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The DVD Dossier is the free newsletter published weekly by DVD Direct 4 Less.
This is the archived issue for August 21, 2005.
Click Here To Subscribe To The DVD Dossier Newsletter
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Published weekly by DVD Direct 4 Less, the online source for DVD Discounts & Deals
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In This Issue
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August 21, 2005
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| Available on DVD This Tuesday... |
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© Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Queen Latifah heads an all-star cast in "Beauty Shop," coming to DVD this Tuesday in a hybrid DVD that includes both widescreen and full screen versions of the film.
Latifah plays the star stylist at a posh salon run by an egotistical perfectionist (Kevin Bacon). Finding him impossible to work for, she leaves and opens a "Beauty Shop" of her own. The film costars Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Alfre Woodard, Mena Suvari and Djimon Hounsou and any similarity to "Barbershop" is absolutely intended, as the film shares the same producers.
Also coming to DVD this week is "The Ring Two," a perfectly ordinary sequel starring Naomi Watts. The film was generally panned by critics and moviegoers alike, but that hasn't stopped the studio from delivering the DVD three different ways.
Out on Tuesday is an Unrated Widescreen Edition, the Unrated Full Screen Edition and the PG-13 Theatrical (Full Screen) Edition.
If you're looking for something in the same genre, you may want to give "Audition" a try; this unique Japanese arthouse horror flick runs rings around "The Ring Two."
Deceptively innocent at first, "Audition" begins almost as if it's a romantic comedy.
Aoyama, a middle aged widower, is urged by his teenage son and film producer friend Yoshikawa to start dating again. Yoshikawa devises a plan to hold a phony film audition as a way for Ayoama to meet a new woman.
During the interview process, Ayoama meets the beautiful Asami, a former ballerina with a suspicious past. Their courtship soon veers from polite romance to psycho-nightmare. Consider yourself hereby warned: "Audition" features scenes of extreme graphic violence and torture.
One of Jim Carrey's best performances was in 1998's "The Truman Show," out this week in a Special Collector's Edition.
Carrey plays the unwitting Truman Burbank in this film from director Peter Weir about a man who doesn't know his life is a nonstop TV show. In many ways, "The Truman Show" is uncannily prescient in predicting many of the conventions of today's glut of reality TV programs.
Truman doesn't realize that his quaint hometown is a giant studio set run by a visionary producer/director/creator (Ed Harris), that folks living and working there are Hollywood actors, that even his incessantly bubbly wife (Laura Linney) is a contract player.
Andrew Niccol wrote a funny and surprisingly touching screenplay that eventually has Truman catching on. And what he ultimately does following his discovery will have you laughing and crying.
Our favorite film this week is "Childstar," a Canadian comedy co-written, directed by and starring Don McKellar. It's a film within a film that parodies both the world of child actors and the American big-budget film industry. It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and child actor Mark Rendall.
Patrick Swayze and wife Lisa Niemi star - along with George De La Pena - in "One Last Dance," about members of a dance company who reunite for a special performance following the death of their artistic director.
"Lackawanna Blues" is an HBO film with an exceptional ensemble cast led by Jimmy Smits, Rosie Perez and Macy Gray. The film is based on an award winning play by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and was directed by George C. Wolfe.
It's a poignant and colorful drama that tells the inspirational story of a courageous woman whose spirit and strength served as the foundation for a struggling community trying to survive during the segregation era.
"Layer Cake" is an entertaining and intricately plotted British gangster picture that is smarter and more stylish than your average thriller. The plot concerns a drug dealer (Daniel Craig) caught in a high stakes game of life and death when he's duped into trying to sell one million hits of Ecstasy.
In anticipation of the September big screen release of "Transporter 2," this week Fox debuts the "Special Delivery Edition" of "The Transporter." The thriller from producer/co-writer Luc Besson stars Jason Statham in a series of repetitive action sequences and loud car chases.
The widescreen DVD presentation includes commentary by Statham and producer Steven Chasman, an all-new behind-the-scenes documentary, unrated fight sequences not seen in theatres and a sneak peek of "Transformer 2."
Also included is a "movie money coupon" good for a "free ticket" to see the sequel at the cinema. (The coupon's maximum value is $7.50, so - depending on where you live - you may have to cough up a few bucks yourself.)
Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet star in "A Lot Like Love," a thoroughly agreeable romantic comedy available in both widescreen and full screen versions.
The movie, sort of a "When Harry Met Sally" for today's MTV generation. is the story of two people for whom it takes seven years to fall in love at first sight.
"Six Feet Under" went to its final resting place this weekend. If - like us - you're still mourning the loss, you may want to take solace in the Fourth Season of the show, out this week in a 5-Disc set featuring all twelve episodes, with commentary by the writers and/or directors on seven of them.
Also out this week is the First Season of "That's My Mama," the Second Season of "The O.C.," the Third Season of "Kung Fu" and a value-priced 13-Disc, 26 Episode Collectors Set of all the "After School Specials" seen on ABC from 1974-1989.
Teen actors appearing in the "After School Specials" include Rob Lowe, Dana Plato, Nancy McKeon, Melissa Sue Anderson, Kristy McNichol, Kirk Cameron, Malcolm Jamal-Warner, Eve Plumb, and Christopher Knight.
The set comes specially packaged in a retro "school bus," which is a lot of fun to have around, but a bit impractical if you want to place it on a shelf with the rest of your DVD collection.
That's all for this week, my friends.
We'll return next week with more new DVD releases and an advance look at the Final Season DVD of "Friends" and a highly collectible (but very expensive) 20-Disc Collector's Set of "Sex and the City" (the complete series).
See you next week.
Regards,
DVD Direct 4 Less
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| This Week's New DVD Releases - Street Date: August 23, 2005 |
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Visit us online to see a comprehensive list of new DVD releases for the next six weeks.
Links above are for Region 1 (USA) Editions. Availability and release dates elsewhere may vary.
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| Animated Series Features Creatures |
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From the inventive mind of Academy-Award® winning animator Nick Park comes "Creature Comforts: The Complete First Season," available on September 27th.
Told in a “mockumentary” format and branded with Park’s trademark subtle and engaging sense of humor, these animated shorts provide an entertaining glimpse into the secret lives of animals... their hopes, their dreams and their complaints.
Interviews with these lovable creatures leave no stone unturned, no tree unclimbed, no sea uncrossed in the quest to discover what they really think about the issues that are closest to their hearts.
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Now you can finally hear their answers, straight from the horse’s mouth (quite literally, in at least one case). Filled with smart humor and a wink to the audience, "Creature Comforts: The Complete First Season" presents all thirteen 9-minute episodes on a single DVD.
Circus animals lift the lid on life underneath the big top, garden dwellers discuss life in the urban turf, and our feathered friends reveal the ups and downs of life in the air in compelling, first-person anecdotes.
"Creature Comforts" began life as a short subject released in 1990 by UK-based Aardman Animations. Aardman’s founders, Peter Lord and David Sproxton, had revolutionized their art form with the popular “Conversation Pieces” series, which were clay-animated films based on real-life conversations with members of the British public.
Nick Park took the series one imaginative step forward by recording the complaints of British citizens and creating animals representing each doughty character, resulting in global acclaim and the 1990 Oscar® for Best Animated Short Film.
The success of "Creature Comforts" launched Nick Park’s career, since spawning such endearing creations as the truly odd couple "Wallace and Gromit"™ (to be re-released on DVD September 20th) and the captive chickens of the 2000 theatrical feature "Chicken Run."
Originally aired to great acclaim on British television and Comedy Central as well as nominated for a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Award for Best Comedy Series in 2004, "Creature Comforts: The Complete First Season" is the first American presentation of these animated shorts on home video.
The DVD will include bonus features and games, as well as the original "Creature Comforts" Oscar®-winning short that started it all.
Pre-order "Creature Comforts" now and save 30%. |
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"Born into Brothels," this year's Academy Award® winner for Best Documentary Feature, will be released September 20th by THINKFilm.
An inspiring look at the transformative journey of a group of extraordinary children in Calcutta's red light district, "Born into Brothels" was also the winner of the Documentary Audience Award at Sundance 2004, in addition to over 20 other major film festival prizes.
The DVD release includes a number of special features including a commentary track with directors Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski, deleted scenes, video commentary by the children, the Academy Award® acceptance speech and much more.
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A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, "Born into Brothels" is a portrait of several children who live in Calcutta's red light district, where their mothers work as prostitutes.
Spurred by the kids' fascination with her camera, Briski, a New York-based photographer living in the brothels and documenting life there, decided to teach them photography. As they began to look at and record their world through new eyes, the kids who society refused to recognize awakened for the first time to their own talents and sense of worth.
Filmmakers Kauffman and Briski perfectly capture the way in which beauty can be found in even the seemingly bleakest and most hopeless of places, and how art and education can empower children to transform their lives.
Pre-order "Born Into Brothels" now and save 30%. |
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| Buzz About New Collector's Editions |
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Relive the cinema's most terrifying transformations when a scientific experiment goes horribly wrong in "The Fly" and "The Fly ll," both headed to DVD in Collector's Editions October 4th.
Both films come alive with never-before-seen bonus materials, including audio commentaries, deleted scenes, storyboard and concept art galleries, featurettes investigating the history of the films and the stages of the films' production, theatrical teasers and trailers and an exploration of the various written materials that served as the films' inspiration.
And both films have been fully restored and will be presented - in all their gory glory - in widescreen editions.
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Directed by David Cronenberg, "The Fly" centers around Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), a brilliant if eccentric scientist researching the possibility of teleporting living matter.
After a common house fly enters one of his transmission booths as he is preparing to teleport himself, he finds himself a changed man, evolving into BrundleFly, a hybrid of man and fly.
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The transformation is gradual but terrible, and is witnessed by Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), an investigative journalist documenting Seth's research, who loves him and soon learns that she is carrying his child.
Seth Brundle's son Martin (Eric Stoltz) is a full grown man when the story of the BrundleFly continues in "The Fly ll." With the help of his girlfriend Beth (Daphne Zuniga), Martin must find a possible cure for his genetic condition before his dormant insect genes make him into the monster that overtook his father.
Pre-order "The Fly" and "The Fly ll" now and save 30%.
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| Preview of Next Week's Releases - Street Date: August 30, 2005 |
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| Get an iPod or a $250 iTunes Gift Certificate... |
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The DVD Dossier is a free weekly newsletter that contains objective information about new DVD releases that has been researched and written by the editors at DVD Direct 4 Less, as well as advertisements and promotional information provided by movie studios.
We send this newsletter only to those who request it. Each newsletter we send directly to you includes an "unsubscribe" link. (This is an online archived issue of The DVD Dossier which does not contain that link.)
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Please note: all DVDs were available for sale as of the original publication date of this newsletter. Some may no longer be in inventory at the present time and preorder savings may not be in effect. If you're having difficulty finding a particular title, you can search current availability for any DVD here.
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