Tommy
by Ken Russell
from Sony Pictures
If you've ever wanted to hear Jack Nicholson sing (or try to) or marvel at the sight of Ann-Margret drunkenly cavorting in a cascade of baked beans, Tommy is the movie you've been waiting for. As it turns out, the Who's brilliant rock opera is sublimely matched to director Ken Russell's penchant for cinematic excess, and this 1975 production finds Russell at the peak of his filmmaking audacity. It's a fever-dream of musical bombast, custom-fit to the thematic ambition of Pete Townshend's epic rock drama, revolving around the titular "deaf, dumb, and blind kid" (played by Who vocalist Roger Daltrey) who survives the childhood trauma that stole his senses to become a Pinball Wizard messiah in Townshend's grandiose attack on the hypocrisy of organized religion.
The story is remarkably coherent considering the hypnotic dream-state induced by Russell's visuals. Tommy's odyssey is rendered through wall-to-wall music, each song representing a pivotal chapter in Tommy's chronology, from the bloodstream shock of "The Acid Queen" (performed to the hilt by Tina Turner) to Nicholson's turn as a well-intentioned physician, Elton John's towering rendition of "Pinball Wizard," and Daltrey's epiphanous rendition of "I'm Free." Other performers include Eric Clapton and (most outrageously) the Who's drummer Keith Moon, and through it all Russell is almost religiously faithful to Townshend's artistic vision. Although it divided critics when first released, Tommy now looks likes a minor classic of gonzo cinema, worthy of the musical genius that fueled its creation. --Jeff Shannon
The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter - Criterion Collection
by Albert Maysles
from Criterion
To cite Gimme Shelter as the greatest rock documentary ever filmed is to damn it with faint praise. This 1970 release benefits from a horrifying serendipity in the timing of the shoot, which brought filmmakers Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin aboard as the Rolling Stones' tumultuous 1969 American tour neared its end. By following the band to the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco for a fatally mismanaged free concert, the Maysles and Zwerin wound up shooting what's been accurately dubbed rock's equivalent to the Zapruder film. The cameras caught the ominous undercurrents of violence palpable even before the first chords were strummed, and were still rolling when a concertgoer was stabbed to death by the Hell's Angels that served as the festival's pool cue-wielding security force.
By the time Gimme Shelter reached theater screens, Altamont was a fixed symbol for the death of the 1960s' spirit of optimism. The Maysles and Zwerin used that knowledge to shape their film: their chronicle begins in the editing room as they cut footage of the Stones' Madison Square Garden performance of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and from there moves toward Altamont with a kind of dreadful grace. The songs become prophecies and laments for broken faith ("Wild Horses"), misplaced devotion ("Love in Vain"), and social collapse ("Street Fighting Man" and, of course, "Sympathy for the Devil"). Along the way, we glimpse the folly of the machinations behind the festival, the insularity of life on the concert trail, and the superstars' own shell-shocked loss of innocence.
Gimme Shelter looks into an abyss, partly self-created, from which the Rolling Stones would retreat--but unlike its subject, the filmmakers don't blink. --Sam Sutherland
Called "the greatest rock film ever made," this landmark documentary follows the Rolling Stones on their notorious 1969 U.S. tour. When 300,000 members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hell's Angels at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway, direct cinema pioneers David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin immortalized on film the bloody slash that transformed a decade's dreams into disillusionment.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
by George Ogilvie
from Warner Home Video
Although Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the third part of George Miller's post-apocalyptic Mad Max trilogy, is certainly the least of the bunch (Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is the undisputed masterpiece, and maybe the best action movie ever made), it has still got a good share of imaginative industrial-wasteland-pastiche imagery. And casting Tina Turner as Aunty Entity, the queen of Bartertown, was a masterstroke. Mel Gibson's character Max is pitted in a battle to the death against the bizarre Master Blaster in the Thunderdome, flying around on rubbery straps inside a sort of gigantic overturned colander with bloodthirsty spectators clinging to the outside. Miller's producing partner, Byron Kennedy, was killed in a helicopter crash while scouting locations for this film. Miller was devastated, only agreeing to direct the action sequences--and, somehow, you feel his heart wasn't entirely in it. --Jim Emerson
Gibson stars as Max, the world-weary hero who stands alone against the barbarians of a post-nuclear Australia. Turner is Auntie Entity, the ruler of Bartertown.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 3-FEB-2004
Media Type: DVD
Tina Turner - One Last Time: Live in Concert
by David Mallet
from Eagle Rock Ent
Shot at Wembley Stadium during Tina's "Twenty Four Seven Millennium Tour 2000," Tina Turner's usual powerful performance makes this, her final stadium tour, an event never to be forgotten. Blasting out hit after hit from her amazing four-decade career, Tina proves herself once again to be... simply the best. Though Tina will give her famous dancing shoes a rest, this title will still stand as a repeatable, collectable performance experience to her millions of fans. 120 minutes.
The Last Action Hero
by John McTiernan
from Sony Pictures
Jack Slater is an action-film hero played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. An old projectionist (Robert Prosky) hands a magic movie ticket to Jack's biggest preteen fan (Austin O'Brien), and the kid steps right inside the latest Jack Slater film, becoming the actor star's sidekick in gunfights and car chases. But when Jack's nemesis (Charles Dance) gets his hands on the ticket, the fight busts out into the real world and Jack (Ã la Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear) refuses to believe he's a fictional character. Director John McTiernan churns some nifty scenes out of this setup, although the fiction-to-reality shuffle is not as deft as in, say, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, and the plot needs the kind of logic and discipline found in that classic when-worlds-collide film Back to the Future. Still, Schwarzenegger has moments of wit and smashing action, and we get a faux-movie trailer advertising an intriguing new shoot-'em-up: "Something's rotten in the State of Denmark--and Hamlet is taking out the trash!"
A young boy's movie hero comes to life, and together they fight the bad guys.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 23-MAR-2004
Media Type: DVD
We Are the World - The Story Behind the Song (20th Anniversary Special Edition)
by Tom Trbovich
from Image Entertainment
A dream that became a song... an event... and a worldwide movement! See the making of a milestone as 45 of the biggest names in American popular music combine to record a song to help alleviate the suffering of starving millions in Africa and America. Narrated by Jane Fonda, this program provides a behind-the-scenes look at the night of January 28, 1985, to provide more than a moving collection of words, pictures and music - it's a living piece of history.
Tina Turner Live in Amsterdam - Wildest Dreams Tour
by David Mallet
from Eagle Rock Ent
Wonderfully directed, Wildest Dreams Tour makes a viewer feel practically omnipresent at Tina Turner's 1996, three-night stand in the Amsterdam Arena. With camera angles seemingly coming from everywhere, the massive scope of Turner's show is put into a proper, and enjoyable, visual context, along with the star's own artful way of reaching 50,000 fans at a shot with fierce energy but an unmistakably nuanced performance. Turner's secret weapon: her voice, with its whiplash gospel, survivor's pride, and endless capacity for ecstasy. It doesn't matter if she's dancing as if her life depended on it or launching tiny ripples of erotic warmth with the barest of gestures: she still flaunts for this Dutch crowd her share of Jerry Lee Lewis's profane fire. Starting in fourth gear with "Whatever You Want," Turner takes a detour through the too-precious "Do What You Do" before time-traveling to the Phil Spector-produced "River Deep Mountain High" (featuring the star singing along with her younger self in a 1960s film clip). "In Your Wildest Dreams" is a lulling bath of sexual longing, and "GoldenEye" is pure, Bond-ian fun. The 21 tracks are heavy with past hits, none of which disappoint: "Proud Mary," "What's Love Got to Do with It." The final performance, "Something Beautiful Remains," is a hard-won epiphany. --Tom Keogh
Tina Turner lifted the roof off the amazing new Amsterdam Arena for three sizzling nights in September 1996, in front of 150,000 people, as part of her record-breaking "Wildest Dreams" European Tour, on which she performed over 150 shows to 3 million people.
Track Listing:
1. Whatever You Want
2. Do What You Do
3. River Deep Mountain High
4. Missing You
5. In Your Wildest Dreams
6. Goldeneye
7. Private Dancer
8. We Don't Need Another Hero
9. Let's Stay Together
10. I Can't Stand The Rain
11. Undercover Agent For The Blues
12. Steamy Windows
13. Givin' It Up For Your Love
14. Better Be Good To Me
15. Addicted To Love
16. The Best
17. What's Love Got To Do With It
18. Proud Mary
19. Nutbush City Limits
20. On Silent Wings
21. Something Beautiful Remains (Bonus Track)
Prey for Rock & Roll
by Alex Steyermark
from Lions Gate
The not-so-glam side of rock is on defiant display in Prey for Rock & Roll, another well-cast Gina Gershon flick (after Showgirls and Bound) poised for cult-favorite status. Serving as co producer and star, Gershon (looking hotter than ever at age 41) is note-for-note perfect as Jacki, the tattoo-clad, pushing-40 leader of Clam Dandys, an L.A.-based all-girl rock band that's never risen above low-paying club gigs despite Jacki's 20-year experience as a wannabe rock star. On the verge of a possible recording contract, the band is close-knit but troubled: ace bassist Tracy (Drea de Matteo, from The Sopranos) has a nasty boyfriend and a drug-and-alcohol problem, while lead guitarist Faith (Lori Petty) and her lover, the band's drummer Sally (Shelly Cole) cope with the unexpected arrival of Sally's ex-con brother Animal (Marc Blucas), an unlikely virgin who's attracted to Jacki. Based on a play by rocker Cheri Lovedog (who wrote and performed most of the band's '80-styled girl-punk music, with Gershon ably handling lead vocals), this down-and-dirty chick flick falls prey to forced melodrama and obligatory tragedy, but it looks, feels, and sounds remarkably authentic, and the cast is terrific. Easily recommended despite its faults, Prey is a feminist cautionary tale for anyone who chooses rock & roll not merely as a profession, but a lifestyle that can't be denied. --Jeff Shannon
Tommy (Superbit Collection)
by Ken Russell
from Sony Pictures
If you've ever wanted to hear Jack Nicholson sing (or try to) or marvel at the sight of Ann-Margret drunkenly cavorting in a cascade of baked beans, Tommy is the movie you've been waiting for. As it turns out, the Who's brilliant rock opera is sublimely matched to director Ken Russell's penchant for cinematic excess, and this 1975 production finds Russell at the peak of his filmmaking audacity. It's a fever-dream of musical bombast, custom-fit to the thematic ambition of Pete Townshend's epic rock drama, revolving around the titular "deaf, dumb, and blind kid" (played by Who vocalist Roger Daltrey) who survives the childhood trauma that stole his senses to become a Pinball Wizard messiah in Townshend's grandiose attack on the hypocrisy of organized religion.
The story is remarkably coherent considering the hypnotic dream-state induced by Russell's visuals. Tommy's odyssey is rendered through wall-to-wall music, each song representing a pivotal chapter in Tommy's chronology, from the bloodstream shock of "The Acid Queen" (performed to the hilt by Tina Turner) to Nicholson's turn as a well-intentioned physician, Elton John's towering rendition of "Pinball Wizard," and Daltrey's epiphanous rendition of "I'm Free." Other performers include Eric Clapton and (most outrageously) the Who's drummer Keith Moon, and through it all Russell is almost religiously faithful to Townshend's artistic vision. Although it divided critics when first released, Tommy now looks likes a minor classic of gonzo cinema, worthy of the musical genius that fueled its creation. --Jeff Shannon
The Superbit titles utilize a special high bit rate digital encoding process which optimizes video quality while offering a choice of both DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. These titles have been produced by a team of Sony Pictures Digital Studios video, sound and mastering engineers and comes housed in a special package complete with a 4 page booklet that contains technical information on the Superbit process. By reallocating space on the disc normally used for value-added content, Superbit DVDs can be encoded at double their normal bit rate while maintaining full compatibility with the DVD video format.
Soul to Soul (DVD with Soundtrack CD)
by Denis Sanders
from Rhino / Wea
Explosive performances by Ike & Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, Santana, the Staple Singers, and others power Soul to Soul, the filmed documentary of a 1971 concert by American artists in Accra, Ghana. There's some great music here, with versions of "Land of 1000 Dances" (Pickett), "When Will We Be Paid" (the Staples), and "The Price You Gotta Pay to Be Free" (jazzmen Les McCann and Eddie Harris, who also feature the amazing African musician Amoah Azangeo) that are as good or better than anything found on other concert films from the period, including Wattstax and Woodstock. But witnessing this predominantly black group of Americans as they respond to being in Africa for the first time is fascinating and moving as well (check out the uncontained emotion of Ike Turner, just one of the nine folks who supplied voice-over commentary for the DVD, to see just how profound an experience it was), to say nothing of the sometimes bemused, often ecstatic response of the African audience. 5.1 surround notwithstanding, the sound can be a little dodgy, but the remastered, restored film, which includes plenty of non-concert documentary footage (including a trip to a seaside "castle" from which slaves were shipped across the Atlantic) looks good, and what's on the film looks first rate. --Sam Graham
On March 6, 1971, some of the greatest artists in popular music history traveled from the United States to Ghana, West Africa, to take part in a 14-hour musical celebration, Soul To Soul. Over 100,000 enthusiastic locals gathered for this unique cultural exchange between two continents. This award-winning film combines classic concert performances with scenes documenting the artists getting in touch with their roots as they return to the cultural motherland. SOUL TO SOUL chronicles this historic event and is considered by many to be one of the greatest music films of all time. Now available for the first time on DVD, this 2-disc set features the 95-minute, full-length feature film, newly remastered and restored from the original 35mm negative by the Grammy Foundation. The second disc features a remastered and expanded original soundtrack (also making its debut on CD), including performances not featured in the film.
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