Opatoshu, David

Masada - The Complete Epic Mini-Series

An epic true story of Jews fleeing Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Pursued to a mountain stronghold of the Herods they face lives enslaved or suicide. This is the full-length television miniseries.System Requirements:Running Time: 394 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 741952648291 Manufacturer No: KOC-DV6482

This 1981 television miniseries, based on Ernest K. Gann's historical novel The Antagonists, is a dramatization of a documented revolt by nearly a thousand Jerusalem Jews against Roman oppressors in A.D. 72 to 73. Following a city-wide siege by Rome's soldiers, Jewish Zealots move into a fortress in the mountains of Masada, from which they present a defense strong enough to convince the enemy to negotiate. Peter O'Toole, in all his golden dignity, plays Cornelius Flavius Silva, commander of the Roman legions, and Peter Strauss is Zealot leader Eleazar ben Yair. Both are outstanding as representatives from each side trying, in good faith, to find a way out of the deadlocked situation. Unfortunately, neither realizes that Rome has no intention of yielding, resulting in one of the greatest tragedies in Jewish history. A strong cast of character actors--David Warner, Barbara Carrera, Timothy West, and Anthony Quayle--is rewardingly watchable, the action and sets are persuasive without overwhelming the story's human dimension, and direction by Boris Sagal (The Omega Man) is crisp and enthralling. This was a pleasure to watch when it was first broadcast, and it holds up very well today. --Tom Keogh

"A victory? What have we won?" laments a breathtaking Peter O'Toole as the Roman warrior Flavius Silva. "We've won a rock in the middle of a wasteland, on the shores of a poisoned sea." Thus does Masada, the epic 1981 miniseries about a horrific battle in ancient Palestine, echo the terrible toll of war in general, and of the brutal conflicts in today's Middle East in particular. Masada, from the golden age of miniseries (Roots, Shogun), is a transportive viewing event--shot on location, and apparently no expense spared.

The film retells (with some dramatic license) the true story of an uprising in Palestine of a ragtag band of Jews, in a fortress called Masada, who refuse to surrender to the governing Romans. O'Toole, as Flavius Silva, is the brilliant commander who, over the course of several years of trying, and failing, to breach Masada, comes to regard the leader of his foes, Eleazar ben Yair (the charismatic Peter Strauss), with a certain amount of respect and awe. If left to Flavius, he might have simply leave the holdout fortress and return to the Italy he so longs for; but the Roman emperor demands victory--at any cost.

The performances are uniformly crisp and believable; the direction by Boris Sagal, economical; the screenplay, sharp and incisive. David Warner, who won an Emmy for his performance, plays the brutal Roman henchman Falco with seething determination. The location shooting is nothing short of spectacular. There is sorrow in the story of Masada, but an uplifting message in the ability of true believers to create their own destiny. --A.T. Hurley

Exodus

Otto Preminger's 1960 adaptation of Leon Uris's novel is a sprawling 220-minute tale of the founding of modern Israel, starring Paul Newman as a Resistance leader. The film works best as an example of Preminger's estimable skill with all levels of drama and action, but as a reflection upon history it is compromised by stereotypes, unpersuasive relationships, and a certain moral ambivalence about issues related to the subject. There are good and exciting sequences, however, particularly one involving an effort to break through a British blockade and get to the homeland. --Tom Keogh

Inspired by Leon Uris' international bestseller, this "extraordinarily moving" (The New Republic) chronicle of the rebirth of a people and the establishment of a nation is the ultimate experience in human drama. Nominated* for three Academy Awards® and winner* for Best Score, Exodus is an "exciting, dramatic, scenic, panoramic and deeply moving" (New York Daily News) masterpiece. Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman), a commander of the Israeli underground, manages to lead 600 Jews from the detention camps of Cyprus onto a large freighter bound for Palestine. But British forces soon learn of his plan and insist that he turn back. Undaunted, Ari and his passengers refuse to give up, risking their lives for the greater cause of Israeli independence.

Raid on Entebbe

It was in June 1976 that an Air France plane carrying 244 passengers and a crew of 12 on a flight from Athens to Paris was hijacked by terrorists who forced the captain to alter course and eventually land at Uganda's Entebbe Airport. With the tacit appro

Cimarron

Set in Oklahoma from 1890-1915. A quarter century of change is seen through experiences of a pioneering couple determined to succeed in America. Based on a novel by Edna Ferber.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883929005109 Manufacturer No: 1000036299

The 1960 remake of Cimarron manages a slight improvement on the worst Best Picture (1931) in Academy Award history. Not that Edna Ferber's novel of pioneer Oklahoma was ever a movie natural. There's a plethora of themes--several species of prejudice, capitalism vs. charity, sons unhappily following in fathers' footsteps, and the irreconcilable tensions between a stability-craving wife and her footloose hero-husband--but the action is front-loaded and the husband (Glenn Ford) is offscreen for years at a time. Anthony Mann gets solo directorial credit, yet the movie seems more typical of his replacement, Charles Walters, a maker of pastel musicals. Most of the large cast comes and goes without establishing identities; Maria Schell's Sabra Cravat is tiresome as both ditz and pill. Photographed in CinemaScope and Metrocolor by Robert L. Surtees, the Oklahoma land rush is properly spectacular--though less impressive than John Ford's in Three Bad Men. --Richard T. Jameson

Who'll Stop The Rain

Following the success of The Deep, in which he costarred with Jacqueline Bisset's wet T-shirt, Nick Nolte gummed up the star-maker machinery by recasting himself from sex symbol to commanding character actor with this unrelentingly bleak, fatalistic post-Vietnam thriller based on Robert Stone's book Dog Soldiers. Nolte gives a ferocious performance as Ray Hicks, a Nietzche-reading merchant marine who reluctantly agrees to carry into the United States two keys of heroin for his friend, John Converse (a superb Michael Moriarty), a disillusioned journalist. Ray and John are "way out of their league," as a corrupt narcotics agent (Anthony Zerbe) sends two goons (the late, great Ray Sharkey, and Richard Masur, cast against type as a scuzzy psychopath) to hijack the heroin. Ray is forced to go on the run with John's anguished, pill-popping wife (Tuesday Weld in one of her best performances). A buried treasure, this is the kind of intense and uncompromising film that Nolte appeared in later in his notoriously roller-coaster career. --Donald Liebenson

Two-time Oscar(r) nominee* Nick Nolte is like a champion achieving cinematic immortality [in this] knockout adventure destined to become a classic (Washington Post). Co-staring Tuesday Weld (Falling Down) and Michael Moriarty (TV's Law & Order ), this 'savage, paranoid thriller (Newsweek) is acted brilliantly and cast perfectly [and] one of the year's best (The New York Times)! Fresh from the bloody battlefields of Vietnam, Ray Hicks (Nolte) does hisfriend Converse a favor, smuggling a stash of heroin back to the States. But when Ray goes to deliver the drugs, he and Converse's wife, Marge (Weld), are ambushed and barely escape with their lives!Suddenly on the run from two ruthless thugs and a murderous cop, the unlikely pair must find a way to get along and survive a perilous double-cross in this gripping nightmare adventure (New West) that quickly becomes a harrowing journey into hell (Newsweek). *1997: Actor, Affliction; 1991: Actor, The Prince of Tides

Forced Vengeance

Lady Luck has fled Hong Kong's Lucky Dragon Casino. Its manager has squandered the profits. Its owner has been snuffed by the mob. And the heir to the casino is in hiding. But Lucky Dragon still holds one last ace: security expert Josh Randall. Local mobsters should cash in their chips when Chuck Norris plays Randall in Forced Vengeance an alive-and-kicking actionfest directed by James Fargo (who directed Clint Eastwood in The Enforcer and Every Which Way but Loose). Determined to find the syndicate big shot behind the proprietor's death Randall goes on the hunt. Trouble follows. And so does the lightning strike of screen excitement - the kind of martial-arts excitement that only Norris can chop punchshoot leap slam and deliver!Running Time: 91 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE UPC: 012569519022

Romance of a Horsethief

Set in 1904 Poland, a town rises up against a Cossack captain who takes their horsrs.

Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8

Light Ahead

THE LIGHT AHEAD (Fishke the Lame)
USA, 1939, 94 minutes, B&W, Yiddish with English subtitles, preserved, digitally restored and re-mastered
Produced & Directed by: Edgar G. Ulmer for Carmel Productions, Inc.
Based on stories by: S.Y. Abramovitch (Mendele Mokher Seforim)
Screenplay by: Chaver Pahver, Sherle (Shirley) Ulmer, Edgar G. Ulmer
Photography by: J. Burgi Contner, E. Hyland
Edited by: Jack Kemp
Art Directors: Edgar G. Ulmer, Robert Benny
Starring: Isidore Cashier, Helen Beverly, David Opatoshu, Rosetta Bialis, Tillie Rabinowitz, Anna Guskin, Celia Bodkin, Jennie Cashier

Audaciously adapted from the writings of 19th century Yiddish novelist Mendele Mokhir Sforim, The Light Ahead is the greatest of Edgar G. Ulmer's shtetl films. Here, the director counterpoints his pastoral Green Fields to criticize the poverty and superstition that oppress a pair of star-crossed lovers. Made on the eve of World War II, The Light Ahead is at once romantic, expressionist, and painfully conscious of the danger about to engulf European Jews.

DVD Extras:
Ø Program Notes by J. Hoberman
Ø Interview with actor David Opatoshu
Ø Biography of Edgar G. Ulmer

Naked City

"Ladies and gentlemen, the motion picture you are about to see is called The Naked City." With a helicopter shot slowly closing in on Manhattan, producer Mark Hellinger's staccato narration introduces the film ("It was not photographed in a studio . . .") and continues throughout like a documentary commentator with a literary flair. It's a conceit that serves this police story nicely, giving the patina of realism to this deglamorized look at the work of the homicide squad. Barry Fitzgerald reigns over the film with his jovial good humor as a veteran detective investigating the murder of a high-living model. He has few clues and fewer suspects, until he cracks the story of big-talking Howard Duff and throws some light on his shady past. Jules Dassin, who had just come off the shadowy, expressionist Brute Force, peels away those flourishes to shoot in a straightforward style influenced by the Italian neo-realists and the contemporary American newsreels. The film is rich in supporting performances by soon-to-be-famous character actors--Arthur O'Connell, James Gregory, Paul Ford--but the city itself becomes the film's most vivid character. Shot entirely on location in New York City, the distinctive cityscape looms over practically every shot and injects the film with a defining sense of place (cinematographer William Daniels won an Oscar for his work). You can see the roots of The French Connection in the bustling city scenes and the exciting foot chase finale on an elevated walkway. --Sean Axmaker

New York City detectives Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) are assigned to investigate the mysterious murder of a young woman. Following the leads in the case, they come upon a jewel theft ring that has been plaguing New York society. Muldoon and Halloran finally untangle the skein of thieves and discover the murderer to be one of the slain woman's cohorts in the jewel gang. When cornered by the detectives, there is a violent shoot-out.