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Musicals DVDs

Center Stage (Special Edition)

Sales Rank:2667
List Price: $14.94
Lowest New Price: $8.30
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

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

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Amanda Schull
Ethan Stiefel
Sascha Radetsky
Zoe Saldana
Susan May Pratt

The primary appeal of dance movies is the dancing, with some added emphasis on the romance the art expresses. Center Stage wins on these counts, despite its reveling in overly familiar characters and formula plotting. Or maybe this reveling is responsible for what goofy fun this film is. The arduous task of becoming a professional ballet dancer is incarnated by many good-looking teens, all stock dance-film characters affectionately portrayed mostly by newcomers. But center stage holds Jody Sawyer (Amanda Schull), who may never be a great ballerina, but she's certainly one sexy jazz dancer. Then there's the arrogant genius (Ethan Stiefel), the dictatorial impresario (Peter Gallagher), the demanding instructor, the bulimic, the stage mother, etc. As we follow these characters, the message develops that one should let go and do what feels good. Jody may not be ballet material, but she scorches the stage when she's uninhibited. And that's really the fun of this movie, which is never seriously interested in ballet to begin with. One ludicrous scene depicts one of the dancers quitting because she realizes she never wanted to be a dancer to begin with but was pushed into it by her overbearing mother. She stands up to mom in the lobby of the auditorium where she's supposed to be performing, the music of her piece providing a syrupy backdrop to her little drama. When she's finished talking, she walks off to the audience's unwitting applause. The scene is so ham-handed you can't help but laugh at its audacity, if that's what it is. The rest of the film is not so overdone, but it's all fun. --Jim Gay

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West Side Story (Special Edition DVD Collector's Set)

Sales Rank:5419
List Price: $29.98
Lowest New Price: $9.97
Lowest Used Price: $7.98
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Collector's Edition
Color
Dolby
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Special Edition
Subtitled
Widescreen
Box set
NTSC

Director(s):

Jerome Robbins
Robert Wise

Actor(s):

Natalie Wood
George Chakiris
Richard Beymer
Russ Tamblyn
Rita Moreno

The winner of 10 Academy Awards, this 1961 musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile delinquency, the film stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers from different neighborhoods--and ethnicities. The film's real selling points, however, are the highly charged and inventive song-and-dance numbers, the passionate ballads, the moody sets, colorful support from Rita Moreno, and the sheer accomplishment of Hollywood talent and technology producing a film so stirring. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim wrote the score. --Tom Keogh

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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Special Edition)

Sales Rank:4381
List Price: $19.98
Lowest New Price: $5.47
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MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Format:

AC-3
Anamorphic
Box set
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Special Edition
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Dick Van Dyke
Sally Ann Howes
Lionel Jeffries
Benny Hill
Gert Fröbe

This 1968 kiddie-car caper is flawed but solid family fare. It retains a quaint charm while some of the songs--including the title tune--are quite hummable. A huge plus is Dick Van Dyke, who is extremely appealing as an eccentric inventor around the turn of the century. With nimble fingers and a unique way of looking at the world, he invents for his children a magic car that floats and flies. Or does he? The special effects are tame by today's standards, and the film is about 20 minutes too long--but its enthusiasm charms. The script was cowritten by Roald Dahl and based on the novel by Ian Fleming, best known for his James Bond adventures. --Rochelle O'Gorman

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The Wizard of Oz (Three-Disc Collector's Edition)

Sales Rank:4130
List Price: $49.98
Lowest New Price: $49.74
Lowest Used Price: $49.95
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

AC-3
Box set
Closed-captioned
Collector's Edition
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Original recording remastered
Restored
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

J. Farrell MacDonald
Jack Haley Jr.
King Vidor
Larry Semon
Mervyn LeRoy

Actor(s):

Judy Garland
Frank Morgan
Dorothy Dwan
Charles Murray
Oliver Hardy

When it was released during Hollywood's golden year of 1939, The Wizard of Oz didn't start out as the perennial classic it has since become. The film did respectable business, but it wasn't until its debut on television that this family favorite saw its popularity soar. And while Oz's TV broadcasts are now controlled by media mogul Ted Turner (who owns the rights), the advent of home video has made this lively musical a mainstay in the staple diet of great American films. Young Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), her dog, Toto, and her three companions on the yellow brick road to Oz--the Tin Man (Jack Haley), the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), and the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger)--have become pop-culture icons and central figures in the legacy of fantasy for children. As the Wicked Witch who covets Dorothy's enchanted ruby slippers, Margaret Hamilton has had the singular honor of scaring the wits out of children for more than six decades. The film's still as fresh, frightening, and funny as it was when first released. It may take some liberal detours from the original story by L. Frank Baum, but it's loyal to the Baum legacy while charting its own course as a spectacular film. Shot in glorious Technicolor, befitting its dynamic production design (Munchkinland alone is a psychedelic explosion of color and decor), The Wizard of Oz may not appeal to every taste as the years go by, but it's required viewing for kids of all ages. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
The Wizard of Oz DVD released in 1999 was loaded with extra features, but it's now safe to throw away that version in all its cardboard-package glory in favor of the new three-disc edition. First things first: All the bonus material from the earlier disc is there. That includes the Angela Lansbury-hosted documentary The Making of a Movie Classic; the outtakes and deleted scenes, including Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" reprise and the home-movie recording of "The Jitterbug"; the sketches and stills and composer Harold Arlen's home movies; the audio underscores and radio programs; the 1979 interviews with Margaret Hamilton, Ray Bolger, and Jack Haley; and other items too numerous to mention. (Some text introductions to the features have been replaced by narration by Lansbury, for whatever reason.) Brand-new to the 2005 edition is a sharp restoration using Warner's Ultra Resolution process and an accompanying featurette on how it's done. The technicians also discuss how the sound was remixed, though that would have been more effective had it included surround-sound demonstrations (the featurette is in 2.0). Other features on the new set include a commentary track by critic John Fricke supplemented by vintage cast interviews (he offers a lot of trivia, and debunks the myth that Shirley Temple was ever close to getting the Dorothy role); profiles of nine cast members and clips of other movies they appeared in (including Toto); a lightly animated 10-minute storybook again narrated by Lansbury; 2001 and 2005 behind-the-scenes featurettes; and a 1950 Lux Radio Theater broadcast.

The 1999 disc also included one-minute excerpts of three early treatments of The Wizard of Oz. The third disc of the three-disc collector's edition includes the complete versions of those treatments and more. They are four silent films: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1910, 13 min.), "The Magic Cloak of Oz" (1914, 38 min.), His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914, 59 min., written and directed by Baum himself), The Wizard of Oz (1925, 72 min., Larry Semon). The fifth treatment is Ted Eshbaum's 1933 Technicolor cartoon short which has songs and sound, and is the first depiction of Kansas in black and white and Oz in color. The third disc also has a 38-minute biography of L. Frank Baum, and collector's-edition supplements include a gorgeous set of photo cards among other materials. --David Horiuchi

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Luciano Pavarotti: Life in Seven Arias

Sales Rank:3033
List Price: $29.98
Lowest New Price: $15.99
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MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Classical
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

The extraordinary documentary from the BBC tells the story of Luciano Pavarotti's remarkable career through the eyes of some of his colleagues and the arias that made him famous! With the use of extensive archival performance footage, interviews and film from the BBC, this documentary is an in-depth appreciation of the most popular opera singer of modern times. Interviews with Joan Sutherland, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Montserrat Caballé, Juan Diego Flórez, Renata Scotto and others. Highlighted arias from La Bohème, La Fille du Régiment, L'Elisir d'Amore, Rigoletto, Tosca, Turandot as well as Panis Angelicus and Ingemisco. Additionally, extensive rare performance clips are included from The Metropolitan Opera and many other houses.

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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Sales Rank:3815
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $8.19
Lowest Used Price: $6.99
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Color
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Jane Russell
Marilyn Monroe
Charles Coburn
Elliott Reid
Tommy Noonan

Anita Loos's old story from the 1920s about a pair of single women in search of husbands gets a makeover in Howard Hawks's 1953 musical, starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe as friends who go to Paris looking for mates. The film is charged by Hawks's stylish snap, a famous set piece or two (Monroe descending that staircase while singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"), Russell's wit, and songs by Leo Robin and Jule Styne. The film may largely be a fluff project best remembered as a showcase for its leading actresses, but then Monroe and Russell rarely got such extended opportunities to prove that they were more than cinematic icons. --Tom Keogh

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Funny Face (50th Anniversary Edition)

Sales Rank:2531
List Price: $14.99
Lowest New Price: $9.52
Lowest Used Price: $7.99
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Color
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Audrey Hepburn
Fred Astaire
Kay Thompson
Michel Auclair
Robert Flemyng

Fred Astaire plays a fashion photographer based on real-life cameraman Richard Avedon, in this entertaining musical directed by Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The story finds Astaire's character turning Audrey Hepburn into a chic Paris model--not a tough premise to buy, especially within this film's air of enchantment and surrounded by a great Gershwin score. Based on an unproduced play, this is one of the best films from the latter part of Astaire's career. --Tom Keogh

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Evita

Sales Rank:2213
List Price: $14.99
Lowest New Price: $7.98
Lowest Used Price: $4.50
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Letterboxed
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Antonio Banderas
Gary Brooker
Adrià Collado
Andrea Corr
Martin Drogo

After more than a decade of false starts and several potential directors, the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical finally made it to the big screen with Alan Parker (The Commitments) at the helm and Madonna in the coveted title role of Argentina's first lady, Eva Perón. A triumph of production design, costuming, cinematography, and epic-scale pageantry, the film follows the rise of Eva Perón to the level of supreme social and political celebrity in the 1940s. Like Madonna, Perón was a material girl (she was only 33 when she died); she was instrumental in the political success of her husband, Juan Perón (Jonathan Pryce). But Eva was also a supremely tragic figure whose life was essentially hollow at its core despite the lavish benefits of her nearly goddess-like status. The film has a similar quality--it's visually astonishing but emotionally distant, and benefits greatly from the singing commentary of Ché (Antonio Banderas), who serves as a passionate chorus to guide the viewer through the elaborate parade of history. --Jeff Shannon

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Cat Ballou

Sales Rank:2828
List Price: $14.94
Lowest New Price: $7.20
Lowest Used Price: $6.01
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

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

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Jane Fonda
Lee Marvin
Michael Callan
Dwayne Hickman
Nat 'King' Cole

Long before Unforgiven deconstructed the Western, or Blazing Saddles lampooned it, Cat Ballou poked the genre in the eye. An altogether enjoyable comedy, the film is full of small surprises, big laughs, and wonderful character turns. Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda) is a schoolteacher until a hired thug kills her daddy. To protect what she loves, she collects two petty criminals, a wisecracking hired hand, and a hired killer, Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin). Unfortunately, Shelleen is a raging drunk who is so inebriated and unsteady with a gun he literally misses the broad side of a barn. However, Cat, has, as they used to say in those days, a mind of her own, and she masterminds a spectacular train heist that puts them all on the lam. Marvin won an Academy Award for his role as the derelict Shelleen, and his performances (he actually has two) are still topnotch and on target. The framing device, two wandering minstrels, played by Stubby Kaye and Nat "King" Cole, are the maraschino cherries on the top of this Wild West confection. --Keith Simanton

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Cabaret

Sales Rank:2506
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $7.39
Lowest Used Price: $6.95
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Special Edition
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Liza Minnelli
Michael York
Helmut Griem
Joel Grey
Fritz Wepper

Winner of eight Academy Awards, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey), Cabaret would also have taken Best Picture if it hadn't been competing against The Godfather as the most acclaimed film of 1972. (Francis Ford Coppola would have to wait two years before winning Best Director, for The Godfather, Part II.) Brilliantly adapted from the acclaimed stage production, which was in turn inspired by Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and the play and movie I Am a Camera, this remarkable musical turns the pre-war Berlin of 1931 into a sexually charged haven of decadence. Minnelli commands the screen as nightclub entertainer Sally Bowles, who radiantly goes on with the show as the Nazis rise to power, holding her many male admirers (including Michael York and Helmut Griem) at a distance that keeps her from having to bother with genuinely deep emotions. Joel Grey is the master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub who will guarantee a great show night after night as a way of staving off the inevitable effects of war and dictatorship. They're all living in a morally ambiguous vacuum of desperate anxiety, determined to keep up appearances as the real world--the world outside the comfortable sanctuary of the cabaret--prepares for the nightmarish chaos of war. Director-choreographer Fosse achieves a finely tuned combination of devastating drama and ebullient entertainment, and the result is one of the most substantial screen musicals ever made. The dual-layered Special Edition widescreen DVD includes an exclusive 25th-anniversary documentary, Cabaret: A Legend in the Making, a 1972 promotional featurette, a photo gallery, production notes, the theatrical trailer, and more. --Jeff Shannon

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