Thursday, December 1, 2011

Face Off

  • * Widescreen Version. Special Features include:
  • * Commentaries by Director John Woo and Writers Mike Werb and Michael Colleary
  • * 7 Deleted Scenes - Including an Alternate Ending (with Optional Commentary)
  • * English DTS 6.1 * English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX * French 2.0 Surround
  • * Languages - English, French. * Subtitles - English, French, Spanish.
At his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo's first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise--hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fiction plastic surgery--and creates a double-barreled revenge film driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travol! ta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage's tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist's reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers clichés to a conflict of near-mythic level! s. --Sean AxmakerStudio: Paramount Home Video Release ! Date: 08 /17/2010 Run time: 140 minutes Rating: RAt his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo's first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise--hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fiction plastic surgery--and creates a double-barreled revenge film driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage's tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man! who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist's reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers clichés to a conflict of near-mythic levels. --Sean AxmakerStudio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 12/09/2008At his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo's first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise--hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fict! ion plastic surgery--and creates a double-barreled revenge fil! m driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage's tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist's reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama! and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers clichés to a conflict of near-mythic levels. --Sean Axmaker

Battlefield Earth

Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel

  • ISBN13: 9780060529703
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.

The simplest thing would be to describe Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer's accomplished debut, as a novel about the Holocaust. It is, but that really fails to do justice to the sheer ambition of ! this book. The main story is a grimly familiar one. A young Jewish American--who just happens to be called Jonathan Safran Foer--travels to the Ukraine in the hope of finding the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He is aided in his search by Alex Perchov, a naïve Ukrainian translator, Alex's grandfather (also called Alex), and a flatulent mongrel dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. On their journey through Eastern Europe's obliterated landscape they unearth facts about the Nazi atrocities and the extent of Ukrainian complicity that have implications for Perchov as well as Safran Foer. This narrative is not, however, recounted from (the character) Jonathan Safran Foer's perspective. It is relayed through a series of letters that Alex sends to Foer. These are written in the kind of broken Russo-English normally reserved for Bond villains or Latka from Taxi. Interspersed between these letters are fragments of a novel by Safran Foer--a wonderfully imagined, almo! st magical realist, account of life in the shtetl before the N! azis des troyed it. These are in turn commented on by Alex, creating an additional metafictional angle to the tale.

If all this sounds a little daunting, don't be put off; Safran Foer is an extremely funny as well as intelligent writer who combines some of the best Jewish folk yarns since Isaac Bashevis Singer with a quite heartbreaking meditation on love, friendship, and loss. --Travis Elborough, Amazon.co.uk

Battle in Seattle

  • In November of 1999, Seattle broke into a full-scale state of emergency as thousands of peaceful protestors gathered in resistance to the World Trade Organization. The city s mayor, a SWAT cop on the streets and his pregnant wife, and four demonstrators are caught in the crossfire as their lives intersect in the ensuing riots. Stuart Townsend, in his debut writing and directing role, seamlessly me
In November of 1999, Seattle broke into a full-scale state of emergency as thousands of peaceful protestors gathered in resistance to the World Trade Organization. The city?s mayor, a SWAT cop on the streets and his pregnant wife, and four demonstrators are caught in the crossfire as their lives intersect in the ensuing riots. Stuart Townsend, in his debut writing and directing role, seamlessly merges actual footage of the devastating chaos with brilliant performances.
For five days in 1999, all! eyes were on Seattle. Irish actor Stuart Townsend makes his directorial debut with a multi-character recreation of the World Trade Organization’s ill-fated U.S. conference. If the structure recalls Crash and Babel, Townsend intensifies the you-are-there quality through well-integrated archival footage. The docudrama opens with the arrival of a group of anti-globalization activists, led by Jay (The Ring's Martin Henderson), whose compatriots include Lou (Lost's Michelle Rodriguez) and Django (Outkast's André "3000" Benjamin, who provides a welcome dose of humor). As fictional Mayor Jim Tobin (Ray Liotta, wearing a touch too much eyeliner) tries to maintain order, TV reporter Jean (Connie Nielsen) strives for objectivity, police officer Woody Harrelson attempts to carry out the mayor's orders, and Dale's pregnant wife, Ella (Charlize Theron, Townsend's real-life girlfriend), just hopes to make it home in one piece (she gets stuck downtown at th! e height of the skirmish). Townsend admits he was inspired by ! Mediu m Cool, which filmmaker Haskell Wexler shot during 1968's Democratic National Convention. Paul Greengrass's Bloody Sunday also seems like a possible influence, and Greengrass regular Barry Ackroyd serves as cinematographer. If the characters rarely come alive the way they should, the action sequences easily convince, which is particularly impressive considering the bulk of filming took place in nearby Vancouver, B.C. A true labor of love, Battle in Seattle presents a more balanced view than most accounts to date--even if Townsend ultimately (and understandably) sides with the peaceful protesters and passionate Third World representatives. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition (Dune Chronicles, Book 1)

  • ISBN13: 9780441013593
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
The all-time science fiction masterpiece...now in a special hardcover edition.

"Unique...I know nothing comparable to it except Lord of the Rings."--Arthur C. Clarke

Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family--and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of wh! at is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.

The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim wha! t's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than j! ust a us urped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. --Brooks Peck

Four Lions [Special Edition][UK, 2010] DVD

  • "Lost Boys" Documentary, Interviews, Deleted Scenes
A whip-smart, slapstick comedy, Chris Morris’ Four Lions takes aim at Jihadi suicide bombers and illuminates the war on terror through satire and farce. Follow five inept aspiring terrorists on their quest to strike a blow, and how they demonstrate that terrorism may be about ideology, but it can also be about idiots.A whip-smart, slapstick comedy, Chris Morris’ Four Lions takes aim at Jihadi suicide bombers and illuminates the war on terror through satire and farce. Follow five inept aspiring terrorists on their quest to strike a blow, and how they demonstrate that terrorism may be about ideology, but it can also be about idiots.A handful of young men set out to take on the decadent West but are more of a threat to themselves than anyone else in this shockingly hilarious black comedy. Driven by irrepressible delusions of g! randeur, Omar and his friends - English Muslims - decide to become soldiers of the jihad and stage an attack against the United Kingdom which will open the gates of paradise and, along the way, give them the chance to meet Osama Bin Laden. But are Omar and his partners a legitimate threat to the safety of Great Britain, or just four half-bright twenty-somethings with more bluster than imagination?

This uncut special edition features an exclusive documentary, interviews, and deleted scenes. It is packaged in a limited-edition slipcase. Audio is in English, and available in Dolby 2.0 or 5.1 surround sound. English subtitles are also available. This DVD is anamorphic widescreen.

April's Shower

  • Trish Doolan s debut feature is a charming comedy that questions how far one would go for true love. On the morning of April s wedding shower, we meet Alex (Trish Doolan), a chef put out by her attempt to host the perfect shower while struggling with her tangled relationship with the bride-to-be. One by one, eclectic guests trickle into Alex s house, bringing their own hilarious insecurities and p
A look inside a tragedy through the eyes of a survivor. Based on actual events, April Showers is about picking up the pieces in the direct aftermath of school violence. Set in a middle class suburban neighborhood, April Showers focuses on the lives of a handful of teachers and students as they attempt to make sense of a world that has just been turned upside down by one of their own. With the community and an entire nation caught up in the 'story', the students of Jefferson High must turn to one ano! ther for answers. In the wake atrocity, the rifts caused by misinformation and a frenzied media prove difficult to overcome. Lost and lonely under the international spotlight, one young man navigates his way through his almost indiscernible home. From quaint suburban town to battlefield turned media circus, Jefferson High provides the backdrop for Sean's struggle to cope with the loss of his friend April. [US Import, NTSC Region 1]Trish Doolan's debut feature is a charming comedy that questions how far one would go for true love. On the morning of April's wedding shower, we meet Alex (Trish Doolan), a chef put out by her attempt to host the perfect shower while struggling with her tangled relationship with the bride-to-be. One by one, eclectic guests trickle into Alex's house, bringing their own hilarious insecurities and peculiar life situations with them. When bride-to-be April arrives, it becomes clear that the secret Alex is hiding will affect the course of her life! , and the future of almost everyone at the shower.

Fled : Widescreen Edition

  • Widescreen
Two dangerously mismatched convicts are thrown into a wild race to outwit, outrun and outgun vicious enemies on both sides of the law in this high-impact thriller bristling with high-speed adventure,mind-blowing stunts and nonstop action! After escaping from a prison chain gang, Piper (Laurence Fishburne) and Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) find themselves handcuffed togetherand at each others' throats! Relentlessly hunted through the Georgia wilderness, the reluctant allies fight their way into the underground of Atlanta, battling the authoritiesand each otherall the way. But when Dodge'sconnection to $25 million in stolen loot attracts mob assassins and corrupt government officials, the action is propelled into a deadly new dimension. With no place to hide, and everything to lose, Piper and Dodge embark on a blazing, take-no-prisoners quest to secure the key to their survival: a compute! r disk that could blow the lid off of a high-level scam.In the road-movie-reluctant-pals genre, Fled goes down a road well-taken and still manages to get lost. Defiant ones Piper (Laurence Fishburne) and Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) escape from their chain gang when a prison break/shootout begins. Evading rednecks and faceless policemen they make it to Atlanta where "smart-ass" Dodge (who delivers one-liners that do a disservice to smart-asses everywhere) has to recover a computer disk. They are aided and abetted by Cora (Salma Hayek--this time using a funny hat, instead of her breasts, for character development), who takes the convicts in as if she were picking up college buddies from the airport. Maybe she realizes what great guys these prison-garbed buffoons are. They donate money to charity. They save dying rednecks. They rescue little boys from oncoming cars. Unfortunately, they can't save any of Dodge's old associates, like his stripper-with-an-apartment-of-gold gir! lfriend or his fellow computer hacker, from getting shot up by! Cuban M afia thugs that want that disk! Laurence Fishburne is the main reason to see the film, but that's a stretch, and Stephen Baldwin seems nothing like the same searing actor seen in The Usual Suspects. --Keith Simanton In the road-movie-reluctant-pals genre, Fled goes down a road well-taken and still manages to get lost. Defiant ones Piper (Laurence Fishburne) and Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) escape from their chain gang when a prison break/shootout begins. Evading rednecks and faceless policemen they make it to Atlanta where "smart-ass" Dodge (who delivers one-liners that do a disservice to smart-asses everywhere) has to recover a computer disk. They are aided and abetted by Cora (Salma Hayek--this time using a funny hat, instead of her breasts, for character development), who takes the convicts in as if she were picking up college buddies from the airport. Maybe she realizes what great guys these prison-garbed buffoons are. They donate money to charity.! They save dying rednecks. They rescue little boys from oncoming cars. Unfortunately, they can't save any of Dodge's old associates, like his stripper-with-an-apartment-of-gold girlfriend or his fellow computer hacker, from getting shot up by Cuban Mafia thugs that want that disk! Laurence Fishburne is the main reason to see the film, but that's a stretch, and Stephen Baldwin seems nothing like the same searing actor seen in The Usual Suspects. --Keith Simanton DVD
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