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The
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (Special Edition)(1984)
DVD
DVD from MGM/UA Video
starring Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin
directed by W.D. Richter
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension is one
of the most agreeably insane movies ever made. Peter Weller stars as Buckaroo,
an acclaimed neurosurgeon, particle physicist, and, of course, rock star.
He travels with the Hong Kong Cavaliers, a band of hard-rocking scientists
who are also really good dressers. Buckaroo's interdimensional experiments
with his Operation Overthruster throw him (and the Earth) straight into
the middle of an alien war, and before you know it, he's got just a few
hours to save the world. Confused? Hang on, we're only 10 minutes into
the movie. Buckaroo Banzai hurls you right into the middle of its comic-book
universe and keeps going at a breakneck pace. It's chock-full of overlapping
jokes (even as we're trying to make sense of Dr. Lizardo's hospital room,
a voice calmly announces that "lithium is no longer available on credit"
over the PA system), hilarious throwaway dialogue ("You're like Jerry Lewis:
you give me hope to carry on."), and weirdness just for the sheer joy of
it ("Why is there a watermelon there?" "I'll tell you later."). You'll
want to watch it at least twice--there's just no way to catch everything
the first time around. Ellen Barkin has a terrific time doing a dead-on
film noir moll parody as Penny Priddy, and John Lithgow turns in a brilliant
manic performance as Dr. Lizardo/John Whorfin. There is no reason not to
own this movie unless you are cold and dead inside. Laugh while you can,
Monkey Boys. --Ali Davis - Amazon.com |
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The
War of the Worlds (1953) VHS
~ Gene Barry
Terminator
2: Judgment Day (1991) VHS
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
The
Terminator (1984) VHS
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
Alien
Trilogy VHS
~ Sigourney Weaver
Star Wars - Episode I, The Phantom Menace (1999)
~ Liam Neeson
Listed under Star Wars Movies
The
Matrix Reloaded
VHS Tape from Warner Home Video
directed by Larry Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Published: 14 October, 2003 |
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The
Matrix
VHS Tape from Warner Studios
starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne
Moss
directed by Larry Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Published: 04 February, 2003 |
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The
Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) VHS
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, et al.
Director: Peter Jackson
Release Date: Aug 2002
The
City of Lost Children (1995) VHS ~ Subtitled in English
~ Ron Perlman
The fantastic visions of Belgian filmmakers Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre
Jeunet find full fruition in this fairy tale for adults. Evoking utopias
and dystopias from Brazil to Peter Pan, Caro and Jeunet create a vivid
but menacing fantasy city in a perpetually twilight world. In this rough
port town lives circus strongman One (Ron Perlman), who wanders the alleys
and waterfront dives looking for his baby brother, snatched from him by
a mysterious gang preying upon the children of the town. Rising from the
harbor is an enigmatic castle where lives the evil scientist Krank (Daniel
Emilfork), who has lost the ability to dream and robs the nocturnal visions
of the children he kidnaps, but receives only mad nightmares from the lonely
cherubs. Other wild characters include the Fagin-like Octopus--Siamese
twin sisters who control a small gang of runaways-turned-thieves--Krank's
six cloned henchmen (all played by the memorable Dominique Pinon from Delicatessen),
and a giant brain floating in an aquarium (voiced by Jean-Louis Trintignant).
Caro and Jeunet are kindred souls to Terry Gilliam (who is a vocal fan),
creating imaginative flights of fancy built of equal parts delight and
dread, which seem to be painted on the screen in rich, dreamy colors. --Sean
Axmaker - Amazon.com
Brazil
- Criterion Collection (1985) DVD
~ De Niro
If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member
of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian
satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by
Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka.
Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit
of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic
nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan
Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real
bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets
smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying
an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle
(Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic
glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant. The movie presents
such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy
that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until
Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics
Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed
Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special
director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive)
six-disc laser package in 1996. --Jim Emerson - Amazon.com
The
Fifth Element (1997) VHS
~ Bruce Willis
Ancient curses, all-powerful monsters, shape-changing assassins, scantily-clad
stewardesses, laser battles, huge explosions, a perfect woman, a malcontent
hero--what more can you ask of a big-budget science fiction movie? Luc
Besson's high-octane film incorporates presidents, rock stars, and cab
drivers into its peculiar plot, traversing worlds and encountering some
pretty wild aliens. Bruce Willis stars as a down-and-out cabbie who must
win the love of Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) to save Earth from destruction
by Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman) and a dark, unearthly force
that makes Darth Vader look like an Ewok. --Geoff Riley - Amazon.com
Dark
Star (1974) VHS
The Dark Star's crew is on a 20-year mission to destroy
unstable planets and make way for future colonization. The smart bombs
they use to effect this zoom off cheerfully to do their duty. But unlike
Star Trek, in which order prevails, the nerves of this crew are becoming
increasingly frayed to the point of psychosis. Their captain has been killed
by a radiation leak that also destroyed their toilet paper. "Don't give
me any of that 'Intelligent Life' stuff," says Commander Doolittle when
presented with the possibility of alien life. "Find me something I can
blow up." When an asteroid storm causes a malfunction, Bomb Number 20 (the
most cheerful character in the film) has to be repeatedly talked out of
exploding prematurely, each time becoming more and more peevish, until
they have to teach him phenomenology to make him doubt his existence. And
the film's apocalyptic ending, lifted almost wholly from Ray Bradbury's
story "Kaleidoscope," has the remaining crew drifting away from each other
in space, each to a suitably absurd end. Absurd, surreal, and very funny.
John Carpenter once described Dark Star as "Waiting for Godot in space."
Made at a cost of practically nothing, the film's effects are nevertheless
impressive and, along with the number of ideas crammed into its 83 minutes,
ought to shame makers of science fiction films costing hundreds of times
more. The DVD contains both the original 68-minute release and the director's
full version. --Jim Gay - Amazon.com
VHS Tape from Vci Home Video
starring Dre Pahich, Dan O'Bannon
directed by John Carpenter
Screenplay by Dan O'Bannon (Aliens) & John Carpenter
Published: 03 July, 2001 |
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Close
Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) VHS
~ Richard Dreyfuss
StarmanVHS
~ Jeff Bridges
28
Days Later (Widescreen Edition)
DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Video
starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris
directed by Danny Boyle
The director/producer team that created Trainspotting turn their dynamic
cinematic imaginations to the classic science fiction scenario of the last
people on Earth. Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma to find London
deserted--until he runs into a mob of crazed plague victims. He gradually
finds other still-human survivors (including Naomie Harris), with whom
he heads off across the abandoned countryside to find the source of a radio
broadcast that promises salvation. 28 Days Later is basically an updated
version of The Omega Man and other post-apocalyptic visions; but while
the movie may lack originality, it makes up for it in vivid details and
creepy paranoid atmosphere. 28 Days Later's portrait of how people behave
in extreme circumstances--written by novelist Alex Garland (The Beach)--will
haunt you afterward. Also featuring Brendan Gleeson (The General, Gangs
of New York) and Christopher Eccleston (Shallow Grave, The Others).
--Bret Fetzer - Amazon.com
Published: 21 October, 2003 |
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Blade
Runner - The Director's Cut (1982) VHS
~ Harrison Ford
Fahrenheit
451 (1966) VHS
~ Oskar Werner
2001
- A Space Odyssey (Widescreen Edition) (1968) VHS
~ Keir Dullea
Metropolis
(1927) VHS
~ Alfred Abel
Repo
Man (Widescreen Edition) VHS
Starring: Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez
Director: Alex Cox
A volatile, toxic potion of satire and nihilism, road movie and science
fiction, violence and comedy, the unclassifiable sensibility of Alex Cox's
Repo Man is the model and inspiration for a potent strain of post-punk
American comedy that includes not only Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction),
but also early Coen brothers (Raising Arizona, in particular), Men in Black,
and even (in a weird way) The X-Files. Otto, a baby-face punk played by
Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a coke-snorting,
veteran repo-man-of-honor prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland
populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens
of every stripe. It may seem chaotic at first glance, but there's a "latticework
of coincidence" (as Tracey Walter puts it) underlying everything. Repo
Man is a key American movie of the 1980s--just as Taxi Driver, Nashville,
and Chinatown are key American movies of the '70s. With a scorching soundtrack
that features Iggy Pop, Fear, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies.
--Jim
Emerson - Amazon.com |
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The
Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) VHS
David Bowie
Battlefield
Earth (2000) VHS
~ John Travolta
"The Showgirls of sci-fi shoot-'em-ups" Variety
A totally ludicrous rendition of a fairly forgettable Ron Hubbard novel,
this will be of interest to collectors of the decade's top ten worst movies.
Db.
Frequency
Dennis quaid & Jim Cavielzel
Star Wars Trilogy VHS
~ Hamill
Listed under Star Wars
The Lost World - Jurassic Park (1997)
~ Jeff Goldblum
Listed under Dinosaur Movies
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