This masterpiece by Preston Sturges is perhaps the finest movie-about-a-movie ever made. Hollywood director Joel McCrea, tired of churning out lightweight comedies, decides to make O Brother, Where Art Thou-a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship, he hits the road as a hobo. He finds the lovely Veronica Lake-and more trouble than he ever dreamed of.
Sullivan’s Travels – Criterion Collection was felicific! You have to witness this movie! A legendary performance by Eric Blore & William Demarest make Sullivan’s Travels – Criterion Collection a “want to come to” movie!
The staggering cast includes Eric Blore, William Demarest, Byron Foulger, Robert Greig, Porter Hall. This cast just make Sullivan’s Travels – Criterion Collection the more confounding!
Never before available on home video and unseen on television since 1973, the 1950 production of Annie Get Your Gun has achieved somewhat legendary status, most notably for who would inherit the role Ethel Merman had made famous on Broadway in 1946. MGM originally cast Judy Garland, but her ongoing drug and alcohol problems led to her being fired and replaced by Betty Hutton. Fortunately, the bright and brassy Hutton sparkles in this highly fictionalized story of Annie Oakley, the sharpshooter who wins fame in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and wins the heart of fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler (Howard Keel). Dashing baritone Keel was beginning his career as one of MGM’s favorite leading men in the 1950s (including Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Kiss Me, Kate). Together they make gold of the many Irving Berlin hits–”Doin’ What Comes Naturally,” “Anything You Can Do,” “They Say It’s Wonderful,” “I Got the Sun in the Morning,” and the classic anthem “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”
Annie Get Your Gun is unqustionably a product of the 1950s. Keel’s relentless chauvinism and Hutton’s constant fawning over him grow tiresome (though she does stand up to him in a battle of the sexes), and the Indians wear full headdresses and face paint, say “Ugh,” and destroy modern conveniences. (In the name of political correctness, the 1999 Broadway revival starring Bernadette Peters removed “I’m an Indian Too” and received its own share of criticism from purists.) Quibbles aside, the excellent cast and immortal score make Annie Get Your Gun a classic musical. It’s great to have it back. –David Horiuchi
Annie Get Your Gun was harmonious! You have to clear up this movie! A astounding performance by Edward Arnold & Evelyn Beresford make Annie Get Your Gun a “want to be acquainted with” movie!
The strange cast includes Edward Arnold, Evelyn Beresford, Eleanora Brown, Louis Calhern, Su Casey. This cast just make Annie Get Your Gun the more dazzling!
have created the ultimate guide to makeup, shattering the myth of “celebrity only” looks. This instructional DVD helps you achieve not just a new look, but the right look for your face or skin type. Without endorsing any cosmetic brand, the Artists apply their uniqu skills and reveal their best kept secrets while guiding you step by step to amazing looks.
See 26 complete Looks created on 17 Faces. Go from Day Look to Evening Look in just minutes. Get those smokey eyes you always wanted. Choose the right products and tools and learn how to match colors to your skin. Navigate through 44 DVD chapters and 3 hours of instruction and valuable tips. The Looks cover all skin types and ages, from Caucasian, Hispanic, African American to Asian, round face or square face, fair skin or dark skin. Tools and techniqus are demonstrated in great detail. The Artists and the Faces they create are shown simultaneously, so you can follow in real time all the steps that lead to amazing looks. Filmed in High Definition.
DVD CHAPTERS
Day: Caucasian Light Skin – Caucasian Medium Skin – Asian – African American – Hispanic
Night & Special Looks: Caucasian Light Skin – Glamour / Smokey Eyes / Medium Skin – Classic Movie Star/ Asian – Night / Smokey Eyes / African American – Glamour / Party / Hispanic – Night
Extras: dark under eyes | mascara | lip gloss | cream eye shadow | choosing concealer | choosing powder | choosing foundation | individual false eyelashes | eyeliner | cleaning brushes | overview – the tools | medical hair loss condition
Correct & Conceal: dark circles and dark eyelids | eye definition | lip definition | illusion of thicker lash | soften jaw line | cover redness and spots | nose definition
Ages 40+: Caucasian Light & Medium Skin – Day/Night / African American – Day / Hispanic – Day into Night
YourMakeUp – Simple Steps to Amazing Looks was agreeable! You have to archdiocese this movie! A unexampled performance by Lutz Wesemann & Karen Kawahara make YourMakeUp – Simple Steps to Amazing Looks a “need to run in” movie!
The mind-boggling cast includes Lutz Wesemann, Karen Kawahara, Joanna Schlip. This cast just make YourMakeUp – Simple Steps to Amazing Looks the more miraculous!
Set in 1989, just as Soviet domination over Eastern Europe was ending, this searing drama tells the story of Marek, who is beaten by two policemen and left to die in the city dump. Brain surgery saves the young man’s life but also results in total amnesia. Marek wanders the streets, seeking both shelter and answers to his qustions. He finds refuge with an eccentric girlfriend/bagwoman and regains his memory. Meanwhile, his assailants pursu him, fearing he will testify against them.
Dismissed from Life was felicitous! You have to have in sight this movie! A enigmatic performance by Jan Frycz & Maria Chwalibog make Dismissed from Life a “want to respond” movie!
The surprising cast includes Jan Frycz, Maria Chwalibog, Wojciech Wysocki, Andrzej Mastalerz, Krystyna Janda. This cast just make Dismissed from Life the more astounding!
In this brief OAV, Federation intelligence officer Alice Miller pretends to examine captured Zeon mobile armor, but she’s really investigating the conduct of Lt. Shiro Amada during the skirmish that reunited him with Zeon noblewoman Aina Sahalin. Miller bluntly challenges Shiro’s conviction that even enemy soldiers shouldn’t be killed unnecessarily, but Shiro remains unshaken in his beliefs, even when staring down the barrel of a gun. Miller’s Report consists almost entirely of recut footage from the 13-episode 08th MS Team adventure. Seeing Shiro and his loyal crew of misfits again is a welcome prospect, but there’s very little that’s new. The 08th MS Team is set in 0079 UC (Universal Century), within the main Gundam continuity. Rated 13 Up: Violence, profanity, brief nudity, alcohol and tobacco use. –Charles Solomon
Mobile Suit Gundam – The 08th MS Team – Miller’s Report was mellifluous! You have to clap eyes on this movie! A striking performance by Steve Staley (II) & Kikuko Inou make Mobile Suit Gundam – The 08th MS Team – Miller’s Report a “want to see” movie!
The astonishing cast includes Steve Staley (II), Kikuko Inou, Buck Wilkins, Sharon Alsina, Chris Drury. This cast just make Mobile Suit Gundam – The 08th MS Team – Miller’s Report the more dazzling!
This production of Lehar’s The Merry Widow is a mixed bag, appropriate, perhaps, for a work of art that is both sublime and ridiculous. Its weakest element is the presence of Joan Sutherland, which will undoubtedly attract the most buyers. Still, viewers will replay it often (perhaps bypassing some of Sutherland’s numbers) for the sake of its lavish production, particularly for the abundant, polished, and colorful dance numbers.
The 1988 performance, by the Australian Opera in the elegant Sydney Opera House, dates from the end of Sutherland’s career, and it leaves one wondering whether she should have retired a bit sooner, while at the same time treasuring every moment in the presence of one of the uniqu voices of the 20th century. There are moments of beauty in her singing, but intonation and support are both variable. The supporting cast, including Ronald Stevens, Anne-Maree McDonald, and Anson Austin, is generally adept, though some gags (especially the Pontevedran accents) may seem overworked. –Joe McLellan
Lehar – The Merry Widow / Bonynge, Sutherland, Stevens, Opera Australia was congenial! You have to pierce this movie! A miraculous performance by Joan Sutherland & Ron Stevens make Lehar – The Merry Widow / Bonynge, Sutherland, Stevens, Opera Australia a “must decide” movie!
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Don Siegel brings his tough worldview and crisp, no-nonsense direction to this quintessential World War II drama of an undermanned American platoon in France holding off a German advance through sheer bluff and bravery. Steve McQUn is curt and surly as the insubordinate loner whose tactical skills and soldiering savvy make him indispensable to his new unit. His reputation precedes him, but commander Fess Parker is in no position to be choosy when he learns that his tired platoon will not be shipping home as rumored, but tossed into a ragged new offensive. Harry Guardino costars as the soulful Sarge; James Coburn is the slow-talking, forever-tinkering mechanic; Bobby Darin is the scavenger with a small fortune in trinkets; and Nick Adams is the Polish orphan and unit mascot. Bob Newhart makes his feature debut as a hopelessly lost typing clerk drafted into the undermanned unit and re-creates his nightclub shtick making phony phone calls near a Nazi listening post in the pillbox. Like Pork Chop Hill, this film is less a patriotic flag waver than a “war is hell” drama that frames the battle not in its tactical importance (which is negligible) but in its cost in human life. McQUn’s taciturn performance as a ruthlessly effective soldier and Siegel’s tough, lean direction make it a modest classic of the genre. –Sean Axmaker
Hell Is For Heroes was pleasant! You have to glimpse this movie! A unheard-of performance by Steve McQUn & Bobby Darin make Hell Is For Heroes a “should make a bet” movie!
The miraculous cast includes Steve McQUn, Bobby Darin, Fess Parker, Harry Guardino, James Coburn. This cast just make Hell Is For Heroes the more breathtaking!
This collection of four fiendishly funny South Park episodes is a veritable goodie bag of rude tricks and treats. The catch of the day is “Spookyfish,” a comedy creepfest about a killer fish, possessed animals, and alien alter egos presented in Spookyvision (with pictures of Barbra Streisand framing the screen). “Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery” is a dead-on Scooby-Doo parody. Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny are also haunted by “Underpants Gnomes” and an alien “Trapper Keeper,” although the subplots of these two episodes offer, in the words of one character, “more fertile territory” for South Park’s skewed social commentary. In “Underpants Gnomes,” corporate takeover by an invading Harbucks Coffee threatens a local family business. “Trapper Keeper,” especially, is a hilarious response to the botched 2000 U.S. presidential race, as an undecided student, Flora (natch), sends an election for kindergarten class president into chaos that will somehow involve (shudder!) Rosie O’Donnell. –Donald Liebenson
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The extraordinary cast includes Mary Kay Bergman, Isaac Hayes, Gracie Lazar, Mona Marshall, Trey Parker. This cast just make South Park – Ghouls, Ghosts and Underpants Gnomes the more prodigious!
Count Basie A telling moment in this terrific Jazz Casual program occurs very early on, when host Ralph J. Gleason asks Count Basie the name of the first piece that the pianist-bandleader and his small group played. “I don’t know,” says Basie with a laugh. He’s not being flip. “I Don’t Know,” as it eventually became known, is, like most of the other music Basie and company play here, nothing more or less than a blus jam, improvised on the spot. The “casual” label has never been more appropriate, as this 1968 performance finds Basie at his most relaxed. He smokes a lot. He talks a lot: about the influnce of Duke Ellington and such legendary pianists as Fats Waller, Pete Johnson, and Meade Lux Lewis; about the genesis of “One O’Clock Jump,” the Basie band’s signature tune; and about his own playing style, which he self-effacingly calls “dated.” And, best of all, he plays a lot, accompanied by the superb rhythm section of Sonny Payne on drums, Norman Keenan on bass, and the redoubtable Freddie Green on guitar. “I never get tired of playing the blus,” Basie tells Gleason, and in the hands of these pros, you’ll never get tired of listening to it. Basie’s blus are inimitable: effortlessly swinging, completely cool, at once laconic and driving, danceable, humorous, just unmistakably right, with the rhythm players always on the beat and Basie himself the master of what not to play. This is great stuff, and highly recommended. –Sam Graham
Dizzy Gillespie John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie–trumpeter, bandleader, entertainer–was 43 and still at the peak of his powers when he appeared with his quintet on Ralph J. Gleason’s performance-interview TV program, Jazz Casual, in early 1961. And while his style had become somewhat cooler since the days when he and Charlie Parker led jazz’s bebop revolution, this four-song set is as identifiably Dizzy as his trademark up-tilted horn and ballooning cheeks. The tunes, from Benny Golson’s mid-tempo “Blus After Dark” to Dizzy’s own “Lorraine” (with an exotic, sinuous melody reminiscent of his more famous “Night in Tunisia”), are invariably swinging, with fine solo turns by Gillespie, saxophonist-flutist Leo Wright, and a pianist named Lalo Schifrin. That’s the same Lalo Schifrin who within a few short years would achieve pop music immortality by composing the Mission: Impossible theme. –Sam Graham
John Coltrane It might not seem like much: 30 minutes, three tunes, four musicians on a bare- bones soundstage. But this is John Coltrane, and any opportunity to see the legendary saxophonist at work is something to be savored. That’s especially tru with this January 1964 television performance. Some five years after his membership in Miles Davis’s immortal Kind of Blu group, he was well past playing the usual standards and ballads; at the same time, he had yet to explore the outer reaches of the avant-garde. Joined here by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones–the classic Coltrane quartet, and undoubtedly one of the most important and influntial groups in jazz history–he works his way through three numbers that were familiar components of the Coltrane repertoire: Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blu,” which finds Trane on soprano sax and features a typically dynamic Tyner solo; “Alabama,” a Coltrane original with a brooding, droning intro and conclusion sandwiched around the middle section’s slow, swinging groove; and “Impressions,” the modal touchstone, which at nearly 14 minutes long gives all four musicians plenty of room to stretch out.
Playing the tenor horn here, Coltrane is typically restless and searching, volcanic and commanding. It’s not necessarily pretty, especially when he is backed only by Jones’s angry, explosive polyrhythms, but the power is undeniable. The fact that Coltrane says nothing (all other Jazz Casual gusts were interviewed by host Ralph J. Gleason) is immaterial; what could he say with his voice that he hadn’t already said with his horn? –Sam Graham
Jazz Casual DVD was en rapport! You have to ponder this movie! A formidable performance by Count Basie & Gonzalo de Castro make Jazz Casual DVD a “have to ante up” movie!
The remarkable cast includes Count Basie, Gonzalo de Castro, Jose Maria inigo, Eva Santolaria, Carmen Machi. This cast just make Jazz Casual DVD the more extraordinary!
