This is the most popular opera production so far on DVD, surpassing even Franco Zeffirelli's lavish, symbol-laden La Traviata. It is an exciting Carmen, with a young-looking Placido Domingo in top form for a role he has sung hundreds of times. For Julia Migenes, it was her first performance in a role she would have trouble performing in an opera house. Her voice does not fit easily into Carmen's range, and she spent months training it, very successfully, before singing the role in a recording studio where the soundtrack was taped before the film was shot. Casting her in the role was a gamble, but it worked; she is a convincing actress-even better than Maria Ewing in the competing DVD edition from Covent Garden, though Ewing acts very well and has a more appropriate voice. This movie version was filmed on location, conveying a kind of atmosphere, a sense of space, movement, and presence hard to achieve in a staged performance shot for television. It takes the action out of doors for many scenes. The opening titles are superimposed on the bloody conclusion of a bullfight. The changing of the guard in the opening scene, with the boys' chorus playing soldier, the crowd scenes, the dance number that opens Act II, the panoramic scenery of the smugglers' mountain hideout, all benefit from the freedom granted by movie cameras. But the music is, on the whole, more effectively performed in the Covent Garden production, which also handles close-up shots better, perhaps because it was directed with a small screen in mind. [+]

When it was released during Hollywood's golden year of 1939, The Wizard of Oz didn't start out as the perennial classic it has since become. The film did respectable business, but it wasn't until its debut on television that this family favorite saw its popularity soar. And while Oz's TV broadcasts are now controlled by media mogul Ted Turner (who owns the rights), the advent of home video has made this lively musical a mainstay in the staple diet of great American films. Young Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), her dog, Toto, and her three companions on the yellow brick road to Oz-the Tin Man (Jack Haley), the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), and the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger)-have become pop-culture icons and central figures in the legacy of fantasy for children. As the Wicked Witch who covets Dorothy's enchanted ruby slippers, Margaret Hamilton has had the singular honor of scaring the wits out of children for more than six decades. The film's still as fresh, frightening, and funny as it was when first released. It may take some liberal detours from the original story by L. Frank Baum, but it's loyal to the Baum legacy while charting its own course as a spectacular film. Shot in glorious Technicolor, befitting its dynamic production design (Munchkinland alone is a psychedelic explosion of color and decor), The Wizard of Oz may not appeal to every taste as the years go by, but it's required viewing for kids of all ages. -Jeff Shannon DVD features The Wizard of Oz DVD released in 1999 was loaded with extra features, but it's now safe to throw away that version in all its cardboard-package glory in favor of this new two-disc edition. [+]

It's been branded with the "blaxploitation" label, but there is little that's exploitive in J. D. 's Revenge, a film of well-drawn, articulate characters dragged into a supernatural showdown. Glynn Turman (Cooley High) is especially fine as the sensitive and quiet Ike, a determined student moonlighting as a cab driver, so wound up he's on the verge of cracking. Enter (literally) the ghost of J. D. , a violent, vengeful gangster murdered in the opening moments. He could be Ike's own Mr. Hyde, a dapper, flamboyant ladykiller with a fiery temper and a straight razor who slowly smothers Ike's easygoing personality. Driven by flashes of memory, he sets his vengeful sights on fire-and-brimstone preacher Reverend Bliss (Louis Gossett Jr. [+]

A chronicle of the adventures in the life of Robert Elliot Burns whose experiences inspired the film "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang".

Musical biopic featuring the vocals of Cantor himself during the musical numbers. Cantors greatest hits are featured, including Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider, If You Knew Susie, Potatos are Cheaper, Margie, and Ichr(39)d Like to Spend Each Sunda With you. Jac A big slice of show-biz cheese, The Eddie Cantor Story follows the Broadway legend from childhood, when he narrowly escaped delinquency, through his youth in vaudeville to his years of success as the star of Florenz Ziegfeld's smash revues. Impersonated with eye-rolling hamminess by Keefe Brasselle (who hosted a brief-lived variety show in the 1960s), Cantor is an archetypal go-getter, a relentless workaholic who sacrificed his family life to sing Tin Pan Alley classics like "Makin' Whoopee" before an adoring crowd. The cliches fly fast and furious; the best bit is when a venomous actress (film noir queen Marie Windsor, The Killing, The Narrow Margin), sick of Cantor upstaging her, tries to sabotage Cantor by pretending to arrange an audition for him. Along the way are overdone imitations of Jimmy Durante and Will Rogers telling Cantor how great he is. Contemporary audiences are apt to be startled by the cheerful performances in blackface, which the movie blithely embraces as good-natured fun. This ends up being The Eddie Cantor Story's most intriguing aspect, though more for sociological interest than entertainment value. -Bret Fetzer.

A grim, disheartening view of the underside of city life, Q & A is a legal drama with a disturbing twist. Not exactly a whodunit-the guilt of policeman Nick Nolte is established early on-the plot follows the closing of the circle around him. Leading the murder investigation is Timothy Hutton's young, idealistic district attorney Al Reilly, who finds himself battling a fraudulent and cynical culture. Racism, corruption, and political machinations are all added to the mix, resulting in a film that is just a little too dense and slow-moving to capture the imagination. Director Sidney Lumet creates a feeling of enveloping darkness around Hutton, who slowly manages to let the light in and bring the truth to the surface. With an obviously small budget, the film has more of a made-for-television feel than that of a big blockbuster and some of the performances err too much on the side of cliché. The concept of the New York melting pot is fairly effectively dismissed by the film, painting a picture of distrust between communities that often spills into violence, both verbal and physical. Not quite as unremittingly bleak as Harvey Kietel's Bad Lieutenant, Q & A is still a tough, dark piece of cinema. -Phil Udell.

A briskly paced hybrid of Boogie Nights and Goodfellas, Blow chronicles the three-decade rise and fall of George Jung (Johnny Depp), a normal American kid who makes a personal vow against poverty, builds a marijuana empire in the '60s, multiplies his fortune with the Colombian Medellín cocaine cartel, and blows it all with a series of police busts culminating in one final, long-term jail sentence. "Your dad's a loser," says this absentee father to his estranged but beloved daughter, and he's right: Blow is the story of a nice guy who made wrong choices all his life, almost single-handedly created the American cocaine trade, and got exactly what he deserved. As directed by Ted Demme, the film is vibrantly entertaining, painstakingly authentic. and utterly aimless in terms of overall purpose. We can't sympathize with Jung's meteoric rise to wealth and the wild life, and Demme isn't suggesting that we should idolize a drug dealer. So what, exactly, is the point of Blow? Simply, it seems, to present Jung's story as the epitome of the coke-driven glory days, and to suggest, ever so subtly, that Jung isn't such a bad guy, after all. Anyone curious about his lifestyle will find this film amazing, and there's plenty of humor mixed with the constant threat of violence and paranoid anxiety. Demme has also populated the film with a fantastic supporting cast (although Penélope Cruz grows tiresome as Jung's hedonistic wife), and this is certainly a compelling look at the other side of Traffic. [+]

Mounted in high lavish style, from the opening strains to coda, The Red Violin pays homage to the careful uses of color and composition without bothering to support these qualities with any real substance. Oh, it's a class act on the surface all the way, while failing on nearly every other level to convince. The story tells the story, revealing precious little else. The 17th-century Cremonese instrument-maker Niccolo Bussotti finishes his final violin with a curious red varnish, the secret of which spans the film, yet will come as a surprise only to the very sleepy. The odd voyage of this unique violin through history is then explored from one episode to the next, from child prodigy to gypsies to Victorian virtuoso to a clandestine enclave of art lovers in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. This is all framed by the violin's rediscovery in present day by instrument appraiser Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson), for whom the perfect instrument strikes a resonant chord. The main scheme of the film, an object connecting a number of seemingly disparate stories, has been used many times, most notably in Max Ophuls's La Ronde. But while this approach is employed elsewhere to cause one scene to reverberate against another, The Red Violin is content to leave each episode thematically unconnected with any of the others. On the decorative level, the film may satisfy many viewers with its sensuous attention to tone and detail, as well as its eclectic and expertly performed score. [+]

Marvel Comics always seems to come up short in the comics-to-movies transition, often because their adaptations veer away from both their comic book feel and their original story. This lesser-known conversion-which didn't even air in some parts of the country back in 1978-is the most faithful of the '70s Marvel adaptations, from a lead actor who looks the part to specific sets and some moderately decent effects. Peter Hooten stars as psychiatrist Stephen Strange, an unwitting heir to mystical powers which aging sorcerer Lindmer seeks to bestow on him (it's his destiny). When the evil Morgan LeFay is sent by an evil demon from another dimension to snuff out the aging sorcerer and begin the takeover of Earth, Linder fends her off as his pupil, Wong, seeks out Strange for his initiation into the mystic arts. When the reluctant Strange learns that one of his patients, student Clea Lake, has become an unwitting pawn in this cross-dimensional war, he tries to save her and then attempts to fend off LeFay before she bridges the gap between dimensions. Admitted, this movie is more suited to fans of the comic than to outsiders, but that said, it is the Marvel adaptation most likely to entice people into investigating its source material. Hooten delivers an appealing performance as the compassionate Strange; his acting is what drives this piece. John Mills is decent as Lindmer, and Anne-Marie Martin emphatically plays the victimized Lake, but Jessica Walter is a bit too cold and distant as sinister sorceress LeFay, despite her cool, icy stare. Luckily, Paul Chihara's moody electronic score (reminiscent of Goblin's music in Dario Argento films) adds tension to the movie. You can tell the filmmakers were setting up a series that never came, and it's too bad because there was a lot of potential here. [+]

Biopic of the son of a country music legend who grew to become one of America's greatest songwriters in his own right.