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Military/War DVDs

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Sales Rank:2696
List Price: $24.95
Lowest New Price: $12.94
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

William Holden
Jack Hawkins
Alec Guinness
Sessue Hayakawa
James Donald

Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre.

The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum.

Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact.

Like Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai has been beautifully restored and released in a highly recommended widescreen version that preserves its original aspect ratio. --Sam Sutherland

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Dogfights -The Complete Season 2 (History Channel)

Sales Rank:3711
List Price: $49.95
Lowest New Price: $20.99
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Box set
Color
DVD-Video
NTSC
Widescreen

Director(s):

Actor(s):

High above the ground, at speeds reaching thousands of miles per hour, fighter aircraft face off in some of the most intense battles in the history of warfare. THE HISTORY CHANNEL® brings these battles to life in DOGFIGHTS, a riveting documentary series that follows the development of air combat from the planes of the First World War to showdowns between the most cutting-edge aircraft flown today.

The second season of this wildly popular series features first-hand accounts of the flying aces themselves, combined with rare archival footage and state-of-the-art CGI graphics. Each air battle is recreated in stunning detail, putting viewers in the cockpit, facing the enemy. From Fokker triplanes and SE5s dueling over Belgium and F86s and MiG-15s battling in the skies above North Korea to World War II s P-51 Mustang and the American F-15s that fought in Operation Desert Storm, DOGFIGHTS: THE COMPLETE SEASON 2 puts viewers right in the cockpit to relive 17 of modern history s greatest battles.

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Ride with the Devil

Sales Rank:4865
List Price: $12.98
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Tobey Maguire
Skeet Ulrich
Jewel Kilcher
Jeremy W. Auman
Scott C. Sener

Great period pictures make you feel as if you've stepped into another era, heard its language, breathed its spirit, and come away with a fresh perspective on that time as well as your own. Ride with the Devil is one of those special films--why wasn't it more widely embraced by reviewers and filmgoers? Did it rely too much on our patience for slow accumulation of unforced rhythms and meanings (as opposed to The Patriot, which "moved" audiences with cattle-prod simplicity and manipulation)? Ride with the Devil--smart, handsome, tenderly awed by how individual lives get ambushed by history--is ripe for rediscovery.

The Civil War of battlefields and plantation houses is nowhere to be seen here. Instead we see the war as an improvised and largely blundering but very bloody feud among neighbors in the border state of Missouri. In this bucolic war zone--more than a little reminiscent of the Balkans in the late 1990s--the Taiwanese-born director Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility) traces the destinies of several young Southern bushwhackers (guerrilla fighters) as they experience violence, the seasons, and different kinds of love. Skeet Ulrich draws the aristocratic glamour role (and top billing), but he's overshadowed by Tobey Maguire as a first-generation American, the magnificent Jeffrey Wright (a shameful oversight at Oscar time) as a freed slave fighting beside his former master, and singer Jewel in a very natural acting debut as the young widow who graces all their lives. The title The Birth of a Nation was already taken, but by the end of this movie you feel it would have applied here. -- Richard T. Jameson

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The Lost Battalion

Sales Rank:3725
List Price: $19.95
Lowest New Price: $8.03
Lowest Used Price: $11.00
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Rick Schroder
Phil McKee
Jamie Harris
Jay Rodan
Adam James

The true World War I story of an American unit that was surrounded by German troops and pounded mercilessly for days (at times even by its own artillery) is vividly portrayed in this made-for-television film starring Rick Schroder. Playing a patrician New York City lawyer commissioned a major and sent into combat, Schroder commands a battalion composed of New York wiseacres as well as so-called "apple knockers" from the West. The plot is straightforward (and will be familiar to those who know World War I history), but the film rises above what could have been a clichéd telling of the story of Major Whittlesey and his heroic men. The action sequences, shot tightly with hand-held cameras, owe a debt to Saving Private Ryan, and the surreal horror of World War I, in which armies killed with machine guns yet communicated by carrier pigeon, is conveyed very well. --Robert J. McNamara

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Twelve O'Clock High (Special Edition)

Sales Rank:2947
List Price: $19.98
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MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Black & White
DVD-Video
Full Screen
NTSC
Special Edition

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Gregory Peck
Hugh Marlowe
Gary Merrill
Millard Mitchell
Dean Jagger

The wartime memories of surviving World War II bomber squadrons were still crystal clear when this acclaimed drama was released in 1949--one of the first postwar films out of Hollywood to treat the war on emotionally complex terms. Framed by a postwar prologue and epilogue and told as a flashback appreciation of wartime valor and teamwork, the film stars Gregory Peck in one of his finest performances as a callous general who assumes command of a bomber squadron based in England. At first, the new commander has little rapport with the 918th Bomber Group, whose loyalties still belong with their previous commander. As they continue to fly dangerous missions over Germany, however, the group and their new leader develop mutual respect and admiration, until the once-alienated commander feels that his men are part of a family--men whose bravery transcends the rigors of rigid discipline and by-the-book leadership. The film's now-classic climax, in which the general waits patiently for his squad to return to base--painfully aware that they may not return at all--is one of the most subtle yet emotionally intense scenes of any World War II drama. With Peck in the lead and Dean Jagger doing Oscar-winning work in a crucial supporting role, this was one of veteran director Henry King's proudest achievements, and it still packs a strong dramatic punch. --Jeff Shannon

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Friendly Persuasion

Sales Rank:3699
List Price: $19.98
Lowest New Price: $13.41
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Gary Cooper
Dorothy McGuire
Anthony Perkins
Richard Eyer
Robert Middleton

For two years the Civil War has been elsewhere. Now Confederate forces are nearby, looting and burning. It is time to fight back, Jess Birdwell's neighbors insist. Yet Birdwell, a Quaker, knows there must be a better way to settle things.

Year: 1956

Director: William Wyler

Starring: Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire

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The History Channel Ultimate Collections: World War II

Sales Rank:1978
List Price: $59.95
Lowest New Price: $23.94
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Box set
Black & White
Color
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 11/28/2006

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300 (Limited Collectors Edition + Digital Copy)

Sales Rank:6931
List Price: $49.98
Lowest New Price: $32.95
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

AC-3
Box set
Collector's Edition
Color
Dolby
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Limited Edition
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Gerard Butler
Lena Headey
Tyrone Benskin
Stephen McHattie
Tom Rack

Like Sin City before it, 300 brings Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel vividly to life. Gerard Butler (Beowulf and Grendel, The Phantom of the Opera) radiates pure power and charisma as Leonidas, the Grecian king who leads 300 of his fellow Spartans (including David Wenham of The Lord of the Rings, Michael Fassbender, and Andrew Pleavin) into a battle against the overwhelming force of Persian invaders. Their only hope is to neutralize the numerical advantage by confronting the Persians, led by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), at the narrow strait of Thermopylae.

More engaging than Troy, the tepid and somewhat similar epic of ancient Greece, 300 is also comparable to Sin City in that the actors were shot on green screen, then added to digitally created backgrounds. The effort pays off in a strikingly stylized look and huge, sweeping battle scenes. However, it's not as to-the-letter faithful to Miller's source material as Sin City was. The plot is the same, and many of the book's images are represented just about perfectly. But some extra material has been added, including new villains (who would be considered "bosses" if this were a video game, and it often feels like one) and a political subplot involving new characters and a significantly expanded role for the Queen of Sparta (Lena Headey). While this subplot by director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) and his fellow co-writers does break up the violence, most fans would probably dismiss it as filler if it didn't involve the sexy Headey. Other viewers, of course, will be turned off by the waves of spurting blood, flying body parts, and surging testosterone. (The six-pack abs are also relentless, and the movie has more and less nudity--more female, less male--than the graphic novel.) Still, as a representation of Miller's work and as an ancient-themed action flick with a modern edge, 300 delivers. --David Horiuchi

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Dances with Wolves - Extended Cut (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Sales Rank:2980
List Price: $29.98
Lowest New Price: $8.98
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

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

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Kirk Baltz
Tantoo Cardinal
Maury Chaykin
Tom Everett
Wayne Grace

Kevin Costner's 1990 epic won a bundle of Oscars for a moving, engrossing story of a white soldier (Costner) who singlehandedly mans a post in the 1870 Dakotas, and becomes a part of the Lakota Sioux community who live nearby. The film may not be a masterpiece, but it is far more than the sum of good intentions. The characters are strong, the development of relationships is both ambitious and careful, the love story between Costner and Mary McDonnell's character is captivating. Only the third-act portrait of white intruders as morons feels overbearing, but even that leads to a terribly moving conclusion. Costner's direction is assured, the balance of action and intimacy is perfect--what more could anyone want outside of an unqualified masterpiece? --Tom Keogh

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Since You Went Away

Sales Rank:4201
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $7.13
Lowest Used Price: $6.92
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Black & White
Closed-captioned
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Claudette Colbert
Jennifer Jones
Joseph Cotten
Shirley Temple
Monty Woolley

A three-hour weepy extraordinaire, this 1944 offering from producer David O. Selznick (who also wrote the screenplay) was a tribute to all the families who stayed behind while their men went off to fight in World War II. Claudette Colbert is the mother of daughters Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple; first seen coming home after dropping her war-bound husband at the train, she becomes the model of courage and strength on the homefront. The plot has a Saturday Evening Post feel today, as it follows the family's day-to-day life and struggles, whether with a crotchety boarder (a delightfully starchy Monty Woolley) or oldest daughter Jones's doomed romance with departing serviceman Robert Walker. They don't make them like this anymore and it's too bad. Nominated for a fistful of Oscars, it took only one, for its shadow-drenched black-and-white cinematography. --Marshall Fine

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