Prisoner of the Mountains / Kavkazskiy plennik / Кавказский пленник (1996) DVD9

Two Russian soldiers, Gilin Vanya (Sergei Bodrov jr.) and Sacha (Oleg Menshikov) are captured in an ambush by Chechen rebels. Taken to a mountain village, they find themselves as hostages of Abdul-Mourant (Djemal Sikharulidze), an older man who wants to exchange them for his own son who has been captured by the Russians.
Initially, Sacha and Vania, divided by their age and experience have no understanding or liking for each other, though, being chained together in a primitive hut, they're forced to get to know each other. A friendship grows as these men laugh together and share memories, and they develop personal ties to the handful of villages they see every day. A charming empathy develops between young Vania and Dina, a pre-pubescent local girl who already has a husband chosen for her...

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:34:38 | 5.23 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Russian, Turkish
Subtitles: English, Turkish, Francais, Espanol
Genre: Drama, War

Director: Sergey Bodrov
Cast: Oleg Menshikov, Sergey Bodrov Jr., Susanna Mekhraliyeva, Jemal Sikharulidze
Country: Russia, Kazakhstan
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Bomb the System (2002) DVD9

In the first feature length film in over 20 years to focus on graffiti, Anthony 'Blest' is one of the most talented and notorious artists in New York City. Despite the tragic loss of his older brother during a nightly bombing foray with a graffiti crew, Anthony has the same insatiable addiction. With the other members of his crew, Justin and Kevin, Anthony parties, shoplifts spray-paint, and tags virgin walls with his signature - "Blest". He does his best to avoid run-ins with the cops and hostile rival crews, but he can't avoid the pressure from his mother to attend college, and from his girlfriend to leave New York with her. After a physical threat from the cops, Blest's crew declares an all out war on the city and intensifies their bombing excursions. When the inevitable confrontation happens, a tragedy results that pushes Anthony to make a decision that has darker consequences. Bomb The System is an unforgettable portrait of the often-misunderstood art form and culture of graffit i.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 01:27:44 | 6.81 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: Svenska, Dansk, Norsk, Suomi
Genre: Action, Drama

Director: Adam Bhala Lough
Cast: Jade Yorker, Jaclyn DeSantis, Mark Webber
Country: USA
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La balia / The Nanny (1999) DVD9

A Pirandello adaptation set in pre-World War I, The Nanny examines the subject of motherhood, a theme that runs throughout Bellocchio's work.
Set against a backdrop of subversive uprisings and police repression, the story centers on well-heeled Professor Mori (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) and his young wife, Vittoria (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), and the instability that grips her mind and the couple's relationship following the birth of their son. When the baby refuses its mother's breast, Mori enters into a contract with illiterate country girl Annetta (Maya Sansa) to feed and care for the child, requiring her to abandon her own newborn son...

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:41:57 | 4.92 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Italiano
Subtitles: English, Italiano
Genre: Drama

Director: Marco Bellocchio
Cast: Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Maya Sansa
Country: Italy
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La ragazza di nome Giulio / A Girl Called Jules / Jet Set Swingers (1970) DVD5

A girl (Dionisio), in memory of her father brings his male name, Giulio lives in Venice with his mother (Ruspoli), a rich woman, fatuous and uncomprehending. While still a teenager she had a homosexual affair with the housekeeper Lia (Moffo), who also taught her to hate men, to consider animal-like beings, from which a woman can only be evil. Over the years, the girl, who managed to escape the morbid bond, becomes engaged to Lorenzo (Degli Esposti) a timid college student who has promised her fidelity and security. But the girl for her first heterosexual experience chooses Amerigo (Barbo), a young mechanic boyfriend with her maid. During the meeting, she realizes that to be sexually incapable of love, and he is doomed to never become fully woman...
Based upon the 1964 novel written by Milena Milani, one of the earliest pioneering feminist assessments of sexual differences in fascist Italy.

DVD5 | PAL 16:9 | 01:36:12 | 3.08 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Italiano
Subtitles: English, Francais (hardcoded)
Genre: Drama

Director: Tonino Valerii
Cast: Silvia Dionisio, Gianni Macchia, Esmeralda Ruspoli
Country: France, Italy
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Sikvaruli venakhshi / Georgische Trauben / Erotic Tales: Georgian Grapes (2001) DVD5

In the vineyards of a rural Georgian village days pass slowly for the beautiful Lia who lives there with her husband Sandro, the local motor mechanic. Things start to change, when Megi, a actress comes to town and shows an interest in Lia's husband. A glamorous actress shakes up a small village and teaches the mechanic's jealous wife a thing or two about seduction in sweetly sexy "Georgian Grapes".

DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 00:28:33 | 1.09 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Georgian
Subtitles: English (hardcoded)
Genre: Erotica, Short

Director: Giorgi Shengelaia (as Giorgi Shengelaya)
Cast: Ya Parulava, Zaza Papuashvili, Celina Wieczorek
Country: Georgia, Germany
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Mutluluk / Bliss (2007) DVD9

When a young woman named Meryem (Ozgu Namal) is brutally raped and left for dead in a field by a farm, she finds no support or care from her family members, or the villagers; only anger, disappointment and a feeling of shame from the people around her. But the worst is yet to come for Meryem... The village custom requires that she must be killed in order to clean her family's name and reputation. For this reason the leader of the village assigns the task to his own son, Cemal (Murat Han) who has just returned to the village after completing his military service. Cemal has no other choice but to obey his father's order, and takes Meryem to Istanbul, where he is supposed to kill her. However, when the time comes to execute his father's and the rest of the villager's request, Cemal finds this undertaking impossible to complete; killing an enemy during a war, and killing an innocent woman are not the same thing...

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 02:02:57 | 7.68 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Turkish
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama

Director: Abdullah Oguz
Cast: Ozgu Namal, Talat Bulut, Murat Han
Country: Turkey, Greece
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Jorgen Leth Collection 22-29: Portraetfilmene / Film Portraits

The fifth DVD box set in the Jorgen Leth Collection comprises the Portraits, a collective term that, with a bit of goodwill, can be stretched to cover all eight films in the set. They range far – from ballet to Danish literature and sports. In this box set, we find Leth's ballet films about the dancer Peter Martins and the Bournonville steps and tradition alongside literary portraits of the Danish authors Klaus Rifbjerg and Soren Ulrik Thomsen, plus a many-headed portrait of illustrious Danish writers from H.A. Brorson to Michael Strunge, and, finally, his films about sports icons, the footballer Michael Laudrup and the boxer Ayub Kalule.

In all three areas, the filmmaker strives to portray people and situations by zeroing in on the creative process itself. In fact, this could be a header for Jorgen Leth's entire work. His fascination with the creative process and an individual's work with his material, the will to transcend one's limitations to achieve the sublime, is a clear and recurrent theme. It's evident in Laudrup's virtuosic ball-handling, in Thomsen reading his poetry and elaborating on the nature of poetry and the form of poems, and in Martin using his body and intellect to translate the language of choreography into movement through space, giving shape to the sublime by putting in the hours in the rehearsal studio.

The filmmaker's fascination reins him in. In the way he shapes his fascination through objective detachment and a formalist approach, we recognise the method of anthropological observation that is such a strong thread in Leth's works.
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The Connection (1962) DVD9

Shirley Clarke's legendary low-budget feature, completed in 1961 (and effectively suppressed by the censors), finally gets the release it deserves.

The Connection is a jazz film, and it's also a film about junkies. Not all jazz films revolve around substance abuse, but many do: Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight, etc.

Eight drug addicts gather in a Manhattan loft to wait for their connection. To pay for their drugs, they have agreed to allow Dunn, a would-be documentary filmmaker, to photograph them. Film within a film records their conversation, reflections, and an impromptu jam session involving four of the junkies who are musicians. The "connection" arrives with a soldier from the Salvation Army, who suspects the addicts are drinking and beats a hasty retreat. Dunn is then persuaded to try some heroin so that he will have a deeper understanding of the subject of his film, and he becomes violently ill.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 01:38:47 | 4.92 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: Francais
Genre: Drama

Director: Shirley Clarke
Cast: Warren Finnerty, Garry Goodrow, Jerome Raphael
Country: USA
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The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue (1981) DVD5

A bearded Algon (Robert Kerman) is sad. He and his best buddy Griffin (Herschel Savage) live in the twenty-first century in a world without poverty and war. When men need a little future lovin', they simply call up a "satisfier", whose main job is to cater to their every sexual whim. While Griffin enjoys the wall to wall all day sex, Algon wants something more, he wants love and romance.
He falls for a "satisfier", and as everyone knows, falling for a sex worker can be a bad idea...

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:30:52 | 4.21 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Adult, Sci-Fi

Director: Gerard Damiano
Cast: Lysa Thatcher, Robert Kerman, Herschel Savage
Country: USA
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King Richard and the Crusaders (1954) DVD9

King Richard and the Crusaders is a screen version of Sir Walter Scott's novel The Talisman, set in the time of the 3rd Crusade, about 800 years ago.

The Scott classic details the efforts of Christian nations from Europe, marshalled under the leadership of England's King Richard, to gain the Holy Grail from the Mohammedans. In addition to the fighting wiles of the crafty Moslems, King Richard must contend with the sinister ambitions of some of his entourage and these rivalries almost doom the crusade.

DVD9 | NTSC 16:9 | 01:53:42 | 7.56 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none
Genre: Adventure, History, Romance, War

Director: David Butler
Cast: Rex Harrison, Virginia Mayo, George Sanders
Country: USA
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The House I Live In / Dom, v kotorom ya zhivu / Дом, в котором я живу (1957) DVD5

Set in the years prior to and during WWII, It's the story of an apartment block and a community -- how several families fared during the brutal years of War in the Soviet Union.

Though the directors never show the war itself, its tragic impact is felt throughout the film.
They do not show war in this film, they show people and their dreams and hopes ruined by the war. It is not just another "war film", but it rises to the level of a true Tragedy. Not a propagandist or a sob story. Many critics compare this film to another famous Russian war drama, The Cranes Are Flying.

Directors: Lev Kulidzhanov, Yakov Segel
Cast: Valentina Telegina, Nikolai Yelizarov, Vladimir Zemlyanikin, Mikhail Ulyanov, Evgeniy Matveev
Country: Soviet Union
Genre: Drama, War
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City Girl (1930) DVD9

Two young, attractive people from different worlds meet, face adversity and survive it, thanks to the power of love.
Charles Farell plays Lem, a rural farm kid who is sent to the big city of Chicago to sell the family crop. He's been given specific instructions by Pa to sell it for $15 a bushel or else they won't be able to survive for the year. The price of wheat start to drop sharply, and he sells it for $13.
Meanwhile, when he's not playing the market, he goes to lunch at a local diner, where he catches the eye of a beautiful young waitress, Kate (Mary Duncan). They fall in love and Lem asks for her hand in marriage before he leaves. Together they move back to the farm. The honeymoon is short-lived as soon as Lem's crotchety old father takes an instant disliking to Kate...

DVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:28:37 | 5.05 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English intertitles
Subtitles: none
Genre: Drama, Romance, Silent

Director: F.W. Murnau
Cast: Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan, David Torrence
Country: USA
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The Complete Jacques Tati: Jour de fete / The Big Day (1949), Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot / Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953), Mon oncle (1958), Playtime (1967), Trafic (1971), Parade (1974), Tati Shorts (1934-1978) 7 x Blu-Ray, 12 x DVD9 Criterion Collection

After giving a quick look at French actor/writer/director Jacques Tati's early films, those new to his work could easily think he should be slotted alongside classic silent-comedy stars like Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, as his abilities as a mime and with physical comedy, as well as the bemused quality of his characters fit that mold very well. However, Tati worked in a world of "talkies", even if you barely needed to understand a word spoken to really enjoy his movies, which frequently used society's obsession on progress, innovation and technology as a target for his comedy and commentary. His characters are old-school and struggle with change, but the movies aren't laughing at them. They serve to show the problems found in forgetting the past.

One of the things that set Tati apart from the earlier greats was his ability as a filmmaker. Not to take anything away from pioneers like Lloyd and Keaton, who were masters at pulling off a gag for the camera, but Tati's artistry was on another level, as he crafted beautiful imagery to go along with his comedy, culminating in his masterwork, the stunning PlayTime, which brought together all the skill he showed in his brief, but impressive filmmaking career, in one mammoth, misunderstood spectacle that downplayed his most popular creation and offered a beautiful meditation on modern life.

For this collection, Criterion gathered together the Tati films they've released over the years -- Mon Oncle, M. Hulot's Holiday, PlayTime and Trafic -- and filled in the gaps with the first feature he directed, Jour de Fete, the last film he made, Parade and a disc of Tati-related shorts, to create a rather complete overview of the man's career, adding in a smorgasbord of extras to rise it pass complete to ultimate.
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Reise der Hoffnung / Journey of Hope (1990) DVD9

This film based on a true story about a Kurdish family.
The story is centered on a poor farmer in Turkey, and his family. He has received a postcard from a relative who emigrated to Switzerland, telling him that Switzerland is sort of a "paradise over the mountain". He is determined to go to Switzerland, to find a better life, at any cost. To this end, he sells his cattle, sheep, and land to get the money he needs for false passports and to pay the smugglers.
For Haydar, his wife, and young son (the remainder of the family is left behind), the journey of hope becomes one of despair. Unscrupulous smugglers cheat them of their money; immigration officials block their path at every step; and the snow-covered Italian-Swiss border presents an obstacle overwhelming in its primal magnitude.

DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 01:45:30 | 6.56 Gb + 3% rec
Language: mix: Turkish, German, Swiss German, Italian
Subtitles: English, Deutsch, Francais, Espanol, Portugues
Genre: Drama

Director: Xavier Koller
Cast: Necmettin Cobanoglu, Nur Surer, Emin Sivas
Country: Switzerland, Turkey, UK
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E o Amor (Obrigacao) / That’s Love (Women’s Work) (2013) DVD9

Joao Canijo's new feature film focuses once again on very specific characters of the traditional Portugal. It comes after "Blood Of My Blood", a tremendous success in Portugal and abroad, and consists in a sort of experimental documentary. The idea was to send the actress Anabela Moreira to live for several months with Sonia Nunes, a fisherman's wife who has been working all her life in the fish trade in Caxinas, a Northern fishing town. The approach highlights the contrasts in the way that both women see and deal with love and life in general. While Sonia describes her past experiences, boasts about her child and solid relationship, and denotes a confident personality, Anabela seems more and more depressed after realize her incapability for love in the same way as Sonia, which led to identity issues to the point of calling into question her own professional career...

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 02:12:12 | 6.49 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Portugues
Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama

Director: Joao Canijo
Cast: Francisquinho, Anabela Moreira, Sonia Nunes
Country: Portugal
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Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto / Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) 2 x DVD9, Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

In the very first scene "The Chief" (Gian Maria Volonte) stops off at the apartment of his girlfriend Augusta Terzi (Florinda Bolkan), engages in a kinky role-playing game of killer and victim, and then murders her. He purposely leaves an abundance of clues before exiting, and allows a neighbor to see him. As it turns out, The Chief has just been promoted to run the Security division, in charge of political crimes. He intimidates his subordinates and serves notice on his former confederates that he now expects them to treat him like a feudal lord. The Chief starts his new job with a frightening speech that outlines his department's new commitment to root out Red subversives and other political threats. He also visits the secret file room and wiretapping department in the basement of police headquarters. The Chief retains charge of the Terzi case, taking perverse pleasure in the fact that no matter what the evidence, nobody thinks to consider him a suspect. The man revels in his posit ion of power, holding himself entirely above the law...

Director: Elio Petri
Cast: Gian Maria Volonte, Florinda Bolkan, Gianni Santuccio
Country: Italy
Genre: Crime, Drama
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Pineapple Tours (1992) DVD5

An anthology film consisting of three linked stories by different directors, all set on an Okinawan island. The first story, 'Aunt Reiko' concerns an opera singer who travels back to her home island to consult a spiritualist about the loss of her voice. The second story, 'Haruko & Hideyoshi' concerns an outsider to the island who is tricked into marrying an island girl after visiting the island god of fertility with her. The final story, 'Bomb Kids' concerns two kids in a punk band who set out to win (or steal) a large amount of money. Linking these stories is the ongoing search for an unexploded WWII bomb, a large model pineapple, and the possibility of a hotel development coming to the island...

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:58:03 | 3.98 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Genre: Comedy

Directors: Tsutomu Makiya, Yuji Nakae, Hayashi Toma
Cast: Yukito Ara, Reiko Kaneshima, Yukio Miyagi
Country: Japan
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