Bookmark this page!

Check out our new blog! We'll be posting great discounts and deals there often.

Drama DVDs

The Fall

Sales Rank:381
List Price: $24.96
Lowest New Price: $16.63
Lowest Used Price: $13.95
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

AC-3
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Roger Ebert proclaimed it "one of the most extraordinary films I've ever seen," and there's no denying the avalanche of wild images in The Fall: grand castles, desert vistas, elephants swimming in the open ocean. Commercial and music-video director Tarsem has piled these visions into an elaborate remake of an obscure Bulgarian film, Yo Ho Ho, which is anchored in (but by no means limited to) a quiet hospital during the silent-movie era. A stuntman (Lee Pace) is laid up with leg injuries, and an eye-popping black-and-white prologue (utterly mystifying while we're watching it) tells us how he got here. Depressed over his disability and a recent lost love, he plans suicide, but is temporarily derailed by the inquisitive friendship of a little girl (Catinca Untaru), to whom he tells wild stories of adventurers and princesses. We see these stories, which is where the dizzying visuals come in. This movie probably won't inspire many lukewarm responses: either you'll fall madly for this paean to storytelling magic, or you'll be suspicious about the parade of pretty pictures, which tend to have a magazine-layout sheen. The movie certainly has more soul than Tarsem's yucky previous feature, The Cell, and the scenes between Pace and Untaru (who scores an 11 on the cuteness scale) are genuinely charming. The director actually put a considerable amount of his own money into the production (which shot in over 20 countries), and whether you buy his vision or not, he put his money on the screen. --Robert Horton

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

Facing the Giants (Widescreen)

Sales Rank:411
List Price: $14.94
Lowest New Price: $7.00
Lowest Used Price: $6.51
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Alex Kendrick
Shannen Fields
Chris Willis
Tracy Goode
Bailey Cave

In six years of coaching, Grant Taylor has never led his Shiloh Eagles to a winning season. After learning that he and his wife Brooke face infertility, Grant discovers that a group of fathers are secretly organizing to have him dismissed as head coach. Devastated by his circumstances, he cries out to God in desperation. When Grant receives a message from an unexpected visitor, he searches for a stronger purpose for his football team. He dares to challenge his players to believe God for the impossible on and off the field. When faced with unbelievable odds, the Eagles must step up to their greatest test of strength and courage.

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

Into the Wild

Sales Rank:342
List Price: $19.99
Lowest New Price: $9.99
Lowest Used Price: $3.74
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

AC-3
Color
Dolby
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Marcia Gay Harden
Hal Holbrook
William Hurt
Catherine Keener
Vince Vaughn

A superb cast and an even-handed treatment of a true story buoy Into the Wild, Sean Penn's screen adaptation of Jon Krakauer's bestselling book. Emile Hirsch stars as Christopher McCandless, scion of a prosperous but troubled family who, after graduating from Atlanta's Emory University in the early 1990s, decides to chuck it all and become a self-styled "aesthetic voyager" in search of "ultimate freedom." He certainly doesn't do it halfway: after donating his substantial savings account to charity and literally torching the rest of his cash, McCandless changes his name (to "Alexander Supertramp"), abandons his family (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as his bickering, clueless parents and Jena Malone as his baffled but loving sister, who relates much of the backstory in voice-over), and hits the road, bound for the Alaskan bush and determined not to be found. For the next two years he lives the life of a vagabond, working a few odd jobs, kayaking through the Grand Canyon into Mexico, landing on L.A.'s Skid Row, and turning his back on everyone who tried to befriends him (including Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker as two kindly, middle-aged hippies and Hal Holbrook in a deeply affecting performance as an old widower who tries to take "Alex" under his wing). Penn, who directed and wrote the screenplay, alternates these interludes with scenes depicting McCandless' Alaskan idyll--which soon turns out be not so idyllic after all. Settling into an abandoned school bus, he manages to sustain himself for a while, shooting small game (and one very large moose), reading, and recording his existential musings on paper. But when the harsh realities of life in the wilderness set in, our boy finds himself well out of his depth, not just ill-prepared for the rigors of day to day survival but realizing the importance of the very thing he wanted to escape--namely, human relationships. It'd be easy to either idealize McCandless as a genuinely free spirit, unencumbered by the societal strictures that tie the rest of us down, or else dismiss him as a hopelessly callow naïf, a fool whose disdain for practical realities ultimately doomed him. Into the Wild does neither, for the most part telling the tale with an admirable lack of cheap sentiment and leaving us to decide for ourselves. --Sam Graham

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

Weeds - The Complete Second Season [Blu-ray]

Sales Rank:281
List Price: $29.99
Lowest New Price: $15.98
Lowest Used Price: $15.53
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

AC-3
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
Subtitled
Widescreen

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Mary-Louise Parker
Justin Kirk
Kevin Nealon
Elizabeth Perkins

The first season of Weeds ended with a shocker: Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) found a dreamy new boyfriend, but he turned out to be a DEA agent (Martin Donovan). Luckily, she manages to find some pretty creative ways to "deal" with it. Despite that new obstacle, she decides it’s also time to "grow" the business to higher levels, and all these risky moves lead up to another fabulous season finale cliff-hanger. Elsewhere in suburban utopia, comic relieving brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk) tries to dodge his army commitments by joining Rabbi school, while the hilarious Doug (Kevin Nealon) battles it out with Celia (Elizabeth Perkins) to maintain power over the Agrestic City Council. Plot aside, Season 2 of Weeds took this potentially great show to the next level. No matter how hard they tried in the first season, the show’s makers had a heck of a time trying to shake the impression that they were mimicking the edginess of HBO’s original programming. (Some might have gone as far as to say they were trying a little too hard.) This time around, the characters and the story have grown into their own skins, and they offer something much more authentic and convincing. The second season also starts a great new tradition: Malvina Reynolds "Little Boxes" is still the opening theme song, but it is performed by a different artist for each episode (from Elvis Costello to The Shins). Just one more thing to keep us "addicted." --Jordan Thompson

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

The Marine (Unrated Edition)

Sales Rank:4278
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $4.99
Lowest Used Price: $1.12
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Color
Dolby
DTS Surround Sound
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

John Cena
Kelly Carlson
Robert Patrick
Anthony Ray Parker
Abigail Bianca

The feature film debut of wrestling superstar John Cena, The Marine offers an agreeable smorgasbord of slam-bang action for viewers willing to swallow whole their disbelief for the sake of enjoying the plot. Cena, who is one of the most animated performers in the wrestling arena, is saddled with a taciturn role as a former Marine with an authority problem who tangles with dangerous jewel thieves (led by Robert Patrick) after they take his wife (Kelly Carlson of Nip/Tuck) hostage. Cena handles the physical duties of his role with ease, and former commercial director John Bonito offers him a frantic array of situations in which to display his prowess. On the whole, however, the picture is very light in the logic department, and filled with cardboard characters that quickly wear out their welcome (save Patrick, who tosses villainous one-liners with scene-stealing brio). Extras include a making-of featurette, which includes talking-head interviews with the cast, crew, and WWE head/producer Vince McMahon, as well as a barrage of shorter featurettes on Cena's rise to fame and the film's premiere at Camp Pendleton. --Paul Gaita

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

Rome - The Complete First Two Seasons

Sales Rank:1382
List Price: $119.42
Lowest New Price: $54.95
Lowest Used Price: $79.99
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
NTSC
Widescreen

Director(s):

Adam Davidson
Alan Poul
Alan Taylor
Alik Sakharov
Allen Coulter

Actor(s):

Kevin McKidd
Ray Stevenson
Polly Walker
Kerry Condon
James Purefoy

Family dysfunction. Treachery. Betrayal. Coarse profanity. Brutal violence. Graphic (and sometimes brutal) sex. No, it's not The Sopranos, it's Rome, HBO's madly ambitious series that bloodily splatters the glory of Rome just as savagely as Monty Python and the Holy Grail soiled the good name of Camelot (but with far fewer laughs; very few funny things happen on the way to this forum). Set in 52 B.C. (Before Cable), Rome charts the dramatic shifts in the balance of power between former friends Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham), leader of the Senate, and Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds), whose imminent return after eight years to Rome after conquering the Gauls, has the ruling class up in arms. At the heart of Rome is the odd couple friendship between two soldiers who fortuitously become heroes of the people. Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) is married, honorable, and steadfast. Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) is an amoral rogue whose philosophy is best summed up, "I kill my enemies, take their gold, and enjoy their women." Among Rome's most compelling subplots is Lucius's strained relationship with his wife, Niobe (Indira Varma), who is surprised to see her husband alive (but not as surprised as he is to find her upon his homecoming with a newborn baby in her arms!) Any viewer befuddlement over Rome's intrigues and machinations, and determining who is hero and who is foe, disappears the minute Golden Globe-nominee Polly Walker appears as Atia, Caesar's formidable niece and a villainess for the ages. In the first hour alone, she offers her already married daughter as a bride to the recently widowed Pompey. Rome is a painstakingly mounted production that earned eight well-deserved Emmy nominations in such categories as costumes, set design, and art direction. Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) was honored with a Director's Guild Award for the first episode, "The Stolen Eagle." But artistic considerations aside, instantly addicted viewers will agree with Atia, who notes at one point, "I adore the secrecy, the intrigue. It's most thrilling."

Season 2 begins in the wake of Julius Caesar's assassination, and charts the power struggle to fill his sandals between "vulgar beast" Mark Antony (James Purefoy) and "clever boy" Octavian (Simon Woods), who is surprisingly named Caesar's sole heir. The series' most compelling relationship is between fellow soldiers and unlikely friends, the honorable Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and Titus "Violence is the only trade I know" Pullo (Ray Stevenson), who somewhat reverse roles when Vorenus is overcome with grief in the wake of his wife's suicide. Season 2 considerably ups the ante in the rivalry between Atia (an Emmy-worthy Polly Walker), who is Antony's mistress, and Servilia (Lindsay Duncan) with attempted poisonings and sickening torture. Another gripping subplot is Vorenus's estrangement from his children, who, at the climax of the season opener are presumed slaughtered, but whose true fate may be even more devastating to the father who cursed them. Rome's second season does not scrimp on the series' sex and violence, in both cases exceedingly brutal. But in this cauldron of treachery and betrayal, words, too, are vicious, as when a defiant Atia ominously tells Octavian's new wife, Livia, "Far better women that you have sworn to [destroy me]. Go look for them now." In writing Rome's epitaph, we come to praise this series, not to bury it. Although two seasons was not enough to establish a Rome empire, it stands as one of HBO's crowning achievements. --Donald Liebenson

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

Meet Me In St. Louis (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:1600
List Price: $26.98
Lowest New Price: $14.99
Lowest Used Price: $17.50
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Color
Dolby
DTS Surround Sound
DVD-Video
Original recording remastered
Special Edition
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Roy Mack
Vincente Minnelli

Actor(s):

Judy Garland
Margaret O'Brien
Mary Astor
Lucille Bremer
Leon Ames

One of the finest American musicals, this 1944 film by Vincente Minnelli is an intentionally self-contained story set in 1903, in which a happy St. Louis family is shaken to their roots by the prospect of moving to New York, where the father has a better job pending. Judy Garland heads the cast in what amounts to a splendid, end-of-an-era story that nicely rhymes with the onset of the 20th century. The film is extraordinarily alive, the characters strong, and the musical numbers are so splendidly part of the storytelling that you don't feel the film has stopped for an interlude. --Tom Keogh

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

The West Wing - The Complete Fourth Season

Sales Rank:1046
List Price: $59.98
Lowest New Price: $24.48
Lowest Used Price: $24.55
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Box set
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Thomas Schlamme
Chris Misiano

Actor(s):

Martin Sheen
Bradley Whitford

The winning streak for this veritable show continues through its fourth year. As with many long-running series, The West Wing faces the inevitable--a cast member chooses to leave. But this show handles Rob Lowe's exit with such well-executed grace, a could-be-harmful experience (or at least sudden) is turned into an asset. The season begins with three staff members marooned in the heartland (played mostly for laughs) and ends with a dramatic cliffhanger even more powerful than the initial season's shooting. In between are 20 excellent episodes packed with the series' trademark wit and pace, and an uncannily ability to create excellent moments for the entire cast. The election nears and West Wingers brace for the final onslaught including a make-or-break debate. There's a horrible genocide in Africa changing the course of the Bartlett administration and a covert assassination with effects lingering throughout the season. There's also the now-annual flashback episode, this time to the first days at the White House (with another comforting appearance by Kathryn Joosten as Mrs. Landingham). The series also has its first episode set mostly outside the West Wing when C.J. (Alison Janney) goes back to Ohio for a high school reunion and visits her father (Donald Moffat) who is starting to feel the effects of Alzheimer's.

Lowe's Sam Seaborn picks a new fate at the spur of the moment and is eventually replaced by the very person whose verve he was swept up by--a harried, vastly intelligent campaign manager, Will Bailey (Josh Malina, best known for his work in creator Aaron Sorkin's previous show, Sports Night). He's an excellent fit for the West Wing, both fictionally and for the series. Part of the show's success belongs to the continuity, helped immensely by high-caliber guest stars continuing long runs on the show, including Mary-Louise Parker, John Amos, Marlee Matlin, Tim Matheson, Timothy Busfield, Lily Tomlin, Anna Deavere Smith, and Ron Silver (hey, that's a pretty good cast for their own show). One-time guest stars are also used to the fullest. Notice how a single-episoe appearance by Christian Slater (as a naval attaché who strikes Donna's fancy) turns into a three-episode arc. Matthew Perry delivers an Emmy-nominated performance in a key role in the season's final arc. This fourth season was capped by the departure of creator-writer Sorkin and producer-director Thomas Schlamme, plus another Emmy win for Best Drama, its fourth straight. Many were surprised or even angered that the series kept up the winning streak. Perhaps the series was not as relevant to the times as four years earlier, but the proof is in the pudding--the series was still in rarefied air by the end of this season.

Luckily, Sorkin and Schlamme were invited to air the commentaries for the DVDs, here on three episodes. It allows them to talk about their departure, a subject barely mentioned in the two making-of featurettes. One deals with speechwriters and other with Stockard Channing's role on the show. Note: the documentaries and deleted scenes are hard to find. Look for the pointer (>) at the bottom right of the special features menu of the sixth disc. --Doug Thomas

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

The Sopranos: The Complete First Season

Sales Rank:1256
List Price: $59.98
Lowest New Price: $24.98
Lowest Used Price: $16.32
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Box set
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

James Gandolfini
Edie Falco
Dominic Chianese
Nancy Marchand
Michael Imperioli

The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home: Like 1999's other screen touchstone, American Beauty, the HBO series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own, nouveau riche brood.

The series' brilliant first season is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his midlevel capo's machismo, yet instantly recognizable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers, and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford, and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get.

Unlike Francis Coppola's operatic dramatization of Mario Puzo's Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini's mercurial performance. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful, and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchmen and their various "associates" make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed.

The first season's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). Lorraine Bracco makes Tony's therapist, Dr. Melfi, a convincing confidante, by turns "professional," perceptive, and sexy; the duo's therapeutic relationship is also depicted with uncommon accuracy. Such grace notes only enrich what's not merely an aesthetic high point for commercial television, but an absorbing film masterwork that deepens with subsequent screenings. --Sam Sutherland

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

The West Wing - The Complete Fifth Season

Sales Rank:1291
List Price: $59.98
Lowest New Price: $23.90
Lowest Used Price: $21.65
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Box set
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Thomas Schlamme
Chris Misiano

Actor(s):

Martin Sheen
Bradley Whitford

Two administrative changes rocked The West Wing's fifth season. Offscreen, the ship of state steered a tad off-course with the departure of series creator Aaron Sorkin and director Thomas Schalmme. Onscreen, President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) relinquished the power of his office to Speaker of the House Glenallen Walken (John Goodman) in the wake of his daughter's kidnapping. In the season opener, "7a WF 83429," Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) wonders if this wasn't a mistake. What if the citizenry prefer Walken to Bartlet, he ponders. What if Walken comes off more presidential? Is he kidding? Sheen's Bartlet is the president of Hollywood's dreams, and the stuff of Rush Limbaugh's nightmares. (In a character profile included as one of the bonus features on this six-disc set, Bartlet is described as an amalgam of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton!). Not to worry, though, Bartlet is back in the Oval Office by the end of the season's second episode, "The Dogs of War." The next order of business: choosing a vice president to replace the disgraced John Hoynes. Enter Gary Cole as "Bongo Bob" Russell, who, as the season unfolds, will confound misperceptions of him. Hoynes himself (Tim Matheson) returns in "Full Disclosure," in which the former vice president dishes dirt on Bartlet and chief of staff Leo McGrarry (the late John Spencer) in advance of a tell-all book. Formidable and usually unflappable press secretary C. J. has an intensely personal reason to spearhead damage control and thwart Hoynes' publishing plans.

Allison Janney, as C. J. earned The West Wing's sole Emmy this season. One of her showcase hours is "Access," a format-breaking episode presented as a Frontline-type "day-in-the-life" documentary. Other memorable episodes that helped to right The West Wing's course include "The Supremes," featuring Glenn Close as a Supreme Court nominee; the battle-of-wills episode, "Shutdown"; "Gaza," in which Donna (Janel Moloney) is severely wounded during a fact-finding mission to the Middle East; and "Memorial Day," a flashback episode that echoes "Bartlet for America" from season 3, and which ends the season on a strong note, and almost make viewers forget the Sesame Street Muppet cameos in the episode, "Eppu Si Muove." Almost. --Donald Liebenson

Click here for Customer Reviews and more...

Previous | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | Next

Quick Links

Home
Amazon
Our Shops
Merchants
Reviews
Blog
Price Drops

Check out our new blog! We'll be posting great discounts and deals there often.

Drama DVDs

Quick Links

Categories