Sales Rank:574 List Price: $49.99 Lowest New Price: $21.99 Lowest Used Price: $22.50 MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
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Michael Landon
Melissa Gilbert
Dirt-poor and alone, the Ingalls family moves to Minnesota and fights to build their new home - Mr. Edwards is reunited with the Ingalls when Charles convinces him to settle in Walnut Grove - Caroline gives birth to a baby boy who dies soon afterwards - The town is put under quarantine due to a serious illness - The entire family nearly perishes in a blizzard but is saved thanks to the kindness of an Indian friend - These and many other exciting adventures are featured in this Collector's Edition!
Special Features: * Interactive Full Motion Menu * Character profiles * The Ingalls Photo Album * The "Little House" Episode Quiz (Season 1)
Sales Rank:1279 List Price: $59.98 Lowest New Price: $36.75 Lowest Used Price: $29.99 MPAA Rating:
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Director(s):
Alan Taylor
Daniel Minahan
Davis Guggenheim
Edward Bianchi
Michael Engler
Actor(s):
Timothy Olyphant
Ian McShane
Molly Parker
Jim Beaver
Brad Dourif
The remarkable first season of Deadwood represents one of those periodic, wholesale reinventions of the Western that is as different from, say, Lonesome Dove as that miniseries is from Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo or the latter is from Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur. In many ways, HBO's Deadwood embraces the Western's unambiguous morality during the cinema's silent era through the 1930s while also blazing trails through a post-NYPD Blue, post-The West Wing television age exalting dense and customized dialogue. On top of that, Deadwood has managed an original look and texture for a familiar genre: gritty, chaotic, and surging with both dark and hopeful energy. Yet the show's creator, erstwhile NYPD Blue head writer David Milch, never ridicules or condescends to his more grasping, futile characters or overstates the virtues of his heroic ones.
Set in an ungoverned stretch of South Dakota soon after the 1876 Custer massacre, Deadwood concerns a lawless, evolving town attracting fortune-seekers, drifters, tyrants, and burned-out adventurers searching for a card game and a place to die. Others, particularly women trapped in prostitution, sundry do-gooders, and hangers-on have nowhere else to go. Into this pool of aspiration and nightmare arrive former Montana lawman Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and his friend Sol Starr (John Hawkes), determined to open a lucrative hardware business. Over time, their paths cross with a weary but still formidable Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) and his doting companion, the coarse angel Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert); an aristocratic, drug-addicted widow (Molly Parker) trying to salvage a gold mining claim; and a despondent hooker (Paula Malcomson) who cares, briefly, for an orphaned girl. Casting a giant shadow over all is a blood-soaked king, Gem Saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), possibly the best, most complex, and mesmerizing villain seen on TV in years. Over 12 episodes, each of these characters, and many others, will forge alliances and feuds, cope with disasters (such as smallpox), and move--almost invisibly but inexorably--toward some semblance of order and common cause. Making it all worthwhile is Milch's masterful dialogue--often profane, sometimes courtly and civilized, never perfunctory--and the brilliant acting of the aforementioned performers plus Brad Dourif, Leon Rippy, Powers Boothe, and Kim Dickens. --Tom Keogh
Sales Rank:2179 List Price: $39.99 Lowest New Price: $23.49 Lowest Used Price: $19.99 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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Robert Duvall
Tommy Lee Jones
Diane Lane
Angelica Houston
Danny Glover
Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones star as Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, aging cowboys and former Texas rangers and who organize a 2,500 mile cattle drive for one last great adventure in this excellent 1989 miniseries adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel. The best friends, who steal the herd from a gang of Mexican cattle rustlers, drive their herd from Texas to Montana, battling horse thieves, angry Indian tribes, and a renegade half-breed killer named Blue Duck (Frederic Forrest) on a mission of revenge. The excellent cast also includes Robert Urich as cardsharp and former Ranger Jake Spoon, Anjelica Huston as McCrae's old flame Clara Allen, Danny Glover, Ricky Schroder, Diane Lane, Chris Cooper, D.B. Sweeney, Steve Buscemi, and even a small role for author Larry McMurtry. Australian director Simon Wincer shows a tremendous capacity for balancing sweeping drama and intimacy against the gorgeous landscape of the American Southwest, giving a grandly epic feel to the film despite its small-screen target and limited budget, and for forging memorable characters of even the smallest supporting parts. The heart of the drama belongs to McCrae and Call, memorably etched by Duvall and Jones as the last of the range romantics. In the age of revisionist Westerns, this excellent cattle-drive drama nicely maintains an old-fashioned feeling while still showing the dark side of the American West. Winner of seven Emmy Awards and responsible for two miniseries sequels (Return to Lonesome Dove and Dead Man's Walk) and a TV series. --Sean Axmaker
Sales Rank:3951 List Price: $28.99 Lowest New Price: $12.47 Lowest Used Price: $11.48 MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
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This massive, in-depth study of the dark Western icon comes off with mixed results. Trying to capture the whole life, (warts and all) of the lawman-criminal-brother-fortune hunter, director Lawrence Kasdan gains points for sheer scale, giving us a rich epic painted in dark colors with gritty settings. But the visual poetry and extensive foreshadowing ruin the dramatic drive. Some scenes have as much impact as stalker movies; you're just waiting for someone to get knocked off. As Earp, Kevin Costner is not afraid to look rumpled and play colorlessly (as in The Bodyguard), but it saps the energy of this 3-hour-plus film. The only relief is Dennis Quaid as a droll Doc Holiday, a much more engaging character. New faces Linden Ashby and Joanna Going (as an Earp brother and a lover, respectively) are solid finds, though the remainder of the female cast is barely given anything to do. Best is the first half, with Costner, as hip as he was in his Silverado days, going through a series of ups and downs until he accidentally finds his profession. Great set design (Ida Random) utilizes dozens of similar settings that always look distinctive. Recommended to fans of the star and the genre, but the story never justifies its length. --Doug Thomas
Sales Rank:1321 List Price: $59.98 Lowest New Price: $36.75 Lowest Used Price: $35.39 MPAA Rating:
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Director(s):
Adam Davidson
Daniel Attias
Daniel Minahan
Edward Bianchi
Gregg Fienberg
Actor(s):
Timothy Olyphant
Ian McShane
Molly Parker
Brad Dourif
W. Earl Brown
The final complete season of HBO's remarkable Deadwood series is full of surprises and devastating experiences as the nascent, dangerous town prepares to join Dakota territory in 1877. As in the previous two seasons, the question of who will control the town's resources, assets, and people drives much of the drama, affecting all manner of relationships and alliances, often between the most unlikely people. The dominant storyline in Deadwood: The Complete Third Season concerns upcoming elections for mayor and sheriff of the mucky, gold-mining town. The real juice, however, is not so much between the individuals running for office as between two power brokers each trying to steer the results toward their own purposes. Saloon owner and Deadwood's puppetmaster, Al Swearengen (Ian McShane sustaining his brilliant peformance in the previous two seasons), works closely with incumbent lawman Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) on retaining the latter's seat. But Bullock himself has difficulty surrendering his penchant for taking unambiguous action and relying on few words, especially when he has to act like a politician and deal with people such as George Hearst (Gerald McRaney, playing the real-life father of William Randolph Hearst). Swearengen's rival, Hearst--a self-made industrialist who gained his fortune through mining--has every intention of overtaking Deadwood, with his eye particularly on the lucrative mine owned by Bullock's former lover, Alma (Molly Parker). (The violence Hearst employs to get to Alma's claim will stun many Deadwood fans.)
Meanwhile, Bullock's old friend, Sol Starr (John Hawkes), runs for mayor against the feckless E.B. Farnum (William Sanderson), and tries to navigate through his difficult relationship with Trixie (Paula Malcomson) as she grows enraged by former lover Swearengen's manipulation of her and everyone else. Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) is encouraged to become a public speaker, telling of her misadventures with General George Custer, and she commences a lesbian relationship with Joanie (Kim Dickens), the saloon owner who is becoming increasingly despondent and suicidal. Bullock's relationship with his wife, Martha (Anna Gunn) continues to deepen and become more of an influence on him, Wyatt Earp comes for a visit, and a newcomer to town, Jack Langrishe (Brian Cox), an old friend of Swearengen, attempts to open a theatre. As expected, the season finale concludes with the long-awaited election, but HBO's decision to bring Deadwood to an end required creator David Milch to wrap everything up in a pair of two-hour movies. Still, The Complete Third Season is very satisfying on every level, and will always be, along with the rest of the series, a television landmark. --Tom Keogh
Sales Rank:1046 List Price: $19.97 Lowest New Price: $12.11 Lowest Used Price: $10.90 MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
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Jane Powell
Howard Keel
Jeff Richards
Russ Tamblyn
Tommy Rall
Well, bless my beautiful hide! Director Stanley Donen invests this rollicking musical with a hearty exuberance. Howard Keel, with his big-as-all-outdoors baritone, stars as a bold "mountain man" living in the Oregon woods who brings home a bride (plucky songbird soprano Jane Powell) to his six slovenly brothers. Taming the rambunctious brood, Jane proceeds to make gentlemen of them so they can woo sweethearts of their own. But old habits die hard: their flirting gives way to fighting in the film's celebrated barn-raising scene, a lively acrobatic dance number exuberantly choreographed by Michael Kidd. Big brother chimes in with his own brand of advice--an old-fashioned kidnapping! Donen manages to get away with such a politically incorrect plot by investing the boys with a innocent sweetness, most notably the youngest brother played with genial earnestness by Rusty (Russ) Tamblyn (pre-West Side Story). This modest production became a huge hit and remains one of MGM's best-loved musical comedies, an energetic, high-kicking classic. --Sean Axmaker
Sales Rank:1049 List Price: $49.95 Lowest New Price: $28.49 Lowest Used Price: $27.00 MPAA Rating: Unrated
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Actor(s):
Takashi Shimura
ToshirĂ´ Mifune
Yoshio Inaba
Seiji Miyaguchi
Minoru Chiaki
Hailed as the greatest film in the history of Japanese cinema, Seven Samurai is director Akira Kurosawa's undisputed masterpiece. Arguably the greatest of all jidai-gecki (or historical swordplay films), Kurosawa's classic 1954 action drama has never been surpassed in terms of sheer power of emotion, kinetic energy, and dynamic character development. The story is set during the civil unrest of 16th-century Japan, as the cowering residents of a small farming village are seeking protection against seasonal attacks by a band of marauding bandits. Offering mere handfuls of rice as payment, they hire seven unemployed "ronin" (masterless samurai), including a boastful swordsman (Toshiro Mifune) who is actually a peasant farmer's son, desperately seeking glory, acceptance, and revenge against those who destroyed his family. Led by the calmly strategic Kambei (Takashi Shimura, star of Kurosawa's previous classic, Ikiru), the samurai form mutual bonds of honor and respect, but remain distant from the villagers, knowing that their assignment may prove to be fatal.
Kurosawa masterfully composed his shots to emphasize these group dynamics, and Seven Samurai is a textbook study of the director's signature techniques, including extensive use of telephoto lenses to compress action, delineate character relationships, and intensify motion. While the climactic battle against raiding thieves remains one of the most breathtaking sequences ever filmed, Seven Samurai is most triumphant as a peerless example of character development, requiring all of its 2-hour, 37-minute running time to illuminate every essential detail of villagers and samurai alike, including an abundance of humor as Kambei's defense plan unfolds. In terms of its overall impact, Seven Samurai spawned dozens of copycat films (notably the American Western remake The Magnificent Seven) and cannot be adequately summarized by even the most comprehensive synopsis; it must be seen to be fully appreciated, and the Criterion Collection's 2006 DVD reissue is an essential addition to any definitive home-video library. --Jeff Shannon
On the DVDs According to the accompanying booklet, "the picture has been slightly window-boxed (in correct original 1.33:1 aspect ratio) to ensure that the maximum image is visible on all monitors." The two-disc format was necessary "to maintain optimal image quality throughout the compression process," with dual-layered DVD-9's encoded "at the highest possible bit rate for the quantity of material included." The picture and sound quality are simply amazing compared to Criterion's one-disc release from 1998. The all-new, fully restored high-definition digital transfer takes full advantage of HD's clarity and crispness, resulting in picture detail far surpassing the previous DVD. This also applies to the soundtrack, presented in optional Dolby surround in addition to the remastered original mono track. The new transfer "was mastered in 2k resolution from a duplicate negative created with wetgate processing from the original fine-grain master positive" (the film's original negative is no longer available), and "several different digital hardware and software solutions were utilized for flicker, instability, dirt, scratch, and grain management."
The complete 207-minute film is accompanied by two full-length commentary tracks, including a new track combining the critical insights of film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Price (author of The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa), Tony Rayns, and the dean of Japanese film experts, Donald Richie (author of The Films of Akira Kurosawa). Each scholar is given approximately 40 minutes of film-time, and their commentaries represent a unique opportunity to appreciate Seven Samurai from distinct yet complementary critical perspectives. The commentary by Japanese film expert Michael Jeck (from Criterion's original 1988 laserdisc release) remains useful as a thorough analysis of Seven Samurai, primarily in terms of visual composition.
The 50-minute "making of" documentary, from Japan's 2002 Toho Masterworks TV series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create emphasizes Kurosawa's collaboration with co-screenwriters Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, including production footage, crewmember interviews, and a reverent visit to the rural inn where Seven Samurai was written over a six-week period of intense seclusion. The two-hour "My Life in Cinema" interview with Kurosawa was recorded in 1993, with fellow filmmaker Nagisa Oshima serving as a gentle admirer, colleague, and well-informed historian of Kurosawa's career. "Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences" is a richly informative documentary that places Kurosawa's classic in both historical and cinematic context, examining its place in the jidai-gecki (swordplay) genre, its accurate depiction of samurai codes and traditions, and its stature as the prototype for many films that followed. The lavishly illustrated 58-page booklet includes eight brief essays on various aspects of Seven Samurai, each written by noted film scholars or film directors (including Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet). Also included is a reminiscence by the great actor Toshiro Mifune, excerpted from a conversation recorded in 1993. Taken as a whole, the remastered three-disc Seven Samurai ranks as one of the finest DVD sets ever released. --Jeff Shannon
Sales Rank:1582 List Price: $59.98 Lowest New Price: $37.75 Lowest Used Price: $30.98 MPAA Rating:
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Director(s):
Alan Taylor
Daniel Minahan
Edward Bianchi
Gregg Fienberg
Michael Almereyda
Actor(s):
Timothy Olyphant
Ian McShane
Molly Parker
Brad Dourif
W. Earl Brown
Deadwood: The Complete Second Season continues the Shakespearean brilliance of the landmark first season, created by NYPD Blue head writer David Milch. Milch either wrote or supervised the writing of each of the 12 episodes in this stunning follow-up, which contains more than a few surprises for anyone who thought they knew the myriad characters in the late 19th century town of Deadwood--a mucky, ungoverned, exceptionally violent development in South Dakota. As with the first season, Deadwood continues to be about many things--survival, loyalty, alliances, duty--but all of them are happening against a titanic battle between several parties to consolidate power and real wealth in the territory. Despite his cutthroat ethics, astonishing profanity, and bursts of cruelty, it's hard not to side in this bid for a piece of America's future with saloon owner Al Swearengen (a magnificent performance by Ian McShane), a visionary monster who is nevertheless more recognizably human than his rivals.
Entering an uneasy partnership with Al is Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant). Seth begins the second season by teaching Al a few lessons in chivalry, and their brief but bloody feud commences physical ailments for Al that become increasingly shocking to behold. Yet Al's difficulties have the practical effect of sidelining him for a couple of episodes while the story sets up more complex power struggles. Al takes on Deadwood's other saloon-brothel owner, the unstable Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe), as well as an off-screen millionaire who is intent on owning all the gold-mining interests by buying out weary prospectors' claims. Meanwhile, Seth's wife and son (actually, his late brother's widow and child) arrive, an unsettling development for Seth's lover, the widow Alma Garret (Molly Parker), who soon reveals herself to be a more complicated person than in the first season. The prostitute Trixie (Paula Malcomson) begins thinking about her future and asserts independence from Al by having sex with Seth's friend, Sol Star (John Hawkes). Best of all, Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) is back and more endearingly uncivilized than ever. Special features include actor commentaries on select episodes, the best of which finds Olyphant and McShane cracking each other up while watching the season premiere. --Tom Keogh
Sales Rank:1280 List Price: $19.98 Lowest New Price: $10.99 Lowest Used Price: $12.90 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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Sam Elliott
Tom Selleck
Jeff Osterhage
Glenn Ford
Ben Johnson
Louis L'Amour's easy voice with its gentle rhythm sets the tone and pace of the film in a spoken introduction to this loping, rambling three-hour-plus TV-movie adaptation of his novels The Daybreakers and Sackett. Sam Elliot stars as the elder Sackett, a nomad hunting and trapping in the mountains who happens upon an ancient treasure. Tom Selleck and Jeff Osterhage are his younger siblings, forced to leave home to avoid a Hatfield and McCoy situation. As the Sackett brothers wind their way across the Midwest prairies and mountains we join them on cattle drives and gold hunts, in gunfights and fistfights, and in a climactic showdown as they find their place in the world. This 1979 film rambles and meanders like a lazy river winding through a beautiful landscape of peaks and plains and forests, punctuated by the occasional gunfight and enlivened by a story that celebrates both the open range and the taming of the towns. Elliot looks almost young but flashes his savage eyes behind a thick black beard, while Selleck's easygoing manner is backed up with a stony-faced determination. The excellent cast includes a veritable who's who of Western character actors: Glenn Ford, Ben Johnson, Gilbert Roland, Gene Evans, Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, Mercedes McCambridge, and Pat Buttram. Followed in 1982 by The Shadow Riders, which reunited the three stars and even a few members of the supporting cast in a tale of three different brothers. --Sean Axmaker