Jascha Heifetz (Actor), Peter Rosen (Director) | Format: DVD
(1)Release Date: July 26, 2011
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Monday, July 4, 2011
Jascha Heifetz: God's Fiddler
Jascha Heifetz (Actor), Peter Rosen (Director) | Format: DVD
(1)Release Date: July 26, 2011
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Sunday, July 3, 2011
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Two-Disc Special Edition)
James Cagney (Actor), Joan Leslie (Actor), Michael Curtiz (Director) | Format: DVD
689 days in the top 100 (130)Buy new:
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Review & Description
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY - DVD MovieJames Cagney thrills in a rare (and limber) song-and-dance performance as composer-entertainer George M. Cohan. This nostalgic biography is told in flashbacks, covering Cohan's formative years becoming Broadway's brightest star and touching upon his loves, musicals, and artistic triumphs. Director Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood) offers Cagney ample opportunities to invent an utterly charming performance in what is practically a one-man show. If you've never seen Cagney as a hoofer, you're in for a treat: his dancing is as dynamic as anything else he's ever done on screen. --Tom Keogh Read more
1776 (Restored Director's Cut)
William Daniels (Actor), Howard Da Silva (Actor), Peter H. Hunt (Director) | Format: DVD
1309 days in the top 100 
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Review & Description
1776 - DVD MovieThe hit Broadway musical by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards became the basis for this 1972 film about America's first congress and the nation's declaration of independence from Britain. Most of the original cast members are aboard, including William Daniels as John Adams. The film is a little stodgy and moves stiffly from scene to scene--the adaptation to the screen is not a smooth success. But it is nonetheless captivating, considering that so few films have dealt directly with America's birth. Directed by Peter H. Hunt. --Tom Keogh Read more
Friday, July 1, 2011
John Pinette: Still Hungry
Format: DVD
Release Date: August 2, 2011
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Thursday, June 30, 2011
Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man [Blu-ray 3D]
Ian McKellen (Actor), Nicky Dewhurst (Actor), Keith Melton (Director) | Format: Blu-ray
(37)Release Date: June 7, 2011
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The Complete Gidget Collection (Gidget / Gidget Goes Hawaiian / Gidget Goes to Rome)
Sandra Dee (Actor), James Darren (Actor), Paul Wendkos (Director) | Format: DVD
(93)Release Date: July 5, 2011
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Review & Description
GIDGET:COMPLETE COLLECTION - DVD Movie"Just remember, she might be pint-sized, but she's quite a woman." The original surfer girl gets her own three-film DVD collection, dippy fun from a more innocent time. 1959's Gidget made real surfers nauseated, but it's a kicky movie with some great lounge-era lingo. Sandra Dee, perkiness personified, plays the curious teen who breaks the gender line in surfing. She's also got the attention of surf-happy Moondoggie (James Darren) and the big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), the latter the prototype of the surf bum who roams the globe in search of the endless summer. The film actually kicked off the great boom in surfing popularity (the Beach Boys and the Beach Party movies followed), much to the chagrin of purists. It was based on a novel by Frederick Kohner, who was inspired by his daughter's experiences.
Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) puts Deborah Walley in the title role. She's no Sandra Dee, but at least there are shots of Walley doing her own surfing stunts. The action's in Waikiki, and Gidge is pursued by a confused Moondoggie and a famous dancer. They are played by James Darren and Michael Callan, and having the two 1960s male ingenues in the same movie suggests a weird collision of matter and anti-matter. The spark goes flat in Gidget Goes to Rome (1963), with yet another new actress (Cindy Carol) paired with a loyal James Darren. It's closer to Three Coins in the Fountain than the sandy beaches of Malibu.
DVD caveat: none of the films is in widescreen. The sequels don't suffer much, but the original Gidget was shot in CinemaScope, and the pan-and-scan approach hurts the summery look of the picture--even if it's just Sandra Dee balancing in front of blue-screen waves. --Robert Horton Read more
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
A Hard Day's Night
John Lennon (Actor), Paul McCartney (Actor), Richard Lester (Director) | Format: DVD
(416)Release Date: April 26, 2011
Buy new: $14.98
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Review & Description
In 1964, the Beatles had just recently exploded onto the American scene with their debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The group's first feature, the Academy Award-nominated "A Hard Day's Night," offered fans their first peek into a day in the life of the Beatles and served to establish the Fab Four on the silver screen, as well as to inspire the music video format. Songs: I'll Cry Instead, A Hard Day's Night, I Should've Known Better, Can't Buy Me Love, If I Fell, And I Love Her, I'm Happy Just to Dance with You, Ringo's Theme (This Boy), Tell Me Why, Don't Bother Me, I Wanna Be Your Man, All My Lovin', She Loves You.The Fab Four from Liverpool--John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr--in their first movie. Nobody expected A Hard Day's Night to be much more than a quick exploitation of a passing musical fad, but when the film opened it immediately seduced the world--even the stuffiest critics fell over themselves in praise (highbrow Dwight Macdonald called it "not only a gay, spontaneous, inventive comedy but it is also as good cinema as I have seen for a long time"). Wisely, screenwriter Alun Owen based his script on the Beatles' actual celebrity at the time, catching them in the delirious early rush of Beatlemania: eluding rampaging fans, killing time on trains and in hotels, appearing on a TV broadcast. American director Richard Lester, influenced by the freestyle French New Wave and British Goon Show humor, whips up a delightfully upbeat circus of perpetual motion. From the opening scene of the mop tops rushing through a train station mobbed by fans, the movie rarely stops for air. Some of the songs are straightforwardly presented, but others ("Can't Buy Me Love," set to the foursome gamboling around an empty field) soar with ingenuity. Above all, the Beatles express their irresistible personalities: droll, deadpan, infectiously cheeky. Better examples of pure cinematic joy are few and far between. --Robert Horton Read more
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