Editorial Reviews

"National Treasure: Book of Secrets" has without a doubt the most absurd and fevered plot since, oh, say, "National Treasure" (2004). What do I mean by fevered? What would you say if I told you that Mt. Rushmore was carved only in order to erase landmarks pointing to a fabled City of Gold built inside the mountain? That the holders of this information involved John Wilkes Booth and a Confederate secret society named the Knights of the Golden Circle ? And that almost exactly the same people who tracked down the buried treasure in the first movie are involved in this one?

Yes, even the same FBI agent and the same National Archivist, plus Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his father, Patrick Henry Gates (Jon Voight). They're famous now (one has written a best seller), but they never discuss the coincidence that they are involved in an uncannily similar adventure. Yes, once again they are all trapped within the earth and dangling over a terrifying drop. And their search once again involves a secret document and a hidden treasure.

No, this time it's not written in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. It involves a missing page from Booth's diary, a coded message, an extinct language and a book that each U.S. president hands over to his successor, which contains the truth about Area 51, the so-called moon landings, Nixon's missing 18 minutes, the JFK assassination and, let's see ... oh, yeah, the current president would like to know what's on Page 47, although if he is the only man allowed to look at the book, how does he know that he doesn't know what's on Page 47?

I have only scratched the surface. The heroes of this tale have what can only be described as extraordinary good luck. Benjamin once again is an intuitive code-breaker, who has only to look at a baffling conundrum to solve it.

And what about their good fortune when they are on top of Mt. Rushmore, looking for hidden signs, and Benjamin interprets an ancient mention of "rain from a cloudless sky" and passes out half-liter bottles of drinking water for everyone to sprinkle on the rock so the old marking will show up? It's not a real big mountain, but it's way too big for six people to sprinkle with Crystal Geyser. But, hey! After less than a minute of sprinkling, here's the mark of the spread eagle!

Compared to that, the necessity of kidnapping the president from his own birthday party and leading him into a tunnel beneath Mount Vernon is a piece of cake, even though it is never quite made clear how Benjamin knows about the tunnel. Oh, yeah: He has George Washington's original blueprints.

For that matter, it's never explained why so many people over so many generations have spent so much time and money guarding the City of Gold. And why leave clues if they are designed never to be interpreted, and for that matter, you don't want anyone to interpret them? And although lots of gold has been mined in South Dakota , how much would it take to build a city? Remember, all the gold in Fort Knox is only enough to fill Fort Knox , which is about as big as City Hall in the underground city.

Yes, I know, all of this is beside the point. The person who attends "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" expecting logic and plausibility is on a fool's mission. This is a Mouth Agape Movie, during which your mouth hangs open in astonishment at one preposterous event after another. This movie's plot doesn't play tennis without a net, but also without a ball and a racket. It spins in its own blowback. And, no, I don't know what that means, but this is the kind of movie that makes you think of writing it.

I gotta say, the movie has terrific if completely unbelievable special effects. The actors had fun, I guess. You might, too, if you like goofiness like this. Look at the cast: Cage and Voight and Helen Mirren and Ed Harris and Diane Kruger and Harvey Keitel and Justin Bartha and Bruce Greenwood. You could start with a cast like that and make one of the greatest movies of all time, which is not what happened here.

Plot Summary

• Plot Sinopsis: Filled with hours of revealing bonus features, this two-disc Collector's Edition DVD exposes a wealth of secrets behind the most spectacular treasure hunt ever. Join Nicolas Cage on a heart-pounding adventure that will have you on the edge of your seat in a race to find the Lost City of Gold. Grounded in history, imbued with myth and mystery, Disney's National Treasure: Book Of Secrets takes you on a globe-trotting quest full of adrenaline-pumping twists and turns - all leading to the final clue in a mysterious and highly guarded book containing centuries of secrets. But there's only one way to find it - Ben Gates must kidnap the President. Packed with fast-paced action and cracking humor, this Collector's Edition has even more to rediscover again and again.

Product Details

• Actors: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren
• Directors: Jon Turteltaub
• Format: Collector's Edition, Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: French, Spanish
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 2 (1 x DVD9 + 1 x DVD5)
• Rating: PG
• Studio: Walt Disney
• DVD Release Date: May 20, 2008
• Run Time: 124 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Audio Commentary With Director Jon Turteltaub And Actor Jon Voight
  • Alternate Ending With With Introductions By Jon Turteltaub
  • Deleted Scenes With Optional Directors Audio Commentary
  • The Treasure Reel - Bloopers & Outtakes
  • Secret Of A Sequel
  • The Book Of Secrets: On Location
  • Street Stunts: Creating The London Chase
  • Inside The Library Of Congress
  • Underground Action
  • Cover Story: Crafting The Presidents' Book
  • Evolution Of A Golden City
  • Knights Of The Golden Circle

Editorial Reviews

Apocalypto The Movie

The mythic-adventure movie Apocalypto was produced and directed by Mel Gibson, shot on location in the jungles of Mexico, and released Dec. 8, 2006. Despite the timing of the release, this is not exactly a "Christmas" movie, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. There are no cute elves or funny skits about hapless homeowners falling off the roof while decorating the house, or even neglectful mothers leaving little boys home alone while the rest of the family boards the Boeing to fly off to ski at Telluride.

None of this cutesy-putesy stuff at all. Instead, Apocalypto offers the viewer a treasure trove of insight into the former Mayan civilization of Central America. Like I said, this is not a Christmas movie. The Mayans had their own calendar, you may know, and so for almost the entire movie the viewer cannot really tell "when" in time the events may be occurring. Everything is in "Mayan" time, which is not the time frame to which we modern worthies are accustomed. But in the next-to-last scene, you realize that the events of the movie must be taking place in the mid-1500s. In this remarkable scene, a trio of startled Mayan warriors stands on an empty beach and observes several small boats filled with Spanish explorers rowing ashore with their flags and crosses hanging over the gunwales. In this historical fiction of a movie, at least, two civilizations are about to make a very real form of first contact.

Normally, in a discussion like this, I would note the part about the Spanish explorers rowing ashore and then say something like, "But this gets ahead of the story." Except that this is the whole point of the story, from the first scene of the movie that focuses on the primeval jungle life of the Central American rain forest, to the subsequent scenes of the elaborate cities and rituals of what is called the "post-classic" period of Mayan civilization. The essence and drama of the movie is that by the time frame of the Western 16th century, Mayan civilization had, to cite Durant, all but destroyed itself from within. History records that in 1517, the first Spanish explorers landed on the Yucatan Peninsula. And from that point forward, it took only a few thousand Spanish conquistadors, and the passage of not very much time, to finish the job of figuratively, if not literally, killing off the Mayan culture, if not most of the Mayans.

Blood and Guts

But I entitled this article a "movie review," so first things first. Wow, this is one gory movie. Blood. And guts. Lots of blood. Lots of guts. This movie out-Sam Peckinpahs the late, great director Sam "Blood and Guts" Peckinpah (1925-1984). Mel Gibson has, of course, made many blood-and-guts movies during his career, to include Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ of recent vintage. These were, to be sure, great movies about great events, and blood and guts are an essential part of the stories. So you know going in, when you pay your money and buy a ticket to a Mel Gibson film, that there will probably be things that are not much fun to watch unless you are deep into gratuitous chainsaw massacres. (Point of order: I liked Mel Gibson in the 1982 Peter Weir classic, The Year of Living Dangerously. Great acting. Not a lot of blood, except when Mel Gibson gets beaned on the head by a rifle butt. Linda Hunt was terrific, even mystical, to the point of being hypnotic. And Sigourney Weaver was beautiful and just plain hot. She still is, in my book. But I digress.)

Before seeing Apocalypto, I read some reviews that said that this is a great movie, in no small measure due to the "realism" of the cinematography, which I think probably meant the reviewers appreciated the "artistic" way in which Mel Gibson portrayed the blood and guts within the context of the larger story. I also read some reviews that trashed the movie, in no small measure due to the exceptional amount of blood and guts. I can understand both editorial approaches. To be perfectly candid, there were a couple of scenes during the movie when I was just plain sensory-overloaded with blood and guts. I was ready to get up from my seat, leave the theater, and hope that nobody saw me go in or exit. The James Bond action movie Casino Royale was playing in the next theater. No harm, no foul.

But it was the whole story that captured my attention, so I sat there and watched Apocalypto. When I was not averting my eyes from the scenes of blood and guts, the film displayed incredible cinema work, sets, and scenery, from the mesmerizing jungle settings to the spellbinding images of a Mayan city whose skyline was dominated by the steep, four-sided pyramid towers. The costumes and makeup were simply astonishing. This oeuvre is an ornament to the filmmakers' craft that allows the viewer to feel like a fly on the wall of another civilization, albeit a doomed one, watching these strange-yet-familiar human beings go about their daily chores and rituals. The script tells quite a tale, and the tale is notable because the dialogue is in a language called Yucatec Maya, helpfully translated with English subtitles.

The cast of the movie is superb. Interestingly, almost no one in the cast is a professional actor who has paid his or her acting dues the traditional way, by waiting on tables at restaurants along Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. According to the publicity releases for the movie, almost everyone who is part of the cast was recruited from areas near the location scenes in southern Mexico and Yucatan.

The main characters, however, do have some thespian credentials. The lead of the movie is Jaguar Paw, played by a Native-American actor named Rudy Youngblood. Jaguar Paw is a jungle-dwelling Mayan lad who is captured by a band of marauding Mayans who hail from the very big, very evil city. The leader of the merry marauders is Zero Wolf, a fierce Holcane warrior who runs the expedition that captures the previously noted jungle dwellers to take back and use as human sacrifices. Zero Wolf is played by U.S. actor Raoul Trujillo, whose previous film credits include the critically acclaimed films Black Robe and The New World. (Not for everybody, perhaps, but great movies as well. Black Robe is based on the classic work by Francis Parkman (1823-1893) The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Century. How's that for the title of a screenplay?)

Immersed in a Different World

Between the visual scenes, the sounds, the script, and the worthy cast, all trace of the 21st century is absent from Apocalypto. The viewer is transported back in time to another place, another culture, and immersed in a different world. But how different is this other world, really? Despite the apparent primitiveness and differences of the Mayan world, certainly as compared with ours, Jaguar Paw and Zero Wolf are representatives of a complex society, each playing their respective roles assigned to them by fate.

Mayan civilization was extensive, both in terms of a large population and geographic extent. Mayan civilization ranged from southern Mexico to the Yucatan, and down into areas that are now parts of Guatemala and El Salvador. And as the movie makes clear, Mayan society had numerous specialized social roles incorporated within it. Boiled down to an anthropological essence, Mayan society was heterogeneous and filled with social inequality, so by definition, it was "complex." The jungle-dwellers lived in small villages, from which they nimbly trekked across the rain forest eking out an existence in a manner little removed from that of a hunter-gatherer. But they traded with other villages, and hence had the rudiments of economic life and a primitive form of what Adam Smith would much later (in 1776, to be exact) call "the division of labor."

The city-dwellers, on the other hand, were part of a far more elaborate social ladder. This urban Mayan hierarchy spanned its way from the lowest forms of human slavery, broken men working in the mines and pits, to a class of organized agricultural laborers, to a merchant class selling things such as corn, textiles, jade, and slaves. From these strata of traders, the societal structure rapidly narrowed to focus on a small number of the highest of high priests atop the mountain-like temples, carving the beating hearts out of sacrificial human beings and speaking directly to the gods.

The Mayan city in the movie, a historically accurate composite of 26 very real Mayan cities known to have existed in the region of what is now Guatemala, is resplendent eye candy to the student of the culture. And to the observant social chronicler, this Mayan metropolis is also teetering on the edge of chaos. Almost none of this is depicted in the spoken dialogue of the movie, but it is quite apparent in the costumes and acting.

According to archaeologist Dr. Richard Hansen, an adviser to Mel Gibson on the movie and a scientist who has spent a career investigating the Mayan ruins of Central America, the early Mayans focused their civilization on attempting to understand time and the relationship between mortals and the gods. Late classic Mayan civilization took this basic societal mission and from it created an entrenched ruling class, concerned with maintaining its lifestyle and privileges. Over time, the Mayan quest for learning and the resulting civilization that previously evolved began to incorporate ritualistic elements of savagery, in the form of expeditionary warfare to validate the power of what we might today label as "the state." Thus, the basis of Mayan governance shifted to spectacles that could preoccupy, if not downright manipulate, the populace through some combination of awe, humiliation, and fear. (Greg's Note: Reminds me of going through passport control at Miami International Airport.)

The Gods Must Be Angry

Apparently, the construction of the massive religious works (the steep, four-sided pyramids that you usually see in cruise ship ads today) were a Mayan form of what we might label as "big government" bureaucracy. In erecting these edifices, the Mayans wrecked the regional environment. According to Dr. Hansen, the lime alone that was required to construct the massive temples and other public and religious works necessitated that entire forests be cut down and burned in kilns. By the time of the 16th century period depicted in the movie, forests had been denuded, and firewood and other fuel was in short supply. Agriculture was failing due to climatic stresses, rain was not falling as it had in the past, and disease was making its way through the populace. (One great killer may have been smallpox, brought to the New World courtesy of the European visitors. Of course, we are also discussing a time that was several centuries before the development or understanding of germ theory. And the New World had its own gifts for the visitors, such as syphilis.)

Naturally, the Mayan leadership cadre placed the blame for these civilization-spanning problems squarely on the populace, whose lack of compliance and orderliness had apparently led to the disfavor of the deities. According to the priests, who understood such things, the gods must have been angry. The solution, according to the Mayan leadership, was the almost daily offering of human sacrifice to appease the angry gods. And if the angry gods were not appeased, then at least the bulk of the populace was kept in line by the sight of human remains being tossed down the 365 steps (interesting number, huh?) that lined each side of the steep pyramid temples.

So the movie Apocalypto is more than just an action-packed, head-bashing, blood-and-guts chase film. Sure, Zero Wolf and his gang of merry men raid the village where Jaguar Paw dwells. There is a bunch of killing and hacking, and Jaguar Paw and friends get dragged off to the big city, to be used as sacrifice bait. On the trek to the Mayan equivalent of Gotham City (or is it Las Vegas, what with all the tall temples where people pray for good fortune?), Jaguar Paw sees the horrible environmental devastation that concentrated amounts of Mayan civilization has created and, contemplatively, wonders at it all. What a guy, huh? Our hero is about to become another piece of human sushi when things happen that only happen in the movies, and he comes down off the sacrificial altar. Jaguar Paw then escapes to the jungle, to head back to his village and find his wife and young son. There is a big chase scene through the jungle, complete with horrific wild animal attacks, and arrows and spears whizzing past the camera lens. There are guys jumping off of waterfalls into the torrent below, and there are booby traps that could give even the clever and adaptive minds behind the Iraqi insurgency some new ideas.

The Collapse of Complex Societies

If you do not want to see the movie, you should at least read the book. And that book would be the path breaking 1988 work The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Joseph Tainter. No, I do not believe that The Collapse of Complex Societies actually formed the basis for Mel Gibson's screenplay, as the previously noted The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Century formed the basis for Black Robe. But in Tainter's remarkable study of the history of collapsed civilizations, including the Mayan, he listed four concepts that help to explain how and why societies collapse:

1. Human societies are problem-solving organizations.
2. Sociopolitical systems require energy for their maintenance.
3. Increased complexity carries with it increased costs per capita.
4. Investment in sociopolitical complexity as a problem-solving response often reaches a point of declining marginal returns.

Tainter explains that the "number of challenges with which the universe can confront a society is, for practical purposes, infinite." But complex societies seem to have a sociopolitical inertia that keeps on increasing their level of complexity in order to survive new challenges. In the early stages, societies in the ascendancy can afford to throw resources at their problems. But this cannot go on indefinitely. Or at least, no other society in history has even managed to pull it off over the long haul.

According to Tainter's thesis, there comes a time when what he characterizes as "investments in additional complexity" produce fewer and fewer returns over time, until, eventually, the whole construct reaches a point of precarious stability due to diminishing return. That is, society cannot muster enough energy continuously to fuel its inherent complexity. Past that point, it is only a matter of time before the inevitable collapse occurs. When a new challenge comes along, whether it is exhaustion of a critical resource, climate stress, outside invasion, or some other set of circumstances, the overly complex society will be unable to muster the resources necessary to deal with the crisis. And at this point, society collapses.

If an overly complex society is fortunate, it will merely deconstruct itself and revert to a much simpler form. And if it is not fortunate, the representatives of an unsustainably complex society will encounter a few ships belonging to foreign explorers, anchored offshore and sending small boats toward the beach, just like in the movies. The rest, as they say, is history.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: From Mel Gibson, director of The Passion Of The Christ and the Academy Award - winning Braveheart (Best Director, Best Picture, 1995) comes the thrilling historical epic Apocalypto. This intense, nonstop action-adventure transports you to an ancient Central American civilization, for an experience unlike anything you've ever known. In the twilight of the mysterious Mayan culture, young Jaguar Paw is captured and taken to the great Mayan city, where he faces a harrowing end. Driven by the power of his love for his wife and son, he makes an adrenaline-soaked, heart-racing escape to rescue them and ultimately save his way of life. Filled with unrelenting action and stunning cinematography, Apocalypto is an enthralling and unforgettable film experience.

Product Details

• Actors: Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernández, Jonathan Brewer, Morris Birdyellowhead, Carlos Emilio Báez
• Directors: Mel Gibson
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Mayan (Dolby Digital 5.1), Mayan (DTS 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating R
• Studio: Touchstone Pictures
• DVD Release Date: May 22, 2007
• Run Time: 138 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Geeks love the Discovery Channel. My kind is fascinated by science documentaries in general and certain fields of science in particular. We love space travel documentaries, we love history documentaries and we loves us some dinosaur documentaries. That's why if you asked the average geek a question about a T. Rex or a Triceratops, the odds are good you'd get more information than you wanted. And if you asked the average geek, "What's a Megalodon?" The answer would come back instantly: "The biggest, most dangerous shark that ever lived."

MEGALODON was directed by Pat Corbitt (his first time directing) and written by Gary J. Tunniclife (GUARDIAN) and Stanley Isaacs (LAST GASP). It opens with a big chunk of exposition disguised as a news broadcast. There's a couple of quick stories about shark attacks and the oil shortage (mini-science moment: there is no oil shortage) followed by a detailed report on Peter Brazier (Robin Sachs: JURASSIC PARK II), CEO of Nexecon Oil. Brazier's company has just finished building Colossus, a huge, mostly automated oil rig in the North Sea.

The report concludes with a wild-eyed warning from an environmentalist that the "plates are unstable" under Colossus and drilling could result in "environmental holocaust". Of course that's just plain stupid - the oil rig may look huge on a human scale but compared to the crustal plates it's the tiniest, most insignificant flyspeck - but that's what you should expect from an environmentalist so it works.

The story cuts to the arrival (by helicopter) of reporter Christen Giddings (Leighanne Littrell) and her trusty cameraman Jake Thompson (Fred Belford) at Colossus. Brazier greets them and gives them the grand tour, which includes introducing them to the really small crew that runs this huge facility. Ross Eliot (Al Sapienza: GODZILLA/span>) and Maz Zablenko (Jennifer Sommerfield: TERRIFIED), the two sub drivers, are the most colorful.

Okay, so we've got a bunch of people on an oil rig way out in the ocean in a movie we know from the title is about a giant shark. I wonder where the shark will come from? No sooner than you can say, "drill into a giant underground cave", does a wide variety of long extinct sea life begin pouring out. Unfortunately it takes rather a long time before said sea-life includes the eponymous big fish. A lot of this time is spent making trips up and down to the sea bottom in a huge glass elevator in what was a pretty cool cgi effect the first time I saw it but after the third or fourth trip had lost its edge.

The acting ranges from the excellent (Robin Sachs as Brazier) to the decent (Al Sapienza as Eliot) to standard low budget sci-fi flick awful (everybody else). And I did like that the oil company was portrayed as misguided, not cartoonishly evil as has become common in so many other movies, although it is a little hard to believe that they spent billions building this rig but didn't take the time to do the kind of seismic surveys that certainly would have revealed the giant cave.

Another thing that's notable, mostly for its absence, is decent background music to heighten the tension and some appropriate sound effects to go along with all the CGI visuals. Many of the scenes with the big shark seem lifeless as a result. And as is always the case where the monster is in the water in a monster movie, you need to have a reason for people to be in the water so the monster is threatening. Often this is contrived although it's not as truly bad as, say, DEEP BLUE SEA.

Adding up the good and the bad, I have to give this movie two shriek girls. I wanted it to be more. Science geeks like me are eagerly waiting for somebody to make a decent movie about Megalodons. But this ain't it.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: Sixty Feet of Prehistoric Terror
• Plot Outline: A deep-sea drilling operation goes horribly wrong, releasing the deadliest ocean predator that has ever roamed the seas since prehistoric times-Carcharodon Megalodon...sixty feet of prehistoric terror.
• Plot Synopsis: Oil...the quest for it is unrelenting. The search for new reserves of the 'black gold' never-ends and leading the search is Nexecon Petroleum and its flagship-the largest drilling and refining platform ever constructed-'Colossus" located in the freezing North Atlantic waters off the coast of Greenland. 'Colossus' will drill deeper than any rig ever has, a fact that gratifies Nexecon CEO, Peter Brazier, but that has geologists the world over up in arms, concerned that delicate ocean floor fault lines could be disturbed with catastrophic effects. Skeptical news reporter Christen Giddings and her cameraman Jake Thompson are invited by Braziera to document the safety of 'Colossus.' The powerful drill tears through the seabed, striking a rich oil deposit. As the drill penetrates further, it ruptures a fissure that reveals a second 'mirror' ocean that has existed beneath ours for millions of years. An ocean teeming with prehistoric life. As the choking oil posions the water, the frenzied creatures swarm for the surface. Colossus buckles under the onslaught. Brazier, Christen, and a team of engineers descend in Colossus' glass elevator to assess the damage and come face to face with the most powerful oceanic predator that ever lived. Carcharodon Megalodon. The giant ancestor of the Great White Shark. This eleven-ton 'killing machine' quickly stakes its territory in the waters surrounding Colossus with disasterous and horrific consequences, destroying and devouring anything in its path. Now fate will pull them together as they wager their changes of survival against the most fearsome creature that ever dominated the ocean, and pit the technology and machinery of man against beast. Megalodon...sixty feet of prehistoric terror.

Product Details

• Actors: Actors: Leighanne Littrell, Robin Sachs, Al Sapienza, Mark Sheppard, Jennifer Sommerfield
• Directors: Pat Corbitt
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: PG-13
• Studio: Monarch Video
• DVD Release Date: July 13, 2004
• Run Time: 91 minutes

Editorial Reviews

It was beauty killed the beast.

There are astonishments to behold in Peter Jackson's new "King Kong," but one sequence, relatively subdued, holds the key to the movie's success. Kong has captured Ann Darrow and carried her to his perch high on the mountain. He puts her down, not roughly, and then begins to roar, bare his teeth and pound his chest. Ann, an unemployed vaudeville acrobat, somehow instinctively knows that the gorilla is not threatening her but trying to impress her by behaving as an alpha male -- the King of the Jungle. She doesn't know how Queen Kong would respond, but she does what she can: She goes into her stage routine, doing backflips, dancing like Chaplin, juggling three stones.

Her instincts and empathy serve her well. Kong's eyes widen in curiosity, wonder and finally what may pass for delight. From then on, he thinks of himself as the girl's possessor and protector. She is like a tiny beautiful toy that he has been given for his very own, and before long, they are regarding the sunset together, both of them silenced by its majesty.

The scene is crucial because it removes the element of creepiness in the gorilla/girl relationship in the two earlier "Kongs" (1933 and 1976), creating a wordless bond that allows her to trust him. When Jack Driscoll climbs the mountain to rescue her, he finds her comfortably nestled in Kong's big palm. Ann and Kong in this movie will be threatened by dinosaurs, man-eating worms, giant bats, loathsome insects, spiders, machineguns and the Army Air Corps, and could fall to their death into chasms on Skull Island or from the Empire State Building. But Ann will be as safe as Kong can make her, and he will protect her even from her own species.

The movie more or less faithfully follows the outlines of the original film, but this fundamental adjustment in the relationship between the beauty and the beast gives it heart, a quality the earlier film was lacking. Yes, Kong in 1933 cares for his captive, but she doesn't care so much for him. Kong was always misunderstood, but in the 2005 film, there is someone who knows it.

As Kong ascends the skyscraper, Ann screams not because of the gorilla but because of the attacks on the gorilla by a society that assumes he must be destroyed. The movie makes the same kind of shift involving a giant gorilla that Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) did when he replaced 1950s attacks on alien visitors with a very 1970s attempt to communicate with them (by 2005, Spielberg was back to attacking them, in "War of the Worlds").

"King Kong" is a magnificent entertainment. It is like the flowering of all the possibilities in the original classic film. Computers are used not merely to create special effects, but also to create style and beauty, to find a look for the film that fits its story. And the characters are not cardboard heroes or villains seen in stark outline, but quirky individuals with personalities.

Consider the difference between Robert Armstrong (1933) and Jack Black (2005) as Carl Denham, the movie director who lands an unsuspecting crew on Skull Island. A Hollywood stereotype based on C.B. de Mille has been replaced by one who reminds us more of Orson Welles. And in the starring role of Ann Darrow, Naomi Watts expresses a range of emotion that Fay Wray, bless her heart, was never allowed in 1933. Never have damsels been in more distress, but Fay Wray mostly had to scream, while Watts looks into the gorilla's eyes and sees something beautiful there.

There was a stir when Jackson informed the home office that his movie would run 187 minutes. The executives had something around 140 minutes in mind, so they could turn over the audience more quickly (despite the greedy 20 minutes of paid commercials audiences now have inflicted upon them). After they saw the movie, their objections were stilled. Yes, the movie is a tad too long, and we could do without a few of the monsters and overturned elevated trains. But it is so well done that we are complaining, really, only about too much of a good thing. This is one of the great modern epics.

Jackson, fresh from his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, wisely doesn't show the gorilla or the other creatures until more than an hour into the movie. In this he follows Spielberg, who fought off producers who wanted the shark in "Jaws" to appear virtually in the opening titles. There is an hour of anticipation, of low ominous music, of subtle rumblings, of uneasy squints into the fog and mutinous grumblings from the crew, before the tramp steamer arrives at Skull Island -- or, more accurately, is thrown against its jagged rocks in the first of many scary action sequences.

During that time, we see Depression-era breadlines and soup kitchens, and meet the unemployed heroes of the film: Ann Darrow (Watts), whose vaudeville theater has closed, and who is faced with debasing herself in burlesque; Carl Denham (Black), whose footage for a new movie is so unconvincing that the movie's backers want to sell it off as background footage; Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), a playwright whose dreams lie Off-Broadway and who thrusts 15 pages of a first draft screenplay at Denham and tries to disappear.

They all find themselves aboard the tramp steamer of Capt. Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann), who is persuaded to cast off just as Denham's creditors arrive on the docks in police cars. They set course for the South Seas, where Denham believes an uncharted island may hold the secret of a box office blockbuster. On board, Ann and Jack grow close, but not too close, because the movie's real love story is between the girl and the gorilla.

Once on Skull Island, the second act of the movie is mostly a series of hair-curling special effects, as overgrown prehistoric creatures endlessly pursue the humans, occasionally killing or eating a supporting character. The bridges and logs over chasms, so important in 1933, are even better used here, especially when an assortment of humans and creatures fall in stages from a great height, resuming their deadly struggle whenever they can grab a convenient vine, rock or tree. Two story lines are intercut: Ann and the ape, and everybody else and the other creatures.

The third act returns to Manhattan, which looks uncannily evocative and atmospheric. It isn't precisely realistic, but more of a dreamed city in which key elements swim in and out of view. There's a poetic scene where Kong and the girl find a frozen pond in Central Park, and the gorilla is lost in delight as it slides on the ice. It's in scenes like this that Andy Serkis is most useful as the actor who doesn't so much play Kong as embody him for the f/x team. He adds the body language.

Some of the Manhattan effects are not completely convincing (and earlier, on Skull Island, it's strange how the fleeing humans seem to run beneath the pounding feet of the T. rexes without quite occupying the same space). But special effects do not need to be convincing if they are effective, and Jackson trades a little realism for a lot of impact and momentum. The final ascent of the Empire State Building is magnificent, and for once, the gorilla seems the same size in every shot.

Although Naomi Watts makes a splendid heroine, there have been complaints that Jack Black and Adrien Brody are not precisely hero material. Nor should they be, in my opinion. They are a director and a writer. They do not require big muscles and square jaws. What they require are strong personalities that can be transformed under stress. Denham the director clings desperately to his camera, no matter what happens to him, and Driscoll the writer beats a strategic retreat before essentially rewriting his personal role in his own mind. Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler) is an actor who plays the movie's hero, and now has to decide if he can play his role for real. And Preston (Colin Hanks) is a production assistant who, as is often the case, would be a hero if anybody would give him a chance.

The result is a surprisingly involving and rather beautiful movie -- one that will appeal strongly to the primary action audience, and also cross over to people who have no plans to see "King Kong" but will change their minds the more they hear. I think the film even has a message, and it isn't that beauty killed the beast. It's that we feel threatened by beauty, especially when it overwhelms us, and we pay a terrible price when we try to deny its essential nature and turn it into a product, or a target. This is one of the year's best films.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: The eighth wonder of the world.
• Plot Outline: In 1933 New York, an overly ambitious movie producer coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter Kong, a giant ape who is immediately smitten with leading lady Ann Darrow.
• Plot Synopsis: Set in the 1930s, this is the story of a young and beautiful actress Ann Darrow from the world of vaudeville who finds herself lost in depression-era New York and her luck changes when she meets an over-ambitious filmmaker Carl Denham who brings her on an exploratory expedition to a remote island where she finds compassion and the true meaning of humanity with an ape Kong. The beauty and the beast finally meet their fate back in the city of New York where the filmmaker takes and displays the ape in quest of his fame by commercial exploitation which ultimately leads to catastrophe for everyone including a playwright Jack Driscoll who falls in love with Ann and plays an unlikely hero by trying to save her from Kong and her destiny.

Product Details

• Actors: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks
• Directors: Peter Jackson
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating: PG-13
• Studio: Universal
• DVD Release Date: March 28, 2006

Editorial Reviews

"Kill Bill, Volume 1" shows Quentin Tarantino so effortlessly and brilliantly in command of his technique that he reminds me of a virtuoso violinist racing through "Flight of the Bumble Bee" -- or maybe an accordion prodigy setting a speed record for "Lady of Spain." I mean that as a sincere compliment. The movie is not about anything at all except the skill and humor of its making. It's kind of brilliant.

His story is a distillation of the universe of martial arts movies, elevated to a trancelike mastery of the material. Tarantino is in the Zone. His story engine is revenge. In the opening scene, Bill kills all of the other members of a bridal party, and leaves The Bride (Uma Thurman) for dead. She survives for years in a coma and is awakened by a mosquito's buzz. Is QT thinking of Emily Dickinson, who heard a fly buzz when she died? I am reminded of Manny Farber's definition of the auteur theory: "A bunch of guys standing around trying to catch someone shoving art up into the crevices of dreck." The Bride is no Emily Dickinson. She reverses the paralysis in her legs by "focusing." Then she vows vengeance on the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and as "Volume 1" concludes, she is about half-finished. She has wiped out Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), and in "Volume 2" will presumably kill Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), Budd (Michael Madsen) and of course Bill (David Carradine). If you think I have given away plot details, you think there can be doubt about whether the heroine survives the first half of a two-part action movie, and should seek help.

The movie is all storytelling and no story. The motivations have no psychological depth or resonance, but are simply plot markers. The characters consist of their characteristics. Lurking beneath everything, as it did with "Pulp Fiction," is the suggestion of a parallel universe in which all of this makes sense in the same way that a superhero's origin story makes sense. There is a sequence here (well, it's more like a third of the movie) where The Bride single-handedly wipes out O-Ren and her entire team, including the Crazy 88 Fighters, and we are reminded of Neo fighting the clones of Agent Smith in "The Matrix Reloaded," except the Crazy 88 Fighters are individual human beings, I think. Do they get their name from the Crazy 88 blackjack games on the Web, or from Episode 88 of the action anime "Tokyo Crazy Paradise," or should I seek help? The Bride defeats the 88 superb fighters (plus various bodyguards and specialists) despite her weakened state and recently paralyzed legs because she is a better fighter than all of the others put together. Is that because of the level of her skill, the power of her focus, or the depth of her need for vengeance? Skill, focus and need have nothing to do with it: She wins because she kills everybody without getting killed herself. You can sense Tarantino grinning a little as each fresh victim, filled with foolish bravado, steps forward to be slaughtered. Someone has to win in a fight to the finish, and as far as the martial arts genre is concerned, it might as well be the heroine. (All of the major characters except Bill are women, the men having been emasculated right out of the picture.) "Kill Bill, Volume 1" is not the kind of movie that inspires discussion of the acting, but what Thurman, Fox and Liu accomplish here is arguably more difficult than playing the nuanced heroine of a Sundance thumb-sucker. There must be presence, physical grace, strength, personality and the ability to look serious while doing ridiculous things. The tone is set in an opening scene, where The Bride lies near death and a hand rubs at the blood on her cheek, which will not come off because it is clearly congealed makeup. This scene further benefits from being shot in black and white; for QT, all shots in a sense are references to other shots -- not particular shots from other movies, but archetypal shots in our collective moviegoing memories.

There's B&W in the movie, and slo-mo, and a name that's bleeped entirely for effect, and even an extended sequence in anime. The animated sequence, which gets us to Tokyo and supplies the backstory of O-Ren, is sneaky in the way it allows Tarantino to deal with material that might, in live action, seem too real for his stylized universe. It deals with a Mafia kingpin's pedophilia. The scene works in animated long shot; in live action closeup, it would get the movie an NC-17.

Before she arrives in Tokyo, The Bride stops off to obtain a sword from Hattori Hanzo ("special guest star" Sonny Chiba). He has been retired for years, and is done with killing. But she persuades him, and he manufactures a sword that does not inspire his modesty: "This my finest sword. If in your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut." Later the sword must face the skill of Go Go Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), O-Ren's teenage bodyguard and perhaps a major in medieval studies, since her weapon of choice is the mace and chain. This is in the comic book tradition by which characters are defined by their weapons.

To see O-Ren's God-slicer and Go-Go's mace clashing in a field of dead and dying men is to understand how women have taken over for men in action movies. Strange, since women are not nearly as good at killing as men are. Maybe they're cast because the liberal media wants to see them succeed. The movie's women warriors reminds me of Ruby Rich's defense of Russ Meyer as a feminist filmmaker (his women initiate all the sex and do all the killing).

There is a sequence in which O-Ren Ishii takes command of the Japanese Mafia and beheads a guy for criticizing her as half-Chinese, female and American. O-Ren talks Japanese through a translator but when the guy's head rolls on the table everyone seems to understand her. Soon comes the deadly battle with The Bride, on a two-level set representing a Japanese restaurant. Tarantino has the wit to pace this battle with exterior shots of snowfall in an exquisite formal garden. Why must the garden be in the movie? Because gardens with snow are iconic Japanese images, and Tarantino is acting as the instrument of his received influences.

By the same token, Thurman wears a costume identical to one Bruce Lee wore in his last film. Is this intended as coincidence, homage, impersonation? Not at all. It can be explained by quantum physics: The suit can be in two movies at the same time. And when the Hannah character whistles the theme from "Twisted Nerve" (1968), it's not meant to suggest she is a Hayley Mills fan but that leakage can occur between parallel universes in the movies. Will "Volume 2" reveal that Bud used to be known as Mr. Blonde?

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: "The Bride" was the deadliest assassin of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, until the day she decided to leave the business, assume a new identity, and get married. But it was on the day of her marriage that her old "friends" - O-Ren Ishii, Vernita Green, Budd, and Elle Driver, not to mention her boss, Bill - find her and assassinate the entire ceremony while Bill shoots her in the head, putting her in a coma. Well, Bill and his people should have tried a little harder because, after four years, the Bride has awakened from her coma. And Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...

Product Details

• Actors: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu
• Directors: Quentin Tarantino
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, Japanese, Georgian, Chinese
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating R
• Studio: Miramax Films
• DVD Release Date: April 13, 2004
• Run Time: 111 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill, Volume 2" is an exuberant celebration of moviemaking, coasting with heedless joy from one audacious chapter to another, working as irony, working as satire, working as drama, working as pure action. I liked it even more than "Kill Bill, Volume 1" (2003). It's not a sequel but a continuation and completion, filmed at the same time; now that we know the whole story, the first part takes on another dimension. "Vol. 2" stand on its own, although it has deeper resonance if you've seen "Kill Bill," just released on video.

The movie is a distillation of the countless grind house kung-fu movies Tarantino has absorbed, and which he loves beyond all reason. Web sites have already enumerated his inspirations -- how a sunset came from this, and a sword from that. He isn't copying, but transcending; there's a kind of urgency in the film, as if he's turning up the heat under his memories.

The movie opens with a long closeup of The Bride (Uma Thurman) behind the wheel of a car, explaining her mission, which is to kill Bill. There is a lot of explaining in the film; Tarantino writes dialogue with quirky details that suggest the obsessions of his people. That's one of the ways he gives his movies a mythical quality; the characters don't talk in mundane everyday dialogue, but in a kind of elevated geekspeak that lovingly burnishes the details of their legends, methods, beliefs and arcane lore.

Flashbacks remind us that the pregnant Bride and her entire wedding party were targeted by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad in a massacre at the Two Pines Wedding Chapel. Bill was responsible -- Bill, who she confronts on the porch of the chapel for a conversation that suggests the depth and weirdness of their association. He's played by David Carradine in a performance that somehow, improbably, suggests that Bill and the Bride had a real relationship despite the preposterous details surrounding it. (Bill is deeply offended that she plans to marry a used record store owner and lead a normal life.)

The Bride of course improbably survived the massacre, awakened after a long coma, and in the first film set to avenge herself against the Deadly Vipers and Bill. That involved extended action sequences as she battled Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), not to mention O-Ren's teenage bodyguard Go-Go Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama) and the martial arts killer team known as the Crazy 88.

Much of her success came because she was able to persuade the legendary swordmaker Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba) to come out of retirement and make her a weapon. He presented it without modesty: "This my finest sword. If in your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut."

In "Volume 2," she meets another Asian legend, the warrior master Pai Mei, played by Gordon Liu. Pai Mei, who lives on the top of a high, lonely hill reached by climbing many stairs, was Bill's master, and in a flashback, Bill delivers his protege for training. Pai Mei is a harsh and uncompromising teacher, and the Bride (whose real name, by the way, is Beatrix Kiddo) sheds blood during their unrelenting sessions.

Pai Mei, whose hair and beard are long and white and flowing, like a character from the pages of a comic book, is another example of Tarantino's method, which is to create lovingly structured episodes that play on their own while contributing to the legend. Like a distillation of all wise, ancient and deadly martial arts masters in countless earlier movies, Pai Mei waits patiently for eons on his hilltop until he is needed for a movie.

The training with Pai Mei, we learn, prepared The Bride to begin her career with Bill ("jetting around the world making vast sums of money and killing for hire"), and is inserted in this movie at a time and place that makes it function like a classic cliffhanger. In setting up this scene, Tarantino once again pauses for colorful dialogue; The Bride is informed by Bill that Pai Mei hates women, whites and Americans, and much of his legend is described. Such speeches function in Tarantino not as long-winded detours, but as a way of setting up characters and situations with dimensions it would be difficult to establish dramatically.

In the action that takes place "now," The Bride has to fight her way past formidable opponents, including Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), the one-eyed master of martial arts, and Budd (Michael Madsen), Bill's beer-swilling brother, who works as a bouncer in a strip joint and lives in a mobile home surrounded by desolation. Neither one is a pushover for The Bride -- Elle because of her skills (also learned from Pai Mei), Budd because of his canny instincts.

The showdown with Budd involves a sequence where it seems The Bride must surely die after being buried alive. (That she does not is a given, considering the movie is not over and Bill is not dead, but she sure looks doomed.) Tarantino, who began the film in black and white before switching to color, plays with formats here, too; to suggest the claustrophobia of being buried, he shows The Bride inside her wooden casket, and as clods of earth rain down on the lid, he switches from widescreen to the classic 4x3 screen ratio.

The fight with Elle Driver is a virtuoso celebration of fight choreography; although we are aware that all is not as it seems in movie action sequences, Thurman and Hannah must have trained long and hard to even seem to do what they do. Their battle takes place inside Budd's trailer home, which is pretty much demolished in the process, and provides a contrast to the elegant nightclub setting of the fight with O-Ren Ishii; it ends in a squishy way that would be unsettling in another kind of movie, but here all the action is so ironically heightened that we may cringe and laugh at the same time.

These sequences involve their own Tarantinian dialogue of explanation and scene-setting. Budd has an extended monologue in which he offers The Bride the choice of Mace and a flashlight, and the details of his speech allow us to visualize horrors worse than any we could possibly see. Later, Elle Driver produces a black mamba snake, and in a sublime touch, reads from a Web page that describes the snake's deadly powers.

Of the original "Kill Bill," I wrote: "The movie is all storytelling and no story. The motivations have no psychological depth or resonance, but are simply plot markers. The characters consist of their characteristics." True, but one of the achievements of "Volume 2" is that the story is filled in, the characters are developed, and they do begin to resonate, especially during the extraordinary final meeting between The Bride and Bill -- which consists not of nonstop action but of more hypnotic dialogue and ends in an event that is like a quiet, deadly punch line.

Put the two parts together, and Tarantino has made a masterful saga that celebrates the martial arts genre while kidding it, loving it, and transcending it. I confess I feared that "Volume 2" would be like those sequels that lack the intensity of the original.

But this is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts; Tarantino remains the most brilliantly oddball filmmaker of his generation, and this is one of the best films of the year.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: The Bride woke up after a long coma. The baby that she carried before the coma was gone. The only thing on her mind was to get revenge on the assassination team that betrayed her - a team she was once part of. With two of the people on her Death List taken care of, she must pursue Budd, Elle Driver and of course Bill himself. But she is in for a surprise...

Product Details

• Actors: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Lucy Liu
• Directors: Quentin Tarantino
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, Japanese, Georgian, Chinese
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating NC-17
• Studio: Miramax Films
• DVD Release Date: April 13, 2004
• Run Time: 136 minutes

Editorial Reviews

They say The Da Vinci Code has sold more copies than any book since the Bible. Good thing it has a different ending. Dan Brown's novel is utterly preposterous; Ron Howard's movie is preposterously entertaining. Both contain accusations against the Catholic Church and its order of Opus Dei that would be scandalous if anyone of sound mind could possibly entertain them. I know there are people who believe Brown's fantasies about the Holy Grail, the descendants of Jesus, the Knights Templar, Opus Dei and the true story of Mary Magdalene. This has the advantage of distracting them from the theory that the Pentagon was not hit by an airplane.

Let us begin, then, by agreeing that The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. And that since everyone has read the novel, I need only give away one secret -- that the movie follows the book religiously. While the book is a potboiler written with little grace and style, it does supply an intriguing plot. Luckily, Ron Howard is a better filmmaker than Dan Brown is a novelist; he follows Brown's formula (exotic location, startling revelation, desperate chase scene, repeat as needed) and elevates it into a superior entertainment, with Tom Hanks as a theo-intellectual Indiana Jones.

Hanks stars as Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist in Paris for a lecture when Inspector Fache (Jean Reno) informs him of the murder of museum curator Jacques Sauniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle). This poor man has been shot and will die late at night inside the Louvre; his wounds, although mortal, fortunately leave him time enough to conceal a safe deposit key, strip himself, cover his body with symbols written in his own blood, arrange his body in a pose and within a design by Da Vinci, and write out, also in blood, an encrypted message, a scrambled numerical sequence and a footnote to Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), the pretty French policewoman whom he raised after the death of her parents. Most people are content with a dying word or two; Jacques leaves us with a film treatment.

Having read the novel, we know what happens then. Sophie warns Robert he is in danger from Fache, and they elude capture in the Louvre and set off on a quest that leads them to the vault of a private bank, to the French villa of Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), to the Temple Church in London, to an isolated Templar church in the British countryside, to a hidden crypt and then back to the Louvre again. The police, both French and British, are one step behind them all of this time, but Sophie and Robert are facile, inventive and daring. Also, perhaps, they have God on their side.

This series of chases, discoveries and escapes is intercut with another story, involving an albino named Silas (Paul Bettany), who works under the command of the Teacher, a mysterious figure at the center of a conspiracy to conceal the location of the Holy Grail, what it really is, and what that implies. The conspiracy involves members of Opus Dei, a society of Catholics who in real life (I learn from a recent issue of the Spectator) are rather conventionally devout and prayerful. Although the movie describes their practices as "maso-chastity," not all of them are chaste and hardly any practice self-flagellation. In the months ahead, I would advise Opus Dei to carefully scrutinize membership applications.

Opus Dei works within but not with the church, which also harbors a secret cell of cardinals who are in on the conspiracy (the pope and most other Catholics apparently don't have backstage passes).

These men keep a secret that, if known, could destroy the church. That's why they keep it. If I were their adviser, I would point out that by preserving the secret, they preserve the threat to the church, and the wisest strategy would have been to destroy the secret, say, 1,000 years ago.

But one of the fascinations of the Catholic Church is that it is the oldest continuously surviving organization in the world, and that's why movies like "The Da Vinci Code" are more fascinating than thrillers about religions founded, for example, by a science-fiction author in the 1950s. All of the places in "The Da Vinci Code" really exist, though the last time I visited the Temple Church I was disappointed to find it closed for "repairs." A likely story.

Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno do a good job of not overplaying their roles, and Sir Ian McKellen overplays his in just the right way, making Sir Leigh into a fanatic whose study just happens to contain all the materials for an audio-visual presentation that briefs his visitors on the secrets of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and other matters. Apparently he keeps in close touch with other initiates. On the one hand, we have a conspiracy that lasts 2,000 years and threatens the very foundations of Christianity, and on the other hand a network of rich dilettantes who resemble a theological branch of the Baker Street Irregulars.

Yes, the plot is absurd, but then most movie plots are absurd. That's what we pay to see. What Ron Howard brings to the material is tone and style, and an aura of mystery that is undeniable. He begins right at the top; Columbia Pictures logo falls into shadow as Hans Zimmer's music sounds simultaneously liturgical and ominous. The murder scene in the Louvre is creepy in a ritualistic way, and it's clever the way Langdon is able to look at letters, numbers and symbols and mentally rearrange them to yield their secrets. He's like the Flora Cross character in "Bee Season," who used kabbalistic magic to visualize spelling words floating before her in the air.

The movie works; it's involving, intriguing and constantly seems on the edge of startling revelations. After it's over and we're back on the street, we wonder why this crucial secret needed to be protected by the equivalent of a brain-twister puzzle crossed with a scavenger hunt. The trail that Robert and Sophie follow is so difficult and convoluted that it seems impossible that anyone, including them, could ever follow it. The secret needs to be protected up to a point; beyond that it is absolutely lost, and the whole point of protecting it is beside the point. Here's another question: Considering where the trail begins, isn't it sort of curious where it leads? Still, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "In my beginning is my end." Maybe he was on to something.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: Symbologist Robert Langdon is thrown into a mysterious and bizarre murder. Alongside Langon is the victims granddaughter and cryptologist Sophie Neveu, who with Robert discovers clues within Da Vinci's paintings. To further find the truth, Robert and Sophie travel from Paris to London, whilst crossing paths with allies and villains such as Sir Leigh Teabing and Silas. Wherever their path takes them, there discovery which is about to be revealed could shake the foundations of mankind.

Product Details

• Actors: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Paul Bettany
• Directors: Ron Howard
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 2 (1 x DVD9 + 1 x DVD5)
• Rating: PG-13
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: November 14, 2006
• Run Time: 149 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Plenty of juicy "s" words apply to And Your Mother Too: sexy, sweet, subtle, sad, surprising, superb... and did we say sexy? With enough male and female nudity to qualify as softcore porn--but deserving none of the stigma attached to that label--this vibrant coming-of-age road movie is guaranteed to jumpstart any viewer's libido. Frank treatment of its characters' burgeoning sexuality makes this unrated film a real eye-opener, but it's never prurient or juvenile. Rather, the three-way odyssey of two 17-year-old Mexican boys (Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna) and a 28-year-old Spanish beauty (Maribel Verdú) is energetic and affirmative, while acknowledging that relationships--and sexual adventures--rarely develop without a hitch or two (or three). Filmed in sequence by Alfonso Cuarón (Great Expectations), and shot with invigorating natural style, this refreshing comedy-drama employs an omniscient narrator to reflect upon precious stolen moments, weaving three lives into a memorable tapestry of fun, friendship, and fate. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

Julio and Tenoch are two teens ruled by raging hormonesand a mission to consume exotic substances. But one summer, the boys learn more about life than they bargain for when they set off on a wild, cross-country road trip with seductive, 28-year-old Luisa. Both boys taste forbidden fruit as Luisa schools them in the finer points of passion, but will their mutual desire for her destroy their friendship forever?

Plot Summary

• Tagline: La vida tiene sus maneras de enseñarnos. La vida tiene sus maneras de confundirnos. La vida tiene sus maneras de cambiarnos. La vida tiene sus maneras de asombrarnos. La vida tiene sus maneras de herirnos. La vida tiene sus maneras de curarnos. La vida tiene sus maneras de inspirarnos.
• Plot Outline: In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.
• Plot Synopsis: Abandoned by their girlfriends for the summer, teenagers Tenoch and Julio meet the older Luisa at a wedding. Trying to be impressive, the friends tell Luisa they are headed on a road trip to a beautiful, secret beach called Boca del Cielo. Intrigued with their story and desperate to escape, Luisa asks if she can join them on their trip. Soon the three are headed out of Mexico City, making their way toward the fictional destination. Along the way, seduction, argument and the contrast of the trio against the harsh realities of the surrounding poverty ensue.

Included Title

• You Owe Me One
  • Stars: Flor Eduarda Gurrola, Merco Pérez, Fernando Becerril. Paloma Woolrich
  • Directors: Carlos Cuarón
  • Synopsis: A family of three, plus the maid and daughter's boyfriend look pretty normal on the outside. But in actuality, the are all having affairs with each other. The boyfriend is sleeping with the mother and daughter, and the father is sleeping with the maid. Do they all know about each other's affairs?

Product Details

• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Spanish
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: October 22, 2002
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: English
  • Available Audio Tracks: Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
  • Commentary by: cast members (in Spanish) Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
  • Three deleted scenes
  • Short film "Me la Debes"
  • Making-of featurette

Editorial Reviews

The film opens with a woman performing a sexually-oriented stage act. The highlight of this act involves spirited sexual congress with a large stuffed panda which will, at the very least, need to be cleaned and disinfected thoroughly before it can be returned to its owner. I can't claim to have seen every film with stuffed-panda fuckin', but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably THE scene to watch if you are into this particular sexual practice. In fact, I'll go the extra mile and say that I have never seen a better scene with a woman having sex with any kind of stuffed bear, and that includes teddy bears, although to tell the truth I haven't seen many Australian porn films, so I may be missing out on some excellent stuffed koala scenes. I have disqualified those in advance because koalas are not really bears, nor even closely related to bears.

The film is not called The Panda Fucker, however, but The Man Eater. You can therefore assume that it eventually gets to the point, or at least closer to a point of some kind, and starts to focus on various non-panda activities. A literal translation of the title would actually be closer to "the she-wolf," but the film is marketed to English-speaking channels as The Man Eater because that title has a double meaning in the context of one the star's favorite sexual practices. The star, Loredana Cannata, sets aside her panda long enough to perform a highly beloved form of man-eating on camera in the course of this film, thus earning La Donna Lupo a spot on Wikipedia's list of mainstream movies with unsimulated sex. In addition to this particular activity, Ms. Cannata also pleasures herself on camera by demonstrating her command of Houdini's famous "disappearing finger act," the secret to which I am not allowed to reveal as part of my long-standing agreement to abide by the magician's code, in return for which the magicians agree not to turn me into a newt or make my web site disappear. A small price to pay, if you ask me. Suffice it to say that Ms. Cannata spends the entire film engaging in various activities that are normally performed in public only when there are parties at Charlie Sheen's house. Astoundingly, at least by the more puritanical standards of America, the infinitely open-minded Italian public has subsequently accepted the same Ms. Cannata as a mainstream TV star in her native land.

In between the sex scenes, this is a mainstream and somewhat arty erotic thriller about a mysterious woman with an unquenchable appetite for anonymous sex. A young man picks up a beautiful woman for a one-night stand. He falls for her after a wild night of skinny dipping and hanky-panky, but she is gone in the morning, and the name and phone number she gave him turn out to be false. The young man is so smitten with his dream girl that he tracks her down, only to find out that her entire life consists of nights just like the one she spent with him - except with other men, using other false identities. In general, it is a slow and arty film with no apparent point and a "wha ...?" ending, and is only of interest to those who would like to see Cannata fellate a young man or insert a finger into herself.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: This is the story about a Sicilian woman that try to have avidly as many sexual adventures as possible. She uses different identity and personality but she couldn't stop collecting adventures. One day she meet Valerio a young student that falls in love with her.

Product Details

• Actors: Loredana Cannata, Arturo Paglia, Pascal Persiano, Francesco Di Leva, Gianluca Cuomo
• Directors: Aurelio Grimaldi
• Format: Color, Dolby, Full Screen, PAL
• Language: Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: -
• Disc Origin: Region 0 (Italy) Original
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Full Screen)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: Aranciafilm
• DVD Release Date: August 26, 1999
• Run Time: 80 minutes

Editorial Reviews

"Disclosure" contains an inspiring terrific shot of Demi Moore's cleavage in a Wonderbra, surrounded by 125 minutes of pure goofiness leading up to, and resulting from, this moment. Advertised as the first movie about the sexual harassment of men by women in the workplace, it is an exercise in pure cynicism, with little respect for its subject - or for its thriller plot, which I defy anyone to explain.

The "theme" is basically a launch pad for sex scenes. And yet the movie is so sleek, so glossy, so filled with Possessoporn (toys so expensive they're erotic), that you can enjoy it like a Sharper Image catalog that walks and talks.

The film takes place inside the Seattle research and development headquarters of a vast high-tech corporation. The male employees have not had their consciousness raised. ("I definitely have lift-off," one says, after Demi Moore walks by).

Michael Douglas plays Tom Sanders, an executive involved in the manufacture of "Corridor," a virtual reality database. There are problems on the assembly line that may jeopardize a merger.

Corridor is some software program, all right. Users stand in the center of a network of light beams that track their movements. They wear a headset that creates the illusion that they are wandering the corridors of a Greco-Roman temple lined with filing systems. They reach out a hand, and files come into view, which can be searched and accessed. In other words, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, busy executives can do the work of file clerks.

The company is about to be acquired by a larger firm, and the boss (Donald Sutherland) stands to make $100 million. So he doesn't want to hear any bad news about Corridor. Meanwhile, Douglas expects a promotion - and is shocked to learn it will go instead to a former lover named Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore). The day she gets the job, she calls him to her office for a 7 p.m. conference, pours his favorite wine, and segues directly into an attempted rape.

He fights her off (although not without being tempted long enough, of course, to let the confrontation develop into a satisfactory movie sex scene). The next day, she accuses him of sexual harassment, and his life and ca reer seem about to be destroyed.

OK. That part you already know, from the publicity surrounding the Michael Crichton best-seller that inspired the movie.

And of course there are office hearings and confrontations as the company tries to get to the bottom of the charges without allowing a public scandal. Douglas is defended by a bright, high-powered attorney named Catherine Alvarez (Roma Maffia), who is the subject of one of the movie's cleverest lines: "She'd change her name to `TV Listings' to get it in the paper." But things look bad for him until he starts getting anonymous tips via e-mail, and another level of conspiracy is revealed.

A lot of that is obligatory material in thrillers about sex and conspiracy in the corridors of power. What's unusual this time is the Nancy Drew stuff: Evidence obtained by means so lame and unlikely, we laugh even while it's happening. What are the odds, for example, that Michael Douglas could overhear Demi Moore's evil schemes by eavesdropping outside an exercise room, where Moore climbs a Stairmaster while helpfully, and loudly, divulging her secrets to a henchman? And what about the plot's answering machine gimmick - a textbook deus ex machina? Without these contrivances, there would be no way for Douglas to defend himself, or for the plot to advance. The anonymous e-mail messages from "A Friend" are not very helpful, and (as it turns out) could easily be tracked.

Late in the film, some sort of labyrinthine scheme involving the Sutherland character is hinted at, without ever becoming clear; it's a distraction, because there are references to things that are not explained.

"Disclosure" loves its high-tech look. The corporation occupies offices where every wall is made of glass, and lives are lived in public. There's a lot of computer stuff in the movie, which makes us feel clever, unless we know anything about computers, in which case, it makes the movie feel dumb. (How likely is it, database fans, that a corporation would trust all of its records to a prototype of new software?) There's a neat scene where Douglas dons the virtual reality headpiece and goes hunting through the files, while his enemies materialize in the cyberspace behind him. Looks great. But techheads will be rolling in the aisles.

As the movie started, I expected a sexy docudrama about sexual harassment. What I got was more of a thriller and whodunit, in which the harassment theme gets misplaced. Too bad, since the best scenes involve the attorneys for Moore and Douglas, and especially the scenes where Douglas' attorney sets out in chilling detail what a lawsuit is likely to do to his life. There's also an intriguing subplot involving Douglas' relationship with his wife (Caroline Goodall).

Much could have been made of this material. Much has been made of it. But not the same much.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: Sex Is Power
• Plot Synopsis: With his company about to merge, a happily married and successful computer expert is expecting a promotion. Instead the job goes to a woman from another plant with whom he had an affair in his bachelor days. His new boss, not only dangerously sexy but equally dangerously ambitious, has climbed the corporate ladder by exerting undue influence on the CEO. She apparently tries to pick up where they left off but he just about manages to resist. This liaison is soon revealed to be part of her master plan to consolidate power and use Tom as a scapegoat to cover her technical misdeeds. As his position at work comes under increasing pressure he decides to file charges of sexual harassment. This is the last thing the company needs.

Product Details

• Actors: Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, Donald Sutherland, Caroline Goodall, Roma Maffia
• Directors: Barry Levinson
• Format: Subtitled, Widescreen, Letterbox, Dolby, Color, PAL
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.1), Deutsch (Dolby Digital 2.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.1)
• Subtitles: English, Arabic, Deutsch, Hebrew, Spanish, Icelandic, Polish, Turkish
• Disc Origin: Region 2 (GERMANY) Original
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Letterbox)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: May 11, 1998
• Run Time: 123 minutes

Editorial Reviews

A love letter to movies (and the French new wave of the 1960s in particular), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers starts with a 1968 riot outside of a Parisian movie palace then burrows into an insular love triangle. Matthew (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), an expatriate American student, bonds with a twin brother and sister, Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), over their mutual love of film--they not only quote lines of dialogue, they act out small bits and challenge each other to name the cinematic source. Matthew suspects the twins of incest, but that doesn't stop him from falling into his own intimacies with Isabelle. As the threesome becomes threatened, Paris succumbs to student riots. The Dreamers aspires to be kinky, but the results are more decorative than decadent; nonetheless, the movie's lively energy recalls the careless and vital exuberance of Godard and Truffaut. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

From Academy Award®-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor, 1987), comes an erotic tale of three young film lovers brought together by their passion for movies -- and each other. When Isabelle and Theo (Eva Green, Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt) to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and anything is possible. Featuring an engaging, seductive cast, The Dreamers is a ?spellbinding, provocative feast!" (Ebert & Roeper)

Product Details

• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, French, Spanish
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating: NC-17
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: July 13, 2004
• Run Time: 115 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Employing shock techniques and sound design in a relentless sensory assault, Requiem for a Dream is about nothing less than the systematic destruction of hope. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., and adapted by Selby and director Darren Aronofsky, this is undoubtedly one of the most effective films ever made about the experience of drug addiction (both euphoric and nightmarish), and few would deny that Aronofsky, in following his breakthrough film Pi, has pushed the medium to a disturbing extreme, thrusting conventional narrative into a panic zone of traumatized psyches and bodies pushed to the furthest boundaries of chemical tolerance. It's too easy to call this a cautionary tale; it's a guided tour through hell, with Aronofsky as our bold and ruthless host.

The film focuses on a quartet of doomed souls, but it's Ellen Burstyn--in a raw and bravely triumphant performance--who most desperately embodies the downward spiral of drug abuse. As lonely widow Sara Goldfarb, she invests all of her dreams in an absurd self-help TV game show, jolting her bloodstream with diet pills and coffee while her son Harry (Jared Leto) shoots heroin with his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) and slumming girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly). They're careening toward madness at varying speeds, and Aronofsky tracks this gloomy process by endlessly repeating the imagery of their deadly routines. Tormented by her dietary regime, Sara even imagines a carnivorous refrigerator in one of the film's most memorable scenes. And yet... does any of this have a point? Is Aronofsky telling us anything that any sane person doesn't already know? Requiem for a Dream is a noteworthy film, but watching it twice would qualify as masochistic behavior. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

Darren Aronofsky's new film stars Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb, a Brighton Beach widow who launches herself on a crash diet-a path that will lead to pill addiction and electroshock therapy. Meanwhile, her son Harry (Jared Leto) and his girlfriend, Marion (Jennifer Connelly), yield to the pull of hard drugs. No one in this picture seems to have any powers of resistance; who would have thought denizens of Brighton Beach would give up without a fight? Each of the characters is fenced in by solitude; Aronofsky divides them by split-screen, and punches home their addiction with a blistering montage of pills, puffs, and widening eyes. All of this is managed with formidable skill, but it shuts the movie down, and the various junkies-even Burstyn, who gives the role everything she's got-end up looking less substantial than their respective poisons. A cautionary tale, maybe, but it gets a dangerous buzz from the aesthetics of a fix. The script was adapted from the novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., who appears as a ferrety prison guard. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Product Details

• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: Artisan
• DVD Release Date: August 14, 2001
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
  • Commentary by: Director Darren Aronofsky (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
  • "Making of" Documentary
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Interviews with Ellen Burstyn and Hubert Selby Jr

Editorial Reviews

Whether he disliked the idea of a sequel or found the screenplay to be a softcore upgrade of the first film, director Just Jaekin stepped away from “Emmanuelle 2” (released as “The Joys of Emmanuelle” in America) and recommended Francis Giacobetti – the popular commercial photographer responsible for the famous still that graced the first film's poster art.

With a larger budget, the production went to Hong Kong, and like the first film, the location work really paid off. A handsome film shot in a wider scope ratio, it also contained more male-oriented shots that dwell on privates and sweaty rumps in a manner sometimes evocative of Italian director Tinto Brass. Ergo, this one was heavily slanted towards female cinemagoers.

“The Joys of Emmanuelle Part 2” assembles the same interview subjects, and largely chronicles the problems producer Yves Rousset-Rouard faced when dealing with the French censor office. Giacobetti's camera really reflects a fashion sensibility, and the movie's sexual montages often involve portrait-like framing; bodies lung, hands grope, and backs extend backwards (but making really good use of Panavision).

The infamous bathhouse scene – with future “Black Emanuelle” star Laura Gemser – is unreal, absurd, and still pretty outrageous, with Oscar-winning composer Francis Lai (“Love Story”) milking every rub and scrub with his maniacally repetitive theme. Another crazy sequence has Emmanuelle visiting an acupuncturist, and the pain/pleasure montage – while original for a Western film – may seem kind of creepy if you've seen Takashi Miike's twisted gem “Audition.” (Needles Bad. Very, very Bad.) Nevertheless, Anchor Bay's transfer is really nice, and the sharp cinematography makes excellent use of the diverse locations.

Ironically, Giacobetti never made another film, finding the lack of control too chaotic, and returned to his commercial photographic career. “Emmanuelle 2” did well internationally, but Kristel had a rougher time during filming; finding the story more misogynistic than the first movie, and suffering a rather serious injury while on location.

Plot Summary

• Plot Outline:

  This Classic sequel to the erotic blockbuster hit Emmanuelle, stars Sylvia Kristel who reprises the role that made her an international star. Set in the exotic orient, Emmanuelle 2 stretches sensuality to new heights. This time around, Emmanuelle is married to Jean, a wealthy artist and is living in Hong Kong. Things heat up when a young girl comes to live with the couple and her presence ignites their guest for ultimate sexual fulfillment. Their exploration take them into a world of sexual rediscovery, fantasy and an unforgettable momentous climax.

Product Details

• Actors: Sylvia Kristel, Umberto Orsini, Frédéric Lagache, Catherine Rivet
• Directors: Francis Giacobetti
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Disc Origin: Region 3 (South Korea)
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• DVD Release Date: May 13, 2003
• Run Time: 91 minutes

Editorial Reviews

The first three “Emmanuelle” productions are distinctive in their visual style and tone, and endure as examples of the erotic film during key moments of censorial permissiveness. Where the first put the erotic genre in mainstream cinema houses (and made it chic and acceptable to see full frontal nudity & naughtiness beyond the porno realm), the second was forced to straddle the softcore border when hardcore productions like “Deep Throat” raised the shock value.

After a rather unsuccessful time in Hollywood, Kristel's selection of roles pretty much revolved around being a babe, and the actress admits in the featurette, “The Joys of Emmanuelle Part 3,” her later choices merely offered income to support her painting career during lean periods. Unlike similar actors inadvertently obliged to act in sequels, Kristel was lucky in two areas: director/co-writer Francois Leterrier wanted to focus on Emmanuelle's marriage, in what's become a tiring, corrupted love affair with her husband (reprised by Umberto Orsini); and producer Yves Rousset-Rouard wanted to end the series, after three films (since that's what Kristel originally signed up for).

“Good-bye Emmanuelle” is surprisingly engaging, benefiting from a decent script that lessens the usual sexological-babble and vacuous free-love philosophy of the latter installments, and deals with the disintegration of several marriages that have been largely shored up by their selfish, priapic husbands. The exploits of the previous films have also left scars on Emmanuelle and her husband, and that's pretty much what the film subtly explores; bodies still frolic in their birthday-suit glory, but each episodic sexual escapade is dramatically functional.

The longest of the three “Emmanuelle” films is also the best-paced; lingering less on the details of idle-rich whoopee, and offering some well-structured dramatic turns that ultimately lead to a rather bittersweet farewell from series star Kristel. Anchor Bay's transfer is gorgeous; the in-car dialogue scenes use really obvious rear-projection, but the location work is first-rate. Jean Badal's widescreen cinematography embraces the colours of the tropical Seychelles, and avoids colours and patterns that would normally date the film. There's many beautiful compositions that are happily allowed to linger, and Serge Gainsbourg's pop score is restrained in its synthetic instruments; rarely heard throughout the film, the lack of wall-to-wall music leaves room for the functional dialogue and seaside sound effects.

“The Joys of Emmanuelle Part 3” featurette covers the end of the series (a fourth film had Kristel reprise her character, and undergo plastic surgery in Brazil, so a new/younger Emmanuelle could continue the franchise. The actress also appeared as hostess in several direct-to-video entries); the many imitators that amazingly avoided lawsuits by dropping one “m” from the titular character (hence the degenerative Laura Gemser series); and what Just Jaekin and Kristel are up to today, after being involved with such an iconic series. (The answers are happily positive).

Plot Summary

• Plot Outline:

  The third film in the truly sensuous Emmanuelle series stars Sylvia Kristel as the beautiful, young and seductive model who, with her architect husband, continue their amoral lifestyle - this time in the Seychelles. When a casual dalliance between her and a film director starts to turn serious, her husband shows very traditional signs of jealousy...

Product Details

• Actors: Sylvia Kristel, Umberto Orsini, Jean-Pierre Bouvier, Alexandra Stewart
• Directors: François Leterrier
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Disc Origin: Region 3 (South Korea)
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• DVD Release Date: May 13, 2003
• Run Time: 99 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Lady Libertine (1984) is the long awaited DVD issue of "Frank and I," an erotic film based on the anonymously penned Victorian novel of the same name. It is an example of 1980s "couples erotica," originally shot in Europe for late night American cable showings on the Playboy Channel. It is most notable for the court battles it inspired. Supporting actress Sophie Favier became a respectable TV presenter in France after she made this film, and she sued to prevent it from being re-released. She lost the case, so we now have a chance to see Umbrella Entertainment's remastered and uncut DVD.

Christopher Pearson plays a 19th century gentleman who sees a young lad walking in the middle of nowhere, clearly with no means of support. The squire brings young Frank home, takes a liking to him, and is about to put him a proper boarding school and turn him into a gentleman, when the need arises to cane him. The resultant body exposure reveals that Frank is actually Frances (Jennifer Inch). This changes everything, and it doesn't take long until they are intimate. Needless to say, this puts a strain on Pearson's relationship with his city girlfriend (Sophie Favier). He finally convinces his girlfriend to take charge of educating Frances and turning her into a lady. Meanwhile, he hears the girl's complete story, including the punishment she received in a whorehouse because she was not willing to prostitute herself.

If this is your kind of material, you will not be disappointed. This film captures the spirit of Victorian era pornography and presents lovely women completely naked and being naughty, including a famous game show host. It even adds spanking, caning and whipping for fetish fans, all in an immaculate and unexpurgated transfer.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: The infamous erotic saga an ashamed star tried to stop!
• Plot Synopsis: Charlie, a young aristocrat in turn of the century England, meets a boy named Frank on the road to Portsmouth. What Charlie doesn't realize is that Frank is actually Frances, who's donned a disguise to escape working at a brothel. Charlie takes Frank/Frances into his home, and when he discovers her true identity, the two become lovers. He sends her to London to be trained by his mistress in the art of sex, but she learns much more about her identity as a woman. Before the opening credits, explicitly on-screen it reads: "Based on the famous Victorian erotic novel by an anonymous writer".

Product Details

• Actors: Christopher Pearson, Jennifer Inch, Sophie Favier, Alain Dumaurier, Emmanuel Karsen
• Directors: Gérard Kikoïne
• Format: Color, Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: -
• Disc Origin: Region All (Australia) Original
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Full Screen)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: MA 15+
• Studio: Playboy Cinema
• DVD Release Date: October 31, 2006
• Run Time: 84 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Neve Campbell is an arresting enigma in When Will I Be Loved, one of writer-director James Toback's most mysterious and successful minimalist dramas about sex, deception, and mutable identities in New York City. Campbell plays twenty something beauty Vera, whose nude shower scene during the film's opening credits looks more like mythic preparation for a soon-to-be-fateful day than brazen exploitation. Ensconced in a fantastic loft paid for by her parents (Barry Primus, Karen Allen), the unemployed Vera embarks on an odyssey that begins with a mutually deceitful job interview with a college professor (Toback), leads to misadventures in questionable perception in Central Park, and climaxes with Vera's successful manipulation of two powerful men, one a craven lover (Fred Weller) and the other an Italian billionaire (Dominic Chianese) trying to get her in bed for a lot of money. Provocative as a good urban legend, the film sticks with one for a long time. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

Neve Campbell, Dominic Chianese and Fred Weller star in this smoldering erotic thriller about a femme fatale exploring the frightening reach of her sexual power - and the red-hot fusion of money, power and desire. Directed by James Toback, When Will I Be Loved is an "illumination of sexual and identity politics" (Slant Magazine) that sizzles and seduces.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: Revenge is a dish best served hot.
• Plot Outline Feeling undervalued by her boyfriend, a young woman begins to explore her sexuality with other people.
• Plot Synopsis: Vera (Neve Campbell) is a femme fatale for the 21st century; a beautiful, capricious young woman living in New York whom begins exploring the limits of her sexual and intellectual power. She picks up men on the street and has sex with them in her apartment. She also videotapes a sexual romp with a female lover, and has sexually frank discussions with her potential employer. As the daughter of wealthy, indulgent parents, Vera seems to be improvising her way through the beginning of her life as an adult. Her boyfriend, Ford (Frederick Weller), is a fast-talking hustler prepared to do anything to make a buck. Aware of Vera's promiscuity, Ford sees a chance to make big money when he meets an aging Italian media mogul, named Count Tommaso (Dominic Chianese), who is enamored of Vera because of her sexuality, her intelligence, and what he perceives as her naiveté. Ford cooks up an idea to pimp Vera out to the Count for $100,000, easy money, if he can only talk Vera into it. Incredibly, she agrees. Everything appears to be going even better than planned. But both men have gravely underestimated Vera, who has an agenda of her own. Ford and the Count unwittingly play right into her hands, and when her plan of deception and manipulation comes to fruition, the results are staggering.

Product Details

• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating: R
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: January 25, 2005
• Run Time: 81 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: English, Spanish
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
  • Commentary by: director James Toback
  • Scene sexplorations with Neve Campbell and director James Toback

Editorial Reviews

"Emmanuelle" is a silly, classy, enjoyable erotic film that became an all-time box-office success in France. It's not remotely significant enough to deserve that honor, but in terms of its genre (soft-core skin flick) it's very well done: lushly photographed on location in Thailand, filled with attractive and intriguing people, and scored with brittle, teasing music. Now that hard-core porno has become passe, it's a relief to see a movie that drops the gynecology and returns to a certain amount of sexy sophistication.

There have been movies influenced by other movies, and directors influenced by other directors, but "Emmanuelle" may be the first movie influenced by magazine centerfolds. Its style of color photography seems directly ripped off from the centerfolds in Penthouse, including even the props and decor. Its characters (French diplomats and -- especially -- their women in Thailand) inhabit a world of wicker furniture, soft pastels, vaguely Victorian lingerie, backlighting, forests of potted plants, and lots of diaphanous draperies shifting in the breeze. It's a world totally devoid of any real content, of course, and Emmanuelle is right at home in it.

She's the young, virginal wife of a diplomat, and has just flown out from Paris to rejoin him. Her husband refuses to be possessive, and indeed almost propels her into a dizzying series of sexual encounters that range from the merely kinky to the truly bizarre. In the midst of this erotic maelstrom, Emmanuelle somehow retains her innocence.

The director, Just Jaeckin, correctly understands that gymnastics and heavy breathing do not an erotic movie make, nor does excessive attention to gynecological detail. Carefully deployed clothing can, indeed, be more erotic than plain nudity, and the decor in "Emmanuelle" also tends to get into the act. Jaeckin is a master of establishing situations; the seduction of Emmanuelle on the airplane, for example, is all the more effective because of its forbidden nature. And the encounter after the boxing match (Emmanuelle is the prize for the winning fighter and tenderly licks the sweat from his eyebrow) is given a rather startling voyeuristic touch (the spectators don't leave after the fight).

The movie's first hour or so is largely given over to lesbian situations, but then Emmanuelle comes under the influence of the wise old Mario (played by Alain Cuny, the French actor immortalized as Steiner, the intellectual who committed suicide in Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita"). She is turned off at first by his age, but with age, she is assured, comes experience, and does it ever. Mario delivers himself of several profoundly meaningless generalizations about finding oneself through others and attaining true freedom, and then he introduces her to a series of photogenic situations. Mario's philosophy is frankly foolish, but Cuny delivers it with such solemn, obsessed conviction that the scenes become a parody, and "Emmanuelle"'s comic undertones are preserved.

What also makes the film work is the performance of Sylvia Kristel as Emmanuelle. She's a slender actress who isn't even the prettiest woman in the film, but she projects a certain vulnerability that makes several of the scenes work. The performers in most skin flicks seem so impervious to ordinary mortal failings, so blasé in the face of the most outrageous sexual invention, that finally they just become cartoon characters. Kristel actually seems to be present in the film, and as absorbed in its revelations as we are. It's a relief, during a time of cynicism in which sex is supposed to sell anything, to find a skin flick that's a lot better than it probably had to be.

Plot Summary

• Plot Outline:

  Emmanuelle, based on the banned scandalous 1957 novel by Emmanuelle Arsan, is a French masterpiece of eroticism. When Pompidou tried to ban the film, it became France's all-time box office champ!

  Emmanuelle is a beautiful lithe woman of 19 who is part innocent, part temptress, all sensuous. Bored with her new life with her husband in the idyllic setting of Thailand, Emmanuelle decides to taste the erotic joys of the east.

  Although Emmanuelle has learned about love, she has not experienced the intricacies of free unbounded sexual desire.

  Determined to free herself of her guilt, Emmanuelle throws herself into a series of salacious affairs and under the sexual instruction of the elderly Mario, Emmanuelle learns how to throw away the pleasures of love, and realise the dream of eroticism...

Product Details

• Actors: Alain Cuny, Sylvia Kristel, Marika Green, Daniel Sarky
• Directors: Just Jaeckin
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Disc Origin: Region 3 (South Korea)
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• DVD Release Date: May 13, 2003
• Run Time: 94 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Maverick director Michael Winterbottom wondered about the double standard of why novels can have explicit sex scenes and be legit and films could not. So his short film of a relationship based solely on sex and a love for music is the result of that thought. If the definition of a porn film is to shoot actors performing graphic sex scenes for real, then 9 Songs qualifies. It certainly doesn't feel or look like your standard whoopdee-do XXX feature. It's as glossy and low-budget arty as Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People or I Want You. But yeah, Matt and Lisa do everything to each other, and the actors are not "just acting" in some of the sex scenes. No matter how landmark the movie might be, there is not much story here (at least a book with hot sex often has a good story to it). Lisa is an American drifter in London who hooks up with Matt, a scientist who studies glaciers in Antarctica. They have sex and visit nine rock concerts including Franz Ferdinand and The Dandy Warhols. As advertised, you can't find these musical performances anywhere else, but we just see them from way back in the crowd. The film has an essence of how someone can find bliss in another person's body, and the emotional, magical weight that can hold over you. But that spell doesn't last. Since the sex is real, Winterbottom had to cast unknown actors, and they really don't make an impression, especially with the lack of story. --Doug Thomas

Product Description

Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall - London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs. Featuring nine live concert performances not available anywhere else by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Von Bondies, Elbow, Primal Scream, The Dandy Warhols, Super Furry Animals, Franz Ferdinand and Michael Nyman. Special features include a Concert Performance-only option.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: 2 Lovers. 1 Year.
• Plot Outline: In London, England, love blooms between an American college student, named Lisa, and a British glaciologist, named Matt, where over the next few months in between attending rock concerts, the two lovers have intense sexual encounters.
• Plot Synopsis: Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall--London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages (familiar to anyone who's ever been in love) unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.

Product Details

• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: Tartan Video
• DVD Release Date: November 22, 2005
• Run Time: 69 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: Spanish
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS)
  • Concert Performance Only Option
  • Interviews With Director Michael Winterbottom, Kieran O'Brien, Margo Stilley
  • The Bands from 9 Songs

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

Jay (Mark Rylance) and Claire (Kerry Fox) meet for sex every Wednesday in Jay's unfurnished London flat. Photographed in a ghostly light, the two grapple silently; their lovemaking is more about hunger and release than pleasure. The director Patrice Chéreau, adapting stories by Hanif Kureishi, seems to be attempting a generational portrait of Londoners in their thirties who are not quite gifted or single-minded enough to fulfill their dreams-failed musicians, painters, and actors who have drifted into wretchedness and bickering. The movie has some fine moods of bafflement and rage, but much of it is garbled and rather vague. The camera, right on top of the actors, seems to be chASINg something that it can't find. With Timothy Spall as Claire's faithful husband, by far the most fully created character in the movie. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Product Description

What starts out as a weekly anonymous tryst between a divorced man and a married woman turns into a searing portrait of loneliness and emotional need. Directed by Patrice Chereau (Queen Margot), INTIMACY won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival where lead actress Kerry Fox also won the Best Actress Award. Based on Hanif Kureishi’s controversial novel, INTIMACY was selected to play at the Sundance and New York Film Festivals. DVD extras include the original theatrical trailer and cast and filmmaker bios.

Plot Summary

• Plot Outline: A failed London musician meets once a week with a woman for a series of intense sexual encounters to get away from the realities of life. But when he begins inquiring about her, it puts their relationship at risk.
• Plot Synopsis: Jay, a failed musician, walked out of his family and now earns a living as head bartender in a trendy London pub. Every Wednesday afternoon a woman comes to his house for graphic, almost wordless, sex. One day Jay follows her and finds out about the rest of her life (and that her name is Claire). This eventually disrupts their relationship.

Product Details

• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating: UNRATED
• Studio: KOCH LORBER FILMS
• DVD Release Date: January 6, 2004
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)

Editorial Reviews

What is Special About this DVD?

Actress Jennifer Rubin's plentiful nude scenes, "3 way" footage, and the scene where she uses her mouth to demonstrate the importance of safe sex (apply a condom - image captures are shown below) are certainly a major reason why collectors worldwide are frustrated that they can't find this in local stores on DVD. Don't worry, we've got it, and its great!

Who is Jennifer Rubin?

Jennifer was a fashion model who brought her soft, sex-swollen lips and her warm, brown eyes to the Silver Screen! Her body is long, tawny, and toned, as befits the hot lights of the runway. Her breasts? Double handfuls of billowing nirvana topped by a pair of the most active stand-up nipples ever captured by the leering lens. Right here is her most sought after movie on DVD

Plot Summary

• Tagline: Guns - Drugs - and Sex
• Plot Synopsis: Jennifer Rubin plays Eva, who has a torrid love affair with multiple partners, but does she know what she's getting into? After many years Pooch has returned to his neighborhood. To Big Boy, his best friend, Pooch is valuable asset in his plans of becoming local crime lord. To Pooch, this reunion is painful because he is, actually, undercover cop sent to bring Big Boy down.

Product Details

• Actors: Damian Chapa, Jennifer Rubin, Scott Plank, William Atherton, Damon Whitaker
• Directors: Paul Mones
• Format: Color, Dolby, Full Screen, PAL
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0 mono)
• Subtitles: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic, Durch
• Disc Origin: Region 2 (European Union) Original
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Full Screen)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: 18
• Studio: MDP Worldwide
• DVD Release Date: April 19, 1995
• Run Time: 100 minutes