While The Godfather was making moviegoers an offer they couldn't refuse, La Vallée was wowing art-house crowds with its flower-powered search for paradise in the jungles of New Guinea. It's there that an adventurous diplomat's wife (Bulle Ogier), hoping to find the forbidden feathers of a rare exotic bird, embarks on a deeper, more personal quest when she encounters a makeshift family of hippies seeking an unmapped valley from which visitors are said never to return. Like the structurally similar cult films from its era (including Walkabout and Aguirre: The Wrath of God), La Vallée dazzled the post-'60s subculture with free-spirited adventure and enigmatic beauty, captured here through the peerless lens of cinematographer Néstor Almendros. The hippie vibe seems mildly dated but its sensual context is timeless, and a climactic encounter with the primitive Mapuga tribe retains an intense cross-cultural mystique. Pink Floyd's celebrated soundtrack is mostly heard as background ambience, but it effectively enhances the film's compelling atmosphere of mystery and expectation. -Jeff Shannon Lush, sensual, and aurally hypnotic, this renowned cult classic from Barbet Schroeder (Barfly, Reversal of Fortune, More, Maitresse) was shot by the legendary Nestor Almendros, and scored by Pink Floyd. Set in the rainforest of New Guinea, a restless diplomat's wife, played by Bulle Ogier (Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Maitresse), goes in search of a rare bird's priceless feathers. In the process she meets up with a group of hippies seeking spiritual and sexual enlightenment. Together they are transformed when they encounter the indigenous Mapuga tribesman and the secret "valley of the gods".

Shiro is a bondage master of exquisite skill who takes pride in his unique form of art. But when one of his models is found strangled and bound in his trademark style, he must track the killer to his lair - and escape the vengeance of the victim's lover, the leader of the treacherous Blue Dragon Gang!.

From the director of YAABA and TILAI, comes a charming story of two best friends with the same irrepressible dream: to escape the rural backwaters of their home village in Zimbabwe and move to the bright lights of the big city. There's only one hitch: the two men's chosen mode of transportation is a delapidated old car. KINI & ADAMS spend so much of their time joking and daydreaming that it doesn't seem to matter that every spare part they can buy improves the car's appearance, but not its performance: seat covers, a lucky charm, windshield wipers that don't work. When they are given the opportunity to have regular jobs at a steady wage, their dream seems within reach; but ambition is mathched with rivalry. Can the frienship survive? A compelling tale, KINI & ADAMS presents its viewer with an important, intriguing question: what is it that sustains our relationships over time? IDRISSA OUDRAOGO was born in Burkina Faso, and first studied film at the African Institute of Cinematrographic Studies in Ouagadougou. Later, at IDHEC in Paris, he was able to hone his technical skills into a distinctive cinematic style characterized by stunning visual imagery and narratives abounding with warmth and humanity. His filmography includes YAABA (1989) which won the International Critic's Prize at Cannes, TILAI (1990) which was award the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes, SAMBA TRAORE (1992), which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and LE CRI DU COEUR, which was part of the Official Selection at the Venice Film Festival in 1994. KINI AND ADAMS is Oudraogo's first English language feature film.

Jean-Luc Godard's most recent filmic adventure into the past and future of cinema is. JLG/JLG. Godard stars in JLG/JLG as a fictional character of his own creation musing about in his home in Rolle, Switzerland. In the dead of winter, he suffers the rude interruption of criticcs and the cheeky services of a pretty maid, while contemplating the end of western culture, cinema and his own mortality. A busy day. but still with time for tragedy, tennis and television.

If one were to gather the hundreds of books written about Ludwig van Beethoven, sift through each with a fine-tooth comb, and extract every simple mistake, wild speculation, and outright falsehood, the result would still be nowhere near as fabulous and artificial as this 1936 biopic, which rewrites the composer's life story into a throbbingly melodramatic tale of genius ignored and love unrequited. Director Abel Gance, best known for his expansive silent classic Napoleon, wasn't interested in the truth of Beethoven's life, but instead the romantic ideal of a great man tormented by history; Gance's Beethoven is merely a variation of the filmmaker's beloved Bonaparte, triumphant yet scorned by his inferiors in the artistic realm rather than the political. (Needless to say, among the film's many omissions is Beethoven's bitter rededication of the "Eroica" Symphony. ) Beginning where every portrait of Beethoven the man must, with the identification of the Immortal Beloved, the film nominates (wrongly) Giulietta Gallenberg, née Guicciardi, reconstructing their brief passion as a lifelong obsession. During each of Beethoven's struggles-with love, poverty, deafness-thunder cracks against the sky and the opening notes of the Fifth burst onto the soundtrack to punctuate the action. Meet the film on its own novelette-like terms, however, and it can be quite moving, not least for the magnificent presence of Harry Baur in the lead, who captures to perfection the tortured nobility the film foists upon its protagonist. Baur's conception is as outsized as Gance's, but also gentler and less sentimental; he humanizes what could have been a treacly salute to a marble statue. An unusual final credit places the actor's name alongside the director's, a touching admission by Gance at how indebted his film was to its star. -Bruce Reid The silent epic and international cinema legend Abel Gance is most celebrated for his sweeping and pioneering biography masterpiece "Napoleon. " But this touching and tortured document of the legendary Beethoven's creative genius deserves equal tribute and attention. [+]

1 copy of each of the following: Intermezzo (FLV1437), June NIght (FLV1438), Only One Night (FLV1439), Dollar (FLV1440), A Woman's Face (FLV1441) and Walpurgis Night (FLV1442) shrink-wrapped together.

Imagine, if you will, the visual cacophony of Fellini (director of 8 1/2 and Juliet of the Spirits), the over-the-top action of Jerry Bruckheimer (producer of Armageddon and Gone in 60 Seconds), and the manic emotions and frenetic editing of Russ Meyer (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!)-you have just gotten an inkling of the glorious pop cinema of Hong Kong. Deadful Melody, starring Brigitte Lin, one of the most magnetic actresses in the world, is a prime example. The ancient Chinese world of martial arts is ruled by six clans, the leaders of which all want to get their hands on the Magic Lyre, a musical instrument of near-apocalyptic destructive power. In their ruthless pursuit, they murder the entire family of the Lyre's guardian-all except for the youngest daughter, Snow, who falls down a waterfall clutching the Lyre. This sequence starts the movie with a bang, for kung fu in HK movie terms means much more than it did to Bruce Lee; the clan leaders are virtually supernatural beings, with names like Master Ghost and the whip-wielding Cold Hearted Seductress. Anyone properly trained in martial arts can fly and explode things from afar, which results in some pretty spectacular battles. Snow, of course, returns to take revenge after learning to play the Lyre and gaining enormous power. Brigitte Lin is never less than hypnotic; while this role isn't as complex as Asia the Invincible in Swordsman II, it's cut from the same cloth: imperious, cool, yet aching with loss and grief. The plot is a dizzying web of Machiavellian scheming and surprisingly rich emotions that will keep you riveted; if you can't follow it, don't worry-flying warriors clash and explode every few minutes. -Bret Fetzer.