Jean-Pierre Melville Collection - 6-DVD Box Set ( Bob Le Flambeur / Léon Morin, prêtre / Le doulos / L'armée des ombres / Le cercle rouge / Un flic ) ( The Honest Thief / The Forgi [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]

Jean-Pierre Melville Collection - 6-DVD Box Set ( Bob Le Flambeur / L �on Morin, pr� tre / Le doulos / L'arm e des ombres / Le cercle rouge / Un flic ) ( The Honest Thief / The Forgi [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]

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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: French ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Box Set, Interactive Menu, Multi-DVD Set, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Jean-Pierre Melville (1917 - 1974) is one of the most revered French film directors of all time. Born in Paris, he was to become a member of the French Resistance in the Second World War, an experience which he drew on as a film director, creating underworlds of secrecy and deception. The reluctant godfather of the French New Wave, Melville's highly individual style was influenced by the ideas of existentialism and surrealism, but arguably his greatest debt was to the American film noirs of 1930s and '40s Hollywood, the traditions of which he wove with inimitable style into his quintessentially French films, seeing him hailed by many as the father of the French gangster movie.

This set contains six of his finest films, from his early bittersweet masterpiece, Bob Le Flambeur, to his final film, Un Flic, his wonderfully fatalistic study of loss and deception; a fitting epitaph to one of contemporary cinema's most exceptional careers.

Army of Shadows (1969): Regarded as one of the best films ever made about wartime France. Members of the French resistance fight for freedom in the face of constant danger.

Le Doulos / Doulos: The Finger Man (1962): An unforgettable story of trust, betrayal and honour. A criminal, just free from jail, goes in search of revenge.

Leon Morin Pretre/ The Forgiven Sinner (1961): Unforgettable drama set in occupied France. A beautiful but disil...Jean-Pierre Melville Collection - 6-DVD Box Set ( Bob Le Flambeur / L� on Morin, pr� tre / Le doulos / L'arm e des ombres / Le cercle rouge / Un flic ) ( The Honest Thief / The Forgi

Jean-Pierre Melville Collection - 6-DVD Box Set ( Bob Le Flambeur / L� on Morin, pr �tre / Le doulos / L'armée des ombres / Le cercle rouge / Un flic ) ( The Honest Thief / The Forgi [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ] Review

There is a sordid aspect to favorable reviews- especially movie reviews. The price of the films reviewed goes up. Therefore, I will try to include some negative things in this review to keep the price of the package down for future consumers.

You will need a DVD player that can be set to Region 0 in order to watch this package of films. This is easily done with almost any Phillips DVD player, and many others. The film package arrives with a red circle on the box, inside of which is printed the number "12". This signifies the film content may only be sold to those 12 years and older. For this package, a bump to "16" might be more appropriate, and we'll discuss the reason for that later on. I noticed the same red circle and the number "12" on another film set, "The Neo-Realist" collection, featuring the memorable Vittorio de Sica classic "The Bicycle Thief". For that package, I would agree with the "12" designation. Be that as it may, simply set your DVD player to Region 0 and you are on your way.

For most of the films in this Jean Pierre Melville collection, you have as your guide the peerless Ginette Vincendeau. Her expertise on French film is encyclopedic, and her presentations are delivered in flawless English. She points out how Melville adored American crime cinema; indeed, you see stills of the director in sunglasses and Stetson, so that he comes off as an Arizona State Trooper wannabe. His name, as Roger Ebert points out, is derived from the great 19th century American novelist. But even though these films are chock full of Americana, they retain an essential French quality. In almost every film, for example, there are scenes of sumptuous women in various stages of undress, none of which would make it past the Breen era Production Code regulations. Bob Le Flambeur features a black and white tile design on caf house walls while in the milieu of city streets; Melville gives viewers more than a distinct taste of Paris. Finally, it's remarkable how heavily French police in these films rely on informants to deliver incriminating information, sometimes against innocent people.

All the films in this collection have been immaculately restored so that viewing them is essentially a brand new experience.

Bob Le Flambeur (Bob, The Gambler)
Bob is pushing 60 years of age, having been released in 1955 - the film's beginning is quietly provocative, especially the shot of the trolley car descending into the city streets. A special joy of Bob is the dialog: it's concise, so reading the English subtitles is not a burdensome task, and you can concentrate on more important things like figuring out what kind of car Bob is driving. It's not an Edsel, those didn't appear until 1958. Whatever, it's a sleek set of wheels rivaling Count Vincenzo's convertible in The Barefoot Contessa..

Despite its urban setting, many of the film's values are rural. John Wayne wouldn't tolerate a pimp brutalizing women, neither does Bob. When the tight Paris streets are invaded by spacious American cars, we have another delicious juxtaposition and culture clash. Bob has to find some motivation to life besides gambling, and although he's put his criminal past behind him, he thinks a nice heist would allow him to ease into retirement. Club owner Yvonne (Simone Paris) truly loves him and tries to dissuade his inclinations but he won't listen, setting in motion a final caper.

Bob Le Flambeur is probably Melville's most upbeat film, with an ending (which I will not reveal) that is existential and absurdist, exactly the kind of quirkiness that guarantees this film will remain on "best ever" lists into the indeterminate future

Le Doulos (The Informer)
Le Doulos has a much darker tone than Bob Le Flambeur. Jean Paul Belmondo has the title role and although his outward demeanor is placid, he is quite ruthless, so much so that his actions seem gratuitous and I almost get the feeling he is sleepwalking through the role. This was also true in the only other Belmondo film I saw, Jean Luc Goddard's 1961 classic, Breathless. Nor does his uncanny resemblance to Ringo Starr do him any favors. For me, Belmondo and everyone else in the film tries too hard to be laconic without understanding this doesn't have to mean lifeless.

Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) is a heist film featuring the redoubtable Yves Montand battling personal demons in the aftermath of a ruined career as a police detective. He joins up with a gang on the opposite side of the law and adds a measure of intelligence and urbane charm in a role as a sharp shooting jewel thief.. In all of Melville's heist films, the police lean heavily on ordinary citizens, pressuring them to act as informers, and one has the feeling this trait in Melville's filmmaking had its source in his World War II experience when Nazi occupiers of France used similar tactics to pressure French citizens into cooperating with their German occupiers. It's menacing enough in wartime, altogether shocking when you see the way Melville deploys it in peacetime. This is a color film, in contrast to Melville's earlier black and white efforts. Alain Delon, one of France's biggest film stars, is engulfed in the plot early on, and carries out his functions with aplomb and maximum cool under duress.

L�on Morin, pretre (Leon Morin, priest)
Jean Paul Belmondo again has the title role in a film rooted in Melville's World War II experience. Leon Morin is a priest who forms a friendship with a village girl, Barny, (Emmanuele Riva), initially confident in her atheism, although under Morin's influence, gradually easing over to Catholicism along with a distinct yearning for physical as well as spiritual fulfillment. Morin's steadfast celibacy insures the dilemmas between faith and fulfillment are explored at the highest levels of language and symbol. Belmondo seems more engaged in this film, unleashing a broader range of emotion than in films where he plays a gangster. The film drifts from war into peace, Barny and Morin carrying their angst into the postwar era unresolved, in like manner soldiers come and go, first German then American, and we feel a unique moment of terror coming not from Morin, the priest, but during an encounter between Emmanuele, her daughter, and American soldiers who walk them home. French New Wave cinema was in full flower at the time the film was made and Belmondo was its biggest star. He thought long and hard before taking on this role, perhaps sensing a victory of sorts, as his character emerges uncorrupted while Barny is too emeshed in despair to do anything else but sob.

Army of Shadows
Movie goers stayed away in droves when this picture opened in Paris theaters in 1969, a 25 year interim between World War II and the present apparantly not enough to provide the kind of cultural embrace the film deserves. Then again, who wants to be reminded that your country gave support, sustenance and active collaboration to Nazi invaders? And that really is the kind of confrontation with collective conscience Jean Pierre Melville provokes in this film - from the boldly grandiose, and to my mind, Felliniesque contretemps by German troops on the Champ Elysses at the film's opening, to the ever present gendarmes engaging in one act of open support after another with their Nazi occupiers, Like it or not, Melville pounds a single concept home to viewers: the Nazi occupation of France could not have been as successful as it was without wholesale acquiescence by France itself. That's a difficult alarum to hear from anybody, let alone a home grown patriot.

To make the beginning of this film, Roger Ebert writes that Melville had to win an exemption from a law forbidding pictures of German uniforms on the Champs Elysees. It is also said this is not a film about action. It certainly contains action - at one point the leader of a Resistance cell, played in the film by Lino Ventura (who bears a remarkable resemblance to Leon Panetta), jabs a knife into the throat of a machine gun wielding Nazi guard. But in that sequence, and others, the predominate emotion Melville makes you feel is terror - simple sweat on the palm terror. There is no happy ending in this film. For those who participated in the story, Melville includes summaries of their fates near the closing credits. It is clear they were engaged in thankless work; the reward for their effort, if it came at all, arrived posthumously.

Un Flic (A Cop)
My ex-wife thought the world of Catherine Deneuve. The mere mention of her name elicited paroxysms of ecasty in our household. I'd seen a film or two of hers, to be sure, but nothing that sent me over the top. Un Flic is the film my ex must have had in mind staring Catherine Deneuve. I don't know where she could have seen it - an art festival somewhere perhaps. Suffice it to say, such is Catherine Deneuve's on screen radiance that even a murderously corrupt police superintendent played wilely by Alain Delon is emasculated in her arms. As if to flaunt her cunning, she gets the drop on him temporarily, then holsters the heat just to let him know she could have, if she'd wanted to. They're both soulless and corrupt in Melville's final film, released in 1972, a year before his death in 1973. Deneuve herself was five years removed from her performance in the Luis Bu�el masterpiece, Belle de Jour. Perhaps that's the film my ex saw and learned what she learned. Imagine that!

Most of the consumer Reviews tell that the "Jean-Pierre Melville Collection - 6-DVD Box Set ( Bob Le Flambeur / L� on Morin, pr� tre / Le doulos / L'arm� e des ombres / Le cercle rouge / Un flic ) ( The Honest Thief / The Forgi [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]" are high quality item. You can read each testimony from consumers to find out cons and pros from Jean-Pierre Melville Collection - 6-DVD Box Set ( Bob Le Flambeur / L �on Morin, prêtre / Le doulos / L'armée des ombres / Le cercle rouge / Un flic ) ( The Honest Thief / The Forgi [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ] ...

2009 Japanese Drama : - The Quiz Show II - W/ English Subtitle

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Price: $49.95   

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Synopsis Sakurai plays the host of a live TV quiz program. On the show, contestants who achieve 7 correct answers win 10 million yen, and those who get 8 correct answers will have one of their wishes granted by the TV network. But while the questions start off innocently enough, as the game progresses, the questions gradually delve into the contestants' past crimes or indiscretions, presenting them with the dilemma of having to confess their guilt in order to win. Sakurai's character also has a mysterious past. Before becoming the show's host, an accident had left him in a vegetative state for six years, which also resulted in him losing most of his memories. Disc:2

2009 Japanese Drama : - The Quiz Show II - W/ English Subtitle Review

I bought this because of the actor Sho Sakurai (on cover) who is in the Japanese singing group "Arashi." That said, the story-line is very addictive. It's almost similiar to the tv show Lost in that you get small snippets of people's lives, events and personalities in each episode, only formulating a complete picture of that person and events by the end of the series.

This show is definitely a drama, but it also has some comedy and campiness. Many of the characters are mentally unbalanced and just plain creepy. I'm surprised Sho even had a voice to sing while filming because of all the screaming he has to do for this show.

My only pet peeve about this DVD are the subtitles: it almost always ends up being the subtitles when dealing with Japanese DVD sets. Started out strong with beautiful sentences, then on the 3rd episode switched to subtitles that seemed to have been written by a 3rd grader who not only couldn't type, but isn't very fluent in English. Flushed out sentences switched to shorthand and it became more of a chore reading the subtitles. All I can say is at least the names stayed Japanese and didn't switch to Chinese. Even if I knew the subs were going to go bad, I'd still recommend this set as it is a very creative concept for a drama. Plus, the actors are all nice looking! (^_^)

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History - Haunted History - Haunted Hawaii

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It is one of the most enchanting places on earth--and one of the most haunted. For a 1,000 years, Hawaiians have struggled to maintain a delicate balance between humans and nature, the past and present, the living and dead. It is home to a volcano goddess, ghosts of violent native warriors, and spirits that attack victims in the dead of night. It is a place of mystery and magic, islands still adrift in the ethereal plane. Join us for a tour you won't soon forget as we travel to Haunted Hawaii.

History - Haunted History - Haunted Hawaii Review

"Haunted Hawai'i" is a must-see for both tourists/would-be tourists and kama'aina. Spiritual tales include the "night marchers," the Goddess Pele, the "choking ghosts," and Waimea Bay on Oahu's North Shore. Interwoven with these tales is a solid, albeit basic overview of Hawai'i history that viewers unfamiliar with Hawai'i will find useful.

Definitely worth watching!!

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Lucky Ghost [Slim Case]

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Price: $49.98    

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Classic Black & White

Two down-on-their luck friends suddenly hit the "jackpot" when they win the possessions of a rich man in a game of dice.

Lucky Ghost [Slim Case] Review

This is perhaps the best surviving film of Mantan Moreland.

Our man here stars with his occasional stage and film partner Flournoy (F.E.) Miller in a comical all-black farce from 1941. He and Miller play a couple of bums who, as a result of a lucky crap game early in the film, get big bucks and throw a wild party at a haunted house.

Those familiar with the popeyed wonder will note a difference in this from his more mainstream films with Frankie Darro and his Charlie Chan comedy/mysteries. The humor in these early Black films tends to be more sexually charged than mainstream films of the area. Our man trains his oversized eyeballs on one actress' rather fecthing booty and one shot of a hostess pouring champagne focuses on her cleavage. This stuff would not stand the censor's scissors in "white" films of the time. There is also a famous crap shooting sequence (not the one described above, this is later in the film) of our hero going into outlandish convulsions over the dice (this scene occasionally appears in documentaries about stereotyped Black comedies of this era). He of the golf-ball peepers is quite the rascal and runs wild in this film, an illiterate (he signs his name with an X), crap shooting, gal-chasing, ghost-fearing, chicken stealing, buck-dancing machine! President Barack Obama he ain't. Yes, much of this is outrageously stereotyped by modern standards, but the film is so lovingly outlandish and over-the top ridiculous that only the most humorless hardcore, fight-the-power fist in the air pseudo-militant and PC types would get out of joint over this. Leave your brains at the door and it's fun, Fun, FUN! Trust me, it beats "Soul Plane."

Unfortuantely, aside from the Charlie Chan and Frankie Darro flix, few of Mantan's best all Black films are known to survive ("Tall Tan & Terrific" from 1946 is not worth watching at all except for our man's antics). Let's hope some more of them are found. This will give you a good belly laugh on a lazy afternoon (especially the last 10 or so minutes-you'll see what I mean)!

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80's Disco Stars & Hits

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Price: $46.20   

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This exciting collection features 20 energetic music videos, from Sylvester, Shannon, Peter Schilling, Issac Hayes, rare videos from Bad Boys Blue, Fancy, Imagination, Sam Walker and many more. The highlight is an amazing Village People Megamix music vid

80's Disco Stars & Hits Review

UNFORTUNALLY, THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO CAPITALIZE ON THE 70'S DISCO MUSIC, WITH SOME LITTLE KNOWN SONGS, THAT WILL LEAVE YOU THINKINGYOU DIDN'T GET YOUR MONEY'S WORTH.

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DIE HARD 25th Anniversary BLU RAY Collection (First 4 DIE HARD Movies Together)

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Product Description

New and Sealed!

DIE HARD 25th Anniversary BLU RAY Collection (First 4 DIE HARD Movies Together) Review

This review was for the original Die Hard Collection released in 2009, not the recent 25th Anniversary Collection released in 2013. So this review below is for the 2009 set, not the 2013 set. I do not own the 2013 set (25th Anniversary Collection). Check when other reviews were written by other members to see if they posted recent reviews for the 2013 edition.

When I think Blu-ray, I expect high quality video and sound, otherwise there is no point to buying a blu-ray version of an already existing dvd.
The first two movies, Die Hard 1 & 2 from the 80's, look terrible visually. FOX did a horrible job in re-mastering these for blu-ray, or they did not re-master them at all. It is possible they used the regular dvd's and just up-converted them without remastering/restoring them digitally. Sound is decent. The third film, Die Hard with a Vengeance is more recent from the 90's, but it doesn't look great. The fourth film does look good and sounds great, but it would be more convenient to just purchase the fourth film as a blu-ray version and get the first three on regular DVD if you don't own them already. You would save a lot more money and you would be getting the same thing as this box set here. FOX definitely messed up with this whole set.

UPDATE: If the price does drop under thirty and you don't own any of these movies, the set is worth purchasing. If you already own the movies on DVD, the upgrade isn't worth the price. Wait for a new remastered version to be released in the future. Many shots are soft in Die Hard 1 and Die Hard 2. It's hard to believe that the films were shot this way with the focus so soft.
Updated to three stars after rewatching the films multiple times again.

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