DVD

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Brute Force

The movie that started an astonishing string of five noir classics from director Jules Dassin, Brute Force is one hell of a prison picture. Dassin would reach higher cinematic elevations with his following works The Naked City, Thieves Highway, Night and the City and Rififi. But Brute Force remains a striking achievement, a movie that both follows the rubric of noir cine-rhetoric and offers an exceptional subtext that even today plays as wildly (and noticeably) symbolic. The film is a will- they...

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Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - HD DVD

French music video director Michel Gondry has done the impossible, something that not even Peter Weir or Milos Forman could manage. He has elicited a fully sympathetic, engaging and even nuanced dramatic performance from Jim Carrey. The rubber-faced comedian has tried his hand at serious drama a few times before, usually either unable to suppress his obnoxious tendencies or (much like Robin Williams) going overboard by confusing somber rigidity with subtlety. It is truly amazing, therefore, that...

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The Panic in Needle Park

Before Jerry Schatzberg’s 1971 drama The Panic in Needle Park I thought addicts were addicted to drugs. And while that’s true, top-billed Al Pacino and Kitty Winn made me realize that addicts are also addicted to other addicts. Bobby (Pacino) and Helen (Winn) need each other as much as they need heroin. Their relationship has the same signs of co-dependency and withdrawal that are hallmarks of abuse. The pair waste their days in Needle Park, the corner of Broadway and 72nd Street...

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Dinosaurs: The Complete Third and Fourth Seasons

As a viewer, I have no problem with politics. If you have a philosophical or administrative perspective, show it to me. Let me know what you think. I may not agree with you, but in this increasingly litigious information age, it’s becoming more and more important to me as a devourer of culture (and an American, if you really want to get into it) that people get a chance to speak their minds and broadcast the kinds of ideas that really get them flying. The good news is that Dinosaurs &ndash...

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Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series

Believe the hype: It’s that good. I remember seeing a couple of ads for Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel; watched in a cursory fashion, the multi-part documentary looks like just another ‘ooo! look at the animals!’ piece that The Discovery Channel airs with their usual frequency. But it takes less than five minutes of viewing to cement Planet Earth as one of the most visually appealing documentaries to ever have hit television sets: It’s a bona fide classic.If there...

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Full House: The Complete Sixth Season

I specifically remember making time in my schedule (as did my cousins and friends) to have butt on floor in front of the TV in time for TGIF to start each Friday night. Family Matters may have been good and Perfect Strangers may have been great, but Full House was also a standard, and I went out of my way never to miss it. Was it a good show? Hell, no. Did it ever have even the most moderate sheen of being anything more than a pitifully cheesy, outrageously saccharine excuse to have characters...