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International DVDs

The Secret of Roan Inish

Sales Rank:1784
List Price: $14.94
Lowest New Price: $8.10
Lowest Used Price: $7.00
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Jeni Courtney
Pat Slowey
Dave Duffy
Declan Hannigan
Mairéad Ní Ghallchóir

As one of the most respected American independent filmmakers, John Sayles has created a body of work as distinguished in its diversity as for its consistent quality and inspiring originality. He's never been one to march to the commercial beat, but chooses instead to follow his creative impulse wherever it leads him. The Secret of Roan Inish led Sayles to the beautiful and moody West Coast of Ireland; it is a tale of a girl who discovers that her family has been touched by myth and magic throughout the years. Following the death of her mother, young Fiona (Jeni Courtney) is sent to live with her grandparents on the Irish coast across from Roan Inish, the island where her family once lived. She's told stories about the selkies--seals that can turn into humans--who have been connected with Fiona's family over the ages. At first she's not sure if the selkies are real or mythological, but she later realizes that they hold the key to reclaiming her family heritage.

What's remarkable about this film (which Sayles adapted from Rosalie Fry's novel Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry) is that it's not told as a cute fantasy for children, but as a straightforward, unsentimental story of a young girl's family history. That gives the film--which was beautifully photographed by master cinematographer Haskell Wexler--an understated charm that is completely absorbing in its atmosphere and subtle tone. There's magic as well, to be sure--you could almost swear that the seals and seagulls in the film took direction from Sayles as well as any human actor! --Jeff Shannon

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The Secret Garden

Sales Rank:2281
List Price: $12.98
Lowest New Price: $4.97
Lowest Used Price: $3.76
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
Surround Sound
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Kate Maberly
Maggie Smith
Heydon Prowse
Andrew Knott
Laura Crossley

Filmed before (and quite nicely) in 1949, Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic children's story was remade for this admirable 1993 release, executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by acclaimed Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland. Splendidly adapted by Edward Scissorhands screenwriter Caroline Thompson, the film opens in India during the early 1900s, when young Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly) is orphaned and sent to England to live in Misselthwaite Manor, the gloomy estate of her brooding and melancholy uncle, Lord Craven (John Lynch). Because the uncle is almost always away on travels, struggling to forget the death of his beloved wife, Mary is left mostly alone to explore the estate. Eventually she befriends the young brother of a staff maid and Lord Craven's apparently crippled son, who has been needlessly bedridden for years. Together the three children restore a neglected garden on the estate grounds, and in doing so they set the stage for a moving reaffirmation of life and love. Filmed with graceful style and careful attention to the intelligence and cleverness of young children, The Secret Garden is that rarest breed of family film that transcends its own generic category, encouraging a sense of wonder and optimism to become a rewarding experience for viewers of any age. --Jeff Shannon

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Gandhi (Widescreen Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Sales Rank:1296
List Price: $19.94
Lowest New Price: $12.00
Lowest Used Price: $11.40
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Closed-captioned
Collector's Edition
Color
Dolby
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Ben Kingsley
John Gielgud
Candice Bergen
Edward Fox
Trevor Howard

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The Mission (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:1360
List Price: $26.98
Lowest New Price: $19.58
Lowest Used Price: $17.99
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Special Edition
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Robert De Niro
Jeremy Irons
Ray McAnally
Aidan Quinn
Cherie Lunghi

Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields) directs this fuzzy effort at a David Lean-like epic without David Lean's sense of emotional proportion. Lean's most important screenwriting collaborator, Robert Bolt, in fact wrote The Mission, which concerns a Jesuit missionary (Jeremy Irons) who establishes a church in the hostile jungles of Brazil and then finds his work threatened by greed and political forces among his superiors. Robert De Niro is briefly effective as a callous soldier who kills his own brother and then turns to Irons's character to oversee his penance and conversion to the clergy. The narrative and dramatic forces at work in this movie should be more stirring and powerful than they are--the problem being that Joffé is too removed from them to allow us in. --Tom Keogh

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A Christmas Carol (2 versions: Colorized & Original Black and White)

Sales Rank:4318
List Price: $19.99
Lowest New Price: $14.25
Lowest Used Price: $23.99
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Black & White
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Special Edition
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Alastair Sim
Jack Warner
Kathleen Harrison
Mervyn Johns
Hermione Baddeley

This is the desert-island choice of the many versions of A Christmas Carol, with a magnificent, full-bodied portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge by Alastair Sim that leaves everyone else in the dust. Lean and direct, this film's version of the story wastes no time trying to impress viewers with the magical nature of the spirits' visitations. Director Brian Desmond Hurst keeps the focus on Scrooge's life story, beautifully simplifying and underscoring the theme of lost women with a haunting musical refrain from the folk song "Barbara Allen." Sim's commitment to the role is at times astonishing; his Scrooge's Christmas-morning ecstasy is a marvel of giddy technique. Watch for Patrick Macnee (Steed in The Avengers) as the young Jacob Marley--the actor made his screen debut in this 1951 production. --Tom Keogh

On the DVD
This ultimate collectors' edition is crammed with special features, on both discs. Film (and Charles Dickens) fans won't want to miss a single screen. The audio commentary by Marcus Hearn and George Cole adds depth and perspective to Alastair Sim's amazing performance, and the groundbreaking special effects for the time. Cole also gives a homey remembrance of working with Sim during World War II and living in the English countryside to avoid the Blitz.

One of the most compelling extras is a short bio of George Mintner, the film's executive producer who would go on to found his own successful distribution company, Renown Pictures. An unlikely film mogul, the British Mintner was shy and bookish, but managed to build a reputable mini-studio in the '50s, out of the Hollywood limelight. He produced mostly B-movies, though after A Christmas Carol (originally titled Scrooge), he produced another Dickens adaptation, The Pickwick Papers. There's a great mini-bio of Dickens, who grew up in the poverty that later fascinated him in his writings. Other extras include the colorized version (what were people thinking back in the '80s?), cast bios, original trailers, and a feature that more film companies might want to consider, an optional narration for the blind. Nothing is left out for film fans--God bless us, every one. --A.T. Hurley

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Widescreen Edition)

Sales Rank:1599
List Price: $14.97
Lowest New Price: $6.54
Lowest Used Price: $6.00
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Color
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Daniel Radcliffe
Rupert Grint
Richard Harris
Maggie Smith
Robbie Coltrane

Here's an event movie that holds up to being an event. This filmed version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, adapted from the wildly popular book by J.K. Rowling, stunningly brings to life Harry Potter's world of Hogwarts, the school for young witches and wizards. The greatest strength of the film comes from its faithfulness to the novel, and this new cinematic world is filled with all the details of Rowling's imagination, thanks to exuberant sets, elaborate costumes, clever makeup and visual effects, and a crème de la crème cast, including Maggie Smith, Richard Harris, Alan Rickman, and more. Especially fine is the interplay between Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his schoolmates Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), as well as his protector, the looming Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane). The second-half adventure--involving the titular sorcerer's stone--doesn't translate perfectly from page to screen, ultimately because of the film's fidelity to the novel; this is a case of making a movie for the book's fans, as opposed to a transcending film. Writer Steve Kloves and director Chris Columbus keep the spooks in check, making this a true family film, and with its resourceful hero wide-eyed and ready, one can't wait for Harry's return. Ages 8 and up. --Doug Thomas

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Brideshead Revisited

Sales Rank:207
List Price: $29.99
Lowest New Price: $19.99
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
NTSC
Subtitled
Widescreen

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Michael Gambon
Patrick Malahide
Greta Scacchi
Emma Thompson
Sarah Crowden

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Conspiracy

Sales Rank:1403
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $6.68
Lowest Used Price: $5.95
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Letterboxed
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Kenneth Branagh
Clare Bullus
Stanley Tucci
Simon Markey
David Glover

On January 20, 1942, with the tide of war turning in favor of the Allies, a small group of SS officers, government ministers, and Nazi officials met near Berlin to decide the fate of Europe's Jews. Based on the only surviving record of that meeting, Conspiracy is a powerful combination of historical reconstruction and speculation that attempts to offer new insights into a pivotal moment in history.

The cast does a marvelous job of fleshing out the documentary evidence to create convincing characters. Kenneth Branagh is especially chilling as SS Chief of Security Reinhard Heydrich, who uses a combination of charm and ruthless power-mongering to gain support for his plans. Colin Firth is fascinating as Wilhelm Stuckart, a lawyer who sees the brutal tactics of the SS as a threat to his own intellectualized anti-Semitism, and Stanley Tucci gives a wonderfully understated performance as Adolf Eichmann.

Conspiracy is a carefully crafted, completely unsensational film that offers ample proof of the banality of evil. There are no histrionics and no comic-book Nazi villains, just a small group of politicians and war-weary soldiers arguing about the meaning of words and the logistics of extermination, calmly preparing to unleash an unimaginable horror on the world. --Simon Leake

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The Water Horse - Legend of the Deep (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:889
List Price: $28.96
Lowest New Price: $7.99
Lowest Used Price: $2.49
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

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

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Alex Etel
Emily Watson
Ben Chaplin
David Morrissey
Brian Cox

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Lust, Caution (Widescreen, NC-17- Rated Edition)

Sales Rank:1484
List Price: $19.98
Lowest New Price: $13.20
Lowest Used Price: $11.33
MPAA Rating: NC-17

Format:

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

Director(s):

Actor(s):

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