entertaining features, including commentaries; fairy-tale history lessons in Maximum Movie Mode; a tour of Storybrooke; interviews with cast members about their favorite stories; deleted scenes and bloopers; and making-of material.
Season Two is scheduled to premiere September CIA officer Carrie Mathison Claire Danes certainly believes that Nicolas Brody Damian Lewis has changed teams during his incarceration and cautions against giving him too much latitude. The Blu-ray package contains commentaries, deleted scenes, a Season Two preview and behind-the-scenes featurette.
Apart from fans of the raunchy Comedy Central roasts, Cummings was a mostly unknown quantity. Insiders appreciated her racy, often self-deprecating approach to standup comedy and willingness to mix it up with the guys. The odd-couple roommates were played by physical opposites Max Kat Dennings and Caroline Beth Behrs , both of whom wait tables in a Brooklyn diner. If nothing else, they made an easy target for easily offended critics. The Complete Second Season: Although the big screen and DVD market had already become saturated with tales of the undead — ranging from good to awful — someone saw room on television for even more zombies, and it became an instant hit.
With that challenge overcome, the producers could focus on turning Season Two into something deeper than a survival thriller. Even the FBI agent assigned to track down a prison escapee there decided to remain as a cop, if only out of curiosity about her own secret past. The Season Two episodes followed a similar pattern to those in the inaugural go-round, with Audrey and Nathan Lucas Bryan solving bizarre crimes and investigating her own secrets. The series is based on a novel by Stephen King.
When two of the best and most devotedly followed shows on television are based on the premise that outlaw motorcycle gangsters and meth cookers are people, too, you know that something has changed fundamentally in the American psyche. Characters most people would be afraid to sit next to in bar now are welcomed into our houses every week on television. Of course, the same can be said about zombies.
The boys are challenged immediately by a new sheriff and U. News that a developer is intent on building an upscale subdivision in Charming also pisses off the Sons. On the plus side — for viewers, anyway — is the introduction of Danny Trejo in a storyline that reads as if it were written just for him.
Gary Dretzka « Movie City News
In Season Four, the characters learn that human love may be as strong a force in the universes as anything else. Apparently, the upcoming season will be its last. The show easily survived the loss and will live to see yet another season. In Season Nine, Jake had a transition of his own to make and the passage was a tad rocky. And, so it goes. Even after all these years toiling on the standup plantation, he can still get away with material about fast-food restaurants, resisting the temptation to get in shape and being a lazy husband.
The movie made a very good case for the argument that chemist and art collector Albert C. The only thing most people know about romance novels is that their primary contribution to culture is the beatification of Fabio and other models who personify passionate love and hidden desire. A prolific author describes the formulaic structure of the novels and how he meets the specific demands of his readers. A woman in Japan has been inspired by her favorite characters to master ballroom dancing; an Indian woman hopes that by dressing more like a siren she can lure her estranged husband back home; and an English woman travels fantasy worlds while her husband smokes cigarettes and watches the telly.
The film argues persuasively that frivolity is only the eyes of the beholder. His Make It Right Foundation commissioned several internationally prominent architects to design homes that were affordable, green, flood resistant, attractive and functional, while also maintaining a neighborhood feel. One of the guiding principles of music appreciation, at least for laymen, is not to overthink the joy it brings. If a song or rhythm makes you want to dance, snap your fingers or bang your head … do it.
In fact, researchers have determined that the last part of the brain to deteriorate is the one to appreciate music. The documentary profiles 11 20th Century presidents, with an eye toward demonstrating how they shaped the office and left their mark on the country. The Second Civil War. In academia, footnotes are what separate fact from speculation and outright fantasy.
On television, viewers are at the mercy of research assistants and producers, who, we assume, read the footnotes for us. Columbia PhD David Eisenbach assumes a casual approach while revealing the trivia behind the headlines and gossip and conducting dopey man-and-on-the-street interviews with people who, not surprisingly, are ignorant of such minutiae.
It must be frustrating to be a publisher of textbooks on paleontology. I stopped keeping track after my son lost interest in pursuing a career in the science, when he was 6 or 7. Some people never waver in their love of dinosaurs and experience orgasms with the discovery of each new species. Among the fresh reptilian faces introduced here are the gigantic Spinosaurus; marine creature, Predator X; and the cannibalistic Majunasaurus. The immersive experience combines 3D graphics and CGI to create photo-realistic fight scenes unlike previous efforts. The toy prompted interest from television executives, who experimented with an animated mini-series.
Before long, images of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo could be found everywhere. The cleverly named crimefighters — genetically mutated turtles that lived in the sewers of New York City — served at the behest of a mutant ninja rat, Master Splinter, whose nemesis, Shredder, controlled the evil Foot Clan. Another product of genetic experimentation, Venus was swept down the sewer system at the same time as the other turtles, but ended up in China. While there, she studied with a martial-arts discipline called Shinobi, which would come in handy when forced to deal with new villains Dragon Lord, Bonesteel and Vam Mi.
The series lasted only one season and 26 episodes. Among them are trouble-making cat, Gumball Watterson; Darwin Watterson, a goldfish with legs; short-tempered sister, Anais; mother Nichole, a workaholic cat; and father Richard, a large stay-at-home rabbit. Instead of their instruments, they discover a possibly devastating weapon.
It makes them a target for someone other than their teeny-bopper fans. Located at the geographical center of the continent, the onetime French colony is just a tad smaller than Texas. Since gaining its independence in , there have been several successful coups and a few that have failed. They are, perhaps, less expensive than holding elections.
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Despite such abundant resources as timber, gold, diamonds, uranium and oil, the CAR is one of the least developed countries in the world and its citizens are among the poorest. The CAR was the first destination suggested to Brugger after he illegally obtained a Liberian diplomatic passport from a shady character in Portugal. And, boy, did he take to the part. Looking like a cross between Hunter S. I learned that if I were a black, people there would be more suspicious of me.
His government contact was so warmed by this that he assigned two pygmies to accompany the faux businessmen wherever he went. Not surprisingly, the festivities involve lots of homemade hooch. Institutional corruption is fueled not by racism or political beliefs, though. They display no higher thoughts on the role of women … who are simply considered to be of lesser importance. We wonder if Brugger suddenly had figured out what we already knew — that he was being played like a violin— and was pushing the envelope on the ruse.
Brugger decided to end the charade when he learned that the head of state security — a veteran of the French Foreign Legion — had been murdered. The CAR may look small and insignificant on a map, but its natural resources are extremely valuable to countries in need of uranium and oil. The competition between the French and Chinese is especially ferocious. Turns out, Brugger sold the diamonds in-country and donated the money to the pygmies. Ironically, when he was passing through Customs on his way out of the country, the special police unit assigned to monitor such traffic welcomed him by name and waved him through the inspection point.
Naturally, it briefly occurred to Brugger that the bribes paid off and he could have gotten away with murder. Reporters never leave their desk. Embarrassed by the revelation of how easy it was to get phony documents in its name, the government of Liberia threatened him with a lawsuit.
Other individuals, whose incomes might have suffered from the revelations, could be inspired to skip the courtroom. Back in the day, all it took to play the Battleship guessing game was a pencil; illegally mimeographed sheets of papers replicating the grids on the Milton Bradley board; and a folded-over checker board to prevent cheating. It provided simple, time-consuming and free fun on a rainy day. Today, of course, the game is a staple of computer gaming and anything but free.
In Hollywood, the good guys always win, but not without a struggle. It works, if only fitfully. Is it a coincidence that the inner workings of the alien battleship so closely resemble the start-up screen on an Android phone? The only way it could have been less appropriate is if co-star Rhianna had been asked to sing it, instead of using the original John Fogerty version. The critics have always favored silent classics, but this one came straight out of left field.
Why stop there, though? Both provide a captivating cinematic experience and are now readily available in DVD. Mann Page and Edward T. That they live next-door to each other in a residence hotel, but have never met, has become one of the enduring ironies in romances set in Manhattan.
That two characters so desperate for companionship would finally meet on a beach teeming with overheated people, on the 4th of July, borders on the miraculous. They go on to sample nearly every attraction Coney Island has to offer, dance up a storm and fall hopelessly in love. He attempts to rescue her, but a boneheaded NYPD officer intercedes.
Another unexpected coincidence allows them to reunite as the picture nears the minute mark. The former tells a Mamet-esque story about a famous entertainer, Erik the Great, who must resort to magic when an act of kindness toward a stranger threatens to deny him the love of his assistant and freedom. The music and dancing are a joy to watch, even when the story lags. The nearly lost movie has been cobbled together from pieces of found film and reconstructions of still-missing audio tracks. The history of the production numbers, as recalled by cinematographer Hal Mohr, also is fascinating. Not satisfied with mastering one demanding discipline, Fejos excelled as a theater and opera designer, medical researcher, explorer, anthropologist and documentary maker.
The booklet, which contains essays by critic Phil Lopatae and historian Graham Petrie, as well as material from interviews with the artist, should be considered must-reading. Like Harlequin Romance novels and Lifetime Original movies, the films adapted from books written by Nicolas Sparks are constructed from a time-tested template.
The young-adult characters are almost freakishly attractive, while the older ones carry the wisdom of the ages in their back pockets and purses. The romantic interludes can be sexy, but only in a wholesome kind of way. Back home Norbit Orbit develops a strange illness and must return to Planet Kat to find a cure and so begins book three. Read more Read less.
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