Do the Right Thing (1989) 2 x DVD9 Criterion Collection

Spike Lee produced, directed, wrote, and stars in Do the Right Thing, a powerful and poignant portrait of contemporary urban life.

The film looks at the hottest day in New York in one neighborhood (Bedford Stuy) and the relationships and behaviors of its residents. We have Lee himself as a pizza boy, Ossie Davis as a neighborhood drunk and Danny Aiello as the pizza store owner among many other characters. These characters have deep resentments, hatred and bigotry that, in this film, explode into violence.

Do the Right Thing is a cautionary tale that graphically depicts the racial hatred seething just beneath the surface in cities across the country. It is a scary and sad glimpse of the divisive bigotry that still remains an open wound on the soulscape of America.

2xDVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 02:00:00 | 15.5 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: English

Director: Spike Lee
Cast: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, John Turturro, Spike Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Martin Lawrence
Country: USA
Genre: Drama, Comedy
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Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (2015) DVD9

Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) led one of the great uncategorizable 20th-century lives. Poor little rich girl? Sexual libertine? Scandalous memoirist? Parisian emigre? Venetian doyenne? Influential art collector? Even more influential gallery owner? All of the above.
If that weren't enough, her second husband was the painter Max Ernst, and her lovers included Samuel Beckett, Paul Bowles, Constantin Brancusi, and, if only for one night, Jackson Pollock.

Lisa Vreeland's documentary about Peggy Guggenheim not only presents her in (mostly) her own words, but shows that she was an incredibly prescient personality whose life mirrored the same untamable and tortured artists whose work she later fervently championed.

Fashioned from black and white photos and firsthand accounts of her life and work, the real impetus for Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict is the ability to hear Peggy from a series of recordings — taken for a magazine interview conducted shortly before her death in 1979 and originally thought to be lost — in which she drolly muses about her sordid love affairs, personal sadness and love for the modern art she amassed. All of this is weaved together to create a documentary that informs and entertains.
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The New World (2005) 4 x DVD9 and 3 x Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Having chiseled his teeth with Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line -- three divisive films spread over twenty-five years -- Malick turned his attention to the intertwined 17th century stories of English soldier and new world explorer Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell), Powhatan princess and emissary Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher), and settler and tobacco farmer John Rolfe (Christian Bale). The writer/director's fifth film opens in 1607 as three colonial ships arrive on the shores of a region destined to become Virginia. With a script cobbled together from historical accounts and accepted folklore, Malick introduces a rather unorthodox incarnation of Smith, follows him into the heart of Powhatan territory, details his initial encounters with Pocahontas and her father (August Schellenberg), and documents the period of time Smith spent living with the natives. Sadly, as the European presence stirs up hostility amongst the Powhatan people, violence erupts, pinning Smith and Pocahontas, now lovers, between two enemies...

Criterion's release of The New World contains three very different versions of the film: a newly remastered Extended Cut which is approximately 172 minutes long, First Cut which is approximately 150 minutes long, and Theatrical Cut which is approximately 136 minutes long. There are substantial differences between the three, with the Extended Cut expanding various sequences with brand new footage. The Extended Cut was supervised by director Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.

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Navajo Joe / Red Fighter / Navajo’s Land (1966) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Koch Media

Burt Reynolds stars as Joe, a Navajo warrior out for revenge when a gang of sadistic outlaws slaughters his woman and tribe. The gang, led by the ridiculously nefarious Duncan (Aldo Sambrell), a half-breed with hatred for the entire human race coursing through his veins, has been butchering Indians for their scalps, which are then sold for a dollar each. This, of course, leads Duncan and his men to the bad side of Joe, who begins systematically hunting the evil bastards. When Duncan and his men make plans to rob a train headed for the peace-loving town of Esperanza, Joe manages to thwart their plan. From there, Joe convinces the townspeople to pay him a bounty of Duncan and his gang--one dollar from each person in town, for every outlaw Joe scalps--which leads to an inevitable massacre of not-so epic proportions.

BD25 + DVD9 | 1080p AVC, PAL | 01:32:25 | 20.6 Gb + 7.29 Gb
Language: Deutsch, Italiano, English, Russian(DVD only)
Subtitles: Deutsch
Genre: Spaguetti Western

Director: Sergio Corbucci
Actors: Burt Reynolds, Aldo Sambrell, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Fernando Rey, Tanya Lopert, Franca Polesello, Lucia Modugno
Music: Ennio Morricone (as Leo Nichols)
Country: Italy, Spain
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Music of Central Asia Vol. 1: Tengir-Too: Mountain Music from Kyrgyzstan (2006) DVD5

The music of Kyrgyzstan is in many ways influenced by the geography of the region. The music has traditionally been directly linked to a nomadic way of life.

Tengir-Too is a new ensemble that plays old music. The group takes its name from the mountain range that towers over the high alpine passes linking Kyrg-yzstan and China and that is better known by its Chinese name, Tien Shan: "Celestial Mountains." Founded and directed by Nurlanbek Nyshanov, a gifted composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, Tengir-Too provides a living laboratory for Nyshanov's efforts to find a voice for Kyrgyz music in the contemporary cultural marketplace. Kyrgyz music is rooted in the sensibility of nomads who inhabit a spectacular landscape of mountains, lakes, and pristine grasslands where the elemental energies of wind, water, and echo, the ubiquity of birds and animals, and the legendary feats of heroes have inspired a remarkable art and technology of sound-making.

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 00:22:41 | 1.69 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Kyrgyz
Subtitles: English hardcoded
Genre: Documentary

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Bedways (2010) DVD5

BEDWAYS is the first full length feature film by German director (of just a few shorts) and actor - Rolf Peter Kahl (working here as R.P.Kahl). It's set in a beautifully neon-lit Berlin.
Director Nina Bader wants to shoot a film about love and sex and invites her actor-friends Hans and Marie for screen tests for a couple of days. For Nina love is not necessarily a matter of emotion – she is looking for an authentic depiction of sex. The intimate collaboration turns into experiments with film, love and bodies and finally has an impact on the private relationships between the three of them. As the production gets under way and the atmosphere on the set grows thick with lust, the barrier between reality and cinema begins to vanish, sweeping all three up in a libertine whirlwind of flesh and desire.

DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 01:15:18 | 4.07 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: English, Deutsch
Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Rolf Peter Kahl (as RP Kahl)
Cast: Miriam Mayet, Matthias Faust, Lana Cooper
Country: Germany
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La symphonie pastorale / Pastoral Symphony (1946) DVD9

The pastor of a mountain village adopts a small blind girl, Gertrude. As Gertrude grows up into an attractive young woman the pastor, now middle-aged, realises that he is in love with her. To his chagrin, his adopted son, Jean, is also in love with Gertrude, even though he is shortly to be married to another woman. Jean's fiancee is jealous of Gertrude and arranges for her to see a doctor in the hope that she might be cured and to enable Jean to choose equally between the two women. Miraculously, Gertrude's sight is restored and she returns to the village a changed woman. Unable to accept Jean's love and disappointed by the pastor's affections for her, she realises that her former happiness has been lost forever.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 01:42:41 | 6.02 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Francais
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama

Director: Jean Delannoy
Cast: Pierre Blanchar, Michele Morgan, Line Noro, Jean Desailly
Country: France
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Shtikat Haarchion / Geheimsache Ghettofilm / A Film Unfinished (2010) DVD9

This film is the quest for the truth behind one of the most mysterious Nazi propaganda films ever shot in the Warsaw Ghetto. The film, which was shot just a short time before the deportation of the inhabitants of the ghetto, is a rough first draft of a silent film that juxtaposes meticulously staged scenes of Jews enjoying a life of luxury in the ghetto with other, chilling images that required no staging at all.

Ironically, after the war, filmmakers and museums used images from the film as objective illustrations of the narratives they had collected from witnesses and written documents. Few people were aware of the cynical manner in which these images were created and the true, yet inconceivable witness they bear. The cinematic deception was forgotten and the black and white images remain engraved in memory as historical truth.

This potent documentary uses a long-lost film reel to illustrate how the Nazis controlled images of Jewish life during World War II. Though the Nazis made a propaganda movie of contented Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, the missing spool exposes the truth. Director Yael Hersonski shows how the imagery was staged to distort historical knowledge and, with the aid of Jewish survivors' testimony, chronicles the horrifying reality of ghetto life.
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Sleeping Dogs (1977) Blu-Ray Arrow Academy

Having been dumped by his wife for another man, Smith drives off into the countryside, seeking to escape both his own heartbreak and the political upheaval that has turned New Zealand into a quasi fascist state, with leftist rebels battling a far right government. Smith wants no part of such violence, and when he finds a secluded small island with a reasonably priced rent, he thinks he's got it made.

One night, Smith observes a fire in the distance on the mainland, and the following morning a squad of cops arrive to arrest him, accusing him of being a terrorist and of killing a man in a bombing the previous night. Smith is thrown into a cell and left to rot for several days before being informed he is to be tried for treason, a charge which carries the death sentence, but he will be allowed to leave the country if he confesses to his role in the revolution. Smith refuses to offer a false confession and manages to escape on the way to the courthouse, becoming a wanted fugitive...

Director: Roger Donaldson
Cast: Sam Neill, Nevan Rowe, Ian Mune, Warren Oates
Country: New Zealand
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
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Collection Daniel Kamwa: Pousse-pousse / Tricycle Man (1976), Notre fille / Our Daughter (1980), Boubou cravate (1972), Totor (1994), Le cercle des pouvoirs / Circle of Powers (1998) 4 x DVD

Daniel Kamwa was born in Nkongsamba, Cameroon in 1943 and later moved to Paris where he also studied cinema. He joined Peter Brook's comedy troupe as an actor in 1968 before leaving to work in theater, film and television. He directed his first short film, Boubou Cravate, in 1972, and his first feature in 1976: Pousse-Pousse, one of the most popular and successful films shown in francophone Africa at that time.

In 1981 he directed "Notre Fille", which won the prize for the best actor in Carthage in 1982, "Totor" (1994), which won the UNICEF Prize at Fespaco in 1995 and was selected for the Cannes junior section in 1995. He has also directed many documentaries as well as programs on black writers, "Videolire" (1990-91). He directed "Le Cercle des Pouvoirs" (1997).

4xDVD | NTSC | 420 mins | 19.6 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Francais
Subtitles: English
Genre: Comedy, Drama

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Boogie Nights (1997) DVD9, Blu-Ray

A film about the porn industry may seem shocking or offensive to some, but Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights is more than merely an expose on the exploits of porn. Boogie Nights is a colorful, emotional drama about the halcyon days of the industry and the real people within it.

The year is 1977. Nightclubs pulsate with the sounds of disco music, and men think tight pants and platform shoes are a killer combination. In a California club, 17-year-old dishwasher Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) dreams of joining this instant-thrill nirvana. He gets his chance when Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) makes him an offer he can't refuse: to be a star. He's talking about porno flicks, and he hears that Eddie is amply endowed for his line of business.

When Eddie joins Jack's production group, he becomes part of a bizarre but rather wonderful family, with Horner as the patriarch, porno actress Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) as the surrogate mother and Rollergirl (Heather Graham) as the sort-of sister. Changing his name to Dirk Diggby, Eddie becomes a rapid success. But the rise to fame has its costs, and soon Dirk finds himself sliding down the slippery slope of sex, drugs and violence...

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A Raisin in the Sun (1961) 2 x DVD and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

The first filmed adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's landmark Broadway play, Daniel Petrie's A Raisin in the Sun (1961) still rings true for all the right and wrong reasons. It stars Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Claudia McNeil as three divided members of a Chicago family who'd love nothing more than to escape their cramped apartment...but they all have different ideas on how to do it. Their plans all come from the same source: a $10,000 life insurance check issued to matriarch Lena Younger (McNeil) after the recent death of her husband. Lena plans to put a down payment on a roomy house in the suburbs and send her daughter Beneatha (Diana Sands) to medical school. But her brash son Walter Lee (Poitier) has bigger ambitions: to invest all $10,000 in a liquor store with two friends and, hopefully, make a lot more money in the long run. Walter's wife Ruth (Dee), meanwhile, is trapped in the middle; she wants to support her husband, but his short temper and impatience have been straining their marriage in recent years. Their son Travis (Stephen Perry), who sleeps on the living room couch, rarely sees them fight but it's practically unavoidable.

Director: Daniel Petrie
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee
Country: USA
Genre: Drama
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Je suis le seigneur du chateau / I’m the King of the Castle (1989) DVD5, DVD9

After the death of his wife, Jean Breaud, decides to hire a maid for his son. Relatives recommend to him a Ms. Vernet and he decides that she will be an excellent choice. Ms. Vernet has a son of the same age as his own and he hopes that the boys will become playmates and friends. However things don't go as planned. Thomas (Breaud's son) is a spoiled and yet fragile rich kid. To him, Charles the son of the maid, is an intruder and he decides to make his life as miserable as possible. He develops a plan to get Charles and his mother out of his father's castle.
As the boys' feuding intensifies, they hardly notice the burgeoning romance between their two lonely parents...

It was the second film to be directed by Regis Wargnier, whose next feature, Indochine (1992) won him critical acclaim and a brace of awards, including an Oscar, a BAFTA, and five Cesars.

Director: Regis Wargnier
Cast: Jean Rochefort, Dominique Blanc, Regis Arpin, David Behar
Country: France
Genre: Drama, Thriller
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The Jericho Mile (1979) Blu-Ray and DVD5 Kino Lorber, DVD5

Michael Mann's debut feature is a story about striving for greatness even when there is no chance to succeed.
Larry (Peter Strauss) is serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for murder -- a crime he freely admits to committing, prepared to serve out his time by attracting as little outside attention as possible. He focuses on running, circling around a makeshift track in the exercise yard, keeping to himself as he travels at impressive speeds, catching the attention of Dr. Bill (Geoffrey Lewis) and Warden Earl (Billy Green Bush). Sensing something special about Larry's endurance, prison officials bring in Coach Jerry (Ed Lauter) to help educate the inmate on the finer points of long- distance running, with plans to test his abilities against the pros, teasing a possible future in the Olympics if Larry decides to play along with the training peacefully. Larry is interested in the possibility of running his way out of Folsom, but his reputation needs work with officials, while his only friend, Stiles (Richard Lawson), is eager to hold his newborn daughter, getting caught up in prison gang business run by Dr. D (Brian Dennehy) and Cotton Crown (Roger E. Mosley) to win his shot at a family reunion.

Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Peter Strauss, Richard Lawson, Roger E. Mosley
Country: USA
Genre: Crime, Drama, Sport

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