Villalonga, Marthe

The Big Red One - The Reconstruction (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sam Fuller's The Big Red One was already one of the best films of 1980, despite the fact that the version released to theaters ran barely half as long as the director's cut. Fuller had been America's ballsiest B-movie auteur, an ex-newspaper reporter of the hardnosed breed who made fiercely personal, radically stylized, and politically outspoken films between the early '50s (The Steel Helmet, Pickup on South Street) and the early '60s (Shock Corridor). The Big Red One was his long-dreamt-of account of World War II as experienced by his own squad of the 1st Infantry Division, USA, from the first shot fired (by a dead man, on the coast of North Africa) to the last (in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia).

Even in the studio-truncated version, there was no shortage of astonishing moments and sequences: the squad choking on dust in a bat-filled cave in North Africa as German tanks clatter past the entrance; Fuller's cold-blooded distillation of the D-Day slaughter on Omaha Beach, with a wrist watch on a dead arm in the surf marking time as the water slopping over it grows redder; the rifle squad delivering a Frenchwoman's baby in a German tank on a battlefield full of corpses; a commando-like raid on Nazi troops bivouacked in a Belgian insane asylum. A quarter-century later, film critic Richard Schickel and Warner Bros. executive Brian Jamieson succeeded in restoring 15 never-seen sequences and fleshing out 23 others to create The Big Red One: The Reconstruction, a "new" film nearly an hour longer.

Above all, BR1: The Reconstruction has a rhythm the 1980 cut lacked. The arc of years, battles, and battlegrounds is so much more satisfying. Greater play is given to Fuller's feeling for children caught up in the sidewash of history and atrocity. And the 2004 cut puts sex back into the movie, not orgiastically but as a fact of life and a rarely forgotten driving force. We can see now that Fuller touched, bluntly and shockingly, on the phenomenon of infiltrators--English-speaking German warriors who donned GI khaki and moved among their enemies waiting for a chance to strike.

It's also apparent, as it was not in 1980, that Lee Marvin as the eternal Sergeant leading the young squad is magnificent. This was Marvin's greatest role, rivaled only by his walking dead man in John Boorman's Point Blank. Just beneath the masterly implacability, we glimpse the tenderness, rage, dark humor, experience, and wisdom beyond guilt that have enabled him to survive, to preserve others and to soldier on. His performance, like Fuller's film, is a masterpiece. --Richard T. Jameson

"The real glory of war" Samuel Fuller said "is surviving." A decorated combatant with the famed U.S. First Infantry in WWII Fuller survived. His 1980 film version of his war experiences did not until now. Working with 70000 feet of vault materials and Fuller's shooting script critic/filmmaker Richard Schickel heads a reconstruction that adds over 40 minutes and transforms a truncated but admired war film into an epic masterwork. Lee Marvin in a richly layered performance now revealed as one of his finest stars as the sergeant of peach-fuzzed riflemen fighting from North Africa to Normandy and across Europe. The film is the squad's combat diary war as it's fought and sweated and bled and maybe survived. Running Time: 163 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE UPC: 012569705906

Les Uns et les Autres (Bolero)

Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman) tackles a giant canvas in the sprawling Les Uns et Les Autres, a movie full of brilliant actors and heartfelt moments. To make a coherent whole out of these elements would take a more profound director than Lelouch, however. Following dozens of characters from the 1930s through World War II and into the late '70s, Lelouch struggles to develop a grand theme based on sketchily developed people, all tied together with pop music and Ravel's evocatively used "Bolero." Not surprisingly, the sections dealing with Occupied Paris are the most compelling, with a poignant turn by Nicole Garcia (James Caan and Geraldine Chaplin, each in dual roles, hold down the U.S.-based segments). The film was well-received in Europe, although a cut U.S. release under the title Bolero flopped. If you stick around for the ambitious final sequence, look for an unknown Sharon Stone sitting in bed with Caan. --Robert Horton

From internationally acclaimed director Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman) comes a sweeping epic chronicling three generations whose lives revolve around the magic of music. In an unforgettable dual role, James Caan (The Godfather) heads an all-star international cast through decades of global turmoil, from pre-World War II Europe to a powerful finale in the 1960s. Geraldine Chaplin (Talk to Her), Fanny Ardant (8 Women), Robert Hossein (Rififi), Macha Meril (Deep Red), Richard Bohringer (Diva), Alexandra Stewart (Day for Night), and a very young Sharon Stone also appear in this beautiful tapestry of time, memory, and melody. Dynamic musical score by popular composers Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and Francis Lai (Love Story), studded with classic favorites by Ravel, Beethoven, Liszt, and more!

The Big Red One

In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg depicts the D-day landings with a realism lauded by veterans. The Big Red One depicts the D-day landings, too, and it was made by a veteran. Writer-director Samuel Fuller, who served in the First Infantry Division from North Africa to Czechoslovakia (including the Normandy landings), made a career out of swift, punchy B movies, such as Pickup on South Street and The Naked Kiss. The Big Red One became Fuller's nod to A-movie filmmaking, yet it has the solid, matter-of-fact perspective of the ground-level infantryman. The episodic action ranges all over the European theater, as a tough squad of American GIs (including Mark Hamill and Robert Carradine) follow their hard-bitten sergeant (Lee Marvin, at his best) and try to stay alive. Filmed mostly in Israel, the film delivers on the requisite war-movie conventions and tough-guy humor but also introduces notes of poetry. Fuller's D-day doesn't match the pyrotechnics of Spielberg's version, but it creates power from the simple image of a dead soldier's watch, ticking away in blood-soaked surf. A fine and memorable picture, The Big Red One might have been even greater had it been released in Fuller's full-length cut--not until 2005 did a reconstruction allow the director's vision to be seen for the first time. --Robert Horton

My Favorite Season

A troubled family, living in genteel, suburban comfort in the south of France is jolted by the deteriorating health of their elderly grandmother and the reappearance of an absented sibling. Catherine Deneuve plays Emilie, a disillusioned parent and frustrated wife, who finds herself drawn away from her unimaginative husband toward her brother, a jealous and charismatic neurosurgeon. Structured like a novella with four chapters, Téchiné's film is riddled with long stretches of ponderous, often humorless, philosophical dialogue. Deneuve's Emilie remains inexpressive and remote; she occupies the moral center of the film, but her characterization isn't generous enough to grant us access to her motivations. Daniel Auteuil fares better as brother Antoine--his odd features and intelligent eyes communicate fathomless restlessness and longing. Spectacular, jaw-dropping footage of Southern France provides a gorgeous backdrop for many scenes, lending a depth and resonance that might otherwise be lacking. Bonus: Marcello Mastroianni's daughter Chiara portrays Emilie's daughter; she's a delight to watch and she acquits herself marvelously. --Miles Bethany

Three Men and a Cradle

When a baby girl appears on the doorstep of a Parisian apartment belonging to a trio of hedonistic bachelors, baby care is thrust upon them with hilarious and, ultimately, heartwarming results in this 1985 French comedy (with English subtitles) by writer/director Coline Serreau. Pierre, Michel, and Jacques are pleasure-seeking professionals with the singular goal to seduce women in their spare time. When Jacques leaves on a three-week vacation, a mix-up ensues and roommates Pierre and Michel (Roland Giraud and Michel Boujenah, respectively) discover that the "package" Jacques has enlisted them to watch in his absence is a cooing infant in a pink bassinette. With no prior experience and unable to contact Jacques (André Dussollier) to whom the baby was "addressed," they dive into the frenzied fracas of diapers and feeding schedules. Adding insult to insanity, they must fend off drug dealers—and police--interested in another "package." The simple storyline leaves plenty of room for shenanigans—formulaic perhaps, but still irresistible. Rather than a morality play on the recklessness of child abandonment, farcical comedy prevails. Over time, the men are smitten with little Marie who gives them plenty of adorable moments until they can't live without her. The obvious appeal of the story inspired the American remake two years later, though the French version is more compelling, nuanced, and touching. Parents should take note of the PG-13 rating for excessive profanity and sexual content. (Ages 12 and older) --Lynn Gibson

Three clueless and hedonistic bachelors are forced to trade dames for diapers when an infant is left on their doorstep. Winner of the César Award for Best Film and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, writer-director Coline Serreau's irresistible, sweet-natured farce was one of the most popular French comedies of the 1980s, and inspired the blockbuster American remake.

The Holy Child

Marc (Lambert Wilson) is a 39-year-old Catholic priest, a model for his entire parish. Fully dedicated to his religious duties, he is one of the few enthusiastic advocates of priestly celibacy, having even written a book about it. Cherished by the media, he has become a star of sorts and is only too happy to serve God through his celebrity. But trouble comes knocking at his door one day, in the form of a smart-ass teen-ager who claims to be his son. Now Marc has a problem on his hands. He can't get rid of the little bastard, but he has no time for him either. To make matters worse, the kid smokes dope and the mother is in jail! So our good priest strikes a deal with his offspring: he will take care of him, but on condition of absolute secrecy. Inevitably the secret starts wearing thin! Moreover, Marc has trouble staying detached from his son and even more trouble not falling in love with the child's mother when she comes out of jail!

Alice et Martin [Region 2]

At the age of 10, Martin is sent by his single mother (a tough, tender, joyful Carmen Maura) to live with his father, an industrialist with a wife and family of his own. Ten years later, the grown Martin (pretty, first-time actor Alexis Loret) flees his new home in a panic when his father dies, and he lives like a hermit in the hills before seeking out his brother (Mathieu Amalric) in Paris. When he meets Alice (the radiant Juliette Binoche), his brother's worldly, wary roommate, his puppy-dog obsessiveness and seductive but sincere tenderness slowly wins her over despite their age differences. But insular Martin keeps his own emotions wrapped up, even as he shoots to the top of modeling world, until his haunted past bursts out in a depression that threatens to consume him and Alice must reconnect him to his estranged family.

André Téchiné has delivered some of the most delicate character pieces in recent French cinema, most notably the coming-of-age drama Wild Reeds. Alice and Martin, authored with help from Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep), never quite comes together as smoothly as his best work; it ricochets from lovely romantic flirtations to tortured psychodrama to family melodrama while Téchiné's oblique, reserved direction observes without penetrating the heart of the drama. Loret's Martin is more enigma than character, but Amalric shows the same shaggy, understated charm he displayed in Late August, Early September and Binoche brings a sensitivity and toughness to the emotionally scuffed Alice. Her radiant presence gives the film its moments of emotional frisson a discreet, subtle power. --Sean Axmaker

Le Coup de sirocco [Region 2]

L' Union sacrée [Region 2]

Le Lait de la tendresse humaine [Region 2]